Oh I didn't realize that was referring to an audiobook I just figured it was a dig at the snarky narrator, and it totally checked out. I loved the series but that would definitely push the narration from amusing to unbearable.
BaidolI will hold him offEscape while you canRegistered Userregular
This is probably an odd question, but are their "indie" online stores that sell ebooks? I could buy from Amazon easily, but I want to see if there are other options.
finished my re-read of the Stormlight Archives. Mostly still happy with it, though I'm feeling a bit frustrated by the execution of the Cosmere.
started a re-read of Desperation (Stephen King) last night. Annoyingly, I don't seem to own The Regulators, so I may have to correct that today or tomorrow.
I'm not the biggest fan of Scalzi, but for Old Man's War you do have to keep in mind that it was his first published book, so appealing to 2004 Republicans wasn't really negotiable. The first book he wrote (which was published later), Agent to the Stars, gets credit(?) for being one of the most baffling books I've ever read. I'd honestly have been too embarrassed to publish it hardcopy without major revisions, but I guess that can be a bit of a rabbit hole.
I am very annoyed that my local online libraries did not possess the Horus heresy books
I've quietly made this case to the folks in my Collections department and it seems to boil down to E-books being really really expensive for libraries so they really can't justify going down niche rabbit holes with the electronic collection. There aresome articles you can read if you're curious!
I just read a description of Susanna Clarke's next book and it seems cool and weird, I'm looking forward to it now in a real way as opposed to a "yeah I'd read another book by her" way.
It is not helped by being atrociously narrated by Will Wheaton.
I loved the book but I read the text version. I cannot imagine the inclusion of Wil Wheaton improving anything but he is one of the worst choices I can imagine for that book in particular.
Now seeing that nearly every POV is a woman's, this is an even stupider casting choice.
It is not helped by being atrociously narrated by Will Wheaton.
I loved the book but I read the text version. I cannot imagine the inclusion of Wil Wheaton improving anything but he is one of the worst choices I can imagine for that book in particular.
Now seeing that nearly every POV is a woman's, this is an even stupider casting choice.
In particular the thought of Wil trying to narrate a Kiva chapter made my eyes roll so hard I strained something.
It is not helped by being atrociously narrated by Will Wheaton.
I loved the book but I read the text version. I cannot imagine the inclusion of Wil Wheaton improving anything but he is one of the worst choices I can imagine for that book in particular.
Now seeing that nearly every POV is a woman's, this is an even stupider casting choice.
In particular the thought of Wil trying to narrate a Kiva chapter made my eyes roll so hard I strained something.
Yep. It's the most grating fucking shit. Next two will definitely be print.
Edit: Wait nevermind Audible's return policy is incredibly generous. I'll be finishing The Collapsing Empire after I finish The City We Make.
So uh, anyone have recommendations for good audio books? I listened to my first ever full cast one with Sandman and it was phenomenal.
I have a very conflicted relationship with mister stephen king but I will incredibly wholeheartedly recommend the audiobook versions of the first three and possibly fourth Dark Tower novels. They were done by a dude named Frank Muller and his shit is like truly fantastical, I am admittedly a sucker for a well done reading but that man whisked me away. For me a good reading just smooths over awkward turgid prose so fucking bang on for ol Steve
I specifically remember a bit where a character says something while doing a Cowardly Lion impression and that fucker just put on a fucking bullseye Cowardly Lion for the audiobook, just wonderful
He got killed in a car accident before he could finish the series and I remember learning that as a dark dark day
Broke as fuck in the style of the times. Gratitude is all that can return on your generosity.
This is probably an odd question, but are their "indie" online stores that sell ebooks? I could buy from Amazon easily, but I want to see if there are other options.
If you don't have a local bookstore that also sells online, this may be a good option: https://bookshop.org/
finished my re-read of the Stormlight Archives. Mostly still happy with it, though I'm feeling a bit frustrated by the execution of the Cosmere.
Oh? Why's that? I've enjoyed the adventures of Hoid and His Many Carriages so far.
I guess the colloquialism would be it doesn't respect my time. I don't like that phrase, tbh, and I use it under some protest.
I haven't read (and don't really intend to read) Mistborn. Or his other books. I received WoK as a present, and used some gift card money to buy books 2, 2.5, and 3. They're fine. Some excellent moments, some slog. Lift is wonderful. In total, they don't make a strong argument for me to read the other books.
when the headers ('epigraph', though I dislike applying the term here) talk about, e.g., Ati and Rayse? I don't know who (or what, I guess) they are. I have an inkling. He could easily have expanded the appendix to give some context. I'm left with the impression that these headers are either drip-feeding information for the obsessive fans or they're basically neon signs saying "buy my other books." Or both.
