BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
edited August 2019
You know, I think I'm happy the way Captain's Fury handled itself, and the questions that have been building through the series.
I'm so used to it ending in the Chosen One suddenly awakening his awesome power and saving everyone through a display of skill with those powers that would lead you to believe that he had been training for years, if you didn't know that they had just awoken the moment before, or whatever inane bullshit. But this slow, he is indeed Octavian, and he is gaining furies to some small degree, but there hasn't been any ridiculous burst of sudden ability.
I'll be starting Princep's Fury tonight.
Brody on
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
You know, I think I'm happy the way Captain's Fury handled itself, and the questions that have been building through the series.
I'm so used to it ending in the Chosen One suddenly awakening his awesome power and saving everyone through a display of skill with those powers that would lead you to believe that he had been training for years, if you didn't know that they had just awoken the moment before, or whatever inane bullshit. But this slow, he is indeed Octavian, and he is gaining furies to some small degree, but there hasn't been any ridiculous burst of sudden ability.
I'll be starting Princep's Fury tonight.
That's such a weird little series that gets so close to groan worthy tropes but then...just slightly sidesteps them most of the time to keep things fresh. There's also so many good side characters that really stand out.
I think Seth Dickinson has ruined me for fantasy, though. That dude's prose and just overall style is so much better than anything else I've read in a long long time.
I finally started The 5th Season, on audiobook on my drive to Colorado. This is really good ya'll. How come literally nobody ever said anything about it?
The only thing I don't really like is the use of second person for one of the PoVs.
I finally started The 5th Season, on audiobook on my drive to Colorado. This is really good ya'll. How come literally nobody ever said anything about it?
:P
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. ~ Terry Pratchett
Other things that won Hugos: The Calculating Stars. Just finished reading it and I really enjoyed it. Mostly about alt-history where we actually included women in the space program early on, for reasons. Wait, no, that's the sci-fi dressing to get people to read a book about feelings. The heart of the book is a woman who has desperately wanted to become an astronaut and the path she takes to try and get there along the prices she is (and isn't) willing to pay.
It is a little bit of a recasting of present day morals onto the 1940s-50s which feels a little optimistic, but then again DC is vaporized in like the first five pages so maybe....
Other things that won Hugos: The Calculating Stars. Just finished reading it and I really enjoyed it. Mostly about alt-history where we actually included women in the space program early on, for reasons. Wait, no, that's the sci-fi dressing to get people to read a book about feelings. The heart of the book is a woman who has desperately wanted to become an astronaut and the path she takes to try and get there along the prices she is (and isn't) willing to pay.
It is a little bit of a recasting of present day morals onto the 1940s-50s which feels a little optimistic, but then again DC is vaporized in like the first five pages so maybe....
Casting our present day morals onto people of different time-periods/cultures/realities/etc is like the cornerstone of speculative fiction.
People actually tend to react badly to trying to make people more of their time or place in my experience.
The second collection of Ramsey Campbell's Lovecraftian-influenced work, Voices of Brichester, featuring stories set in and around his fictional town of Brichester. Taken from later in his career than the first collection, the stories are much, much better. Cold Print remains a genuinely nasty, affecting story about an unpleasant man meeting a bad end, and it's the first one to seem unmistakeably the work of Campbell as we know him today.
I'm also re-reading all the Far Side collections, which remain glorious.
Other things that won Hugos: The Calculating Stars. Just finished reading it and I really enjoyed it. Mostly about alt-history where we actually included women in the space program early on, for reasons. Wait, no, that's the sci-fi dressing to get people to read a book about feelings. The heart of the book is a woman who has desperately wanted to become an astronaut and the path she takes to try and get there along the prices she is (and isn't) willing to pay.
It is a little bit of a recasting of present day morals onto the 1940s-50s which feels a little optimistic, but then again DC is vaporized in like the first five pages so maybe....
Casting our present day morals onto people of different time-periods/cultures/realities/etc is like the cornerstone of speculative fiction.
People actually tend to react badly to trying to make people more of their time or place in my experience.
The protagonist would be perfectly at home on these boards. Which strikes me as wildly implausible for somebody born in the 1920's and who didn't have the 80 years of change since the 40's. It isn't a big deal, as you say it is common in fiction, but it jarred me a bit. She does fuck up here and there but mostly so she can demonstrate how to admit she messed up. Which is actually something that is uncommon in fiction and we should have more of.
