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Cythereal posted:I'm starting on The Belgariad for the first time in several years, and it's a refreshing break from all the grim, serious sci-fi and fantasy and history I've been reading lately. They're not perfect books, and ideal for a YA audience, but I think there's something to be said as an adult for books that are just plain clean, wholesome fun. Wholesome fun like locking children in cages.
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Oct 18, 2019 17:33
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StrixNebulosa posted:It's in their wikipedia page with links to newspaper articles. I'm on phone so I can't link but IIRC they adopted children and the kids were found with lots and lots of bruises. When I was a teenager I bought all their books. That included The Losers, an allegory written in the 70s but published decades later, after their success. There's a lot of anti-social-worker and anti-government content in it. At the end of the book, the protagonist delivers a few pages of monologue which a judge applauds while government lawyers look on impotently. It resembles those Facebook memes that go: "...and that student was Albert Einstein." At the time, I thought it was just some Randite wanking but after finding out about the child abuse and jail time... It looks a little different, particularly the venom directed at social workers.
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Oct 18, 2019 18:07
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Philthy posted:Picked up the first two Murderbot books. Holy moly. Both look to be about 100 pages, if that. One was softbound for $15, and the other hardcover for $16. That's about what I paid. Expensive but totally worth it.
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Oct 29, 2019 18:22
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This insecure Scot murdered his king? I can't keep going with this. No true Scot would do such a thing. What amateurish writing.
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Oct 30, 2019 00:29
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I tend to think of The Sudden Appearance of Hope as fantasy; I'm not sure why. I can't really make an argument for that. And yeah, Baru. Thanks for the list, ToxicFrog. Some of those are on my to-read pile already but the others look interesting too.
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Oct 31, 2019 01:41
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This quest for a real-world analog of a possibly misdesigned fantasy analog for real-world minority groups is going in weird and icky directions. I don't think it's wise to compare HIV+ status to an innate magical ability to easily, quickly or accidentally kill people in groups.
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Nov 14, 2019 21:24
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cptn_dr posted:Take care, General B. Hope things look up soon.
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Jan 13, 2020 05:03
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biracial bear for uncut posted:That is literally one of the definitions of it, yes. Also "influenced by" and a bunch of other phrases that essentially mean the same thing. Awesome. You do realize even Shakespeare had sources for many of his plays? Finally Giraldi Cinthio will get the recognition he deserves, and Shakespeare will be derided as a hack for using source material for Othello.
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Feb 18, 2020 18:55
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biracial bear for uncut posted:Shakespeare literally wrote his contemporary equivalent to Howard Stern podcasts to entertain people. I don't know why you think bringing him up has anything to do with whatever argument you think I'm making. Your response lets any remaining readers know you can be safely ignored.
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Feb 18, 2020 19:09
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buffalo all day posted:This is literally true but it is not at all like a spy novel. The "infiltration" is backstory so basically it's "main character has secret". The book is also real long and real bad. Thank God I thought it was just me.
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Apr 1, 2020 19:45
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buffalo all day posted:yes you need not - and in fact should not - read all the dune books. read them until you don’t like one and then quit. You can also just read the first one and be perfectly happy Yep, this. A lot of people read the first three and stop there. I like stopping after the first one. Qwertycoatl posted:"Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife - chopping off what's incomplete and saying: 'Now it's complete because it's ended here.'" 
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Apr 11, 2020 21:01
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Should probably take murderbot's word for it's identity.
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May 8, 2020 18:30
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Jedit posted:OK, I bought The Monster. General B, I have faith in you to deliver a title for the fourth book. Don't let me down. General B doesn't owe any of us a single thing.
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May 14, 2020 14:17
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coolusername posted:The new murderbot was intensely satisfying and I am delighted to have finished it. I had some lingering unhappiness with the previous one but this one completely blew it out of the water. Those were some definite highlights for me too. When I started encountering the excerpts from the helpme file I wondered where that was going, up until the very last sentence in the addendum. One of the many things I admire about those books is the way they wander along and then occasionally nail me to the wall with a single sentence.
