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StrixNebulosa posted:Goon-written murder mystery in a city beset by the plague, where the protagonist is both the detective and murder victim. started this last night and it's very good reminds me of Jeff Vandermeer's Ambergris novels meets Disco Elysium, if that makes any sense at all
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Nov 9, 2019 15:38
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anilEhilated posted:Obligatory question: how much romance/sex is there in The Dawnhounds? 3/4 in and there's been one brief sex scene and little romance but sexuality/gender/homophobia is a big deal in the book world and a major focus eke out fucked around with this message at 16:21 on Nov 10, 2019 |
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Nov 10, 2019 15:21
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Cardiac posted:It was ok. yeah i like gladstone a lot (and have not read anything by el-mohtar), but it felt more like them cleverly solving the problem they created with the alternating epistolary structure than really making a novel with characters i cared about. it was fun and clever but i'm not sure it was good.
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Nov 18, 2019 18:38
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I read some of the short stories after I played the games. there's also some... uncomfortable gender/sexuality stuff. but by the insanely low standards of "fantasy books written by a man in the 1990s" it's downright normal and good when it comes to those topics
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Nov 20, 2019 01:01
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lmao vandermeer owns, it's nice to see https://twitter.com/jeffvandermeer/status/1207780226228523011 eke out fucked around with this message at 06:11 on Dec 20, 2019 |
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Dec 20, 2019 06:08
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A Proper Uppercut posted:Yup, the Wayfarers series is where you want to be. i just read the first in wayfarers and really dug it it's one of the few scifi books to like pleasantly remind me of the feeling of star trek:tng, where there's a complicated set of civilizations more or less at peace with each other, and learning about how to coexist with other cultures is a huge focus of the story. also it was queer and somewhat romance-y without getting into gross Larry Niven "my fetish is imagining how to gently caress aliens" territory
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Dec 25, 2019 19:58
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tiniestacorn posted:Borne is good, better at being Oryx and Crake than Oryx and Crake is. IMO the companion novella, The Strange Bird, is one of his best recent works, though it is relentlessly bleak. i'm re-reading his Ambergris trilogy for the first time and feel obligated to recommend it again. it's just as impressive as the first time through and practically all the people i've talked to that liked Southern Reach/Borne/his short stories didn't know that the older books exist anyone who digs vandermeer, check out City of Saints and Madmen and the sequels Shriek and Finch -- they're far more ambitious in their Borgesian genre-bending (like City is made up of short story length, in-universe scientificish treatises, art reviews, histories, etc), have an incredibly richly drawn setting, and seriously go to some wild places. also each book is incredibly different from the one before it: shriek's a biography and finch is an urban noir. it's also wild that any publisher bought these books in the year 2000 because they're so weird and also they are heavily about post-colonial imperialism and still feel fresh in almost 20 years later (and, as an aside, i'm pretty sure the first is directly responsible for a bunch of poo poo in Fallen London lol) eke out fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Dec 30, 2019 |
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Dec 30, 2019 16:33
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my bony fealty posted:you could say the same about The Fifth Head of Cerberus and that came out in 1972! I think Vandermeer has acknowledged FHoC as an influence too. oh cool, i'm going to check that out. i never read anything from Wolfe except new sun btw i just looked and the opening novella, "Dradin, In Love", is free online. it's a kind of sweaty fever dream about carnivale and it owns. it's also interesting that there's a version of JVDM that went in this more maximalist, china mieville direction he had early on, instead of steadily pruning down his style
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Dec 30, 2019 18:43
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StrixNebulosa posted:Poor people, homeless people, anyone who can't afford to keep themselves afloat? Capitalism is hell. Apparatchik Magnet, fresh off a probation for being transphobic in this same thread, has more great takes to share with us.
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Dec 31, 2019 18:43
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Nevvy Z posted:You should post your hotpolitical takes in C-SPAM, not the scifi thread Even the decadent liberals of C-SPAM will have no choice but to acknowledge the logic and reason of his posts.
