Finished Soldiers Live yesterday and I'm still extremely heart-weary, it's a master class in a certain kind of pulp that is very dear to me and I'm impressed tbh with how a series I was reading very cynically managed to jump up and grab me by the throat in the last three books
But now I really understand why so many people have badgered me about this series and I'm glad I read it now, and I think I was in a particularly good place for what it had to teach me about my own work
The last fifty pages were just, very sad but also inevitable but also still surprising
I was surprised how sad I was about losing Sahra and Murgen, they really messed me up way more than I expected
Likewise Sleepy, I think aside from the return to Croaker in the last book, her voice was my favorite in the Annals because she had just... Such heart in the face of so many impossible things and kept a surprising level of humor like the earlier books
good grief, the bit with Goblin and One-Eye's hat, ugh, I sobbed, what a clever cool thing. It was a nice way to reflect on how fucked up their friendship was in life
And the bit where Shukrat says, they never learned how to say I love you, about Lady and Catcher, and that is a MOOD
I liked where it ended; very uncertain and uncomfortable but hopeful at the same time; I love how the character of the Company itself grew and changed - and persisted, it was really heartening and drew a lot of meaning out of a lot of grief.
A friend of mine has passed me her ARC of Gideon the 9th, so I am p sure I'm reading that next, as soon as I'm ready for another book to grab me by the face, I've been excited about it for a while now
I did order Port of Shadows now that I'm through the original series; a lot of reviews didn't like it but a lot of them also seemed very concerned about things that are not my focus as a reader so whooo knooows
There's a few Black Company short stories kicking around too, if you're in the mood.
One in "Swords and Dark Magic" one in "Fearsome Journeys", and several others in anthologies I've not heard of before....!
I know a few of them were reworked into the material that became Port of Shadows, but yeah I may have to seek them out!
BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
After Accelerando and City of Stairs I decided to do something sort of light and fun, so I just finished up The Thirteen Gun Salute, one of the Aubrey-Maturin series. Now for a hard left into Gravity's Rainbow, which I assume has very little to do with the Age of Sail.
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
Just started A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine. It's the story of an ambassador for a hinterlands space station assuming her new job at the capital planet of the empire of Space Aztecs. Urbane Space Aztecs, in fact, who are more into poetry than human sacrifice. Promising so far. Anything with Space Ambassadors awakens my hunger for CJ Cherryh-esque close third-person cultural collision psychodrama.
I have finished this now and recommend it. It is extremely Cherryh-esque in terms of plot, setting, and psychodrama, but not so much in writing style.
I've also finished Rosewater and its sequel, Rosewater Insurrection. They are, roughly, the story of a man with psychic powers who lives in a Nigerian city built around an alien mega-artifact, in a world where the USA has mysteriously vanished. Also recommended. The Nigerian setting is refreshing, and Thompson's world-building is excellent.
I finished A Memory Called Empire while traveling and I really liked it too.
I read The Queue by Vladimir Sorokin; this is his first novel, 1980. It’s entirely dialogue; utterances during a multi-day queue for an unspecified product. There’s sort of a storyline that emerges from one thread, in that this guy Vadim tries to hit on a girl, then she leaves the queue, then he gets super drunk and passes out on the ground, then he ends up in a lady’s apartment and they fuck; but overall it’s more of an impressionistic work, just a portrait of a place and time, ten+ pages of roll call that’s just the queue lady calling out a variety of Russian (and Ukrainian, and Jewish, etc—Sorokin always has a lot of representative ethnic diversity in his stuff) surnames and people responding ‘yes’, a whole bunch of people asking what color the product is available in, etc.
It was ok to read; nothing special; I think, given the extremely colloquial and specific nature of the dialogue, it really suffered from being in translation. I did absolutely love the afterword that the author added many years later about queueing as Soviet worship ritual; I also thought he translator’s preface was pretty interesting, where she’s like yeah, unlike in his other books, no one is raped, murdered or eaten; this one is actually pretty gentle...(also apparently Sorokin has been prosecuted for pornography under Putin? One of the few authors this has happened to after the official end of censorship. Because he wrote a graphic sex scene between Stalin and Khrushchev hahahahahaha).
Got rid of a few books to a charity the other day so obviously I needed to raid a second hand bookshop for more.