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May 16, 2020 18:07
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Strom Cuzewon posted:The whole trilogy feels very white-saviour - our super-special heroine with her magical bloodline has to swoop in to stop the oppression of the poor downtrodden underclass. There's no significant shafit characters/PoVs Nahri doesn't count because she never actually indentifies with shafit, like, 3 characters know the truth, and again, super-special magical bloodline Is that the directions it's going? I read the first one but haven't picked up the second one yet.
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Jun 30, 2020 14:13
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Prism Mirror Lens posted:The Soldier Son books have an interesting premise (fat people magic), but it feels like a cheap knockoff of the Fitz books. The protagonist is too close in personality, not much happens, and there’s a lack of any memorable/friendly characters, so it’s mostly a depressing dude going around getting even more depressed. Have you read the Liveship trilogy? Those are the best of Hobb’s other books imo. This was my impression of the Soldier Son books as well. I liked all the Hobb books I've read, but "depressing dude going around getting even more depressed" describes most of them. The Fitz books in particular were constant parades of misery where occasionally something non-depressing happens, usually at the end of a trilogy.
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Jul 3, 2020 19:30
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quantumfoam posted:-Much to my disappointment, David Eddings does get mentioned for a 2nd time in SFL Vol 09. To add to the pain, a spirited defense of MBZ's strongly written female characters also happens. The Eddingses sucked but at least they served their time and paid their debt to society. I haven't heard any allegations of post-prison crimes. Their books are lame but there are lamer books mentioned in this very thread. As far as I can recall, nothing happened to MZB while she lived.
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Aug 10, 2020 20:36
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Captain Monkey posted:I really enjoyed the Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell miniseries. Is the book as good/better? I haven't seen the miniseries but yes the novel is excellent. Definitely one of the best books I read this year.
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Aug 21, 2020 13:37
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quantumfoam posted:It's almost time for another SFL archives update post(hit 75% completion in SFL archives Volume 10), but I have to ask. I like them and would like to see more!
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Sep 1, 2020 01:46
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Bort Hard With a Vengeance was underrated.
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Sep 2, 2020 20:00
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Black Griffon posted:Anyone read Lindsay Ellis' Axiom's End? I really like her as a person, especially because she's distanced herself so clearly from the sludge of failure that was Channel Awesome, but I've no idea if she can write. We had some unfavorable reviews in this subforum when it came out but I haven't heard anything since.
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Sep 4, 2020 19:28
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MockingQuantum posted:Yeah it's kind of a baffling comparison to draw. Maybe redheads in books was notable in the 80s. I can't understand what other salient connections between the books you could point to as being "ripoffs". Does anyone know of other successful mediocre LOTR ripoffs of the era? I'm having trouble thinking of others, that's always the example I use. It was interesting to read that shout out for Judy-Lynn Del Rey; the only place I know her and her husband's names from is their role in the Belgariad and the Eddings's careers generally, which at this point is probably not a positive thing to most of the posters in this thread.
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Sep 10, 2020 16:52
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General Battuta posted:Just read the loving book you Sanderson rear end category havers Can this be the new thread title please?
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Sep 24, 2020 19:26
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People suggest a lot of bad books in this thread. We're on the same page as people discussing the Cradle books. Disliking a book's politics is fair enough, but it shouldn't be a mystery why some people can still enjoy reading a book whose politics they don't agree with. I don't see much of a difference between disliking a book's politics and disliking a book's prose. But when people poo poo-talk a book's prose, someone comes along to say "just let people enjoy things!" and it eventually settles down. When someone suggests a book whose politics few on this forum (probably) agree with, someone always arrives to say "How could you even suggest such a thing?" They suggested Heinlein because his books seemed appropriate to the request. I find the politics of most of Heinlein's books repellent, but if we restrict ourselves to only reading politically pure novels, that's a short reading list. Pretty much every novel with a well-to-do protagonist relies on the exploitation of the proletariat, for example.
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Oct 8, 2020 19:25
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Stuporstar posted:Anyone read Piranesi by Susanna Clarke yet? It popped up available on holds list so I just took it out Like other posters said, it was excellent. Best novel I read in 2020. It was definitely in a different style than Strange and Norrell, which I need to re-read.
