On a similar note, I finished up the broken earth trilogy and I liked it quite a lot, enough that I’ll definitely get hold of jemisin’s back catalogue and pick up her new books going forward
for me it never quite reached the theoretical high point promised by the first third of book one, but that’s mostly on me - I get very excited when I think authors are doing something truly novel, and then if a text relaxes into more familiar territory I get let down by my own inflated expectations. That goes double for fantasy, because I’m so fucking bored by the tropes of the genre.
It was an expertly tailored narrative, lots of highly relevant thematic meat to chew on, and I was genuinely gripped for the entire thing, so definitely deserving of all praise.
I really liked Station Eleven, but didn't really want to learn more once it was done.
And also I had some small beef with somehow nobody across the midwest being able to figure out how to small-scale leverage solar or other power sources to bring back electricity for that many years. I'm like y'all know libraries are still a thing, the US is full of lunatic DIY'ers and books'll teach you anything? Nobody even managed a pedal generator? Uhh okay??
Yeah that kind of weirdness was hard to gloss over. Semi-instantaneous knowledge loss following catastrophe is an irksome YA trope and is one of the reasons I didn’t think I was gonna like the book very much initially.
JedocIn the scupperswith the staggers and jagsRegistered Userregular
The weird thing about the apocalypse these days is that just about every state west of the Mississippi has thousands of megawatts of wind turbines that aren't going to stop spinning just because everyone is cannibalizing one another or whatever. Sure, it'd be tough for a scrappy band of survivors to keep a whole field up and running, but one turbine is enough to keep a couple thousand people living like wasteland royalty. I've got a cousin who transitioned from diesel mechanic to maintaining wind turbines, and he swears that if you can change the oil in a car and aren't afraid of heights you could do his job full time.
Plus, you can build tree houses right on the turbine pylons so you can draw up the ladders at night to keep the zombies out.
I really liked Station Eleven, but didn't really want to learn more once it was done.
And also I had some small beef with somehow nobody across the midwest being able to figure out how to small-scale leverage solar or other power sources to bring back electricity for that many years. I'm like y'all know libraries are still a thing, the US is full of lunatic DIY'ers and books'll teach you anything? Nobody even managed a pedal generator? Uhh okay??
E: for small post-apocalyptic spoiler
Yeah,
as a like, pandemic style apocalypse, the infrastructure was way more destroyed than it ought to have been.
I liked the detail of none of the older actors/musicians knew much about science, and the younger ones were flabbergasted that they didn't take the opportunity to learn and of it before everything went to hell. But someone should have been more competent with all that sort of stuff.
3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
Finished up The Only Good Indians at like 1:15 am, which I did not mean to stay up until. That should tell you my overall thoughts on the book.
Spoiler-y thoughts:
I think I posted here earlier, I really liked the early parts of the book, but I'll admit once we were about done with Lewis I was starting to flag a little, but whatever, most books have slow parts where the pacing gets wonky it's no big.
The sweat is where the book started to lose me a little, and I'll fully admit this is because 2020 has drained me and my ability to muscle through nasty stuff is quite reduced, but the premeditated and awful cruelty of the entire scenario was really starting to upset me after the dogs. There was a part of me going "lady, you're a fucking elk, you do not have the right to kill these people," and shortly after I had that thought three things twigged in my brain in this order:
1. The premise of the book is a front, and the elks are actually Native Americans. The Native Americans in the book are a stand-in for white people.
2. The book wants you to feel disgusted and angry at Elk Head Woman taking vengeance like this, to show you how easy it is to disregard that someone's been wronged if you don't view them as human.
3. Stephen Graham Jones played me like a fucking fiddle.
From that realization I pretty much devoured the rest of the book, even if some of the gore was...a lot...and the ending was not what I expected, which is good. I've had too much of bleak horror that just ends on "and then everything sucked," the cycle breaking and some amount of hope coming out of all this was a welcome reprieve. The ending felt a bit abrupt but endings are also really hard to pace so I gladly give that a pass.
I wrote a book this weekend. Can I briefly brag about that here?
I joined the 3daynovel contest for the like 4th or 5th time ever and actually completed it this this time. For anyone that doesn't know about that contest, it means you have to write your novel between 12:01 AM on the Saturday of Labor Day Weekend and 11:59 PM on Labor Day (the Monday). I had no outline (although you can have one) and only had a rough idea of what I was going to write about or the shape my story was going to take when starting the contest.
That was rough, but I finished it and submitted it.
My submission was only 20,000 words. I wrote around 24,000 total but ~4,000ish got expunged during editing.
It's a novella, but a novella counts as a "book," right? I can tell people I wrote a "book," right?
I was browsing through Amazon and saw this and thought "dang, I bet #1 nephew would absolutely love this, it looks awesome." And it is awesome! And huge!