The second collection of Ramsey Campbell's Lovecraftian-influenced work, Voices of Brichester, featuring stories set in and around his fictional town of Brichester. Taken from later in his career than the first collection, the stories are much, much better. Cold Print remains a genuinely nasty, affecting story about an unpleasant man meeting a bad end, and it's the first one to seem unmistakeably the work of Campbell as we know him today.
I'm also re-reading all the Far Side collections, which remain glorious.
Do you have the big all in one collection? Apparently they got his editor or something to explain some of the more obscure jokes.
I think that might be what’s in the Prehistory of the Far Side book, which I also have. He explains some jokes, some early stuff and puts together his favourites.
Anyone read Senlin Ascends/Books of Babel? I am intrigued by the author but this seems like it could be great or incredibly underwhelming.
I added that to my to-read list last night after stumbling across them on Amazon somehow or other. If nobody else in the thread responds to convince me otherwise I'll probably read it sometime in the next month and report back.
PSN,Steam,Live | CptHamiltonian
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BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
Well, thats the Codex Alera series finished. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with the way the series went. It managed to avoid most dumb tropes, or subvert them when it otherwise had to indulge in them. It also managed to (as far as I can recall) not once fail to use Chekhov's Gun. I might have missed something, but everything that I can remember going "but what about..." eventually circled back and got used.
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
The second collection of Ramsey Campbell's Lovecraftian-influenced work, Voices of Brichester, featuring stories set in and around his fictional town of Brichester. Taken from later in his career than the first collection, the stories are much, much better. Cold Print remains a genuinely nasty, affecting story about an unpleasant man meeting a bad end, and it's the first one to seem unmistakeably the work of Campbell as we know him today.
I'm also re-reading all the Far Side collections, which remain glorious.
Hey I met him at worldcon he was a pretty affable dude
Anyone read Senlin Ascends/Books of Babel? I am intrigued by the author but this seems like it could be great or incredibly underwhelming.
I added that to my to-read list last night after stumbling across them on Amazon somehow or other. If nobody else in the thread responds to convince me otherwise I'll probably read it sometime in the next month and report back.
I read the first one. The writing is dryer than I like, kinda Jane Austinish if that makes sense, but the world building is incredible. If I hit another book drought I wouldn't be opposed to trying the second.
Before following any advice, opinions, or thoughts I may have expressed in the above post, be warned: I found Keven Costners "Waterworld" to be a very entertaining film.
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BlackDragon480Bluster KerfuffleMaster of Windy ImportRegistered Userregular
Well, thats the Codex Alera series finished. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with the way the series went. It managed to avoid most dumb tropes, or subvert them when it otherwise had to indulge in them. It also managed to (as far as I can recall) not once fail to use Chekhov's Gun. I might have missed something, but everything that I can remember going "but what about..." eventually circled back and got used.
It's amazing the mileage Butcher got out of a message board pissing contest centered on Pokemon and the Lost Legion.
No matter where you go...there you are. ~ Buckaroo Banzai
Hey book thread!
Just wanted to stop by, I'm on my honeymoon in Portland, so of course we went to Powell's... I grabbed not a few suggestions from the thread and also where did all my money go?
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
Finished the second Crows book, Crooked Kingdom. It feels a little long in the middle but the end payoff was nice even if somewhat sad. I would read more in that world (i think there might be more books in that universe with different characters).
Hey book thread!
Just wanted to stop by, I'm on my honeymoon in Portland, so of course we went to Powell's... I grabbed not a few suggestions from the thread and also where did all my money go?
@Aioua I see a couple in there that I was stanning for so that's fun, enjoy!
Some days Blue wonders why anyone ever bothered making numbers so small; other days she supposes even infinity needs to start somewhere.
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BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
Somebody here mentioned "The library at Mount Char", so I downloaded the sample.
A few minutes later I had bought the thing and now, 10 days later, I got done with it.
It was one awesome ride and i really recommended it. I really want there to be more of it, but at the same time the mystery is part of the charm.
After some indecisiveness, I just got started on "The three body problem."
I really enjoyed the Three Body Problem trilogy, but it is definitely not a product of Western media, and so I've had a lot of people tell me it has some huge deficiencies which I think are more a product of the society that produced it having a different cultural focus than any failing by the author.
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
Somebody here mentioned "The library at Mount Char", so I downloaded the sample.
A few minutes later I had bought the thing and now, 10 days later, I got done with it.
It was one awesome ride and i really recommended it. I really want there to be more of it, but at the same time the mystery is part of the charm.
After some indecisiveness, I just got started on "The three body problem."
I really enjoyed the Three Body Problem trilogy, but it is definitely not a product of Western media, and so I've had a lot of people tell me it has some huge deficiencies which I think are more a product of the society that produced it having a different cultural focus than any failing by the author.
