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Invalid Validation posted:Finished the first Omnibus of the Black Company. I rather enjoyed it. I can understand why some people hate it cause poo poo just kinda happens sometimes without explanation and he doesn’t spend a lot of words describing things which is a nice change honestly. It kinda gives the whole thing a manic feel. Glen Cook, iirc, was a combat vet and “poo poo just happens sometimes” and “manic feel” was very much what he was going for Ninja edit: If you want to see “poo poo just happens sometimes” wait until you get a chapter of The Book of One Eye. Ninja PPS: drat it now I want to read the Black Company again. navyjack fucked around with this message at 06:28 on Jun 30, 2022 |
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Jun 30, 2022 06:26
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navyjack posted:Glen Cook, iirc, was a combat vet and “poo poo just happens sometimes” and “manic feel” was very much what he was going for My favourite of these moments was in Silver Spike when Old Man Fish dies of cholera. Puts basically every other "gritty and realistic" fantasy author to shame.
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Jun 30, 2022 07:52
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TOOT BOOT posted:I'm reading A Wizard of Earthsea and it's nothing like I thought it would be. I expected something very dated given that it was written 50 years ago... I mean Le Guin was one of the finest writers of the genre, a giant among giants. Some of her work has a 60s/70s bent wrt exploring alternative ideas of politics & culture, but it's all pretty timeless. Left Hand of Darkness alone was written decades before its time. Speaking of good fantasy, any decent reads along the lines of Kage Baker's Anvil of the World or Naomi Novik's non-Temeraire stuff? Not necessarily tip-top literature, just well-written, workaday fantasy. Spiderlight was enjoyable, and the Daevabad trilogy by SA Chakraborty was pretty fun. The Tchaikovsky trilogy with animal people started off decent but dragged pretty hard to the end.
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Jun 30, 2022 08:30
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Jv jones, cavern of black ice, is excellent imaginative grrm style gritty fantasy.
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Jun 30, 2022 09:19
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sebmojo posted:Jv jones, cavern of black ice, is excellent imaginative grrm style gritty fantasy.
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Jun 30, 2022 09:55
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Oh wow that's cool
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Jun 30, 2022 10:16
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navyjack posted:Glen Cook, iirc, was a combat vet and “poo poo just happens sometimes” and “manic feel” was very much what he was going for He was in the Navy/Navy Reserve for most of the 60s and was in a unit that worked with USMC Force Recon units that went to Vietnam but he never deployed himself, and IIRC has never talked about it much beyond "it was practice combat."
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Jun 30, 2022 10:24
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cardinale posted:I like this too. She's currently posting draft excerpts of the final book in the series on her patreon after being writer's blocked for years. Oh drat, that's great to hear. I really like that series, but I've never suggested it to anybody because I assumed it just wasn't going to be finished.
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Jun 30, 2022 10:36
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cardinale posted:I like this too. She's currently posting draft excerpts of the final book in the series on her patreon after being writer's blocked for years. I don't think it was simply writer's block? Thought she had some serious personal stuff to deal with, which then derailed her writing and made it hard to get back into. I think the draft of Endlords is close, like maybe a late 2022/2023 finish, but then I also heard through chatter on r/fantasy that she might be going through personal stuff again. But yeah, Cavern of Black Ice and sequels are great. Her other trilogy that begins with The Barbed Coil is decent too. It's actually an isekai  and it's less dark compared to Sword of Shadows.Edit: idiotsavant posted:Speaking of good fantasy, any decent reads along the lines of Kage Baker's Anvil of the World or Naomi Novik's non-Temeraire stuff? Not necessarily tip-top literature, just well-written, workaday fantasy. I haven't read Temeraire but I did read and enjoy Spinning Silver. It was a nice take on a couple of fairytales and has a warm fuzzy ending. I just started Uprooted and I'm liking it so far. Leng fucked around with this message at 02:16 on Jul 1, 2022 |
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Jun 30, 2022 12:30
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Barbed coil felt fine but generic, black ice had punch, holy poo poo. Everything was so visceral.