Reading The Pendragon Legend, by Antal Szerb. He writes with a particular blend of irony, casual erudition, wit and a love of people and their eccentricities. Perhaps the middle class of middle-Europe in the interwar years were all like this. He died in a labour camp in 1945, the Second World War and it’s aftermath providing a full stop to that brand of sophistication.
Got rid of a few books to a charity the other day so obviously I needed to raid a second hand bookshop for more.
Reading The Pendragon Legend, by Antal Szerb. He writes with a particular blend of irony, casual erudition, wit and a love of people and their eccentricities. Perhaps the middle class of middle-Europe in the interwar years were all like this. He died in a labour camp in 1945, the Second World War and it’s aftermath providing a full stop to that brand of sophistication.
That was basically Stefan Zweig's view. It's why he killed himself.
I'm hoping Tiamat's Wrath (Expanse Book 8) improves. I'm only about a third of the way in, and while I'm digging glimpses of some *Big Answers* in this second to last book, the character work just isn't great, band members are physically and narratively sidelined, and they are introducing new characters to offset that are pretty bland, especially riding into an overall finale. Maybe they'll use some of these new characters for future side stores and novels or maybe they just got bored of the A Team - I'm not sure.
Still enjoying it - just not exactly what I'd hoped considering how much the raise the stakes in Perseoplis Rising re: Laconia.
0
knitdanIn ur baseKillin ur guysRegistered Userregular
Started Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik. Looks to be a take on various Russian/Slavic folk and fairy tales, but also challenging the patriarchal Christian dominant culture and how it treats women and Jews. The book follows three female protagonists going up against some kind of winter fae.
I’m enjoying it and definitely recommend, with the caveat that I have no idea how accurate any of it is to the culture. If I had to guess it’s more about evoking the feeling of the culture than being strictly accurate (so don’t yell at me credeiki).
“I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
Started Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik. Looks to be a take on various Russian/Slavic folk and fairy tales, but also challenging the patriarchal Christian dominant culture and how it treats women and Jews. The book follows three female protagonists going up against some kind of winter fae.
I’m enjoying it and definitely recommend, with the caveat that I have no idea how accurate any of it is to the culture. If I had to guess it’s more about evoking the feeling of the culture than being strictly accurate (so don’t yell at me credeiki).
ohhh yeah Shivahn's wife read it in pre-release and recommended it to me
I'll consider it
Steam, LoL: credeiki
+2
jakobaggerLO THY DREAD EMPIRE CHAOS IS RESTOREDRegistered Userregular
Got rid of a few books to a charity the other day so obviously I needed to raid a second hand bookshop for more.
Reading The Pendragon Legend, by Antal Szerb. He writes with a particular blend of irony, casual erudition, wit and a love of people and their eccentricities. Perhaps the middle class of middle-Europe in the interwar years were all like this. He died in a labour camp in 1945, the Second World War and it’s aftermath providing a full stop to that brand of sophistication.
Got rid of a few books to a charity the other day so obviously I needed to raid a second hand bookshop for more.
Reading The Pendragon Legend, by Antal Szerb. He writes with a particular blend of irony, casual erudition, wit and a love of people and their eccentricities. Perhaps the middle class of middle-Europe in the interwar years were all like this. He died in a labour camp in 1945, the Second World War and it’s aftermath providing a full stop to that brand of sophistication.
Declare is just so, so good. Like... in terms of pure authorial craftsmanship, it may be the best book I've ever read. It's a homage to a whole class of British spy thriller (think John Le Carré and Len Deighton) that's just as good as the objects of its esteem. It's also a meticulously researched piece of alternate history that makes such perfect use of real people, cultures, events, and geography that it could be actual history. It's also also a genuinely weird work of eldritch horror fantasy. It interleaves those three elements into a perfectly seamless, utterly plausible whole that's pretty much perfect in its construction.
If you like The Laundry Files books by Charlie Stross (or any sort of other works like The X-Files that features government institutions vs. the supernatural) you need to read Declare.
Got rid of a few books to a charity the other day so obviously I needed to raid a second hand bookshop for more.
Reading The Pendragon Legend, by Antal Szerb. He writes with a particular blend of irony, casual erudition, wit and a love of people and their eccentricities. Perhaps the middle class of middle-Europe in the interwar years were all like this. He died in a labour camp in 1945, the Second World War and it’s aftermath providing a full stop to that brand of sophistication.
