Pottering through L.E. Modesitt's latest Recluce book ('Arms Commander'). I'm not sure how I feel about this one. On the one hand, it carries on the part of the setting that is pseudo-sci-fi mixed with fantasy, and that's a trope I can get behind. Also, the main character is engaging, sane, and startlingly free of self-doubt for a Modesitt protagonist.
However, the period covered (just after his Fall of Angels) is easily the one I dislike the most. Largely because it portrays a society in which women are judged entirely unable to do anything except domestic tasks, then confronts that portrayal with the highly competent female crew of a different era. Which actually works quite well. But whuilst the exploration of the inherent misogyny in a low-tech society is quite well done, the characters on the anti-women side of the debate are..well, poorly defined, at best. There's a lot of mustache twirling, and a lot of wittering about how women are obviously inferior, even after those same women have carved holes in traditional social structures (and not a few chests). The antagonists fail, repeatedly, to learn from their mistakes and adjust their thinking in the face of overwhelming (and often fatal) evidence. It doesn't undermine the argument, per se, but it would have been nice to see a bit more conflict - or indeed any thought at all - from the 'villains'.
Mind you, it's not a bad book per se, but I find some of the work handling earlier periods (for example 'Magi'i of Cyador') gave a more nuanced view of conflict, and it'd be nice to have that back.
jeffinvaKooglercoming this summerRegistered Userregular
edited April 2014
In between tech books for work I managed to squeeze in some fantasy, The Companions by R.A. Salvatore. It had the requisite amount of Salvatore cheese, but overall, this may be the best book he has ever written. It was fucking good.
WJW is kind of a sci-fi jack of all trades, master of none. I don't know if any of his books are ever my favorites but I also really like how willing he is to try new things with every book and how what he writes often has an interesting, more global perspective that you don't get from the guys who write only space opera or only cyberpunk or whatever.
Disagreement. Aristoi and Metropolitan are both gorgeously original and extremely entertaining to read. If that's not A-list stuff, I don't know what would be.
Hardwired was one of his earliest novels, and yeah he does unironically employ quite a few schlock-SF tropes; he developed as a writer subsequently.
I just finished Aristoi on earlier recommendations(probably from @Jacobkosh) and yeah, that was enormously entertaining and fairly thought-provoking, though I'm not sure if I would think the greater sci-fi/fantasy community would consider it truly great. But then, I haven't actually read that much.
The first big plot reveal was pretty enthralling, as well as the second, and I appreciate what I perceived as the Big Idea of humanity's proper evolution being left unresolved. Although, the sex was a tad bit too much.
I just got an advanced copy of Joe Abercrombie's newest, Half a King. I've never read Abercrombie before (I've heard of his work a lot, especially on this forum), so this should be an interesting experience.
I just got an advanced copy of Joe Abercrombie's newest, Half a King. I've never read Abercrombie before (I've heard of his work a lot, especially on this forum), so this should be an interesting experience.
Oh my, is this an entierly new world, or is it carrying on like the rest of his stuff with mostly new people, but some callbacks?
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Captain Marcusnow arrives the hour of actionRegistered Userregular
Reading The Lies of Locke Lamora, since everyone ever says it's amazing. It is amazing, so far.
knitdanIn ur baseKillin ur guysRegistered Userregular
Been reading Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye again, I just love what this dude could do with words.
The homicide skipper that year was a Captain Gregorius, a type of copper that is getting rarer but by no means extinct, the kind that solves crimes with the bright light, the soft sap, the kick to the kidneys, the knee to the groin, the fist to the solar plexus, the night stick to the base of the spine. Six months later he was indicted for perjury before a grand jury, booted without trial, and later stamped to death by a big stallion on his ranch in Wyoming.
“I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
Finished The Player of Games yesterday. Enjoyed it quite a bit. It felt like a much more cohesive and propulsive story than Consider Phlebas, which was less of a narrative arc and more of a string of loosely connected set pieces.
Been reading Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye again, I just love what this dude could do with words.
The homicide skipper that year was a Captain Gregorius, a type of copper that is getting rarer but by no means extinct, the kind that solves crimes with the bright light, the soft sap, the kick to the kidneys, the knee to the groin, the fist to the solar plexus, the night stick to the base of the spine. Six months later he was indicted for perjury before a grand jury, booted without trial, and later stamped to death by a big stallion on his ranch in Wyoming.