If the Proper Nouns in the headers are important to the events on Roshar, then give me an appendix that summarizes the important bits. If they aren't, then use that space for literally anything else. Don't ask readers to do wiki dives or buy other books.
At least four characters are from other stories and each carries this sense that Sanderson expects the reader to puzzle out identities from clues and go, "Oh! I know them!" Never mind the incredibly likely case where someone picks up WoK because it looks interesting. To twist the perspective a bit, if you've only read Warbreaker and want to follow up on Vivenna's adventures, you need to read Oathbringer (in which she appears for fewer than 400 pages); and maybe it's stupid, but that seems like a big ask.
Vivenna, in particular, frustrates me because she apparently traveled between her world and Roshar via Shadesmar. This radically changes my understanding of Shadesmar (mostly driven by the artwork in the book) and the characters don't really blink at the implications. Is she special? Who knows! Sanderson doesn't bother to give her a POV or even an interlude, so she remains this weird half-side-character who feels under developed because all of her development was in another book entirely.
anyway. I have now spent far too long trying to express these thoughts and I have grown grouchy and tired.
+1
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BaidolI will hold him offEscape while you canRegistered Userregular
This is probably an odd question, but are their "indie" online stores that sell ebooks? I could buy from Amazon easily, but I want to see if there are other options.
If you don't have a local bookstore that also sells online, this may be a good option: https://bookshop.org/
Speaking of military-ish Sci-fi, I've been re-reading Gordon R. Dickson's Childe Cycle for the first time in many years. Maybe not a author that is reconizable to anyone who isn't a deep, deep sci-fi nerd. Its a curiously optimistic future history of humanity with some real wild concepts.
Jasper Fforde's got a new book out in September and it's certainly got a plot all right:
"England, 2022. There are 1.2 million human-size rabbits living in the UK. They can walk, talk, drive cars, and they like to read Voltaire, the result of an Inexplicable Anthropomorphizing Event fifty-five years before."
Jasper Fforde's got a new book out in September and it's certainly got a plot all right:
"England, 2022. There are 1.2 million human-size rabbits living in the UK. They can walk, talk, drive cars, and they like to read Voltaire, the result of an Inexplicable Anthropomorphizing Event fifty-five years before."
well that sure is a Jjaspper Ffordde-esque fucking synopsis.
Faintly annoyed, as I'm fairly sure I read it as part of my deep The Dark Tower dive some fifteen years ago, but had no real memories of it.
overall I'm pleased. Starts strong. I'm not super enthused by the prayer and Christianity angle, though I have little problem with the 'unobtrusive miracles.' I am very fond of the language of the unformed (sometimes 'dead') that gets used throughout; it has weight.
----
I have several questions:
- apparently Ron Perlman, Tom Skerritt and Annabeth Gish starred in a made-for-TV film based on the novel. Is this worth tracking down? I don't feel like it would work particularly well as a film (or even as a series), and King's stuff has a wobbly track record in that regard ... but that's a fairly good line-up.
- this is classified as a 'mirror novel', alongside The Regulators. Are there other examples of this sort of thing? Any recommendations?
- why does the goodreads review section allow for images, let alone memes?
- and a follow-up, why am I reading the goodreads review section?
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pyromaniac221this just might bean interestin YTRegistered Userregular
Jasper Fforde's got a new book out in September and it's certainly got a plot all right:
"England, 2022. There are 1.2 million human-size rabbits living in the UK. They can walk, talk, drive cars, and they like to read Voltaire, the result of an Inexplicable Anthropomorphizing Event fifty-five years before."
Yeah, sure. Fuck it. You know what? Fuck it, let’s go.
I finished Foundryside. Good book! Not sure I liked it as much as the Divine Cities books, but then again I think those books really got going from the second one on.
But I dig everything else Fforde. Shades of Grey is one of my all time faves and I'm beyond sad there's probably never going to be a sequel. And the nursery detective series is fun.
I kind of like his concepts (some of them) but I feel like his follow through is lazy. His world building in Thursday Next was astonishingly inconsistent. But in general I find him horribly twee so maybe I’m just not the right audience.
Did you read Shades of Grey tynic? That's easily my favorite of his books, I could take or leave pretty much everything else but that one really grabbed me (so naturally it's the one that will never get a sequel).
JedocIn the scupperswith the staggers and jagsRegistered Userregular
It's definitely a cut above his regular stuff. I've never experienced an author with faster diminishing returns than Fforde once I got through the first quarter of the Eyre Affair, but Shades of Grey is good people.
Although I'll never forgive him for releasing it right before Fifty Shades blew up, thus making that first week at the reference desk even more awkward.
