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I read This Virtual Night, which is the 22-years-later sequel to This Alien Shore by C.S. Friedman. I wouldn't call it as disappointing as The Wilding was in contrast to In Conquest Born, but it was definitely not as good. I also don't love This Alien Shore quite as much as In Conquest Born so my expectations were a lot lower. Broadly speaking, This Virtual Night was a fairly generic sci fi story set in the same universe as This Alien Shore. Not much (any, really) exploration of Gueran society or culture, no new Hausmann Variations. I would call it a sequel with a bare connection to the plot of This Alien Shore but not really much connection to the overall spirit. Whatever made Friedman such an inspired writer in the 90s seems to have mostly dissipated.
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Dec 9, 2020 17:40
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StrixNebulosa posted:
Yeah, agreed. It's not a bad book, it's just like regular sci fi. It would be totally serviceable as a non-sequel. The writing is still quite good and there were a few moments where I legitimately read too late because I wanted to see where the narrative was going. It's just not wildly imaginative like In Conquest Born, Madness Season, This Alien Shore, and the Coldfire books were. In that sense it mostly suffers as a consequence of the comparison to This Alien Shore, rather than being kind of a mess like The Wilding.
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Dec 9, 2020 18:17
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wizzardstaff posted:ET is actually a pretty old dude who comes from a race of hardcore gardening enthusiasts, if I remember the official sequel novel correctly. I think it was written by Alan Dean Foster. DurianGray posted:
wizzardstaff posted:Yeah, that's definitely it. I read it when I was a child so my memory is extremely hazy, but the giant iron-skinned onion and the grumpy plants he enlists to help are fixed in my mind. I think one of them was called a "flopwobble" or something like that, and was described as resembling a neurotic bundle of socks. If I remember correctly he also gives horny teen Elliott the bravery to dance with his crush while he's dying in a failed attempt to return to earth.
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Jan 11, 2021 00:42
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Strategic Tea posted:Also Kovacs is a super spy and a one of a kind ninja commando, but also like a leftist revolutionary (the department tolerated it bc he's so drat good?), also a detective, and he has his two signature cool guns you guys, and the ladies all want him (not the dudes obv), and he doles out justice to the mean corpos, come on it's juvenile as heck. The rest of this is correct, but the whole thing about being a leftist is clearly function of post-Envoy disillusionment after his whole unit eats that info-virus and he gets turfed out. He turns to the revolutionary ideology that he's familiar with from his youth to understand his experiences. There's no sense that he was particularly political prior to being kicked out and having essentially zero options to make money, since nobody wants to hire an ex-Envoy to do anything they are good at in a legal capacity.
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Jan 15, 2021 17:21
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Cardiac posted:One funny thing with scientific articles is that when you write one you try to make a story out of your data instead just stating the experimental results. That depends a lot on the discipline, and there are intra-discipline fights over this kind of stuff.
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Jan 18, 2021 23:10
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PupsOfWar posted:finally got time to read Baru 3 Most of the viewpoints in the book are outsiders, who may not have the cultural knowledge to understand the mask subtext.
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Jan 22, 2021 16:54
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Leng posted:Just finished Fonda Lee's Jade City and not really sure of my reaction. I'm like 40% of the way through and it's kind of losing my attention because I feel like the tension has been high for a while without anything really happening so I'm just waiting for the house of cards to tumble.
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Jan 27, 2021 00:58
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branedotorg posted:The wexler one is okay, he often has queer female protagonists. I picked up a sample of Velocity Weapon and bounced off it, so I'm glad to hear somebody else didnt' love it
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Jan 30, 2021 00:27
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General Battuta posted:The draft of the last Baru is a total mess but I’m enjoying finally getting to crash all the model trains into each other. It's good to hear you're having fun with this book, since I remember you being pretty upset about the last novel when it was still in draft format!
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Feb 12, 2021 20:27
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Groke posted:It's pretty interesting, really. The setting is basically your horrible D&D hellworld where recorded history is many thousands of years of magical apocalypses, undead hordes, demon invasions, necromancer lords, just one horror after another. Until someone a while back managed to establish a more or less democratic state where the collective will of the people becomes an actual power capable of holding the horrors at arm's length. The other nice thing is that the author will happily answer questions on his google group, so long as it's not a major spoiler plot point in a future book: https://groups.google.com/g/the-commonweal So he's chatted about the social structures of the various ilks of human beings, talked a little more about how magic works in the world, etc.
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Feb 15, 2021 21:53
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a foolish pianist posted:I was just looking too, and they're available via google play and some other services: The books are DRM free if downloaded from google and they are simple to convert to Calibre and are easily readable on Kindle (I have done this)
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Feb 16, 2021 00:34
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Cardiac posted:The March north is an ok copy of the black company. The rest is Harry Potteresque and completely boring. Can you articulate your reasoning for why you think it's "Harry Potteresque"? I can totally see it not being someone's jam but that characterization seems like nonsense.
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Feb 16, 2021 17:51
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I just finished The Fires of Vengeance (book #2 in Rage of Dragons) and I guess it's well written enough but all of the protagonists are just incredibly unpleasant.