I feel like most of the criticism is missing a lot of the point... I felt like there’s a whole lot of allegory in there for human relations now and in recent history (especially the cold war, current international relations and colonial era interactions between the west and China) that just sails over people's heads, especially if you aren’t considering the fact that the author is from a country where you can’t just say some things outright.
I have been seeing talk about Gideon the Ninth from a lot of authors I follow. I gotta put that on the list.
Just finished up To Be Taught, If Fortunate, Becky Chambers new book. I'm very ambivalent on it. I definitely enjoyed it and the vision of an ethos of exploration and discovery it presented. I did find the climax of the book unsatisfying and I'm unsure of exactly why.
Finished the second Crows book, Crooked Kingdom. It feels a little long in the middle but the end payoff was nice even if somewhat sad. I would read more in that world (i think there might be more books in that universe with different characters).
I also just finished it.
The age of every character was laughable but pretty easy to handwave, and the slow parts really slowed me down, but once the main action started to get rolling both were a good ride full of twists and turns. At the end of the day it's a pretty dang good set of heist books and I would also recommend them.
I loved
the sort of throw away reveal that the Council of Tides thing was another bluff by Kaz
The newest Stephen King novel, The Institute, is good stuff. Not unfamiliar territory for him (there are kids with special powers, to keep it vague), but he uses it pretty clearly to comment on America’s ongoing internment of immigrants. That gives it a breath of freshness that brings a real urgency to everything after about 80 pages.
There are a few bits that are likely to cause eye rolling for some folks (and I would’ve thought myself one of them, but it worked for me), but overall it’s just a damn good Stephen King book. I think of Firestarter and Under The Dome as books that start with a lit fuse and race towards the explosion, and I’d put this in roughly the same territory of pacing.
For those who don’t mind getting a sense of the urgency that comes early on (spoiler that isn’t very revealing, comes in the first 70-80 pages and I’m sanitizing):
A boy kid winds up in a strange place, and finds a girl kid who tells him how things work. Kids stay here for a while, then they go somewhere else and never come back. This girl says she’s been here the longest of any kid so far - three weeks.
Just a real good ticking clock, and the story doesn’t sag.
OneAngryPossum on
+1
Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
How is the ending on a scale from Dark Tower to ... Hmm. Is it a typical quarter arsed Stephen King ending?
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
How is the ending on a scale from Dark Tower to ... Hmm. Is it a typical quarter arsed Stephen King ending?
I may not be the best source here given that I genuinely love the ending for the Dark Tower, but I know what you mean - it’s an actual good ending, even without applying the King curve. Earned and satisfying.
Started On, by Adam Roberts. Visions of Brichester was much superior to the other collection (as Campbell himself would admit), and the included recent novella about a truly disturbing seaside resort in an overcast, dreary England is one of those places where Campbell excels: all oblique and knowing answers to plain questions, half glimpsed oddness and worried assumptions that the strange thing you've just seen must be just a trick of the light.
Spinning Silver might be a new favorite for me in the fantasy genre. It's incredibly refreshing to have a fantasy story whose plot revolves around negotiating power and relationships instead of fighting for a macguffin.
Spinning Silver might be a new favorite for me in the fantasy genre. It's incredibly refreshing to have a fantasy story whose plot revolves around negotiating power and relationships instead of fighting for a macguffin.
I'll have to have a look at that.
That's something I really liked about Jack Yeovil's (actually Kim Newman's) Warhammer books from back in the day, the subversion of how these things typically go. For example, in his first one, Drachenfels (very minor story structure spoilers for a thirty year old book):
our party of adventurers finish up their quest to destroy the big bad in the prologue. The main story of the book is about putting on a play to tell their story... on location in the big bad's fortress. What could go wrong, right?
They remain some of my favourite books ever, not even just favourite fantasy books. Worth checking out (easiest way is just grab The Vampire Genevieve omnibus off eBay since it's now OOP).
lwt1973King of ThievesSyndicationRegistered Userregular
I finished two books of The Witcher series, The Last Wish and the Blood of Elves. I wanted to read through them so that I'm caught up when the series comes out on Netflix.
"He's sulking in his tent like Achilles! It's the Iliad?...from Homer?! READ A BOOK!!" -Handy
+2
Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
I finished the last Severian Gene Wolfe book, The Urth of the New Su. I'd probably say that that one is just bad. The other three made me feel like a re-read would reveal extra layers of plot, this one did not and I found the various extra acts just pointless. Nothing significant was revealed or was uncovered.