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Dec 31, 2019 18:58
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ianmacdo posted:The sequel to children of time would definitely count though. the octopods in children of ruin are kind of the opposite of a hivemind though? children of time itself has this, but in the very literal sense of how an ant hive is a "hive mind," rather than the standard scifi/fantasy Borg-style giant collective consciousness eke out fucked around with this message at 01:26 on Jan 10, 2020 |
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Jan 10, 2020 01:07
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Apparatchik Magnet posted:My boredom and bemusement with those emotional irrational women is at this point shared by quite a few people who have posted. The inner emotional lives of girls rock climbing turned out to be of as much interest and import as a good hair braiding and gossip session, just with a higher body count and budget. getting this book thanks for the rec
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Jan 11, 2020 06:16
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cptn_dr posted:Take care, General B. Hope things look up soon.
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Jan 13, 2020 04:50
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Black Griffon posted:So Emperor's Soul, Warbreaker and Mistborn in that order then? personally i'd just jump straight to mistborn then you can decide if you like that enough to commit to the others, but doing it the other way around won't hurt either.
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Jan 19, 2020 17:38
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fritz posted:Katharine Kerr's new Deverry book is out. Thought it was the best in the series since books 5-8, helped in part by it being a few hundred years later with (almost) all new characters and a new arc. I'd call it a pretty good jumping-on point for the series, altho there are a few parts that might only make sense with context. (Like forex some of the Haen Marn stuff). I looked up what this was and.. just jumping in on Literally Book 16 does not sound like a great idea are the early books worth picking up?
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Feb 20, 2020 23:46
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Professor Shark posted:I finished both "The Three Body Problem" and the sequel "The Dark Forest" within the last week, however I was really struggling with TDF to stay interested as the plot moved further and further into the future, where Gen X is treated as wise old sages and all the modern humans are naive and annoying Millenial/Zoomer caricatures. Even the ending was a bit of a let down compared to TTBP. None of the issues with the series' writing are really fixed in the last book so I suspect you'll have similar problems. If anything, the characterization gets thinner, if that's possible.
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Feb 27, 2020 01:40
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PeterWeller posted:But you're right about the characters getting thinner. They're basically just cutouts designed to comment on the bonkers poo poo that goes down. And I think that bonkers poo poo is worth a read despite the sketchily drawn characters. Yeah, I read them anyways because it was interesting, it was just... a lot of sacrifices are made in the name of getting the cool ideas down on paper. I don't even know that he's actually bad at writing characters, it just seems like he didn't care to try any more than the bare minimum. eke out fucked around with this message at 19:45 on Feb 27, 2020 |
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Feb 27, 2020 19:40
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tildes posted:the foundry side sequel i didn't know this was out, thanks!
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May 1, 2020 00:54
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buffalo all day posted:Counterpoint: the setting was standard Foundation/giant bureaucracy with Aztec words. Gods of Jade and Shadow, which is just set in 1920s Mexico, is way more interesting and fresh (and also by a female POC). i feel like the Aztec thing is heavily overstated just because of the naming system and the obvious bit about blood sacrifice. but the main political scenario that informs everything is directly drawn from her academic background in studying Armenia in the 11th century and its relationship as a technically-independent nation that was still effectively a client state of Byzantium. also the poetry and high court culture that they spend a lot of time on in Memory is pretty much directly lifted from the Byzantine system at that time. it's definitely wrapped in a skin of Aztec stuff but i feel like it's a lot more than that E: also while i was googling what i remembered about this i found Arkady Martine describing it herself: https://www.torforgeblog.com/2018/12/05/six-things-i-borrowed-wholesale-from-history-for-a-memory-called-empire/ posted:Six Things I Borrowed Wholesale From History for A Memory Called Empire eke out fucked around with this message at 20:06 on May 3, 2020 |
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May 3, 2020 20:02
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StrixNebulosa posted:What book are you talking about? It's not clear. i was replying to people discussing memory called empire
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May 3, 2020 20:07
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StrixNebulosa posted:Thanks, wasn't sure if it was Gods of Jade and Shadow or Memory Called Empire. I should probably read both, they both sound cool. yeah! i started Gods of Jade and Shadow but never got into it, i'm going to give it another shot
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May 3, 2020 20:11
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the temerity of these so-called authors, giving away books for "Free" when they actually hope you will enjoy them and purchase their other books later
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May 4, 2020 14:53
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StrixNebulosa posted:Murderbot 5 capsule review: Book VERY good, but it has pacing problems. The opening kept going from being too slow to being too fast. But then everything else was very very very good and the ending nailed it so it can have five stars. If you like Murderbot you will love this. If you don't like Murderbot, you will not like this. If you don't know Murderbot, start with #1. i just finished it too and it was extremely cute and the transition to novel-length is very appreciated.
