Re: Goodreads, don't a lot of people there rate books not based on the quality but more like "I'm giving this 5 stars because it's from an author I like and I plan to read it (even if the book isn't out yet)?" Once I learned about that I kinda stopped looking at the ratings on that site.
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My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
I dunno. I can't think of many writers who wrote their best work in later years. No one would stack up, say, Arthur C. Clarke's later books against his early work. Same with Heinlein, Zelazny, Asimov, Pohl, etc. Go into mainstream or literary works and the story is much the same. Who thinks Salman Rushdie is putting out books as good as Midnight's Children any more? Does anyone think the best work of Martin Amis is yet to come?
Even with less talented but still popular writers, no one is saying the last few books David Eddings wrote are better than the first ones he put out. Those guys find their niche and fill it again and again to lessening effect.
I've never read any Sanderson, so maybe he's an exception. From what I've heard he is a reliable extruder of thick fantasy shaped objects.
I mean I agree in general but there is no shortage of counterexamples. Wolfe was in his 60s when he did the Long Sun and I would put those in the top rank of his work. Stephen King seems to have had a minor renaissance after his accident and temporary retirement. Asimov's later books were mostly terrible but The Gods Themselves is one of his best
I mean I guess it makes general sense that people's powers decline with time but if a dude was only using 20% of his potential in his twenties and uses 50% of it in his forties, even if his potential has dropped to two-thirds of what it once was, the end result will still be better
I feel like in practice it must have something to do with one's ability to commit, the willingness of editors to tinker with a profitable known quantity, etc. I guess I just reflexively dislike the idea that someone older than 35 has run out of things to say
It did not take me long to go from "omg I love Dresden Files so much" to "wow I don't think I can keep reading this stuff." I mean yeah I read up through Ghost Story, but I'm talking about how fast I turned on the series once I had a moment of clarity over how male-gazey and paternalistic it is.
In restospect the duster and fedora should have been a tipoff.
That was pretty much exactly my experience with it too
At some point it just became too obvious that every female character functioned primarily as authorial wish fulfillment of one flavor or another.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
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TavIrish Minister for DefenceRegistered Userregular
m'aids
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TavIrish Minister for DefenceRegistered Userregular
Re: Goodreads, don't a lot of people there rate books not based on the quality but more like "I'm giving this 5 stars because it's from an author I like and I plan to read it (even if the book isn't out yet)?" Once I learned about that I kinda stopped looking at the ratings on that site.
have.... have you missed the 30+ years of internet reviews being awful reactionary bullshit by people totally unqualified to give an opinion?
Dresden Files is absolutely escapist male fantasy pulp, and most of the books have formulaic plotting except for a few big turning point novels. But if you can set that aside, it's still pretty enjoyable for the zany ideas, Dresden's entertaining voice, the humor, the way Chicago is used as a setting.
I guess it has enough going for it that the positives outweigh the negatives for me. I don't think my wife would enjoy it though--understandably.
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
edited February 2017
@visiblehowl just rescued a pair of russian girls from slavers in Sleeping Dogs and the girls were standing on the wharf, profusely thanking him, then they raced off the pier, fell into the water, died, and slowly sank beneath the waves while GOOD WORK MISSION COMPLETE filled the screen
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Powerpuppiesdrinking coffee in themountain cabinRegistered Userregular
Rex stout late work is good I think
Pratchett improved almost linearly until the last few
Re: Goodreads, don't a lot of people there rate books not based on the quality but more like "I'm giving this 5 stars because it's from an author I like and I plan to read it (even if the book isn't out yet)?" Once I learned about that I kinda stopped looking at the ratings on that site.
have.... have you missed the 30+ years of internet reviews being awful reactionary bullshit by people totally unqualified to give an opinion?
I mean I guess I still have a little faith in the "wisdom of crowds" thing, that the individual stupidity of many reviews would be outweighed by the average. Maybe that's foolish of me.
But regardless, if people aren't even honestly trying and are constantly rating shit that hasn't even come out yet, and not even basing their reviews on any opinion of the work, let alone a qualified one... then... yeah.
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
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ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
I dunno. I can't think of many writers who wrote their best work in later years. No one would stack up, say, Arthur C. Clarke's later books against his early work. Same with Heinlein, Zelazny, Asimov, Pohl, etc. Go into mainstream or literary works and the story is much the same. Who thinks Salman Rushdie is putting out books as good as Midnight's Children any more? Does anyone think the best work of Martin Amis is yet to come?
Even with less talented but still popular writers, no one is saying the last few books David Eddings wrote are better than the first ones he put out. Those guys find their niche and fill it again and again to lessening effect.
I've never read any Sanderson, so maybe he's an exception. From what I've heard he is a reliable extruder of thick fantasy shaped objects.