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Mar 1, 2021 17:22
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I've started it and I'm enjoying it pretty well so far!
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Mar 2, 2021 17:09
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packetmantis posted:All novels are "pointless." The point is enjoyment. Novels are frequently attempting to make some sort of argument, and if the reader finds the argument to be incoherent or ridiculous, it might be reasonable to describe it as "pointless" from the position of the reader. General Battuta posted:What I remember about the first Cat Wizards book is that it turns into absolute carnage. They have to fight dinosaurs I think? And it is absolutely brutal, hordes of shrieking velociraptors and explosions and poo poo, it's wild. Yeah it rules. The other books in the series aren't that great but the first one is pretty excellent. Danhenge fucked around with this message at 04:12 on Mar 4, 2021 |
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Mar 4, 2021 04:09
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mllaneza posted:Nope. Out of the teeming trillions of Culture baseline humans, there are a few that can out-predict a Mind. The strategic expert in Use of Weapons was one of those one in a trillion people. The trillions of "pets" are the breeding pool that produces small-m minds like hers and those few people justify keeping the baseline humans around. Didn't he come out of a non-Culture culture?
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Mar 4, 2021 22:31
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thotsky posted:It was dumb when the male protagonist in Excession is a secret rear end in a top hat. It was really dumb when his great moral failing was cheating on his girlfriend. It's super dumb when she attempts to murder him by cutting out his uterus, but he's cool with that. I thought Use of Weapons was good, but now I am expecting all the male protagonists of the Culture books to have secret moral failings that will be dramatically revealed at the end of the book. Just goes to show that even when you've got fully automated luxury communism people can still spend hundreds of years being giant assholes for no good reason
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Mar 7, 2021 06:04
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StrixNebulosa posted:So what are you reading? I just finished up Unnatural Magic and The Midnight Bargain. Accidentally read them in reverse order. They're a very enjoyable read, although not too surprising plot-wise. Some good trans/nonbinary and queer characters involved that feel like they arises quite naturally out the fantasy world.
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Mar 22, 2021 20:15
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Teddybear posted:I’ve smashed my face against To Sleep in a Sea of Stars a couple times now and I’ve bounced off. I’m like 150 pages in and looking at the little progress marker going 17% and I just absolutely cannot see that through. I got all the way through, and I can tell you confidently that if you're not enjoying it you will never enjoy it. It's decently crafted so I assume he had a competent editor who helped him dials his characters right in at "acceptable but not interesting." Danhenge fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Apr 11, 2021 |
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Apr 11, 2021 17:31
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Are you the person she hired to search Twitter for her name? You've never posted in here (or any part of the book barn that I can see) before. EDIT: I suppose, to be fair, you might have been looking to talk about the book since you are apparently reading it.
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Apr 20, 2021 02:44
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Aardvark! posted:A different author too.. weird If I recall correctly it's fan-fiction that was picked up officially.
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Apr 23, 2021 19:54
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DurianGray posted:...the plot isn't quite as compelling as Breq's storyline, but I found it entertaining enough as a one-off. This is basically my take.
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Apr 25, 2021 02:23
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packetmantis posted:Harrow was confusing and lovely. Unlike the end of the first book, which was just lovely. I'm legitimately confused about why you'd waste your time with Harrow if that's how you felt about Gideon.
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Apr 28, 2021 15:35
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packetmantis posted:Because now I'm emotionally invested in this poo poo-rear end series thanks to one loving scene in the first book and I hate it and myself. Why not just read the wikipedia synopsis or get someone who enjoyed it to describe it to you?
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Apr 29, 2021 01:51
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StrixNebulosa posted:What circles are you hanging out in that have this problem? I mean, YA twitter is pretty infamous for aggressive toxicity, isn't it?
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May 14, 2021 17:06
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Silly Newbie posted:For those really enjoying Blacktongue Thief: the author, who is also an amazing performer under the name Christophe the Insulter, ruined his poo poo at a renn faire recently and has a GoFundMe to try to put his knee back together, if you want to show some more direct appreciation. I've met him, he's a cool dude. He's that guy? I'm pretty sure I've been personally insulted by that man at a slow weekend a decade ago.
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May 30, 2021 17:21
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Potentially big spoilers That's the one.
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Jun 1, 2021 04:45
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Aardvark! posted:id rather die than read about the star wars movies anymore Prepare for a fate worse than death, I suppose. Also Rise of the Skywalker ruled because it was hilarious and also really brought home the thesis, which was "let go of the past, kill it if you have to", if the past is actually Star Wars.
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Jun 21, 2021 19:28
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breadnsucc posted:after publishers and distributors fees or whateverelse im willing to bet there are better ways to give money to people who put words to print i may be crazy though Selling books is how people get paid to write more books in the future.
