won't say I called it, but I wasn't super surprised by the "humans aren't from Roshar" thing. Lots of little things gave me a, ah, Homeworld vibe, for lack of a better way to express that.
very happy with I am Unity, especially as I was half-worried Sanderson would actually have Dalinar fall just to throw a wrench into things.
Not sure I grok the Pattern bit in the epilogue. I'm not clear on where it was found relative to the Oathgate, so I'm not sure what we're supposed to think. If the trapped Oathgate corrupted/twinned Shallan's Pattern, I'll be a bit unhappy because nobody -even in Shadesmar - noticed a difference and that feels wrong. I have an odd feeling it has to do with Elhokar's attempt at the First Ideal.
I suspected the "Have you seen me?" guy was somehow relevant back in the opening to Way of Kings, and again when he showed up part-way through Oathbringer. The specifics were a bit of a surprise.
To be exact, I looked up his sentence just now and noticed that
a) the very next sentence lists the Herald statues (so, uh, good show), and
b) I think I can guess why Shalash's statue is missing, given her apparent obsession.
Regarding the Pattern, I wouldn't call it an odd feeling. Remember how Elhokar kept seeing strange fractal faces in the mirror and was freaking out?
won't say I called it, but I wasn't super surprised by the "humans aren't from Roshar" thing. Lots of little things gave me a, ah, Homeworld vibe, for lack of a better way to express that.
very happy with I am Unity, especially as I was half-worried Sanderson would actually have Dalinar fall just to throw a wrench into things.
Not sure I grok the Pattern bit in the epilogue. I'm not clear on where it was found relative to the Oathgate, so I'm not sure what we're supposed to think. If the trapped Oathgate corrupted/twinned Shallan's Pattern, I'll be a bit unhappy because nobody - even in Shadesmar - noticed a difference and that feels wrong. I have an odd feeling it has to do with Elhokar's attempt at the First Ideal.
I suspected the "Have you seen me?" guy was somehow relevant back in the opening to Way of Kings, and again when he showed up part-way through Oathbringer. The specifics were a bit of a surprise.
To be exact, I looked up his sentence just now and noticed that
a) the very next sentence lists the Herald statues (so, uh, good show), and
b) I think I can guess why Shalash's statue is missing, given her apparent obsession.
Regarding the Pattern, I wouldn't call it an odd feeling. Remember how Elhokar kept seeing strange fractal faces in the mirror and was freaking out?
This particular blow-up has been due for a while I think, having been keeping an occasional eye on it for professional reasons. I think this kind of thing is going to hit all of the major genre organizations, the Hugos have already had their famous share and I think it's necessary and good, but man is it a mess while it's going on.
Double edit: but if for some reason they stop publishing romance novels with awful pun titles about Scottish lords so help me
This particular blow-up has been due for a while I think, having been keeping an occasional eye on it for professional reasons. I think this kind of thing is going to hit all of the major genre organizations, the Hugos have already had their famous share and I think it's necessary and good, but man is it a mess while it's going on.
Double edit: but if for some reason they stop publishing romance novels with awful pun titles about Scottish lords so help me
I feel like the fact that the Hugos came under attack because the SFWA responded by kicking racist dipshit out was a big sign that it was healthy enough to endure and survive it. The RWA has shown the exact opposite signs.
The search is poorly implemented. I searched for "Gene Wolfe", "Wolfe, Gene", and "Author: Wolfe, Gene". All of which give me over 999 results. However, if I select the autosuggestion marked "Author: Wolfe, Gene", it filters correctly.
After wrestling with the search to find some New Sun books, both of which were listed as "sold by hpb beavercreek", the order summary page claimed that I would be paying shipping twice. Maybe at some point this would consolidate, but I got up to the payment method screen and it didn't appear to do so.
I just want to buy Gideon the Ninth and some omnibus variant of the New Sun stuff. Why is this so hard?
The search is poorly implemented. I searched for "Gene Wolfe", "Wolfe, Gene", and "Author: Wolfe, Gene". All of which give me over 999 results. However, if I select the autosuggestion marked "Author: Wolfe, Gene", it filters correctly.
After wrestling with the search to find some New Sun books, both of which were listed as "sold by hpb beavercreek", the order summary page claimed that I would be paying shipping twice. Maybe at some point this would consolidate, but I got up to the payment method screen and it didn't appear to do so.