Declare is just so, so good. Like... in terms of pure authorial craftsmanship, it may be the best book I've ever read. It's a homage to a whole class of British spy thriller (think John Le Carré and Len Deighton) that's just as good as the objects of its esteem. It's also a meticulously researched piece of alternate history that makes such perfect use of real people, cultures, events, and geography that it could be actual history. It's also also a genuinely weird work of eldritch horror fantasy. It interleaves those three elements into a perfectly seamless, utterly plausible whole that's pretty much perfect in its construction.
If you like The Laundry Files books by Charlie Stross (or any sort of other works like The X-Files that features government institutions vs. the supernatural) you need to read Declare.
Well, I'm on a train for several days next week, so you convinced me quickly.
Bought'd.
I tried a Tim Powers book ages ago and didn't get on with it at all. Expiration Date, I think it was called, and the cover was plainly trying to get some of that Clive Barker in his heyday money so possibly I went into the book with the wrong expectations but I couldn't finish it. So boring!
I am confident Declare will be a better experience.
BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
I don't know that I'm going to be able to finish Gravity's Rainbow. I normally consider myself a very solid reader, but there is absolutely 0 grounding in this novel. I know from the little blurb that its supposed to be WWII era, and I've heard them mention the V-2 once or twice, but its hard to tell who is what, or what is actually happening. I feel like any sense of character or location gets lost in his needs to write paragraph long sentences describing random shit.
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James
That was uhhhh. . .a book. It's important to have fantasy rooted in different cultural milieu than just Eurocentric fetishism that is typical, but I did not love this book. The writing was great, the world was good (and I appreciated how Marlon James didn't get bogged down in world building but let it emerge through the narrative), but I didn't find a lot to like about the characters. Tracker kind of felt like an edgelord.
I might read the others when they come out, I dunno.
I don't know that I'm going to be able to finish Gravity's Rainbow. I normally consider myself a very solid reader, but there is absolutely 0 grounding in this novel. I know from the little blurb that its supposed to be WWII era, and I've heard them mention the V-2 once or twice, but its hard to tell who is what, or what is actually happening. I feel like any sense of character or location gets lost in his needs to write paragraph long sentences describing random shit.
Welcome to the wonderful world of Thomas Pynchon
I like his stuff but there's entire chapters of his bigger books i just totally ignore because they're complete nonsense.
0
pyromaniac221this just might bean interestin YTRegistered Userregular
I read The Crying of Lot 49 some years ago and my takeaways were that I loved it and that I would never ever be tricked into reading any of Pynchon’s longer works.
psn tooaware, friend code SW-4760-0062-3248 it me
+1
AbsalonLands of Always WinterRegistered Userregular
edited May 2019
I am caught up on Scott Bakker's Second Apocalypse thus far. Uplifting this series is not, but it is fascinating and replete with insights into psychology and society, evocations of dreadful mystery or concepts and the depiction of a real world affected by terrifying things, be they super-human, bestial, extra-terrestrial or extra-dimensional. I hope he can get a publisher for the remainder. In a much cooler timeline than this there would be enough money and resources available to make fantasy series like this into TV or movies.
I don't know that I'm going to be able to finish Gravity's Rainbow. I normally consider myself a very solid reader, but there is absolutely 0 grounding in this novel. I know from the little blurb that its supposed to be WWII era, and I've heard them mention the V-2 once or twice, but its hard to tell who is what, or what is actually happening. I feel like any sense of character or location gets lost in his needs to write paragraph long sentences describing random shit.
You would have an easier time going through and digesting that damn thing if you actually ate it, page by page.
Plowed through an advance copy of Gideon the 9th in a single day and woof. I've needed to sit with it for a few days because it is a sharp brutal punch of a book. Space necromancy and swordplay, with a compelling core mystery that spins out lots of other mysteries.
The ending is pointedly and deliberately unsettling and asks a lot of the reader, but it was a brilliant and somewhat inevitable one.