I mean I agree in general but there is no shortage of counterexamples. Wolfe was in his 60s when he did the Long Sun and I would put those in the top rank of his work. Stephen King seems to have had a minor renaissance after his accident and temporary retirement. Asimov's later books were mostly terrible but The Gods Themselves is one of his best
I mean I guess it makes general sense that people's powers decline with time but if a dude was only using 20% of his potential in his twenties and uses 50% of it in his forties, even if his potential has dropped to two-thirds of what it once was, the end result will still be better
I feel like in practice it must have something to do with one's ability to commit, the willingness of editors to tinker with a profitable known quantity, etc. I guess I just reflexively dislike the idea that someone older than 35 has run out of things to say
I think Heinlein became a better writer from a technical perspective as he got older. But I think he also became more of a creeper over time as well.
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Powerpuppiesdrinking coffee in themountain cabinRegistered Userregular
Chu you vehemently hated parts of mistbourne
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
I dunno. I can't think of many writers who wrote their best work in later years. No one would stack up, say, Arthur C. Clarke's later books against his early work. Same with Heinlein, Zelazny, Asimov, Pohl, etc. Go into mainstream or literary works and the story is much the same. Who thinks Salman Rushdie is putting out books as good as Midnight's Children any more? Does anyone think the best work of Martin Amis is yet to come?
Even with less talented but still popular writers, no one is saying the last few books David Eddings wrote are better than the first ones he put out. Those guys find their niche and fill it again and again to lessening effect.
I've never read any Sanderson, so maybe he's an exception. From what I've heard he is a reliable extruder of thick fantasy shaped objects.
I mean I agree in general but there is no shortage of counterexamples. Wolfe was in his 60s when he did the Long Sun and I would put those in the top rank of his work. Stephen King seems to have had a minor renaissance after his accident and temporary retirement. Asimov's later books were mostly terrible but The Gods Themselves is one of his best
I mean I guess it makes general sense that people's powers decline with time but if a dude was only using 20% of his potential in his twenties and uses 50% of it in his forties, even if his potential has dropped to two-thirds of what it once was, the end result will still be better
I feel like in practice it must have something to do with one's ability to commit, the willingness of editors to tinker with a profitable known quantity, etc. I guess I just reflexively dislike the idea that someone older than 35 has run out of things to say
I think Heinlein became a better writer from a technical perspective as he got older. But I think he also became more of a creeper over time as well.
his 1950s books like Double Star and Citizen of the Galaxy are the sweet spot for me
So I'm still Fallen Londoning, and I've been playing it on the buggy iPad app, and last night I lost like 60 actions of progress and of course failed many of the checks when I re-did them. Even though I sync compulsively.
Love the game but why does the code have to be so shoddy gahhh
Does the browser variant these issues?
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
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Powerpuppiesdrinking coffee in themountain cabinRegistered Userregular
So I'm still Fallen Londoning, and I've been playing it on the buggy iPad app, and last night I lost like 60 actions of progress and of course failed many of the checks when I re-did them. Even though I sync compulsively.
Love the game but why does the code have to be so shoddy gahhh
So I'm still Fallen Londoning, and I've been playing it on the buggy iPad app, and last night I lost like 60 actions of progress and of course failed many of the checks when I re-did them. Even though I sync compulsively.
Love the game but why does the code have to be so shoddy gahhh
Does the browser variant these issues?
The server for the browser version sometimes goes offline for a few seconds, but you only end up losing an action at most.
Steam, LoL: credeiki
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knitdanIn ur baseKillin ur guysRegistered Userregular
I also started off in the app but it kept crashing and takes forever to load so I switched to the browser version (still on my IPad, just running in Safari) and have not yet had any problems aside from learning a slightly different UI
“I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
Dresden Files is absolutely escapist male fantasy pulp, and most of the books have formulaic plotting except for a few big turning point novels. But if you can set that aside, it's still pretty enjoyable for the zany ideas, Dresden's entertaining voice, the humor, the way Chicago is used as a setting.
I guess it has enough going for it that the positives outweigh the negatives for me. I don't think my wife would enjoy it though--understandably.
I think Heinlein's later stuff is pretty terrible, but yeah King's work has been wildly variable all through his career. My favourite King book is probably Black House, written when he was in his mid-fifties, but I could pick favourite works from almost any decade he's been writing.
I think some of Pratchett's early stuff (Mort, Wyrd Sisters) is at least as good as his best later stuff. I think he peaked with Small Gods and rarely touched that height again (maybe Nightwatch equals it), though he didn't write any books I'd consider iffy until those final years.