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Jun 24, 2021 03:46
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breadnsucc posted:the amount of money they were paid in advance by their publishing company i'm assuming, then if you read their books for 'free', and they aren't poo poo books that should be tossed into a fire or whatever I suspect, and I don't know, I'm just guessing here you can do this fancy thing called send money and in this crazy insane world of ours there are so many fancy ways to give money to people without also giving money to predatory publishers and distributors I am sure the many authors in this thread will thank you for helping to dissolve the industry they are involved in without a considered plan to replace it when the existing alternative to the parasitic publishing industry is...*checks notes* self-publishing on Amazon. Nobody parasitic there.
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Jun 24, 2021 17:52
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Ccs posted:The sequel to The Goblin Emperor came out today. It’s gotten mostly positive reviews but something about the premise makes me not want to grab it immediately. I found Witness for the Dead deeply enjoyable. I started it last night and sat around reading it this morning rather than doing my work. It is considerably less plot-driven and is really just kind of slice-of-life about a formerly-disgraced priest-detective. Even though it's filled with stuff about death and dying, given that the main character's job is witnessing for the dead, it is actually cozier in some ways than Goblin Emperor was.
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Jun 24, 2021 18:26
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freebooter posted:I make a decent amount of money self pubbing on Amazon and have as dim a view of piracy as any trad published author. It's theft. If people are going to do it, at least have some balls and admit it's theft, rather than making up nonsense about how buying the book doesn't actually benefit the author because of ~*~corporations~*~ I know people do make money on Amazon, and it's a legitimate outlet for people who for whatever reason don't have traction in the traditional publishing world. But it's not like Amazon is a paragon of virtue! There's no ethical sourcing of fiction in the current economic system, and a haphazard collection plate via paypal isn't an economic model likely to support many authors. In the hypothetical scenario where I download a book and don't pay for it, it is certainly piracy. I think it's difficult to say what portion of that piracy represents real economic loss. I know that I, personally, pay for a lot more things now that I might have pirated when I was younger because the marginal cost is so much lower now that my income is several times what I had when I was 22 or whatever. If I couldn't pirate many of those things, I simply would not have had them in most cases. But it's also a reasonable to guess that the loss is non-zero, if not 100% of books downloaded. Danhenge fucked around with this message at 02:52 on Jun 25, 2021 |
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Jun 25, 2021 02:48
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cptn_dr posted:I know a number of authors who have a patreon or a PayPal store on their websites, where you can give them money in return for their work. So it's not like the direct method isn't out there. Right, but I bet for most of them, paypal doesn't represent a significant portion of their income.
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Jun 25, 2021 03:00
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Has also never posted in this thread except to argue about this article.
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Jul 1, 2021 03:37
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Mrenda posted:But there is a superior way. It's the way that deals with the issue. Not the way that takes forever to explain the title, then at the end say "But what if actually not?" and shrugs its shoulders. For context: I read about a third of the story when it came out and concluded it was probably not for me (unsurprising, I am a white cis man). I had trouble mapping the third that I read onto experiences shared by trans people that I knew. I didn't worry much about whether it was bad or good, just knew it wasn't going to hold my interest. I generally agree with your assessment. From my perspective, one of the advantages of short fiction is the ability to skip over tedious world building. Particularly in an era in SFF where a significant chunk of the popular stuff is an exercise in world building with thin characterization and not much to say about the present world. The best short stories are evocative using the shared vocabulary of the genre and establish what you need to know in a sketch and then get pretty quickly to the point of the story. Based on your reaction to it and the description of the last bit, it sounds like it could've used some more editing and re-organization to bring the primary question of the piece to the front. Clearly not a universal sentiment, though, given that a number of other trans people found it fairly compelling.
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Jul 1, 2021 16:17
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You appear to have chosen the tweets in that whole thread which make Neon Yang appear in the absolute worst light possible? This thread seems like it has to be getting linked from several feuding discord channels or something.
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Jul 1, 2021 23:15
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TOOT BOOT posted:Grats on Baru earning out, btw! Oh man that rules. Congrats!
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Jul 6, 2021 00:27
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withak posted:
DurianGray posted:Yeah, I think people see the "lesbian grapples with being exploited by colonialism" theme and want to put them in the same bucket. I would put them in different buckets that are maybe in close proximity. Very different in tone and execution though (Unbroken is queernormative* for one thing). It was pretty good, but I don't know if it'll merit a reread, and I've read Baru at least three or four times.
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Jul 7, 2021 03:27
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A bold claim.
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Hopefully it's just that Alecto had too much material, rather than an infinite lengthening.
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Jul 30, 2021 18:27
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Adrian Tchaikovsky's has another new book out, the absolute madman, and it's pretty good! Shards of Earth reminds me a bit of To Sleep in a Sea of Stars or Tim Pratt's Axiom books, except without the Whedonesque quippiness. Ragtag crew of a junky starship faces up against the looming threat of giant, alien moon-sized spaceships believe defeated. One guy has psychic powers (kind of?). Anyway, the characters aren't amazing, but you can tell that Tchaikosvky is really trying to hone his craft and get better at what he does. I didn't find it quite as endearing as I did Children of Time, but the human characters in Shards of Earth are notably better than the human characters in Children of Time are and I'd rank it like solidly #2 in terms of most enjoyed works by Tchaikovsky so far.
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Aug 7, 2021 03:37
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