I am caught up on Scott Bakker's Second Apocalypse thus far. Uplifting this series is not, but it is fascinating and replete with insights into psychology and society, evocations of dreadful mystery or concepts and the depiction of a real world affected by terrifying things, be they super-human, bestial, extra-terrestrial or extra-dimensional. I hope he can get a publisher for the remainder. In a much cooler timeline than this there would be enough money and resources available to make fantasy series like this into TV or movies.
I think I’ve read through 2 books of the 2nd trilogy and I have the 3rd but never read it and I guess it turned into a quadrology? I hadn’t heard he was having trouble getting the last book published though.
Between the original trilogy and this one it’s probably the bleakest fantasy series I’ve ever read and it just.keeps.going.
“I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
0
AbsalonLands of Always WinterRegistered Userregular
I am caught up on Scott Bakker's Second Apocalypse thus far. Uplifting this series is not, but it is fascinating and replete with insights into psychology and society, evocations of dreadful mystery or concepts and the depiction of a real world affected by terrifying things, be they super-human, bestial, extra-terrestrial or extra-dimensional. I hope he can get a publisher for the remainder. In a much cooler timeline than this there would be enough money and resources available to make fantasy series like this into TV or movies.
I think I’ve read through 2 books of the 2nd trilogy and I have the 3rd but never read it and I guess it turned into a quadrology? I hadn’t heard he was having trouble getting the last book published though.
Between the original trilogy and this one it’s probably the bleakest fantasy series I’ve ever read and it just.keeps.going.
Seven books there are - the sixth book had to become two ones, making The Prince of Nothing a trilogy and The Aspect-Emperor a quadrilogy. The last one or possibly two books that will make up the third 'series' in the Second Apocalypse are not finished and do not have a publisher IIRC. The bleakness doesn't come so much from the corruption of the pure, the exploitation of the naive, the horrors of war or all the misconceived quests and loyalties - all those are common sources of darkness in fantasy literature. What is truly horrifying about the setting is the metaphysical context and the long drawn-out loss of mortals' control. The fate of the Nonmen in particular is like a constant spiral of misery that is basically intactile to a mortal mind in its extent and depth. Bakker is really good at conveying depravity both in detail and in the personal, and at larger scales.
It's like Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson but only featuring approximants of the Whirlwind, the Tiste Edur, the Tiste Liosan, the Pannion Domin, the Crippled God, Kallor, Poliel, a douchier Karsa Orlong and the rest are a bunch of Toc the Youngers, basically. Someone will get what I mean.
My Expanse reading ran afoul of chance, meaning I somehow read the first two books and the fifth. Watching the third season of the TV show now and it’s nice to fill in the gaps!
I was expecting not to like Long Way To A Small Angry Planet because I'm a grump but it was actually pretty great. I have some complaints, and not just that the interspecies sex could have been more graphic, but on the whole you should read it if you're one of the 10 other people on the forum who's ignored people talking about it for 5 years.
I thought most of the conflict/potential conflict in The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet was solved just too easy and quickly. It's not badly written or anything, but I don't feel interested in continuing the series, but that could just be my tastes in reading being more fantasy based.
I thought most of the conflict/potential conflict in The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet was solved just too easy and quickly. It's not badly written or anything, but I don't feel interested in continuing the series, but that could just be my tastes in reading being more fantasy based.
The second one has a bit more of a plot. But something I like about this series is that it doesn't have external conflict-driven plotlines like you often find in sci-fi or fantasy; instead the conflict is 95% emotional and internal (and I think it isn't too easily solved, although yes, the author did create a cozy story where you end up happy with everyone's emotional arcs. Still, I don't think their character narratives are resolved too pat-ly; you get the sense there is still room to grow and work through various issues.)
Coinage, you should read the sequels! They are also interesting and nice to read and different from the first one.
I thought most of the conflict/potential conflict in The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet was solved just too easy and quickly. It's not badly written or anything, but I don't feel interested in continuing the series, but that could just be my tastes in reading being more fantasy based.
Sometimes it's OK to read a story that ends OK for the people in it.
+6
MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
It's like Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson but only featuring approximants of the Whirlwind, the Tiste Edur, the Tiste Liosan, the Pannion Domin, the Crippled God, Kallor, Poliel, a douchier Karsa Orlong and the rest are a bunch of Toc the Youngers, basically. Someone will get what I mean.