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Jun 30, 2022 12:39
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sebmojo posted:Barbed coil felt fine but generic, black ice had punch, holy poo poo. Everything was so visceral. A Fortress of Grey Ice onwards was where she got me. Ash when she gets left for dead in the bath and then Angus Lok discovering his butchered family then Raina Blackhail's arc geez I was wrecked.
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Jun 30, 2022 12:50
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Leng posted:I don't think it was simply writer's block? Thought she had some serious personal stuff to deal with, which then derailed her writing and made it hard to get back into. Leng posted:A Fortress of Grey Ice onwards was where she got me. Ash when she gets left for dead in the bath and then Angus Lok discovering his butchered family then Raina Blackhail's arc geez I was wrecked.
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Jun 30, 2022 13:17
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I may be a couple pages late to the Gideon chat, and I don't even know if this one strictly counts as a meme but I absolutely adore (and can acknowledge how offputting some might find it) when the memes are used to completely undercut a huge emotional moment. I love that poo poo. My favourite one that stays stuck in my head due to how powerfully stupid it was is near the end of book 2, when simultaneously Gideon is finding out that she's the child of the Necrolord Prime while the Necrolord Prime is finding out that he had a child; she realises who they're discussing, steps forward and says "I'm not loving dead" - huge reveal, massive emotional stakes, completely and perfectly and deliciously undercut by the author making the Emperor turn to her and say "Hi not loving dead. I'm Dad" and the chapter immediately ending. I delighted in that kind of open stupid disdain for... the proper way to do things.
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Jun 30, 2022 14:41
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Lord Bob posted:I may be a couple pages late to the Gideon chat, and I don't even know if this one strictly counts as a meme but I absolutely adore (and can acknowledge how offputting some might find it) when the memes are used to completely undercut a huge emotional moment. I love that poo poo. “I’m not loving dead,” I said, which wasn’t even true, and I was choking up; everything I’d ever done, everything I’d ever been through, and I was choking up. And the Emperor of the Nine Houses, the Necrolord Prime, stood from his chair to look at you–at me; looked at my face, looked at your face, looked at my eyes in your face. It took, maybe, a million myriads. The static in your ears resolved into wordless screaming. His expression was just–gently quizzical; mildly awed. “Hi, Not loving Dead,” he said. “I’m Dad.” 
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Jun 30, 2022 14:45
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sebmojo posted:Jv jones, cavern of black ice, is excellent imaginative grrm style gritty fantasy. KILL SCARPE
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Jun 30, 2022 15:56
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Lord Bob posted:I may be a couple pages late to the Gideon chat, and I don't even know if this one strictly counts as a meme but I absolutely adore (and can acknowledge how offputting some might find it) when the memes are used to completely undercut a huge emotional moment. I love that poo poo. This makes me realise just how different people's preferences in books can be, because that honestly sound so awful to me lol.
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Jun 30, 2022 17:13
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Carrier posted:This makes me realise just how different people's preferences in books can be, because that honestly sound so awful to me lol. i hate it - but yeah it's the old people can like different things piece.
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Jun 30, 2022 19:00
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Carrier posted:This makes me realise just how different people's preferences in books can be, because that honestly sound so awful to me lol. It's definitely a polarizing style; I think it works better in Gideon because the overall tone of the first book is much different than the second. There's a difficult balance between snarky, Mean-Girls-in-Space whodunnit romp and raw emotional stuff and I don't know that Muir pulls it off as cleanly as she could have. It clashes a little more in Harrow fwiw, but I'm willing to embrace the goofiness and tolerate it.