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
Due to the very cool cover posted the other day, I just sped through all of Gideon the Ninth. Really impressive for an author's first book, I was entertained for the whole ride. Super interesting magic system I'm looking forward to learning more about in the next 2 books. Only a couple minor criticisms...
1. The narrator's voice feels very shaped by internet culture and sort of incongruous with the setting. I love her snarky sick-of-everything attitude, but it kind of shatters my immersion a little bit when I'm tripping over phrases like "stop being so salty" and "permanent case of resting-bitch-face syndrome"
2. My girlfriend couldn't get past the first chapter because not a whole lot of words are spent on worldbuilding or describing the setting, it just kind of throws you into Gideon's head and stays there for awhile, so she was having trouble picturing the story and it bugged her.
3. Not going to name names or specific plot events, but this one is sort of spoilery and if you're gonna read the book maybe just don't click:
Maybe I've just honed my trope-detection instinct by always trying to predict where plots are going to go, maybe I just watched too much scooby doo as a kid, but there's one character who, from their introduction practically, could not be more obviously secretly-evil if they were wearing a t-shirt that said "I WILL BETRAY YOU AT THE 11th HOUR" and the author called attention to it every scene they were in. When it happened I just kind of sighed and went "oh no, what a tweest."
Due to the very cool cover posted the other day, I just sped through all of Gideon the Ninth. Really impressive for an author's first book, I was entertained for the whole ride. Super interesting magic system I'm looking forward to learning more about in the next 2 books. Only a couple minor criticisms...
1. The narrator's voice feels very shaped by internet culture and sort of incongruous with the setting. I love her snarky sick-of-everything attitude, but it kind of shatters my immersion a little bit when I'm tripping over phrases like "stop being so salty" and "permanent case of resting-bitch-face syndrome"
2. My girlfriend couldn't get past the first chapter because not a whole lot of words are spent on worldbuilding or describing the setting, it just kind of throws you into Gideon's head and stays there for awhile, so she was having trouble picturing the story and it bugged her.
3. Not going to name names or specific plot events, but this one is sort of spoilery and if you're gonna read the book maybe just don't click:
Maybe I've just honed my trope-detection instinct by always trying to predict where plots are going to go, maybe I just watched too much scooby doo as a kid, but there's one character who, from their introduction practically, could not be more obviously secretly-evil if they were wearing a t-shirt that said "I WILL BETRAY YOU AT THE 11th HOUR" and the author called attention to it every scene they were in. When it happened I just kind of sighed and went "oh no, what a tweest."
So these below are real full blooded spoilers as I also just read that:
While this is very true I feel like the description "So very obviously evil" applies to like half the cast. It just end up being mostly untrue for almost all of them. I was expecting the Sixths crew to be secretly evil until almost the very end. When he goes to see Septimus after the Lector confrontation? Was half expecting he was gonna use her to turn himself into one too so they could be together forever.
I am very curious how the author is going to handle the narrator shift. Gideon has a super strong voice and while Harrow firmly had a style I'm not sure how much of it she'll keep as a Lector. They seemed to squash the concept of Gideon hanging out in her head as a secondary narrator pretty hard in the epilogue chapters.
Also HUGE QUESTION: Who is the Necro Empire fighting/conquering?
Posts
I'll be starting Princep's Fury tonight.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
That's such a weird little series that gets so close to groan worthy tropes but then...just slightly sidesteps them most of the time to keep things fresh. There's also so many good side characters that really stand out.
I think Seth Dickinson has ruined me for fantasy, though. That dude's prose and just overall style is so much better than anything else I've read in a long long time.
The only thing I don't really like is the use of second person for one of the PoVs.
:P
Other things that won Hugos: The Calculating Stars. Just finished reading it and I really enjoyed it. Mostly about alt-history where we actually included women in the space program early on, for reasons. Wait, no, that's the sci-fi dressing to get people to read a book about feelings. The heart of the book is a woman who has desperately wanted to become an astronaut and the path she takes to try and get there along the prices she is (and isn't) willing to pay.
It is a little bit of a recasting of present day morals onto the 1940s-50s which feels a little optimistic, but then again DC is vaporized in like the first five pages so maybe....
Casting our present day morals onto people of different time-periods/cultures/realities/etc is like the cornerstone of speculative fiction.
People actually tend to react badly to trying to make people more of their time or place in my experience.
I'm also re-reading all the Far Side collections, which remain glorious.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
The protagonist would be perfectly at home on these boards. Which strikes me as wildly implausible for somebody born in the 1920's and who didn't have the 80 years of change since the 40's. It isn't a big deal, as you say it is common in fiction, but it jarred me a bit. She does fuck up here and there but mostly so she can demonstrate how to admit she messed up. Which is actually something that is uncommon in fiction and we should have more of.