I'm trying to think where I get my Fantasy/SF recommendations from. I dunno. I don't buy an awful lot of it any more, and have several dozen books from curated 'best of' lines I'm still ploughing through. I guess if something gets a great write up in Interzone (SF/Fantasy short story & reviews magazine) I pick it up, or if some folks on here whose taste I trust rave about something. The Southern Reach trilogy was like that, and The Vorrh (which I haven't actually read yet). And of course I only read Bujold after Jake pressed the books into my hands (they're great!). I award stars on Goodreads for everything I read but Christ no I don't go there for recommendations.
TavIrish Minister for DefenceRegistered Userregular
My doc appt is in an hour
I've been bedridden for nearly two weeks
I'm going to get a breakfast roll on the way home and I might cry when they hand it to me
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Powerpuppiesdrinking coffee in themountain cabinRegistered Userregular
Mort and witches abroad I think are exceptionally good, I don't think I agree about wyrd sisters.
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Powerpuppiesdrinking coffee in themountain cabinRegistered Userregular
It's good though, I didn't loathe it like I did pyramids
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Powerpuppiesdrinking coffee in themountain cabinRegistered Userregular
edited February 2017
I love Dresden files later stuff because I'm am absolute sucker for good blending of christianity and magic. I can't think who else does that well but I love it every time somebody pulls it off.
Edit: oh Constantine I guess!
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knitdanIn ur baseKillin ur guysRegistered Userregular
Mike Carey (Lucifer comic book writer) wrote a series of books about a detective who deals with ghosts but I only read the first couple before there was an issue with the publisher I guess and I couldn't find the later books in the States.
“I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
I think Heinlein's later stuff is pretty terrible, but yeah King's work has been wildly variable all through his career. My favourite King book is probably Black House, written when he was in his mid-fifties, but I could pick favourite works from almost any decade he's been writing.
I think some of Pratchett's early stuff (Mort, Wyrd Sisters) is at least as good as his best later stuff. I think he peaked with Small Gods and rarely touched that height again (maybe Nightwatch equals it), though he didn't write any books I'd consider iffy until those final years.
I'm trying to think where I get my Fantasy/SF recommendations from. I dunno. I don't buy an awful lot of it any more, and have several dozen books from curated 'best of' lines I'm still ploughing through. I guess if something gets a great write up in Interzone (SF/Fantasy short story & reviews magazine) I pick it up, or if some folks on here whose taste I trust rave about something. The Southern Reach trilogy was like that, and The Vorrh (which I haven't actually read yet). And of course I only read Bujold after Jake pressed the books into my hands (they're great!). I award stars on Goodreads for everything I read but Christ no I don't go there for recommendations.
This forum's book thread has recommended the past several F/SF books I've read and enjoyed. I'm pretty much nearing the end of the recommendation list gathered from here though, so not too sure where I'll go next. I mistrust most sources on this topic...
I don't think Pyramids is one of his best, but I certainly didn't loathe it. The only ones I didn't especially enjoy were some of the last few, like Unseen Academicals. I started re-reading the whole lot from the beginning just after he died and got as far as Moving Pictures (again, one I didn't especially like). I should pick that back up.
I love a lot of the early books. My favourite Pratchett joke ever is from The Colour Of Magic, when Rincewind is mulling over whether to help the idiot, innocent tourist, thinking that a guy would have to be a real heel to leave him. Smash cut to a guard telling the Patrician that 'we had to shoot his horse to stop him, sire'.
I also love all the fantasy in-jokes in those first two books that take the mickey out of Lieber, McCaffrey, Moorcock, Howard, etc. I appreciate that those might be lost on some, or land less impressively than his later stuff, which is less about taking the mickey out of fantasy than about writing wisely (and funnily) about people.
I started with Equal Rites, read most of the witch books, and branched out from there to whatever looked interesting
I haven't gone back to read The Colour of Magic because it's hard to imagine how it wouldn't be a letdown compared with the story arcs I've already enjoyed
I made a game! Hotline Maui. Requires mouse and keyboard.
Re: Goodreads, don't a lot of people there rate books not based on the quality but more like "I'm giving this 5 stars because it's from an author I like and I plan to read it (even if the book isn't out yet)?" Once I learned about that I kinda stopped looking at the ratings on that site.
have.... have you missed the 30+ years of internet reviews being awful reactionary bullshit by people totally unqualified to give an opinion?
Like all things it depends on the reviewers in question, there are good reviewers out there. It's not about the occupation that makes something stupid, it's the person, I've seen authors do incredibly stupid things, too.
Most people reviewing books in places like Goodreads aren't really critics or reviewers in any sense of the word that retains some worth. They're just people with an internet connection. I mean, sure, technically, they can say hey I'm a reviewer because I review books but they're just some random meatsack spooging words against the giant wall of the internet.