Old Lady: Do you have that Shades of Grey book?
Me, An Innocent Clod: The sci-fi novel about the people who can only see one color based on their social class? Yeah, it's pretty neat!
Old Lady: No, I...think this is a different book.
Me, An Innocent Clod: Oh. What's yours about?
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JedocIn the scupperswith the staggers and jagsRegistered Userregular
Rereading Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson for the first time in several years. Boy, cryptocurrency sure got stupid since this book was written, didn't it? Not to mention the idea of a no-questions-asked Philippines-based data haven in the era of 8chan.
Still some real good adventure going on all around the hugely awkward bits, though.
Rereading Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson for the first time in several years. Boy, cryptocurrency sure got stupid since this book was written, didn't it? Not to mention the idea of a no-questions-asked Philippines-based data haven in the era of 8chan.
Still some real good adventure going on all around the hugely awkward bits, though.
I haven’t reread it in about a decade (more?) but yeah it’s alarming how fast the financial aspects went from cutting edge to obsolete.
Of course when he actually tried to write a book about cryptocurrency it turned into a fucking mess both logistically and thematically, which is a shame because the development of blockchain security and the concomitant commodification of machine processing hours is fucking fascinating and bonkers and potentially catastrophic and deserves some serious speculative attention.
JedocIn the scupperswith the staggers and jagsRegistered Userregular
I'd definitely be interested in reading his successor, if anyone is writing that particular near-future niche. Without just getting depressed and setting fire to their word processor, I suppose.
I'd definitely be interested in reading his successor, if anyone is writing that particular near-future niche. Without just getting depressed and setting fire to their word processor, I suppose.
Tim Maughan would be qualified, I can’t think of anyone else who is that nerdily interested in tech nitty gritty but also readable and understands narrative.
Best Novel and best Novella were my personal picks (best novel was actually my favorite book of the year that I read), so clearly I am right in all things and the best forever.
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knitdanIn ur baseKillin ur guysRegistered Userregular
edited August 2020
Love that Jeannette Ng got Best Related Work for her 2019 John W. Campbell Award acceptance speech, in which she rightly pointed out that Campbell was a fascist.
Best Novel and best Novella were my personal picks (best novel was actually my favorite book of the year that I read), so clearly I am right in all things and the best forever.
Would have preferred Gideon the Ninth by a tiny little bit but I literally finished Memory Called Empire last night and it is still settling. I'm not at all surprised that the solid science fiction novel that featured a heavy interest in literature won the Hugos, that is tailor made for Hugo voters.
Also on twitter I saw that Dong Won reps Arkady Martine, Max Gladestone and Sarah Gailey. I think I should just find a list of their authors and read them all at this rate.
Posts
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
I love this
started a re-read of Desperation (Stephen King) last night. Annoyingly, I don't seem to own The Regulators, so I may have to correct that today or tomorrow.
https://www.paypal.me/hobnailtaylor
I've quietly made this case to the folks in my Collections department and it seems to boil down to E-books being really really expensive for libraries so they really can't justify going down niche rabbit holes with the electronic collection. There are some articles you can read if you're curious!
I just read a description of Susanna Clarke's next book and it seems cool and weird, I'm looking forward to it now in a real way as opposed to a "yeah I'd read another book by her" way.
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
Now seeing that nearly every POV is a woman's, this is an even stupider casting choice.
Oh? Why's that? I've enjoyed the adventures of Hoid and His Many Carriages so far.
In particular the thought of Wil trying to narrate a Kiva chapter made my eyes roll so hard I strained something.
Yep. It's the most grating fucking shit. Next two will definitely be print.
Edit: Wait nevermind Audible's return policy is incredibly generous. I'll be finishing The Collapsing Empire after I finish The City We Make.
So uh, anyone have recommendations for good audio books? I listened to my first ever full cast one with Sandman and it was phenomenal.
I specifically remember a bit where a character says something while doing a Cowardly Lion impression and that fucker just put on a fucking bullseye Cowardly Lion for the audiobook, just wonderful
He got killed in a car accident before he could finish the series and I remember learning that as a dark dark day
https://www.paypal.me/hobnailtaylor
If you don't have a local bookstore that also sells online, this may be a good option: https://bookshop.org/
wish list
Steam wishlist
Etsy wishlist
Man, it really feels like Harry Turtledove is just pushing for someone to intervene and make him stop writing.
I guess the colloquialism would be it doesn't respect my time. I don't like that phrase, tbh, and I use it under some protest.