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Jan 20, 2021 15:21
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I found the Magicians trilogy to be uneven but overall pretty good. I did like that the third book ends with a giant metaphor for intertextuality as Quentin's world literally provides a bridge back to Fillory. Doing a reread with the ending in mind was enjoyable. A lot of fantasy books can be read with magic as an analogue for art in general or writing in particular, of course, but I enjoyed Grossman's spin on it. There were a lot parts that dragged or seemed ill-advised to me. The (book 2)fox god stuff in particular -- woof. Also, this: Ccs posted:The real turning of the tide, at least for me personally, was Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, a book so fantastical and so beautiful that critics on all sides were forced to bow down before it. I can't speak to effects on the industry or the genre, but for me personally, Susanna Clarke was a revelation.
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Feb 5, 2021 19:39
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General Battuta posted:I am still vaguely planning to do a "many centuries later" book in Baru's world which is a lesbian Top Gun story about mercenary pilots. And you'd get to see all the downstream effects of Baru's failure or success. I think you had us at 'lesbian Top Gun story'.
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Feb 12, 2021 21:39
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tiniestacorn posted:Has anyone read Piranesi? I shotgunned it in one sitting and I was riding high, feeling like "drat this might be an all-timer" and then the cop showed up and the real world intruded in a boring way >:| and now I think it's merely good. I did, and adored it. Back during a previous Piranesi discussion, another goon recommended the audiobook which is narrated by Chiwetel Ejiofor. That was a pro recommendation, his voice really goes well with the story and he does a great job.
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Feb 16, 2021 15:19
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uber_stoat posted:that Folio Dune calls to me. dare i heed the call. Dare, dare!
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Apr 11, 2021 13:37
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Deptfordx posted:Anybody heard anything about what's going on with Blackgate.com Next time bring an heir of Elendil with you!
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May 22, 2021 15:36
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I think it would be cool if we could get a paragraph added to the OP to encourage folks to financially support authors and provide some useful info. I did not know that pre-ordering was beneficial to authors, and I've known a few people who did not realize that authors get no money from used book sales.
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Jun 25, 2021 18:17
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BurningBeard posted:This is a good idea for a thread. Sounds like a good idea! In addition to the forum of Twitter, that thread could discuss the forum of these forums: the contemporary posts in TBB about the helicopter story don't look great in hindsight. If we could restrain ourselves from throwing more things at posters during that discussion we could maybe talk about ways to post better in the future. I realize that's a big if.
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Jul 1, 2021 19:39
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Kraps posted:Is Axiom's End by Ellis good? She has a sequel coming out. I found it to be okay, neither great nor bad. The plot is Transformers, the prose is serviceable but rarely amazing. However I'm being a harsh grader, it's noticeably better than that of a lot of books that have their own threads on this subforum. I guess what I'm saying is that I was whelmed. I plan to get the sequel because 'fine' still puts it way above many other novels. It's kind of like one of the recent Transformers movies, but by a better writer - if that interests you, you will like it.
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Sep 9, 2021 23:20
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HopperUK posted:Well it might have generated as many as ten sales! There are dozens of us on this subforum. Dozens!
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Oct 15, 2021 14:04
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Alhazred posted:The fremen spits to show how much they like you...and also when they make coffee. They like coffee too
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Nov 14, 2021 14:50
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mewse posted:The author of baru hates these jokes just FYI 
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Nov 24, 2021 23:19
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buffalo all day posted:anyone read the new Ishiguro book? The buried giant and never let me go are both incredible. Was given it for Xmas so will post reacts when done Stuporstar posted:Klara and the Sun? Oh yeah, it’s drat good, but feels like a punch in the heart So far this describes every Ishiguro book I've read. Excellent, excellent books that leave you gutted at the end.
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Dec 28, 2021 15:16
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Groke posted:Goddamn, but LeGuin owned really hard.
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Jan 10, 2022 21:52
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In addition to what others posted, Susanna Clarke.
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Feb 3, 2022 15:09
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I'm amazed Graydon Saunders is going to all the trouble of having his sockpuppets argue about Watts.
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Feb 25, 2022 15:16
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