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I know what you mean. I've gone through the first book in short bursts before getting bored and putting down multiple times over the past few years. I think my problem is the characters don't really hook me that much, despite a very cool setting and an interesting plot (at least as far as I got).
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Nov 26, 2019 05:08
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I got half way through the first murderbot novella and, despite how short it is, I don't know if I'm going to finish it. It feels like the entire thing is just "look at how QUIRKY the main character is!"
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Dec 4, 2019 22:20
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I don't begrudge anyone for liking it, and I can see why many people did, I just found myself rolling my eyes at everything. Speaking of stuff I didn't like that a lot of people did, can someone explain to me why Ancillary Justice was such a big deal? I mean, the use of gender-neutral she/her was an interesting idea that I think helped me reconsider some subconscious sexist assumptions I have when reading, but I didn't really enjoy anything else. It felt like the present storyline spoiled the entirety of the past storyline, and the present storyline was a lot of meandering until we got to the assassination attempt. Maybe I'm just not remembering everything, but I feel like it's success was entirely due to the pronoun usage and some admittedly cool tricks with narration from a hive-mind perspective, not the world or the characters.
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Dec 4, 2019 22:43
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StrixNebulosa posted:To turn this into a good thing: I know of two trans authors off the top of my head: Yoon Ha Lee and Caitlin R Kiernan. Are there any others out there? I've got money and a need for more books to hoard. I hadn't heard of Yoon Ha Lee. I looked up his work and it looks interesting. Is Dragon Pearl good? It looks like it's YA, but Korean Space Opera sounds awesome.
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Dec 20, 2019 20:27
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I saw this series on Amazon called the Magitech Chronicles. Seemed like pulpy, fun science fantasy. Has anyone read any of them?
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Aug 21, 2020 13:49
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I will say that, as someone who loves Malazan (but hasn't finished it, don't judge), Gardens was fun, kinda pulpy, but good. DHG is a bit of a slow burn at first, and replaces that pulp with deep introspection on war, culture, and the grinding down of all by the sands of time. It's borderline nihilistic at times, which makes MoI, the next book, even more interesting, given that it seems to thread the needle between the two. That said, I understand it not hooking you quite as quickly, given that it doesn't start with quite as much excitement.
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Sep 10, 2020 14:27
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Currently reading that scp novel linked a few pages back. It's surprisingly pretty good. Lil weird, but it's scp so that's kind of a given.
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Mar 22, 2021 16:40
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Cradle is low-key one of the most fun series I've read. Definitely not high art, but I've enjoyed reading the little bit of the series I've read more than most well regarded classics.
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Apr 14, 2021 21:51
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I wonder if Cradle and other popular kindle fiction will end up having as much influence and prestige as the junk fiction of the 20s like Conan and Lovecraft. It certainly has a mass appeal, and if you had told someone at the time that Conan Studies or Tolkien Studies would be an actual academic pursuit they would have laughed their faces off.
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May 1, 2021 17:06
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Important thing to note about cultivation series and Xianxia in general: much like how western fantasy, intentionally or not, takes a lot from Christianity, Xianxia takes a lot from Chinese religious traditions, particularly Daoism, but also a little Buddhism or Chinese folk religion, depending on the example. In Daoism, there is the idea that those who understand and live the Dao become Immortals. There are Eight Immortals that form the main Daoist "pantheon" for VERY MUCH lack of a better word. That said, anyone experienced enough is capable of being an Immortal, with Sun Wukong being a famous example of an Immortal who converted to Buddhism according to the Journey to the West. If you've read that story, you understand that Immortals =/= good people, just super capable, which extends into modern Xianxia.
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May 2, 2021 15:07
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I don't know why, but I started Guards, Guards and didn't find it that funny to be honest. Does it have to ramp up, has Pratchett's humor just become such a touch point that it doesn't feel novel, or am I just broken?
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May 25, 2021 18:31
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Between Two Fires being free on Audible is a blessing and a curse, because I feel like I'm cheating listening to something so good for (more or less) free.