Do you have the big all in one collection? Apparently they got his editor or something to explain some of the more obscure jokes.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
I added that to my to-read list last night after stumbling across them on Amazon somehow or other. If nobody else in the thread responds to convince me otherwise I'll probably read it sometime in the next month and report back.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
Hey I met him at worldcon he was a pretty affable dude
I read the first one. The writing is dryer than I like, kinda Jane Austinish if that makes sense, but the world building is incredible. If I hit another book drought I wouldn't be opposed to trying the second.
It's amazing the mileage Butcher got out of a message board pissing contest centered on Pokemon and the Lost Legion.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
Just wanted to stop by, I'm on my honeymoon in Portland, so of course we went to Powell's... I grabbed not a few suggestions from the thread and also where did all my money go?
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
Steam | XBL
Blizzard: Pailryder#1101
GoG: https://www.gog.com/u/pailryder
A few minutes later I had bought the thing and now, 10 days later, I got done with it.
It was one awesome ride and i really recommended it. I really want there to be more of it, but at the same time the mystery is part of the charm.
After some indecisiveness, I just got started on "The three body problem."
@Aioua I see a couple in there that I was stanning for so that's fun, enjoy!
I really enjoyed the Three Body Problem trilogy, but it is definitely not a product of Western media, and so I've had a lot of people tell me it has some huge deficiencies which I think are more a product of the society that produced it having a different cultural focus than any failing by the author.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
I feel like most of the criticism is missing a lot of the point... I felt like there’s a whole lot of allegory in there for human relations now and in recent history (especially the cold war, current international relations and colonial era interactions between the west and China) that just sails over people's heads, especially if you aren’t considering the fact that the author is from a country where you can’t just say some things outright.
read this book. It is about very cool space necromancers
Just finished up To Be Taught, If Fortunate, Becky Chambers new book. I'm very ambivalent on it. I definitely enjoyed it and the vision of an ethos of exploration and discovery it presented. I did find the climax of the book unsatisfying and I'm unsure of exactly why.
I also just finished it.
The age of every character was laughable but pretty easy to handwave, and the slow parts really slowed me down, but once the main action started to get rolling both were a good ride full of twists and turns. At the end of the day it's a pretty dang good set of heist books and I would also recommend them.
I loved
There are a few bits that are likely to cause eye rolling for some folks (and I would’ve thought myself one of them, but it worked for me), but overall it’s just a damn good Stephen King book. I think of Firestarter and Under The Dome as books that start with a lit fuse and race towards the explosion, and I’d put this in roughly the same territory of pacing.
For those who don’t mind getting a sense of the urgency that comes early on (spoiler that isn’t very revealing, comes in the first 70-80 pages and I’m sanitizing):
Just a real good ticking clock, and the story doesn’t sag.
I may not be the best source here given that I genuinely love the ending for the Dark Tower, but I know what you mean - it’s an actual good ending, even without applying the King curve. Earned and satisfying.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
I'll have to have a look at that.
That's something I really liked about Jack Yeovil's (actually Kim Newman's) Warhammer books from back in the day, the subversion of how these things typically go. For example, in his first one, Drachenfels (very minor story structure spoilers for a thirty year old book):
They remain some of my favourite books ever, not even just favourite fantasy books. Worth checking out (easiest way is just grab The Vampire Genevieve omnibus off eBay since it's now OOP).
Steam | XBL
1. The narrator's voice feels very shaped by internet culture and sort of incongruous with the setting. I love her snarky sick-of-everything attitude, but it kind of shatters my immersion a little bit when I'm tripping over phrases like "stop being so salty" and "permanent case of resting-bitch-face syndrome"
2. My girlfriend couldn't get past the first chapter because not a whole lot of words are spent on worldbuilding or describing the setting, it just kind of throws you into Gideon's head and stays there for awhile, so she was having trouble picturing the story and it bugged her.
3. Not going to name names or specific plot events, but this one is sort of spoilery and if you're gonna read the book maybe just don't click:
So these below are real full blooded spoilers as I also just read that:
I am very curious how the author is going to handle the narrator shift. Gideon has a super strong voice and while Harrow firmly had a style I'm not sure how much of it she'll keep as a Lector. They seemed to squash the concept of Gideon hanging out in her head as a secondary narrator pretty hard in the epilogue chapters.
Also HUGE QUESTION: Who is the Necro Empire fighting/conquering?