It's like Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson but only featuring approximants of the Whirlwind, the Tiste Edur, the Tiste Liosan, the Pannion Domin, the Crippled God, Kallor, Poliel, a douchier Karsa Orlong and the rest are a bunch of Toc the Youngers, basically. Someone will get what I mean.
...
... Hood's breath that sounds miserable.
Bakker's Earwa is not a happy place. In part it's based on "What if the world of the Old Testament was real?", as an example. I wouldn't describe it as like, deliberately grimdark ala Warhammer or something though. It's more just that shit is kinda bad at the time and Bakker in his fiction generally subscribes to the idea that pre-modern life was kinda nasty.
I read Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel, finally, after seeing it quoted for flavor in the queer post-apocalyptic TTRPG Dream Askew (Belong Outside Belonging).
Station Eleven is as good as I'd heard. It's beautiful and bittersweet and specific. It follows a handful of people before, during, and after the collapse of modern society. I'm going to be thinking about it for a while.
honestly I had some srs problems with Small Angry Planet, and I think Nina Allan was on the money when she, paraphrasing, described the series as "The Waltons, in Space," because it is pretty heavy-handed with some stuff that could have used a subtler touch and tends to favor very easy problem solving and glosses over kind of a lot of uglier stuff, but I like that it brings people in for more character-driven space adventure, especially stuff that isn't the grimmest grim that ever grimmed.
Currently pecking away at two friend mss so my regular book reading is much slower than it's been recently, but also pecking away at Elizabeth Bear's Ancestral Night and enjoying it so far.
The collected edition of New York Four and New York Five, by Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly. Four college students in NYC do studenty stuff. It's painless enough and I had fun smirking at the up to the minute references of 2009 that date the piece horribly now. Unlimited text messaging! Mobile phones with antennas! Someone excited about Shins tickets!
AbsalonLands of Always WinterRegistered Userregular
edited May 2019
Empire of Grass, the second book in Tad Williams' follow-up series to genre staple and George RR Martin-inspiring Memory, Sorrow and Thorn is supposed to release now. I could enjoy some proper genre-devoted fantasy to lose sleep to. The Witchwood Crown had a deluge of set-up and a case of "Good guys are oblivious to bad signs and don't share their suspicions" but Tad Williams is good at pacing, sympathetic characters and believable worlds. Clean prose with little frivolity and varied locales.
Absalon on
+1
VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
The collected edition of New York Four and New York Five, by Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly. Four college students in NYC do studenty stuff. It's painless enough and I had fun smirking at the up to the minute references of 2009 that date the piece horribly now. Unlimited text messaging! Mobile phones with antennas! Someone excited about Shins tickets!
in 30 years those details will be lauded for giving a sense of place
I started A Conjuring of Light by VE Schwab. I am not expecting to enjoy this, but the book was very on sale and I read the first two so might as well finish the trilogy.
0
BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
This morning I was listening to a podcast about how racist Lovecraft was, but also spent a lot of time talking about his works. Which now has me hankering for some good horror stuff, but maybe something a little less written by a Nazi sympathizer. Does anyone have suggestions?
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
AbsalonLands of Always WinterRegistered Userregular
edited May 2019
Weird, kooky horror stories with a sense of absurdity and alarming wrongness - A Collapse of Horses by Brian Evenson
Apocalyptic vignette horror akin to World War Z - Sleep Over by HG Bells
John Ajvide Lindqvist's works are all strong and can be read independently (except for a trilogy), and I think almost all of them are translated. They might provide extra appreciation for someone who lives in Sweden (because that is the setting) and I have not read the translations to English, but he is very very good.
If you can find Through the Night by Stig Saetterbakken (he is Norwegian) then grab it immediately. There is an English transalation but I am not sure how available it is. One of the scariest, most harrowing books I've read.
The collected edition of New York Four and New York Five, by Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly. Four college students in NYC do studenty stuff. It's painless enough and I had fun smirking at the up to the minute references of 2009 that date the piece horribly now. Unlimited text messaging! Mobile phones with antennas! Someone excited about Shins tickets!
I remember enjoying the hipster hangout vibe of the first one, but then, IIRC, they pity-adopt a homeless girl in the sequel and it gets really weird? Am I remembering this right?