I just want to buy Gideon the Ninth and some omnibus variant of the New Sun stuff. Why is this so hard?
The shipping twice is a feature, not a bug. Unfortunately.
The logic is that they don't have any kind of centralized shipping center, so the books people buy are probably going to be coming to from different stores which may be halfway across the country from one another. So even if they're being shipped from the same store, they're going to be packaged in the bulk-purchased single item shipping packages. Doesn't matter if you're buying one book or a dozen, they're going to have to package them separately.
They're mostly a giant used book store, so there's not a cheap way to even out the inventory between locations. And science fiction is a notoriously marginal genre in the used book trade, since sci-fi nerds tend to hoard books more than they sell.
I imagine none of this is particularly helpful to you at the moment, but them's the facts.
Jedoc on
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Shortytouching the meatIntergalactic Cool CourtRegistered Userregular
hpb used to have regional warehouses which they could have used as distro centers for their online sales but I'm pretty sure they phased those out years ago
Imagining the thousands of other personalities in Sevarian's head making fun of him for banging his grandma.
"Boy, I sure hope that the test that the shapers of the universe are going to give you doesn't involve not having banged your grandma..."
"You have a perfect memory, right? That means you can just go back and perfectly remember those times when you banged your grandma."
"I don't want you to use Us or We when you refer to yourself, because I don't wanna be lumped in with someone who banged his grandma."
"... i think banging your grandma is pretty hot."
Does the tone in those books ever...change? I ask because this series is like universally praised but I've started Shadow of the Torturer 3 times and each time I get fewer than 100 pages in before I just can't take anymore baroque ass descriptions of mundane shit.
In spite of how it's framed as the be-all, end-all of his work, I do not recommend Book of the New Sun as your introduction to Gene Wolfe. It's... dense. All those descriptions actually mean something, but it's not clear until a second read-through
Wolfe is one of those authors whose work changes significantly each time you read it, which is a trick I'm still wrapping my head around
If you want a good intro to him that's lighter on that element, try The Knight, the first installment of The Wizard Knight. The second book is, naturally, The Wizard. Anyway those books rule
"Second read through"?
I guess for people who are about three times smarter than me, because I was picking up new stuff on my sixth go round.
Imagining the thousands of other personalities in Sevarian's head making fun of him for banging his grandma.
"Boy, I sure hope that the test that the shapers of the universe are going to give you doesn't involve not having banged your grandma..."
"You have a perfect memory, right? That means you can just go back and perfectly remember those times when you banged your grandma."
"I don't want you to use Us or We when you refer to yourself, because I don't wanna be lumped in with someone who banged his grandma."
"... i think banging your grandma is pretty hot."
Does the tone in those books ever...change? I ask because this series is like universally praised but I've started Shadow of the Torturer 3 times and each time I get fewer than 100 pages in before I just can't take anymore baroque ass descriptions of mundane shit.
In spite of how it's framed as the be-all, end-all of his work, I do not recommend Book of the New Sun as your introduction to Gene Wolfe. It's... dense. All those descriptions actually mean something, but it's not clear until a second read-through
Wolfe is one of those authors whose work changes significantly each time you read it, which is a trick I'm still wrapping my head around
If you want a good intro to him that's lighter on that element, try The Knight, the first installment of The Wizard Knight. The second book is, naturally, The Wizard. Anyway those books rule
"Second read through"?
I guess for people who are about three times smarter than me, because I was picking up new stuff on my sixth go round.
Ah, no, sorry, I phrased that ambiguously! What I meant is that on the second read-through some of those descriptions will start to make sense. I, too, discover new things every time I flip through one of his books
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Raijin QuickfootI'm your Huckleberry YOU'RE NO DAISYRegistered User, ClubPAregular
I'm reading The Luminous Dead and ya'll
You should read The Luminous Dead.
Essentially it is about one woman paid to go into this extensive cave network by another woman.
There's some future tech involved and some other stuff but it's better to go in mostly blind.
It does a great job capturing the claustrophobia of being in a cave. It's not scary but it is tense.
So with Christopher Tolkien's death what's the state of Middle Earth IP? I recall he was very protective of everything the movie studios couldn't get their hands on.
