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PupsOfWar posted:iirc that sequence doesn't steer all the way into the Bad Politics vortex until Olympos Was Ilium not the one with the Arabic hunter-killer robots programmed to sniff out Jewish blood, or was that one of the later books?
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Sep 21, 2022 20:49
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Lead out in cuffs posted:Was Ilium not the one with the Arabic hunter-killer robots programmed to sniff out Jewish blood, or was that one of the later books? You could read it as a more local sectarian thing and not highly racist in the first book if you were so inclined but you can't in the second book it's pretty over the top.
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Sep 21, 2022 20:55
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Gideon is kind of dark souls but you are on the side of the hollows
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Sep 21, 2022 21:13
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Larry Parrish posted:new commonweal book when "Update 2021-12-23: Is there a next book planned? Hope is not a plan; I hope there will be a next book, but between the Everything and my day job, I am not able to plan. The manuscript is getting longer (if not very fast) and that's about all I know right now."
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Sep 21, 2022 21:18
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pradmer posted:The Rage of Dragons (Burning #1) by Evan Winter - $2.99 This is an interest setting and story. It looks like book 3 was going to be out this year but got delayed until sometime next year though.
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Sep 21, 2022 21:25
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The Kingdom of Copper (Daevabad #2) by SA Chakraborty - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076P8TD5Y/
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Sep 21, 2022 22:27
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Kalman posted:"Update 2021-12-23: Is there a next book planned? There used to be more information on the Google Group, but then some dickhead Larry threatened to repost information from the group and we Graydons took it down.
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Sep 22, 2022 00:01
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Are there different versions of Dark Forest? The one I got from the library said it was about 1200 pages and would take around 18 hours, so I just got a copy so I wouldn’t have to worry about deadlines, but the one I got is only about 400 pages and says it’ll only take about 7 hours. Other than that, chapter titles all line up and I flipped to a couple random spots, and they seem to line up. Not sure where the big discrepancy is unless it’s just some weird glitch with my ereader
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Sep 22, 2022 00:28
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ulmont posted:There used to be more information on the Google Group, but then some dickhead Larry threatened to repost information from the group and we Graydons took it down. I simply said if he didn't want people to talk about that stuff then he shouldn't post it anywhere and apparently he agreed.
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Sep 22, 2022 00:33
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Opopanax posted:Are there different versions of Dark Forest? The one I got from the library said it was about 1200 pages and would take around 18 hours, so I just got a copy so I wouldn’t have to worry about deadlines, but the one I got is only about 400 pages and says it’ll only take about 7 hours. Other than that, chapter titles all line up and I flipped to a couple random spots, and they seem to line up. Not sure where the big discrepancy is unless it’s just some weird glitch with my ereader I assume an omnibus version of the trilogy would be around 1200 pages; maybe that's what the library had?
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Sep 22, 2022 01:12
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Silver2195 posted:I assume an omnibus version of the trilogy would be around 1200 pages; maybe that's what the library had? Nope because I already read the first one from them. Every source I've seen matches what I have so I'm guessing some meta data just got screwed up somewhere
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Sep 22, 2022 02:05
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Lead out in cuffs posted:Was Ilium not the one with the Arabic hunter-killer robots programmed to sniff out Jewish blood, or was that one of the later books? I was thinking they were Around in book 1, but remained just sort of mysterious apocalyptic wasteland monsters and weren't revealed as a caliphate bio-weapon until book 2 I could be misremembering though
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Sep 22, 2022 02:53
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Finished Speaker for the Dead. Fantastic. I read the Wikipedia summaries of books 3 and 4 and have resolved never to read them. What I read reminds me of the Endymion books in being packed with weird indulgent stuff that takes the story away from what made the first two books emotionally powerful.
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Sep 22, 2022 05:38
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OSC really should have retired from writing maybe 30 years ago.
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Sep 22, 2022 08:09
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Opopanax posted:Are there different versions of Dark Forest? The one I got from the library said it was about 1200 pages and would take around 18 hours, so I just got a copy so I wouldn’t have to worry about deadlines, but the one I got is only about 400 pages and says it’ll only take about 7 hours. Other than that, chapter titles all line up and I flipped to a couple random spots, and they seem to line up. Not sure where the big discrepancy is unless it’s just some weird glitch with my ereader My paper copy is about 500 pages, for what that's worth. The 1200 seems extremely off.