I haven't read (and don't really intend to read) Mistborn. Or his other books. I received WoK as a present, and used some gift card money to buy books 2, 2.5, and 3. They're fine. Some excellent moments, some slog. Lift is wonderful. In total, they don't make a strong argument for me to read the other books.
when the headers ('epigraph', though I dislike applying the term here) talk about, e.g., Ati and Rayse? I don't know who (or what, I guess) they are. I have an inkling. He could easily have expanded the appendix to give some context. I'm left with the impression that these headers are either drip-feeding information for the obsessive fans or they're basically neon signs saying "buy my other books." Or both.
If the Proper Nouns in the headers are important to the events on Roshar, then give me an appendix that summarizes the important bits. If they aren't, then use that space for literally anything else. Don't ask readers to do wiki dives or buy other books.
At least four characters are from other stories and each carries this sense that Sanderson expects the reader to puzzle out identities from clues and go, "Oh! I know them!" Never mind the incredibly likely case where someone picks up WoK because it looks interesting. To twist the perspective a bit, if you've only read Warbreaker and want to follow up on Vivenna's adventures, you need to read Oathbringer (in which she appears for fewer than 400 pages); and maybe it's stupid, but that seems like a big ask.
Vivenna, in particular, frustrates me because she apparently traveled between her world and Roshar via Shadesmar. This radically changes my understanding of Shadesmar (mostly driven by the artwork in the book) and the characters don't really blink at the implications. Is she special? Who knows! Sanderson doesn't bother to give her a POV or even an interlude, so she remains this weird half-side-character who feels under developed because all of her development was in another book entirely.
anyway. I have now spent far too long trying to express these thoughts and I have grown grouchy and tired.
I will look at this. Thank you!
"England, 2022. There are 1.2 million human-size rabbits living in the UK. They can walk, talk, drive cars, and they like to read Voltaire, the result of an Inexplicable Anthropomorphizing Event fifty-five years before."
well that sure is a Jjaspper Ffordde-esque fucking synopsis.
Faintly annoyed, as I'm fairly sure I read it as part of my deep The Dark Tower dive some fifteen years ago, but had no real memories of it.
overall I'm pleased. Starts strong. I'm not super enthused by the prayer and Christianity angle, though I have little problem with the 'unobtrusive miracles.' I am very fond of the language of the unformed (sometimes 'dead') that gets used throughout; it has weight.
----
I have several questions:
- apparently Ron Perlman, Tom Skerritt and Annabeth Gish starred in a made-for-TV film based on the novel. Is this worth tracking down? I don't feel like it would work particularly well as a film (or even as a series), and King's stuff has a wobbly track record in that regard ... but that's a fairly good line-up.
- this is classified as a 'mirror novel', alongside The Regulators. Are there other examples of this sort of thing? Any recommendations?
- why does the goodreads review section allow for images, let alone memes?
- and a follow-up, why am I reading the goodreads review section?
Gonna start Shorefall tonight, I think.
But I dig everything else Fforde. Shades of Grey is one of my all time faves and I'm beyond sad there's probably never going to be a sequel. And the nursery detective series is fun.
Steam - Talon Valdez :Blizz - Talonious#1860 : Xbox Live & LoL - Talonious Monk @TaloniousMonk Hail Satan
Although I'll never forgive him for releasing it right before Fifty Shades blew up, thus making that first week at the reference desk even more awkward.
Old Lady: Do you have that Shades of Grey book?
Me, An Innocent Clod: The sci-fi novel about the people who can only see one color based on their social class? Yeah, it's pretty neat!
Old Lady: No, I...think this is a different book.
Me, An Innocent Clod: Oh. What's yours about?
Still some real good adventure going on all around the hugely awkward bits, though.
I haven’t reread it in about a decade (more?) but yeah it’s alarming how fast the financial aspects went from cutting edge to obsolete.
Of course when he actually tried to write a book about cryptocurrency it turned into a fucking mess both logistically and thematically, which is a shame because the development of blockchain security and the concomitant commodification of machine processing hours is fucking fascinating and bonkers and potentially catastrophic and deserves some serious speculative attention.
Tim Maughan would be qualified, I can’t think of anyone else who is that nerdily interested in tech nitty gritty but also readable and understands narrative.
Edit: Okay, Infinite Detail was already on the list. So...to read'd sooner, I suppose.
Best Novel and best Novella were my personal picks (best novel was actually my favorite book of the year that I read), so clearly I am right in all things and the best forever.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
Would have preferred Gideon the Ninth by a tiny little bit but I literally finished Memory Called Empire last night and it is still settling. I'm not at all surprised that the solid science fiction novel that featured a heavy interest in literature won the Hugos, that is tailor made for Hugo voters.
Also on twitter I saw that Dong Won reps Arkady Martine, Max Gladestone and Sarah Gailey. I think I should just find a list of their authors and read them all at this rate.