"Simple, real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time." -Mustrum Ridcully in Terry Pratchett's Hogfather p. 142 (HarperPrism 1996)
mythology has never been a strong point of mine. I'm probably a little better this time around: at the least I recognize Czernobog; can catch how Gaiman drops hints towards Mr. Wednesday's real name (with the most explicit being simply "Votan"); of course Low Key Lyesmith is not much of a cipher; and the line about "make this Sybil our Urd" makes sense in both directions.
At the Carousel now, which is happening a bit earlier in the narrative than I recall.
edit: a bit into Chapter 11, a familiar face
A young girl, no older than fourteen, her hair dyed green and orange and pink, stared at them as they went by. She sat beside a dog, a mongrel, with a piece of string for a collar and a leash.
hey there, Delirium.
edit deux: finished
didn't notice any other references to the Endless or other Sandman characters.
I remembered vaguely that Odin and Loki were in it together, but I couldn't recall the specifics. I knew that Shadow was Odin's son.
I'm a bit confused on a couple of points:
- the events at Ash Farm. When Shadow returns from beyond death, it's as if dozens (probably not hundreds) of years had passed. Given that the well was Urd's Well specifically, I could assume that they slipped into the past when the vigil began. I'm struggling with the phrasing there.
- Sam has been having similar dreams. I'm not sure what to make of that. One obvious reading is that she's like Shadow (I dunno if demigod is quite the right term, here). If that's the case, then so is Marguerite; two children by the same father sorta belies the whole "we usually fire blanks" claim. On the other hand, maybe that doesn't apply to Culture Heroes.
- Wisakedjak, the Buffalo-headed figure, and a thunderbird woman seem disappointed in Shadow for ... something, as he's drowning in the lake.
Tamin on
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JedocIn the scupperswith the staggers and jagsRegistered Userregular
edited January 2020
I'm re-reading the Dresden Files in the vague hope that Peace Talks will come out one day, and I've made it up to White Night.
There's a whole extended gay panic scene that is weirding me out. Like, it's a very well-constructed scene as long as you take for granted that a straight dude would find it humiliating if a stranger thought he was gay. It even takes advantage of a minor antagonist security guard's bigotry and remarks on it. It feels like 2007 was about a hundred years ago. I don't think a Jim Butcher who spent several years actively on the right side of the Sad Puppies fiasco would write this scene today. If he did, Book Twitter would justifiably burn him to the ground.
I don't know that it changes my view of Butcher as a writer, but it definitely makes me dwell on the fact that the last time I read this book, the scene didn't seem at all odd to me.
It sucks that for all those years, gay Dresden fans were reading this out-of-nowhere scene and feeling bad about it while I was just chuckling along.
There is a little of it in that Dresden's views are intentionally out of date, as he is Old, though that usually comes up around women but I can still see those scenes being pretty uncomfortable.
Also, Mr Supposedly Super Librarian, Peace Talks got a real pub date, the manuscript is at the publisher and they've started releasing the cover and an excerpt. So it is all happening and such like.
JedocIn the scupperswith the staggers and jagsRegistered Userregular
edited January 2020
I'll believe it when I see it. Do you know how many nerds I had to crush by telling them that Brief Cases wasn't actually the next book they were waiting for?
Edit: it wasn't that many, sci-fi circulates very poorly in libraries. Nerds tend to be collectors, not borrowers.
I've single handedly kept the library buying certain fantasy series for my location, just by checking them out myself. It feels like the Lord's Work.
I'm about two thirds of the way through Gideon the Ninth and I'm enjoying it but it feels like the author hasn't quite settled on a tone. There's really funny lines but it's also pretty serious, I hope she decides which way she's leaning in the next book (and I hope it's funny).
I've single handedly kept the library buying certain fantasy series for my location, just by checking them out myself. It feels like the Lord's Work.
I'm about two thirds of the way through Gideon the Ninth and I'm enjoying it but it feels like the author hasn't quite settled on a tone. There's really funny lines but it's also pretty serious, I hope she decides which way she's leaning in the next book (and I hope it's funny).