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Jun 30, 2022 19:34
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ed balls balls man posted:i hate it - but yeah it's the old people can like different things piece. Tamsyn Muir is older than me and reading that line killed a little bit of my soul. I can't pin down exactly why but I've not really clicked with any millenial authors, maybe it's because so many have come out of fandom or write YA/thinly-diguised-YA-for-adults? Just something about even the 'good' novels I find offputting compared to 90s and 00s authors
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Jun 30, 2022 19:45
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No Dignity posted:Tamsyn Muir is older than me and reading that line killed a little bit of my soul. There's definitely a group of authors who have clearly come out of the fanfic community and more power to them but they largely don't click for me. I think it's because they're operating in a sea of common structures that make perfect sense to the archive of our own crowd but that just don't resonate with me since I don't read fanfic.
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Jun 30, 2022 19:56
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:There's definitely a group of authors who have clearly come out of the fanfic community and more power to them but they largely don't click for me. I think it's because they're operating in a sea of common structures that make perfect sense to the archive of our own crowd but that just don't resonate with me since I don't read fanfic. For what it's worth, as someone who reads and writes a lot of fanfic, I still find the more modern sense of humor grating. I enjoy Gideon a lot, but not entirely for the humor. (haven't clicked on the spoiler as I haven't read Harrow yet, waiting for the full set)
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Jun 30, 2022 19:58
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What; dad jokes are the exalted pinnacle of humour.
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Jun 30, 2022 20:04
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Groke posted:What; dad jokes are the exalted pinnacle of humour. On the one hand you're right On the other hand I've been having extreme culture shock going between Star Trek TOS/TNG and Star Trek Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks. There's a huge difference in tone - and I don't mean storytelling. The characters are more likely to have quips and backtalk and be irreverent, and there's a sense of - oh god this will sound terrible - there's a sense of fun that's more prominent in these shows, that's really offputting to me. TOS/TNG came from an era where they were doing a job, they were professional, you could enjoy it sure but they weren't breaking out sarcasm or whatnot. And that's exactly the divide I see here in Gideon vs any 80s/90s fantasy, there isn't - there's not comedy except incidentally, no wacky comments or nods to tropes. I'm thirty and maybe I'm too old for pop culture these days, but I feel like there's a more pronounced divide these days, and it's led to some interesting culture clash for me personally trying to find things to read. Older stuff is going to give me more prose I like, and it'll skip humor (or be explicitly comedy i.e. Pratchett or Aspirin) but it has a higher ratio of sexism/racism/sexual violence/etc. This is also speaking hugely generally, there are some real bangers that came out last year, and some real slogs that came out in 1980. Just speaking to trends.
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Jun 30, 2022 20:09
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PS it is genuinely delightful to assume that I'm having a conversation with the Groke, and also that the Groke reads Tamsyn Muir.
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Jun 30, 2022 20:11
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StrixNebulosa posted:On the one hand you're right Very strange, I'm not sure if I've heard folks who like TNG/TOS say they dislike SNW/LD. The rest of modern trek, absolutely, but for quality, rather than tone, if that makes sense. That said, dad jokes *are* the pinnacle of humor, and I love them in locked tomb.
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Jun 30, 2022 20:14
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the mythical land between grimdark and twee-snark
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Jun 30, 2022 20:15
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silvergoose posted:Very strange, I'm not sure if I've heard folks who like TNG/TOS say they dislike SNW/LD. The rest of modern trek, absolutely, but for quality, rather than tone, if that makes sense. To be 100% clear, LD/SNW are outstanding and it feels bizarre to be living in an era where I can watch brand new Star Trek weekly and it's good to great. (When it's not plagiarizing LeGuin ) (which is the right person to plagiarize from I think)
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Jun 30, 2022 20:16
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I don't know if people today feel obligated to be irreverent, but I do think there's a sense that if you feel like you can't be irreverent in a situtation then something is wrong. That is, if people in Starfleet aren't snarking about Starfleet, the audience would read that as meaning that Starfleet is somewhat sinister.