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Jun 9, 2021 17:52
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Aardvark! posted:I was resolutely against trying anything on KU for years, until a friend convinced me to read a specific series (Cradle). It's not high literature or anything but I absolutely had more fun reading that than many traditionally published genre books I've read over the years. I think if you're going to bring something up from that stuff ITT it needs to be something you're pretty comfortable defending as being in that top % that rivals published work. IMO. Like I've read/tried quite a few now and it's a very small list that I'd ever bring up here at all. Cradle is good poo poo, and I'm still looking for things that get anywhere close to it in terms of pacing and distilled, sugary fun. It seems like it should be easy, but you read literally anything else, KU or otherwise, and you realize how it's basically the most finely crafted junk food on the market.
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Aug 10, 2021 13:07
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Is it better to start with Shards of Honor or the Warrior's Apprentice for Vorkosigan Saga stuff?
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Aug 16, 2021 02:05
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I've been reading Shards of Honor and while I'm enjoying it, it definitely feels like a somewhat trashy romance novel, but in space. I'm curious to see how the series develops, but it isn't quite what I was expecting.
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Aug 18, 2021 13:53
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I have a weird recommendation request, mainly because it may be either too subjective or too difficult for me to articulate, but I thought I'd ask. Does anyone have good examples of books with really epic feeling moments? Moments that make you exclaim "gently caress yeah!"? For example, I've read 4 of the Malazan books, and they've all had moments where the in-built expectations are broken within believable ways: Book 1: Quick Ben revealing his multiple warrens Book 2: a cloud of crows being needed to bring Coltiane's soul to it's next body, when before, 22 was considered impressive Book 3: Pale emerging from the water when the Malazans were near defeat Book 4: the ascension of the Bridgeburners Another book recently that did it was the 3rd Cradle book, where it's revealed Eithan is using pure mudra despite everything so far saying that should be impossible. I realize that I probably sound like a middle schooler describing what happened in the most recent episode of an anime, but I feel like this feeling is harder to find than I'd expect in most novels.
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Aug 19, 2021 01:10
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These last couple pages are making my username feel less than ideal.
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Nov 18, 2021 21:22
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I find John Carter interesting as series that was, at the time, incredibly progressive (religion is used by the ruling class to hold people down, all races have good people despite cultural differences, with the exception of the White Martians, all of which was DEFINITELY intentional, etc.), but has aged like dog poo poo.
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Nov 26, 2021 20:58
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Sanderson's fine and fun, and seems like a cool, self aware guy despite the Mormonism. Acting like he ruined the fine art of elf books by moving them towards a more PG-13 content level is hilarious to me. How DARE he keep us from a world of endless GRRMs writing GRRM rape scenes every chapter!
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Dec 11, 2021 16:52
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I was feeling the need to read something sci-fi, something that's a longer series, that doesn't have a nihilistic bend like so much of modern stuff. Slight preference for space opera, maybe with a hint of spirituality, or at least something besides pure logic super atheism. I have a couple ideas, but I was thinking something a bit more modern if it exists. I feel like most modern sci-fi is super hard super nihilistic or fun but incredibly lovely series.
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Jan 4, 2022 02:02
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I've started Vorkosigan, it hasn't sunk it's claws into me yet. Not 100% sold, but I might read more. Murderbot is weird. I found the main character very annoying in the first novella, but maybe it gets better? Like, the main character felt very twee or cutsie, if you get what I mean. It felt like a robot programmed by early 2010s tumblr.
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Jan 4, 2022 02:32
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I read Shards, I need to go to Barryar. I know it's the one that sets you on the series, but I wanted a break to read other stuff. I should just read it, it been a couple months. Culture is interesting to me, I guess I've been a bit skeptical of it, just based on initial descriptions. I guess I don't know where to start with it, because I've heard so many contradictory sources on Player of Games or Consider Phlebas. I was thinking Player of Games, but not sure.
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Jan 4, 2022 02:42
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Does Barryar have anymore rape or threats of rape? Definitely my least favorite part of Shards of Honor.
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Jan 4, 2022 04:25
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How much of a spoiler for Hyperion is the phrase "the Shrike is basically a terminator made to kill God?" I saw someone say that and without much context, it doesn't make too much sense, but if definitely seems like a big piece of the central mystery.