This morning I was listening to a podcast about how racist Lovecraft was, but also spent a lot of time talking about his works. Which now has me hankering for some good horror stuff, but maybe something a little less written by a Nazi sympathizer. Does anyone have suggestions?
Some of Ramsey Campbell’s early stuff is Lovecraftian, and better written. He jumps off imitating Lovecraft pretty quickly and goes on to be probably the best horror writer alive. His short fiction is also superb.
Clive Barker started off as a horror writer with his seminal Books of a Blood but soon went off in a weird new direction that combined horror and fantasy that was very much his own. His latest stuff is sadly under par and he can’t finish a series to save his life, but his good stuff is great.
Lisa Tuttle is a short story writer I like a lot who gets across some deeply nasty ideas.
Dan Simmons wrote some fine horror, like Carrion Comfort or Summer of Night.
MR James is the great classic ghost story writer who can make your skin crawl ever so slightly with his understated style and his descriptions of the subtly awry.
Posts
I know a few of them were reworked into the material that became Port of Shadows, but yeah I may have to seek them out!
Uncanny Magazine!
The Mad Writers Union
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
I finished A Memory Called Empire while traveling and I really liked it too.
It was ok to read; nothing special; I think, given the extremely colloquial and specific nature of the dialogue, it really suffered from being in translation. I did absolutely love the afterword that the author added many years later about queueing as Soviet worship ritual; I also thought he translator’s preface was pretty interesting, where she’s like yeah, unlike in his other books, no one is raped, murdered or eaten; this one is actually pretty gentle...(also apparently Sorokin has been prosecuted for pornography under Putin? One of the few authors this has happened to after the official end of censorship. Because he wrote a graphic sex scene between Stalin and Khrushchev hahahahahaha).
Got rid of a few books to a charity the other day so obviously I needed to raid a second hand bookshop for more.
Reading The Pendragon Legend, by Antal Szerb. He writes with a particular blend of irony, casual erudition, wit and a love of people and their eccentricities. Perhaps the middle class of middle-Europe in the interwar years were all like this. He died in a labour camp in 1945, the Second World War and it’s aftermath providing a full stop to that brand of sophistication.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
That was basically Stefan Zweig's view. It's why he killed himself.
Still enjoying it - just not exactly what I'd hoped considering how much the raise the stakes in Perseoplis Rising re: Laconia.
I’m enjoying it and definitely recommend, with the caveat that I have no idea how accurate any of it is to the culture. If I had to guess it’s more about evoking the feeling of the culture than being strictly accurate (so don’t yell at me credeiki).
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
ohhh yeah Shivahn's wife read it in pre-release and recommended it to me
I'll consider it
Declare is so fucking good.
Declare is just so, so good. Like... in terms of pure authorial craftsmanship, it may be the best book I've ever read. It's a homage to a whole class of British spy thriller (think John Le Carré and Len Deighton) that's just as good as the objects of its esteem. It's also a meticulously researched piece of alternate history that makes such perfect use of real people, cultures, events, and geography that it could be actual history. It's also also a genuinely weird work of eldritch horror fantasy. It interleaves those three elements into a perfectly seamless, utterly plausible whole that's pretty much perfect in its construction.
If you like The Laundry Files books by Charlie Stross (or any sort of other works like The X-Files that features government institutions vs. the supernatural) you need to read Declare.
Well, I'm on a train for several days next week, so you convinced me quickly.
Bought'd.
Goodreads
SF&F Reviews blog
I am confident Declare will be a better experience.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
That was uhhhh. . .a book. It's important to have fantasy rooted in different cultural milieu than just Eurocentric fetishism that is typical, but I did not love this book. The writing was great, the world was good (and I appreciated how Marlon James didn't get bogged down in world building but let it emerge through the narrative), but I didn't find a lot to like about the characters. Tracker kind of felt like an edgelord.
I might read the others when they come out, I dunno.
Welcome to the wonderful world of Thomas Pynchon
I like his stuff but there's entire chapters of his bigger books i just totally ignore because they're complete nonsense.
You would have an easier time going through and digesting that damn thing if you actually ate it, page by page.
The ending is pointedly and deliberately unsettling and asks a lot of the reader, but it was a brilliant and somewhat inevitable one.
Uncanny Magazine!