Actual Spoilers, NO PEENS ALLOWED, at least until you finish the book:
I feel like this is gonna be handled by the narrative pretty neatly. Harrow appears to be the next protagonist and while there is an obvious way to get some snark in via spirit Gideon I suspect Harrow is gonna be way more serious business than Gideon.
Though if the series keeps going ya know Gideon's background is going to come up somehow. Just a big old Chekov's cannon sitting there with nothing close to resolution in the book.
Raijin QuickfootI'm your Huckleberry YOU'RE NO DAISYRegistered User, ClubPAregular
I started We Sold Our Souls for Rock and Roll by Grady Hendrix.
Not very far in but so far its fine.
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JedocIn the scupperswith the staggers and jagsRegistered Userregular
Huh. I thought I'd already read We Sold Our Souls but it turns out I was thinking of Necrophenia by Robert Rankin, a deeply weird book that is also about a band selling their souls for fame.
I can't really recommend the book, but finding it involved scrolling through the last four years of all the books I've read, which was an interesting trip down memory lane. I like how audiobooks can spark a vivid memory of what you were doing while listening to them years later, while print books normally evoke a memory of "I read this across several lunch breaks in the staff lounge."
You should read The City & The City, it's probably my favorite Mieville? Then Perdido Street Station, then The Scar, then Kraken? They're all pretty good, though.
I think a lot of what makes Mieville work for me is the sheer novelty of his ideas. I still think about the description of the grindlylows.
I've single handedly kept the library buying certain fantasy series for my location, just by checking them out myself. It feels like the Lord's Work.
I'm about two thirds of the way through Gideon the Ninth and I'm enjoying it but it feels like the author hasn't quite settled on a tone. There's really funny lines but it's also pretty serious, I hope she decides which way she's leaning in the next book (and I hope it's funny).
Actual Spoilers, NO PEENS ALLOWED, at least until you finish the book:
I feel like this is gonna be handled by the narrative pretty neatly. Harrow appears to be the next protagonist and while there is an obvious way to get some snark in via spirit Gideon I suspect Harrow is gonna be way more serious business than Gideon.
Though if the series keeps going ya know Gideon's background is going to come up somehow. Just a big old Chekov's cannon sitting there with nothing close to resolution in the book.
WearingglassesOf the friendly neighborhood varietyRegistered Userregular
This is gonna be a long shot, but does anyone remember which book has the line, possibly a chapter ender -- as a response to someone who just realized that a third person is in love with them (her, I think?) -- "Desperately, I'm afraid"?
Posts
Thanks!
@WhiteZinfandel
This will be here until I receive an apology or Weedlordvegeta get any consequences for being a bully
It also serves as like a pretty decent way to get a quicklist of inclusive/diverse romance writers, if, y'know, that's your bag
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
Double edit: but if for some reason they stop publishing romance novels with awful pun titles about Scottish lords so help me
I feel like the fact that the Hugos came under attack because the SFWA responded by kicking racist dipshit out was a big sign that it was healthy enough to endure and survive it. The RWA has shown the exact opposite signs.
The search is poorly implemented. I searched for "Gene Wolfe", "Wolfe, Gene", and "Author: Wolfe, Gene". All of which give me over 999 results. However, if I select the autosuggestion marked "Author: Wolfe, Gene", it filters correctly.
After wrestling with the search to find some New Sun books, both of which were listed as "sold by hpb beavercreek", the order summary page claimed that I would be paying shipping twice. Maybe at some point this would consolidate, but I got up to the payment method screen and it didn't appear to do so.
I just want to buy Gideon the Ninth and some omnibus variant of the New Sun stuff. Why is this so hard?
The shipping twice is a feature, not a bug. Unfortunately.
The logic is that they don't have any kind of centralized shipping center, so the books people buy are probably going to be coming to from different stores which may be halfway across the country from one another. So even if they're being shipped from the same store, they're going to be packaged in the bulk-purchased single item shipping packages. Doesn't matter if you're buying one book or a dozen, they're going to have to package them separately.
They're mostly a giant used book store, so there's not a cheap way to even out the inventory between locations. And science fiction is a notoriously marginal genre in the used book trade, since sci-fi nerds tend to hoard books more than they sell.
I imagine none of this is particularly helpful to you at the moment, but them's the facts.
"Second read through"?