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Jan 7, 2022 20:02
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anilEhilated posted:Honestly, it doesn't even sound right. If anything, it should be Jesus and it only really comes up in the last two books which aren't very good anyway. So probably minimal to none? The Shrike is a robot that was sent by an evil AI is an answer, or at least, more info, but not very clear. Edit: like, I imagine that is probably on the tier of knowing Leto II is a weird worm dude God-Emperor, but I didn't know if it was one of those "ruins the central mystery and thus the big reason to read" or just a minor later thing. Hiro Protagonist fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Jan 7, 2022 |
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Jan 7, 2022 20:09
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Xenomrph posted:Hey I don’t know if there’s a thread for general trash media franchise tie-in fiction (I looked and didn’t see one) but I like the Halo video game series and I think the Forerunners are neat (even if their copy-paste architecture makes for bad game level design), did I just gently caress up by buying the Halo Forerunner book trilogy? I haven't read them, but I liked most of the Halo novels myself when I read them as a teen, and I heard the Forerunner Trilogy was one of the best ones they did. So probably not!
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Jan 8, 2022 03:22
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Well thread, in the complete opposite direction, any uplifting or optimistic or fun Sci-fi to recommend, given the state of everything?
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Feb 25, 2022 01:56
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buffalo all day posted:Seconding wayfarer books and some but not all the Vorkosigan novels. 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson I think is ultimately uplifting and optimistic. Excession? Children of Time…? How much does knowing that it ends with something along the lines of alien spiders genetically modify humans to be more empathetic potentially affect enjoyment of Children of Time?
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Feb 25, 2022 02:25
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buffalo all day posted:It will probably allow you to enjoy it more if you are looking for something reassuring…it’s not like a big twist or anything. Cool, thanks, I kind of was avoiding it because I saw that spoiler in the wild.
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Feb 25, 2022 02:59
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Thanks for all the recommendations!
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Feb 25, 2022 21:55
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Has anyone here read Vurt by Jeff Noon? I had a friend who started raving about it to me.
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Feb 28, 2022 22:03
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Does We Are Legion (We Are Bob) and the other Bobiverse ever get less mid-2000s internet atheist? I got to "the US elected an atheist president and those Christians overthrew the government and MADE ME GO TO CHURCH ON SUNDAY EVEN THOUGH I TOLD MOM I DON'T WANT TO!" And my eyes rolled so hard I was seeing upside down.
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Mar 2, 2022 01:24
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With all the Malazan talk, what have people that liked the first 4 books of Malazan liked that scratches the same itch? Particularly the epic scale and moments when everything comes together in a way that can't help but make you cheer?
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May 31, 2022 22:21
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Every day I'm reminded that so many YA authors, most notably Applegate and Riordan, deserved JK Rowling's level of success but never found it.
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Jun 8, 2022 19:05
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Copernic posted:we should use the Piers-Lovecraft Scale, which evaluates books on a 1-10 ladder of being problematic: Who's a 1? I honestly would've put LeGuin there, at least as older authors go.
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Jun 15, 2022 15:40
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Tolkien to me has always read as the one legitimate example of "a product of his time". The problematic aspects of his writings, given the context of his letters, genuinely seem to be from the surrounding culture and assumptions of his social context, rather than any maliciousness, and he even has writings where he seems to struggle with this.
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Jun 17, 2022 01:54
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Geisladisk posted:No, not really. There are some pretty weird religious twists and turns that begin literally in the first chapter of the first book, but the end result is definitely not "let's just return to how religion worked in the 21st century". I wish more books had more interesting things to say than "Religion bad", or (increasingly rarely) "Religion good", because I think you can say that religious fanaticism is bad without saying that the solution is early 2010s edgelord-atheism. I mean, I don't know the solution either, but I wish more people were trying.
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Jul 6, 2022 20:58
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The edition of Sword and Citadel I just read had introduction by Ada Palmer, which was significantly better than Gaiman.
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Sep 23, 2022 20:36
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Gato The Elder posted:Lot of weird energy in this thread right now. Going to banish the bad vibes with some good takes I was warned earlier in the thread that Elric didn't hold up, so I was holding off on reading it. I may need to take a dive into it afterward I finish Harrow the Ninth.
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Oct 4, 2022 20:53
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I'm about halfway through The Stars are Legion and I don't know if I want to finish it. The world is interesting, but I'm not that attached to the characters and listening to the main character try to trudge up from the planet's core to the surface, where I feel it's gonna just be, "the surface? That doesn't exist, you're crazy" for like a dozen chapters while not engaging with the central mysteries doesn't sound appealing to me. If people say it's worth it, though, might keep going. I'm tempted to jump to The Broken Sword, House of Suns, or Project Hail Mary instead.
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Jun 16, 2023 17:31
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