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Sep 22, 2022 11:54
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Groke posted:OSC really should have retired from writing maybe 30 years ago.
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Sep 22, 2022 12:01
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DACK FAYDEN posted:did he ever go back and loop the Bean stories into the Ender ones, I seem to recall he had some plan to do so with like, fuckin bean's near-light starship full of his genius kids meeting ftl ender I have no idea, I gave up on his stuff some time before Y2k. In retrospect, anything after Speaker and the first two or three Alvin Maker books was a waste of time.
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Sep 22, 2022 12:15
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His one-off book Pastwatch is worth a read. Maybe borrow a copy from a friend, though.
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Sep 22, 2022 12:22
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I just read Cage of Souls by Adrian Tchaikovksy and immediately came here because I wanted to recommend it. I read quite a few of the Shadows of the Apt books when they came out years ago, and then kind of wrote him off as an author as I thought they were readable but other than the high level concept very average. I recently read Shards of Earth after reading some good reviews and very much enjoyed it (less so the sequel) - I then kept hearing about his other one-off books in this thread. I then tried his novella Elder Race and thought it was an entertaining fairly light read - after those two he rose a lot in my estimation. But after reading Cage of Souls I think it is to his other stuff what House of Suns is to Reynolds, just an all round excellent book - one or two steps above the two books I cited above and about fifty above his earliest books. I'm super impressed how he has matured as an author, I can't believe it's the same writer as the Apt books i read years ago. Its about a prison in a Dying Earth style setting, but I'd rather not say too much about it as I think it's best enjoyed without much foreknowledge. I was waiting for it to fall apart given the amount of ideas thrown in but I think it all hung together really well. Can't recommend it enough. I saw the recent Between Two Fires talk (which I thought was OK but was a bit like an inferior Tim Powers book like Drawing of the Dark) and while Cage of Souls isn't really that similar, I just wanted to throw it out there as a recent recent fantasy/sci-fi book highly worth checking out.
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Sep 22, 2022 12:23
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Blamestorm posted:I just read Cage of Souls by Adrian Tchaikovksy and immediately came here because I wanted to recommend it. I read quite a few of the Shadows of the Apt books when they came out years ago, and then kind of wrote him off as an author as I thought they were readable but other than the high level concept very average. I recently read Shards of Earth after reading some good reviews and very much enjoyed it (less so the sequel) - I then kept hearing about his other one-off books in this thread. I then tried his novella Elder Race and thought it was an entertaining fairly light read - after those two he rose a lot in my estimation. Reading between the lines here makes me suspect you have not read Children of Time (or the sequel Children of Ruin) which you should go and fix because that is some really really good stuff. (Was also my introduction to Tchaikovsky and I haven't read too many of his other books yet.)
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Sep 22, 2022 12:30
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FPyat posted:Finished Speaker for the Dead. Fantastic. I read the Wikipedia summaries of books 3 and 4 and have resolved never to read them. This is the correct and sensible decision, by the way. As for other Card stuff, I still really like Hart's Hope, one of his early fantasy novels.
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Sep 22, 2022 13:55
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Groke posted:Reading between the lines here makes me suspect you have not read Children of Time (or the sequel Children of Ruin) which you should go and fix because that is some really really good stuff. (Was also my introduction to Tchaikovsky and I haven't read too many of his other books yet.) Yep going to go hit them up next. Cage of Souls hit me by surprise because elements reminded me a lot of older classic sci fi like Viriconium or many Jack Vance books (but with more contemporary writing) which I wasn’t expecting. Maybe not dissimilar to Walter Jon Williams too. It might be that it just hit the right sweet spot for me genre/ theme wise but if his other recent stuff is this good he’s definitely one of the better sci fi / fantasy authors writing today I think. (Although I was a bit disappointed with the Shards of Earth sequel which I felt really squandered a lot of the potential of the first book)
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Sep 22, 2022 14:17
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Just finished The Library At Mount Char and thank you to whoever recommended it to me because I think it's gotta be one of my favorite reads of the year so far. Cracked it opened after dinner thinking I would just read a few chapters and yeah. Great mystery, great characters, great foreshadowing, absolutely loved it.