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May 12, 2020 00:02
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buffalo all day posted:anyone who HASN'T read the book about superintelligent telepathic puppies...now is your chance (it's good!) hollywood, if you're listening... give us a prestige tv show about these good hivemind pups
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May 13, 2020 03:23
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wizzardstaff posted:I liked the dog storyline but I was bored to tears by the high concept space stuff. Which one do the sequels lean toward, or is it still a mix? deepness in the sky, the second book which is a thousands-of-years-before prequel, is very heavy on space stuff (but with less of the insane space god magic stuff, because they're not in that part of space and no one involved knows about it). Children of the Sky, the third book he wrote in that universe, is a direct sequel to the first and is very Dog Heavy
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May 13, 2020 05:30
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the becky chambers novels are all very queer, but largely not "hard" scifi since they care a lot more about sociology than technology.
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May 24, 2020 15:58
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wizzardstaff posted:That's not a very high bar to set though, it's like saying "less world building than Sanderson". imo gideon, while great, is more a fantasy series that happens in space sometimes (though not much at all in that novel) -- it's a locked-door mystery that's pretty much about learning how to do magic. mllaneza posted:They should be hard enough, challenges and obstacles are resolved within the framework of what the author has already established about the setting. They're harder than Star Trek by a considerable margin. yeah i agree with you, it's just if i was talking to someone that really loves like, grognardy older stuff where people constantly talk about physics, or really wants a detailed explanation for how they get around the problem of lightspeed, well, they're definitely not that eke out fucked around with this message at 20:59 on May 24, 2020 |
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May 24, 2020 20:51
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pseudorandom name posted:We are literally powering our cities right now with magic rocks. to me it's pretty easy to distinguish hand-wavey space magic that deals with the impossibility of travel, or lack of gravity, or lack of available energy sources, because dealing with those things is a basic precondition to telling stories in space, and not everyone really cares to bother. i barely even remember the things you seem annoyed at, which goes to show how little the narrative is really concerned with them -- they mostly exist to make the narrative of space travel through a giant universe by lots of people possible contrast that with "this week, we meet a literal god and he teleports us to medieval england where we do Robin Hood" eke out fucked around with this message at 22:03 on May 24, 2020 |
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May 24, 2020 21:58
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quantumfoam posted:"No energy loss closed systems" are a staple of science-fiction, even for hard-scifi series like Alastair Reynolds Revelation Space series where disembodied Conjoiner brains chilling in the engine housing thinking really really really to 15th power hard about math are what drives Conjoiner spacedrive-engines. lol yeah, Reynolds is exactly who I always think of about how useless the hard/soft distinction is, because that series in particular is full of pseudo-"hard" stuff that's really just space magic (to be clear: i love space magic)
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May 24, 2020 22:47
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i haven't finished but 'harrow makes soup' was an absolute delight
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Aug 6, 2020 15:05
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curious if anyone's tried Adrian Tchaikovsky's new book, Doors of Eden haven't quite finished but i guess I came in hoping for another Children of Time but instead it's... an urban fantasy adventure, but with more about evolution than most. and there's some extremely hamfisted you-know-the-badguys-are-badguys-because-they're-constantly-transphobic stuff that I feel like he handled quite poorly and added basically nothing to the novel, but is probably triggering for some folks
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Sep 2, 2020 13:20
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quantumfoam posted:-Differences between the American & UK editions of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy books come up. It is mostly changes to what brand of cars people owned, the names of the Krikkit gate-key items, and Wowbagger the infinitely prolonged insults. lol i had no idea there even was an american version. i remember reading them as a kid before wikipedia existed and having no clue what the hell the Ashes were
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Sep 2, 2020 15:45