The Mad Writers Union
I think I’ve read through 2 books of the 2nd trilogy and I have the 3rd but never read it and I guess it turned into a quadrology? I hadn’t heard he was having trouble getting the last book published though.
Between the original trilogy and this one it’s probably the bleakest fantasy series I’ve ever read and it just.keeps.going.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
Seven books there are - the sixth book had to become two ones, making The Prince of Nothing a trilogy and The Aspect-Emperor a quadrilogy. The last one or possibly two books that will make up the third 'series' in the Second Apocalypse are not finished and do not have a publisher IIRC. The bleakness doesn't come so much from the corruption of the pure, the exploitation of the naive, the horrors of war or all the misconceived quests and loyalties - all those are common sources of darkness in fantasy literature. What is truly horrifying about the setting is the metaphysical context and the long drawn-out loss of mortals' control. The fate of the Nonmen in particular is like a constant spiral of misery that is basically intactile to a mortal mind in its extent and depth. Bakker is really good at conveying depravity both in detail and in the personal, and at larger scales.
It's like Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson but only featuring approximants of the Whirlwind, the Tiste Edur, the Tiste Liosan, the Pannion Domin, the Crippled God, Kallor, Poliel, a douchier Karsa Orlong and the rest are a bunch of Toc the Youngers, basically. Someone will get what I mean.
wish list
Steam wishlist
Etsy wishlist
Goodreads
SF&F Reviews blog
The second one has a bit more of a plot. But something I like about this series is that it doesn't have external conflict-driven plotlines like you often find in sci-fi or fantasy; instead the conflict is 95% emotional and internal (and I think it isn't too easily solved, although yes, the author did create a cozy story where you end up happy with everyone's emotional arcs. Still, I don't think their character narratives are resolved too pat-ly; you get the sense there is still room to grow and work through various issues.)
Coinage, you should read the sequels! They are also interesting and nice to read and different from the first one.
Sometimes it's OK to read a story that ends OK for the people in it.
...
...
Hood's breath that sounds miserable.
Bakker's Earwa is not a happy place. In part it's based on "What if the world of the Old Testament was real?", as an example. I wouldn't describe it as like, deliberately grimdark ala Warhammer or something though. It's more just that shit is kinda bad at the time and Bakker in his fiction generally subscribes to the idea that pre-modern life was kinda nasty.
Station Eleven is as good as I'd heard. It's beautiful and bittersweet and specific. It follows a handful of people before, during, and after the collapse of modern society. I'm going to be thinking about it for a while.
Currently pecking away at two friend mss so my regular book reading is much slower than it's been recently, but also pecking away at Elizabeth Bear's Ancestral Night and enjoying it so far.
Uncanny Magazine!
The Mad Writers Union
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in 30 years those details will be lauded for giving a sense of place
I started A Conjuring of Light by VE Schwab. I am not expecting to enjoy this, but the book was very on sale and I read the first two so might as well finish the trilogy.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
Apocalyptic vignette horror akin to World War Z - Sleep Over by HG Bells
John Ajvide Lindqvist's works are all strong and can be read independently (except for a trilogy), and I think almost all of them are translated. They might provide extra appreciation for someone who lives in Sweden (because that is the setting) and I have not read the translations to English, but he is very very good.
If you can find Through the Night by Stig Saetterbakken (he is Norwegian) then grab it immediately. There is an English transalation but I am not sure how available it is. One of the scariest, most harrowing books I've read.
I remember enjoying the hipster hangout vibe of the first one, but then, IIRC, they pity-adopt a homeless girl in the sequel and it gets really weird? Am I remembering this right?
Some of Ramsey Campbell’s early stuff is Lovecraftian, and better written. He jumps off imitating Lovecraft pretty quickly and goes on to be probably the best horror writer alive. His short fiction is also superb.
Clive Barker started off as a horror writer with his seminal Books of a Blood but soon went off in a weird new direction that combined horror and fantasy that was very much his own. His latest stuff is sadly under par and he can’t finish a series to save his life, but his good stuff is great.
Lisa Tuttle is a short story writer I like a lot who gets across some deeply nasty ideas.
Dan Simmons wrote some fine horror, like Carrion Comfort or Summer of Night.
MR James is the great classic ghost story writer who can make your skin crawl ever so slightly with his understated style and his descriptions of the subtly awry.
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