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Sep 22, 2022 14:50
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It’s real good.
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Sep 22, 2022 14:52
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Leng posted:Just finished The Library At Mount Char and thank you to whoever recommended it to me because I think it's gotta be one of my favorite reads of the year so far. Cracked it opened after dinner thinking I would just read a few chapters and yeah. Great mystery, great characters, great foreshadowing, absolutely loved it. I really liked it when I read it too. Everything you said plus the whole premise is just cool. The whole thing is just kind of unique and I was (and am) especially sad to see he hadn't put out more. One of those rare books that actually stuck in my brain to the point I can remember lots of details years after reading it 
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Sep 22, 2022 15:32
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For anybody else who was intrigued by the Cage of Souls rec above, the ebook is $2 on US Amazon right now (and on KU).
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Sep 22, 2022 15:37
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What jackhole thought it was cool to make the official title of the book in kindle "Cage of Souls: Shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award 2020"
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Sep 22, 2022 16:18
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Lead out in cuffs posted:NK Jemisin and Nnedi Okorafor seem to handle Twitter pretty well, particularly given how much harassment they must get. I'll admit that I kinda glanced at that stuff and was confused, but I had read it as a sort of "a small faction of insane radicals summoned insane radical robots from the future and hosed everything up" but after seeing people talk in this thread I see that I was mistaken. The submarine full of gently caress the earth bombs was dumb on its face though because if Iran or something had them you can bet the US, China, India, Israel, etc would have them. God help me but I still like both of the books for whatever reason, mostly because of all the weird poo poo. The Odysseus gotta be manly thing was also really weird in a bad way. Finished Ventus by Karl Schroeder, very very good and the first book I've read by Schroeder. Any suggestions on what series of his to follow up with? Read the three Breach/Travis Chase books after somebody in this thread recommended them and while they're definitely airport thriller in nature, it satisfied my SCP itch in a very specific way. Sad that the author ended the whole thing definitively in the third book, but all three books were very entertaining.
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Sep 22, 2022 16:41
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MockingQuantum posted:For anybody else who was intrigued by the Cage of Souls rec above, the ebook is $2 on US Amazon right now (and on KU). Also cheap on Amazon Canada ($3 instead of $2). Alastair Reynolds' House of Suns was cheap too so I picked that up. Hopefully it's good!
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Sep 22, 2022 17:06
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I mentioned this while it was on pre-order, but Jenna Moran's new novel, The Night-Bird's Feather, is now available on most platforms, including Kindle, Kobo, and itch.io.quote:“Traveler,” the creature said: “hear my mournful story. Forbidden to eat children, I retired to this barren keep to subsist upon black bread, small fish, and berry jam. No longer do I bring the storms. No longer do I sour milk. No longer do I ride on others’ dreaming souls. Here in my cave I abide in peace. But no matter how much sugar I put in, every batch of jam I make is too runny for this hopeless witch to eat.” This is a novel telling stories, based in Slavic folklore, of several generations of a family of dream magicians in a little town where the sun has never yet risen, with a focus on how the world arises from perception. On top of that, if the novel outsells Jenna's predictions in the first week, she's going to publicly release the playtest draft of the fourth edition of her amazing RPG Nobilis. I strongly suggest that everybody here give it a try.
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Sep 22, 2022 17:19
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day-gas posted:God help me but I still like both of the books for whatever reason, mostly because of all the weird poo poo. If you want weird sci-fi involving the Iliad, maybe try the Terra Ignota series by Ada Palmer? It's written by a professor of Renaissance history, so you probably have to be a bit of a history nerd to appreciate it, but it's probably one of the more realistic-feeling visions of a world 500 years from now that I've read. One warning, though: in the setting, a previous cataclysmic war between religious fundamentalists led to the survivors rejecting any and all forms of gender expression. This means that the characters either fetishize gender expression or have a kind of gender equivalent of colourblind racism. It's used as a plot point, and is meant to be a dystopian streak in a semi-utopian setting which is ultimately (somewhat) resolved. But a few passages can be quite uncomfortable to read for trans and nonbinary folks.