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orange sky posted:Now maybe you'll tell me that Mieville's prose is objectively better, richer, but I don't know, maybe because I'm ESL, I like simpler, straight to the point prose that just flows when I read it. Loving it so far. Nah, this is a very fair and common criticism of Mieville (especially in that series) and it's not really any better even if english is your first language. some of his other standalone novels don't really affect that style, but Bas-Lag books definitely take a big swing with the weird language and I can understand anyone who doesn't like them. eke out fucked around with this message at 18:41 on Sep 6, 2020 |
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Sep 6, 2020 18:37
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Black Griffon posted:Gideon the Ninth is weird, queer, space necromancer, murder mystery, haunted mansion wlw stuff. and, in terms of other big books from the last year or two, Memory Called Empire this thread came up when i was searching and includes basically all the examples i can think of https://twitter.com/Idzie/status/1150455326921109510
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Sep 7, 2020 02:59
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Black Griffon posted:I never got the backlash against Name of the Wind, but it's been years since I read it. obviously neither are good but it's the second book that I think really provoked the backlash, then everyone agreed in retrospect that the first was bad too i think the description above as "candy" isn't too far off, it appealed to a ton of people (my parents adore it!) and was really accessible and fun also lol the fact that BOTL wrote a billion words about how bad it is increases my opinion of it
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Sep 8, 2020 21:01
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PsychedelicWarlord posted:Is the Raven Tower any good? yeah! it's very... different... than most other things i read recently. in a good way but not one i'd want to spoil
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Sep 9, 2020 02:00
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ulmont posted:Hard disagree re: second person, but I did enjoy the book overall and the concept of the world. Yeah, I think at this point the novelty of "But who is this narrator? And who am I that they're talking to?" is completely gone and it's starting to feel like an overly-simple way to set up some ~mysteries~
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Sep 9, 2020 04:36
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There's a relatively recent New Yorker piece interviewing him and he seemed like an extremely unhappy alcoholic who was well aware that he needed to spout the government's line on everything. though the former may be related to the latter quote:After the waiter had brought Budweiser—“I don’t discriminate: beer is beer”—Liu gingerly pulled a bottle of Southern Comfort from his backpack and poured generously into his drink. He had bought the bottle the day before at a liquor store. “I couldn’t make out the labels,” he said, explaining that he’d picked whatever was cheap and easy to reach on the shelf. “I chose wrong—this stuff is way too sweet.” Several times during our days together, he alluded both to his dependence on alcohol and to the need to abstain from hard liquor for the sake of his health. “At least two of my former colleagues have drunk themselves to death,” he said matter-of-factly. “It’s not uncommon among engineers. You know the type.” quote:When I brought up the mass internment of Muslim Uighurs—around a million are now in reëducation camps in the northwestern province of Xinjiang—he trotted out the familiar arguments of government-controlled media: “Would you rather that they be hacking away at bodies at train stations and schools in terrorist attacks? If anything, the government is helping their economy and trying to lift them out of poverty.” The answer duplicated government propaganda so exactly that I couldn’t help asking Liu if he ever thought he might have been brainwashed. “I know what you are thinking,” he told me with weary clarity. “What about individual liberty and freedom of governance?” He sighed, as if exhausted by a debate going on in his head. “But that’s not what Chinese people care about. For ordinary folks, it’s the cost of health care, real-estate prices, their children’s education. Not democracy.”
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Sep 9, 2020 21:40
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quantumfoam posted:-A "Secular Humanist Revival" panel hosted by Orson Scott Card at the upcoming INCONJUNCTION 6 in July 1986 gets teased. i just looked up what this was and it's totally wild that OSC was doing a whole act making fun of evangelical preachers in the 80s when exactly did his brain completely break, was it 9/11?
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Sep 10, 2020 14:58
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Patrick Spens posted:Sanderson is absolutely not the guy to finish Song of Fire and Ice and to his credit he's been public about that. Winds of Winter except no one cusses and all sex happens offscreen
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Nov 2, 2020 03:16
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