Yeah, Chandler was the best. I've never found another mystery/noir writer from that era that I enjoy as much. Hammett is good, but when Chandler was on his game his prose was downright magical.
jeffinvaKooglercoming this summerRegistered Userregular
Halfway through NOS4A2, audiobook. Kate Mulgrew is a great reader, she holds nothing back. The book itself is the best Stephen King story I've read in a while*. Had a little part about a city I used to work in and a road I still drive down often. Was fun.
Halfway through NOS4A2, audiobook. Kate Mulgrew is a great reader, she holds nothing back. The book itself is the best Stephen King story I've read in a while*. Had a little part about a city I used to work in and a road I still drive down often. Was fun.
* actually written by Joe Hill, who is terrific
Fun thing I noticed reading Doctor Sleep - both it and NOS4A2 reference each other heavily. To the point that its evident that they (and by association all the main King books) take place in the same setting.
I just got an advanced copy of Joe Abercrombie's newest, Half a King. I've never read Abercrombie before (I've heard of his work a lot, especially on this forum), so this should be an interesting experience.
Oh my, is this an entierly new world, or is it carrying on like the rest of his stuff with mostly new people, but some callbacks?
A new world as far as I can tell.
Here is Abercrombie's own words on what this new trilogy is going to be like (I believe he has actually written it all, and it's going to be released over the next two years).
PSN Fleety2009
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lwt1973King of ThievesSyndicationRegistered Userregular
I'm reading Lamentation by Ken Scholes right now. I saw the third one in the new books and thought I'd go back to the first and see how the books are. Interesting world they have there. I'm about half-way through the book and it's pretty good. Not great but good.
"He's sulking in his tent like Achilles! It's the Iliad?...from Homer?! READ A BOOK!!" -Handy
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
Just finished "Consider Phlebas", the first culture novel. That was something alright. I enjoyed it, and have started the next in the series, but damn, going to have to think about it a bit.
Thank You, Jeeves. Bar one crashing bit of innocent, carefree racism from days gone by it's a hoot. One of those writers that makes you want to quote bits of the book at people until they smack you. I mean, look at these (taken from all over):
He wore the unmistakable look of a man about to be present at a row between women, and only a wet cat in a strange backyard bears itself with less jauntiness than a man faced by such a prospect.
Unseen, in the background, Fate was quietly slipping the lead into the boxing-glove.
I turned to Aunt Agatha, whose demeanour was now rather like that of one who, picking daisies on the railway, has just caught the down express in the small of the back.
I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled.
I read a collection of short stories by Waugh. Now I'm a bit depressed about him and his society. I think perhaps he is better to read either in novel form or sparingly
I have just read Gloria, by Kerry Young. Dirt poor Jamaican girl grows up in post war Kingston and has various political, social and sexual awakenings. It's written in dialect, which people who've read it on Goodreads claim is off putting. Either I am very clever or they are dumb fuckers, because its fine. Understanding a book that occasionally misses out 'is' and uses cyan for can and mek for make isn't bloody rocket surgery.
A lot of people had the same issue with Trainspotting too. It took me a few minutes to get into the pattern but after that it was fine
Freedom for the Northern Isles!
+2
BobCescaIs a girlBirmingham, UKRegistered Userregular
Books I have recently read:
Confronting the Classics by Mary Beard - highly recommend this to everyone (seriously, Mary's awesome) Book of Burgie - a history of the ancestral castle, family and land of a house that I stayed in recently near Inverness. Really interesting but basically impossible to get a hold of as it was privately printed. Bank of Scotland 1695-1995 by Alan Cameron - surprisingly in-depth and interesting coffee table book detailing the BoS before it all went to shite. Apparently he worked closely with someone who was writing a more academic version at the same time which I might seek out. Mary Queen of Scots by Susan Watkins - coffee table book which was interesting but not particularly in depth and a little repetitive at times. Winnie-the-Pooh in Scots - sitting next to my Latin version and very fun to read.
Books I am am about to read:
The Sorcerer's House by Gene Wolfe Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Sausages by Tom Holt The Bloodline Feud by Charles Stross Donut by Tom Holt
I quite liked the second one, it's just wasn't quite as fun a ride as the first.
+1
Mike Danger"Diane..."a place both wonderful and strangeRegistered Userregular
I finished rereading The Difference Engine, which I still don't really care for despite having come to love everything else Gibson has done since then.