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Jun 30, 2022 20:16
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Rand Brittain posted:I don't know if people today feel obligated to be irreverent, but I do think there's a sense that if you feel like you can't be irreverent in a situtation then something is wrong. That is, if people in Starfleet aren't snarking about Starfleet, the audience would read that as meaning that Starfleet is somewhat sinister. I'm not saying they don't, but - like, TOS is funny, it has some real funny moments where they look at the camera, all exasperated. But it's not as...prevalent? As in SNW. It's two different cultures wearing the starfleet uniform. Or at least how it feels to me.
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Jun 30, 2022 20:18
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StrixNebulosa posted:PS it is genuinely delightful to assume that I'm having a conversation with the Groke, and also that the Groke reads Tamsyn Muir.
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Jun 30, 2022 20:22
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StrixNebulosa posted:To be 100% clear, LD/SNW are outstanding and it feels bizarre to be living in an era where I can watch brand new Star Trek weekly and it's good to great. (When it's not plagiarizing LeGuin Ah, okay. Yeah realizing what that episode was about was really neat! Rand Brittain posted:I don't know if people today feel obligated to be irreverent, but I do think there's a sense that if you feel like you can't be irreverent in a situtation then something is wrong. That is, if people in Starfleet aren't snarking about Starfleet, the audience would read that as meaning that Starfleet is somewhat sinister. This, however, might be going towards the question of "if everything sucks, gotta either laugh or cry", and they're choosing the former.
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Jun 30, 2022 20:22
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StrixNebulosa posted:I'm not saying they don't, but - like, TOS is funny, it has some real funny moments where they look at the camera, all exasperated. But it's not as...prevalent? As in SNW. It's two different cultures wearing the starfleet uniform. Or at least how it feels to me. I'll say that while I cringe a little bit at the snark sometimes, it's mostly coming from one or two characters who are played as irreverent rather than popping out of whatever convenient snark mouthpiece is available character be damned, such as anything produced by Whedon.
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Jun 30, 2022 20:58
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Lord Bob posted:
This is why the memes, it's literary shitposting lol
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Jun 30, 2022 21:01
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Spime Wrangler posted:the mythical land between grimdark and twee-snark which is really just memes about 40k, right?
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Jun 30, 2022 21:45
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They were saying “the old ‘people can like different things’ piece”, not “the ‘old people can like different things’ piece” I wonder how ‘the old’ become a colloquialism for ‘familiar and well known, oft encountered.’
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Jun 30, 2022 22:23
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StrixNebulosa posted:To be 100% clear, LD/SNW are outstanding and it feels bizarre to be living in an era where I can watch brand new Star Trek weekly and it's good to great. (When it's not plagiarizing LeGuin At first, I didn't think it was fair to say they were plagiarizing Le Guin because they were just lifting the premise from the (plotless) "Omelas" for their own plotted story. But then I realized that they're going back to that world eventually, and we're going to find out that the "alien" planet is a direct copy of Urras or Yeowe. At least put an "inspired by" in the credits. And I get your point about the humor in SNW. It creates a sense that you're watching a bunch of buddies who work together instead of an organization with a hierarchy. The high-fiving, monster blasting chucklefucks of Gears' Delta Squad have more respect for rank and chain of command than Captain Pike's crew.
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Jun 30, 2022 22:33
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A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M Miller Jr - $3.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09RMXGTV8/ Electric Dreams by Philip K Dick - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071K7TSYV/ Italian Folktales by Italo Calvino - $3.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EXBRFXM/
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Jun 30, 2022 22:45
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pradmer posted:A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M Miller Jr - $3.99 Powerful
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Jun 30, 2022 22:49
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pradmer posted:A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M Miller Jr - $3.99 Italian Folktales is a fantastic collection. Definitely worth the 4 bucks.
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Jun 30, 2022 22:57
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General Battuta posted:They were saying “the old ‘people can like different things’ piece”, not “the ‘old people can like different things’ piece” I could swear I've run across that usage in Wodehouse, so I suspect it goes pretty far back.
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Jun 30, 2022 23:15
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