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Sep 22, 2022 20:20
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The Forever War (#1) by Joe Haldeman - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PI184XG/ The Darkness that Comes Before (Prince of Nothing #1) by R Scott Bakker - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MXCRKVQ/
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Sep 22, 2022 23:13
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Getting close to finishing up The Aching God which is the first book in Iconoclasts. What it's about, the type of content, all that stuff is my jam. I like when fantasy has a serious vibe, hosed up magic poo poo and stuff like that going on. Especially a good mystery too. While I don't think this book is bad, something about it is weird I can't put my finger on. Like the book just doesn't care that all this stuff is going on and being excessively matter of fact about it, if that makes sense. Do the next 2 books get any better in that regard or are they basically the same?
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Sep 23, 2022 01:19
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I checked out Six of Crows based on earlier discussion in this thread and on account of being in the mood for a fantasy heist, and I am...not really digging it? So far it's been less heist-y and more just wildly stabby, and it keeps dragging me out of it by reminding me how young the characters are, which, based on the timelines given, means that Inej became a spy and thief of nearly supernatural skill with something like two years of practice, and Kaz arranged the mortgage of the pub and used the money to dredge and refit the Fifth Dock when he was like 12. It feels like it wants to be Lies of Locke Lamora but with weird magical bullshit taking a more central role, but isn't really pulling it off.
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Sep 23, 2022 01:55
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Drunk Driver Dad posted:Getting close to finishing up The Aching God which is the first book in Iconoclasts. What it's about, the type of content, all that stuff is my jam. I like when fantasy has a serious vibe, hosed up magic poo poo and stuff like that going on. Especially a good mystery too. While I don't think this book is bad, something about it is weird I can't put my finger on. Like the book just doesn't care that all this stuff is going on and being excessively matter of fact about it, if that makes sense. Do the next 2 books get any better in that regard or are they basically the same? i didn't like the 2nd one as much and I haven't read the 3rd so I can't really say. maybe I need to do a full reread before I get to 3.
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Sep 23, 2022 03:07
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big dyke energy posted:Marina J. Lostetter's Noumenon trilogy fits what you're looking for, I think. Starts with a generation ship setting out to investigate a star that might have an alien artifact attached to it and goes to some wild places. I especially liked the political aspects - which reminded me of Dune, which coming from me is high praise.
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Sep 23, 2022 08:47
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withak posted:What jackhole thought it was cool to make the official title of the book in kindle "Cage of Souls: Shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award 2020" This sort of thing has been common practice for a while now. At least the Arthur C. Clarke Award is a real thing, rather than all the TIKTOK MADE ME BUY IT crap. My big bugbear is the way the descriptions stuff two pages of review quotes in before you even get to the blurb. I want to know what it's about before anything else! As for the listings that put the entire first chapter in the description, they can go wither in a lightless sea.
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Sep 23, 2022 09:07
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Larry Parrish posted:i didn't like the 2nd one as much and I haven't read the 3rd so I can't really say. maybe I need to do a full reread before I get to 3. This series was frustrating. Why base your books around an adventuring guild that raids ancient dungeons and ruins of a mysterious bygone race for a living and then work so drat hard to limit the actual dungeon adventuring parts to like 5% of the pages? The setting is pretty interesting and the characterization was above fantasy standard but I felt blueballed enough halfway through book 2 to just wander off.
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Sep 23, 2022 09:29
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Drunk Driver Dad posted:Getting close to finishing up The Aching God which is the first book in Iconoclasts. What it's about, the type of content, all that stuff is my jam. I like when fantasy has a serious vibe, hosed up magic poo poo and stuff like that going on. Especially a good mystery too. While I don't think this book is bad, something about it is weird I can't put my finger on. Like the book just doesn't care that all this stuff is going on and being excessively matter of fact about it, if that makes sense. Do the next 2 books get any better in that regard or are they basically the same? The story gets a bit darker and broadens out in scope but I'm not sure it's better for it. I've read all three and I think the first is the best.
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Sep 23, 2022 10:27
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Sinatrapod posted:This series was frustrating. Why base your books around an adventuring guild that raids ancient dungeons and ruins of a mysterious bygone race for a living and then work so drat hard to limit the actual dungeon adventuring parts to like 5% of the pages? The setting is pretty interesting and the characterization was above fantasy standard but I felt blueballed enough halfway through book 2 to just wander off. That's it, why play world building and continental level politics when you've got a great hook already
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Sep 23, 2022 10:35
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