I started reading Two Trains Running. Not really that far yet.
I quite liked the second one, it's just wasn't quite as fun a ride as the first.
While the ride wasn't as exciting, I was able to get much more invested in the characters, and I would say the emotional payoff is better than the first book.
Serious second book Spoilers!
Poor Jean! He just had a hell of a time through the 2nd book. Losing a woman he had fallen so deeply for was hell for him.
jeffinvaKooglercoming this summerRegistered Userregular
edited May 2014
I'm finally reading the Dark Tower. I remember thinking it looked weird when I was a little kid and never got around to it. I'm a good ways in now, and reflecting back to the start it had one of the best opening lines. "The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed".
I'm finally reading the Dark Tower. I remember thinking it looked weird when I was a little kid and never got around to it. I'm a good ways in now, and reflecting back to the start it had one of the best opening lines. "The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed".
Which version of The Gunslinger are you reading?
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jeffinvaKooglercoming this summerRegistered Userregular
I'm finally reading the Dark Tower. I remember thinking it looked weird when I was a little kid and never got around to it. I'm a good ways in now, and reflecting back to the start it had one of the best opening lines. "The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed".
Which version of The Gunslinger are you reading?
The 1982 version, novella I guess? It's and old paperback.
I'm finally reading the Dark Tower. I remember thinking it looked weird when I was a little kid and never got around to it. I'm a good ways in now, and reflecting back to the start it had one of the best opening lines. "The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed".
Which version of The Gunslinger are you reading?
The 1982 version, novella I guess? It's and old paperback.
Cool.
The updated one is altered to fit in with the end of the series better but I've always thought the original version was the better one.
The biggest shame about the Dark Tower series is that the concluding volumes were written at a rush during a period when King was deeply depressed, addicted to painkillers and convinced that he was about to die. King's pretty open that this was a dark period in his life.
The upside to this is that the Wind Through the Keyhole is really good. It's a good mix of the Dark Tower setting and the vibe of Eyes of the Dragon.
+4
Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
I wouldn't mind King taking another swing at the second half of the Dark Tower series. Everything from just before:
Quidditch, Dr Doom and the self-insertion
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
+3
Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
I'm currently reading Stranger in a Strange Land. Also known as Heavy drinking in the times of sci-fi misogyny
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
I'm reading Codex Alera by Jim Butcher. Verdict: pretty dull, and I would have stopped after book one if I hadn't found Dresden Files so entertaining. I feel like on this one Butcher didn't get the strict editing he so clearly needs.
I'm currently reading Stranger in a Strange Land. Also known as Heavy drinking in the times of sci-fi misogyny
Hey man, you just don't grok gender essentialism properly.
No water for you.
+1
SummaryJudgmentGrab the hottest iron you can find, stride in the Tower’s front doorRegistered Userregular
Just finished The Windup Girl by Paulo Bacigaulpi (sp?). Liked it a lot. Thailand makes for an interesting setting, and some really awesome worldbuilding stuff in there with future economics.
Currently reading The Incrementalists by Brust and White. I'll preface my next comment by saying: I've spent the whole afternoon reading it straight through, and I like it.
That said, and while I'm only about 2/3rds of the way through so far, it has next to nothing to do with the purported premise of the book (secret Illuminati-style group of folks conspire to change the world for the better, over the long term, by making conditions incrementally better for human beings. The example given at the beginning of the book? "Do you like the MP3 format? A common standardized audio codec with decent quality? You're welcome.")
It's an interesting story about relationships between the group members, and some musings on memory, but damn if that's not a premise they should've taken and ran with hard.
Some days Blue wonders why anyone ever bothered making numbers so small; other days she supposes even infinity needs to start somewhere.
So my friend got me to pick the Dresden files as light reading between heavier stuff. I really liked the first one and halfway through the second has been really enjoyable but every single time, and maybe this is just the Internet ruining me, he does one of those "maybe sexist but I believe in chivalry" things every time a woman is on page I get pissed off at the author, because it just reads like Tumblr Nice Guy (tm) bullshit self insertion and nothing natural to the character.