Where there's no gatekeeper to something like the role of critic then I think the effort to gain ratio of finding those people whose opinions are worth listening to is too high to bother with. Why trawl through hundreds of Goodreads reviews to find the three intelligent ones when you can just read, I dunno, Adam Roberts' blog or reviews from Kirkus or Interzone or something where you know the writer showed someone somewhere that they could do the job.
I think the same applies to self-publishing in general. Maybe there's some gold there, but you're going to get awful dirty finding it.
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I mean I agree in general but there is no shortage of counterexamples. Wolfe was in his 60s when he did the Long Sun and I would put those in the top rank of his work. Stephen King seems to have had a minor renaissance after his accident and temporary retirement. Asimov's later books were mostly terrible but The Gods Themselves is one of his best
I mean I guess it makes general sense that people's powers decline with time but if a dude was only using 20% of his potential in his twenties and uses 50% of it in his forties, even if his potential has dropped to two-thirds of what it once was, the end result will still be better
I feel like in practice it must have something to do with one's ability to commit, the willingness of editors to tinker with a profitable known quantity, etc. I guess I just reflexively dislike the idea that someone older than 35 has run out of things to say
That was pretty much exactly my experience with it too
At some point it just became too obvious that every female character functioned primarily as authorial wish fulfillment of one flavor or another.
have.... have you missed the 30+ years of internet reviews being awful reactionary bullshit by people totally unqualified to give an opinion?
I guess it has enough going for it that the positives outweigh the negatives for me. I don't think my wife would enjoy it though--understandably.
Pratchett improved almost linearly until the last few
I mean I guess I still have a little faith in the "wisdom of crowds" thing, that the individual stupidity of many reviews would be outweighed by the average. Maybe that's foolish of me.
But regardless, if people aren't even honestly trying and are constantly rating shit that hasn't even come out yet, and not even basing their reviews on any opinion of the work, let alone a qualified one... then... yeah.
I think Heinlein became a better writer from a technical perspective as he got older. But I think he also became more of a creeper over time as well.
his 1950s books like Double Star and Citizen of the Galaxy are the sweet spot for me
Love the game but why does the code have to be so shoddy gahhh
Does the browser variant these issues?
Zero of those issues via browser
Night and day difference
I guess I should switch over.
The server for the browser version sometimes goes offline for a few seconds, but you only end up losing an action at most.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
This is essentially where I'm at with it.
I think some of Pratchett's early stuff (Mort, Wyrd Sisters) is at least as good as his best later stuff. I think he peaked with Small Gods and rarely touched that height again (maybe Nightwatch equals it), though he didn't write any books I'd consider iffy until those final years.
I'm trying to think where I get my Fantasy/SF recommendations from. I dunno. I don't buy an awful lot of it any more, and have several dozen books from curated 'best of' lines I'm still ploughing through. I guess if something gets a great write up in Interzone (SF/Fantasy short story & reviews magazine) I pick it up, or if some folks on here whose taste I trust rave about something. The Southern Reach trilogy was like that, and The Vorrh (which I haven't actually read yet). And of course I only read Bujold after Jake pressed the books into my hands (they're great!). I award stars on Goodreads for everything I read but Christ no I don't go there for recommendations.
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I've been bedridden for nearly two weeks
I'm going to get a breakfast roll on the way home and I might cry when they hand it to me
Edit: oh Constantine I guess!
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
This forum's book thread has recommended the past several F/SF books I've read and enjoyed. I'm pretty much nearing the end of the recommendation list gathered from here though, so not too sure where I'll go next. I mistrust most sources on this topic...
I like Small Gods a lot
I feel like TP peaked at night watch, although it works off a characterization of Vines and Vetinari that is built up from the earlier books
thereafter he did devote his energies to Tiffany Aching, which is aimed at a younger audience
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You go Christopher Lee
I think the early Discworld books are generally worse than the books near the middle
Not bad, but markedly worse than what Pratchett wrote after he fleshed out the setting
And then the quality drops off again over time, maybe due to waning interest in his own work or maybe due to waning health
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I haven't gone back to read The Colour of Magic because it's hard to imagine how it wouldn't be a letdown compared with the story arcs I've already enjoyed
Like all things it depends on the reviewers in question, there are good reviewers out there. It's not about the occupation that makes something stupid, it's the person, I've seen authors do incredibly stupid things, too.
http://archive.is/rFgtE
http://jennytrout.com/?p=8208
Where there's no gatekeeper to something like the role of critic then I think the effort to gain ratio of finding those people whose opinions are worth listening to is too high to bother with. Why trawl through hundreds of Goodreads reviews to find the three intelligent ones when you can just read, I dunno, Adam Roberts' blog or reviews from Kirkus or Interzone or something where you know the writer showed someone somewhere that they could do the job.
I think the same applies to self-publishing in general. Maybe there's some gold there, but you're going to get awful dirty finding it.
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oh it's 5:30 AM