I guess for people who are about three times smarter than me, because I was picking up new stuff on my sixth go round.
Ah, no, sorry, I phrased that ambiguously! What I meant is that on the second read-through some of those descriptions will start to make sense. I, too, discover new things every time I flip through one of his books
You should read The Luminous Dead.
Essentially it is about one woman paid to go into this extensive cave network by another woman.
There's some future tech involved and some other stuff but it's better to go in mostly blind.
It does a great job capturing the claustrophobia of being in a cave. It's not scary but it is tense.
Steam - Talon Valdez :Blizz - Talonious#1860 : Xbox Live & LoL - Talonious Monk @TaloniousMonk Hail Satan
also picked up American Gods because I've been wanting to re-read it
A Brightness Long Ago by Guy Gavriel Kay
and
The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon
The second one is a doorstop, good lord. 800 pages.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
Sexy reptilian people...
Sexy AI people...
Sexy finely scaled mood ring people...
Sexy human people...
At the Carousel now, which is happening a bit earlier in the narrative than I recall.
edit: a bit into Chapter 11, a familiar face
hey there, Delirium.
edit deux: finished
I remembered vaguely that Odin and Loki were in it together, but I couldn't recall the specifics. I knew that Shadow was Odin's son.
I'm a bit confused on a couple of points:
- the events at Ash Farm. When Shadow returns from beyond death, it's as if dozens (probably not hundreds) of years had passed. Given that the well was Urd's Well specifically, I could assume that they slipped into the past when the vigil began. I'm struggling with the phrasing there.
- Sam has been having similar dreams. I'm not sure what to make of that. One obvious reading is that she's like Shadow (I dunno if demigod is quite the right term, here). If that's the case, then so is Marguerite; two children by the same father sorta belies the whole "we usually fire blanks" claim. On the other hand, maybe that doesn't apply to Culture Heroes.
- Wisakedjak, the Buffalo-headed figure, and a thunderbird woman seem disappointed in Shadow for ... something, as he's drowning in the lake.
There's a whole extended gay panic scene that is weirding me out. Like, it's a very well-constructed scene as long as you take for granted that a straight dude would find it humiliating if a stranger thought he was gay. It even takes advantage of a minor antagonist security guard's bigotry and remarks on it. It feels like 2007 was about a hundred years ago. I don't think a Jim Butcher who spent several years actively on the right side of the Sad Puppies fiasco would write this scene today. If he did, Book Twitter would justifiably burn him to the ground.
I don't know that it changes my view of Butcher as a writer, but it definitely makes me dwell on the fact that the last time I read this book, the scene didn't seem at all odd to me.
It sucks that for all those years, gay Dresden fans were reading this out-of-nowhere scene and feeling bad about it while I was just chuckling along.
Also, Mr Supposedly Super Librarian, Peace Talks got a real pub date, the manuscript is at the publisher and they've started releasing the cover and an excerpt. So it is all happening and such like.
Edit: it wasn't that many, sci-fi circulates very poorly in libraries. Nerds tend to be collectors, not borrowers.
I'm about two thirds of the way through Gideon the Ninth and I'm enjoying it but it feels like the author hasn't quite settled on a tone. There's really funny lines but it's also pretty serious, I hope she decides which way she's leaning in the next book (and I hope it's funny).
Actual Spoilers, NO PEENS ALLOWED, at least until you finish the book:
Though if the series keeps going ya know Gideon's background is going to come up somehow. Just a big old Chekov's cannon sitting there with nothing close to resolution in the book.
Not very far in but so far its fine.
I can't really recommend the book, but finding it involved scrolling through the last four years of all the books I've read, which was an interesting trip down memory lane. I like how audiobooks can spark a vivid memory of what you were doing while listening to them years later, while print books normally evoke a memory of "I read this across several lunch breaks in the staff lounge."
My phone knew that I needed dinner, even when I didn't.
Almost almost almost time for The Mirror and the Light, guys.
ALMOST.
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
It is my first china mievillle
I like it, this guy has a real handle on how to write a city
You are in for a treat.
Steam profile.
Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2
I think a lot of what makes Mieville work for me is the sheer novelty of his ideas. I still think about the description of the grindlylows.
Ok I finished it and I agree, I think.
...Shorty what are your feelings on Moby Dick