Posts
However, the period covered (just after his Fall of Angels) is easily the one I dislike the most. Largely because it portrays a society in which women are judged entirely unable to do anything except domestic tasks, then confronts that portrayal with the highly competent female crew of a different era. Which actually works quite well. But whuilst the exploration of the inherent misogyny in a low-tech society is quite well done, the characters on the anti-women side of the debate are..well, poorly defined, at best. There's a lot of mustache twirling, and a lot of wittering about how women are obviously inferior, even after those same women have carved holes in traditional social structures (and not a few chests). The antagonists fail, repeatedly, to learn from their mistakes and adjust their thinking in the face of overwhelming (and often fatal) evidence. It doesn't undermine the argument, per se, but it would have been nice to see a bit more conflict - or indeed any thought at all - from the 'villains'.
Mind you, it's not a bad book per se, but I find some of the work handling earlier periods (for example 'Magi'i of Cyador') gave a more nuanced view of conflict, and it'd be nice to have that back.
Goodreads
SF&F Reviews blog
I just finished Aristoi on earlier recommendations(probably from @Jacobkosh) and yeah, that was enormously entertaining and fairly thought-provoking, though I'm not sure if I would think the greater sci-fi/fantasy community would consider it truly great. But then, I haven't actually read that much.
The first big plot reveal was pretty enthralling, as well as the second, and I appreciate what I perceived as the Big Idea of humanity's proper evolution being left unresolved. Although, the sex was a tad bit too much.
Oh my, is this an entierly new world, or is it carrying on like the rest of his stuff with mostly new people, but some callbacks?
Remember the "ginger scald"? Turns out there's a recipe for it.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
Yeah, Chandler was the best. I've never found another mystery/noir writer from that era that I enjoy as much. Hammett is good, but when Chandler was on his game his prose was downright magical.
* actually written by Joe Hill, who is terrific
Fun thing I noticed reading Doctor Sleep - both it and NOS4A2 reference each other heavily. To the point that its evident that they (and by association all the main King books) take place in the same setting.
A new world as far as I can tell.
Here is Abercrombie's own words on what this new trilogy is going to be like (I believe he has actually written it all, and it's going to be released over the next two years).
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
Just finished The Lies of Locke Lamora this very minute.
Holy crap that book was a ride. My only regret is that I don't already have the second book in my hands.
This is my PSN ID— Radthanael
They are not great but I am reading the third so it can't be all bad
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
Confronting the Classics by Mary Beard - highly recommend this to everyone (seriously, Mary's awesome)
Book of Burgie - a history of the ancestral castle, family and land of a house that I stayed in recently near Inverness. Really interesting but basically impossible to get a hold of as it was privately printed.
Bank of Scotland 1695-1995 by Alan Cameron - surprisingly in-depth and interesting coffee table book detailing the BoS before it all went to shite. Apparently he worked closely with someone who was writing a more academic version at the same time which I might seek out.
Mary Queen of Scots by Susan Watkins - coffee table book which was interesting but not particularly in depth and a little repetitive at times.
Winnie-the-Pooh in Scots - sitting next to my Latin version and very fun to read.
Books I am am about to read:
The Sorcerer's House by Gene Wolfe
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Sausages by Tom Holt
The Bloodline Feud by Charles Stross
Donut by Tom Holt
If you want to enjoy the next one half as much be prepared to temper your expectations
I started reading Two Trains Running. Not really that far yet.
While the ride wasn't as exciting, I was able to get much more invested in the characters, and I would say the emotional payoff is better than the first book.
Serious second book Spoilers!
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
Which version of The Gunslinger are you reading?
The 1982 version, novella I guess? It's and old paperback.
Cool.
The updated one is altered to fit in with the end of the series better but I've always thought the original version was the better one.
The upside to this is that the Wind Through the Keyhole is really good. It's a good mix of the Dark Tower setting and the vibe of Eyes of the Dragon.
Hey man, you just don't grok gender essentialism properly.
No water for you.
Currently reading The Incrementalists by Brust and White. I'll preface my next comment by saying: I've spent the whole afternoon reading it straight through, and I like it.
That said, and while I'm only about 2/3rds of the way through so far, it has next to nothing to do with the purported premise of the book (secret Illuminati-style group of folks conspire to change the world for the better, over the long term, by making conditions incrementally better for human beings. The example given at the beginning of the book? "Do you like the MP3 format? A common standardized audio codec with decent quality? You're welcome.")
It's an interesting story about relationships between the group members, and some musings on memory, but damn if that's not a premise they should've taken and ran with hard.