And then I wondered how many of the entries would be... purely historical by the time he turned 18, and it made me extremely sad and angry.
idk I might get it for him anyway, I hope it doesn't make him as mad at our generation as it makes me.
Finished up The Only Good Indians at like 1:15 am, which I did not mean to stay up until. That should tell you my overall thoughts on the book.
Spoiler-y thoughts:
I think I posted here earlier, I really liked the early parts of the book, but I'll admit once we were about done with Lewis I was starting to flag a little, but whatever, most books have slow parts where the pacing gets wonky it's no big.
The sweat is where the book started to lose me a little, and I'll fully admit this is because 2020 has drained me and my ability to muscle through nasty stuff is quite reduced, but the premeditated and awful cruelty of the entire scenario was really starting to upset me after the dogs. There was a part of me going "lady, you're a fucking elk, you do not have the right to kill these people," and shortly after I had that thought three things twigged in my brain in this order:
1. The premise of the book is a front, and the elks are actually Native Americans. The Native Americans in the book are a stand-in for white people.
2. The book wants you to feel disgusted and angry at Elk Head Woman taking vengeance like this, to show you how easy it is to disregard that someone's been wronged if you don't view them as human.
3. Stephen Graham Jones played me like a fucking fiddle.
From that realization I pretty much devoured the rest of the book, even if some of the gore was...a lot...and the ending was not what I expected, which is good. I've had too much of bleak horror that just ends on "and then everything sucked," the cycle breaking and some amount of hope coming out of all this was a welcome reprieve. The ending felt a bit abrupt but endings are also really hard to pace so I gladly give that a pass.
Overall, heck of a book.
Hmm.
TOGI Spoilers
I'm not sure if I fully agree with your premise(s), but I definitely see where you're coming from. A couple of specific points that I would add:
- There is, I think, intended to be an element of the ironic death at play with the Elk Head Woman's murders. She is killing indigenous people in ways that are frequently used as evidence of... I guess racial inferiority is the blunt way to put it - getting into drunken fights, going "off the reservation", that sort of thing. Calling her racist for this doesn't quite work given what she is, but that element is there for sure.
- The chapters narrated by the Elk Head Woman are told in the second person. Make of this what you will, but the implication is definitely that you the audience are at least partially responsible for these murders - whether that is a message targeting the reader as a presumed colonizer or as a person who is reading a slasher book and wants to see blood, I can't be entirely sure.
+1
Options
3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
Yeah, those are definitely good reads as well. I particularly hadn't thought about your second point but that makes a lot of sense on its face.
not much for audio books usually, but I went through a fair amount of The Sandman. They've just met Hob.
Very happy with most of the voices. The narrator does a good job describing the panels. I quite liked the change of the narrator during the Tales in the Sand (and the other cast changes in there). I'm not so thrilled with Morpheus. He's fine, though, and he's growing on me.
I have not had much luck appreciating the casting or direction for Death. She's at odds with my (admittedly nebulous) internal choices. She doesn't come across as, I dunno, cheerful? perky? as I imagined her. She's supposed to be irritated at Dream in The Sound of Her Wings, but it comes across as more bullying than I would have preferred.
that seems extra weird to me, because -- while she's not my first choice -- if I'm looking for down-to-earth and cheerful, she ought to be able to deliver.
anyway, a few minor complaints aside, I thought they did a great job.
I've been ripping through sci fi as I avoid my next serious book.
A memory called empire - fantastic
City in the middle of the night - good but uneven
Children of time - good so far
Up next is either the newer piketty or that massive surveillance capitalism tome. Finished The Technology Trap which was also excellent (compared modern day to industrial revolution with a focus on labor and technology)
+1
Options
JedocIn the scupperswith the staggers and jagsRegistered Userregular
I'm just going through the Vorkosigan saga audiobooks again. It is still extremely good space opera, and superb comfort food reading.
I started reading Why Fish Don't Exist on a friends recommendation, and I don't think I've ever done such a u-turn on my opinion of someone's writing as the first five pages of this book. The intro was great, intriguing, I was immediately hooked.
.... and then they opened the book proper with some rambling speculative pop-sci that I guess was supposed to ground the subject within the science and obsessions of the era, but instead dragged the prose down into a Sci-Am blog style* that bored me to heck.
I'll have to struggle through though, I promised my friend.
* no offense to Sci-Am blogs, I've written my share, but it's not where i go to for great feats of literature.
Posts
It was an expertly tailored narrative, lots of highly relevant thematic meat to chew on, and I was genuinely gripped for the entire thing, so definitely deserving of all praise.
Yeah that kind of weirdness was hard to gloss over. Semi-instantaneous knowledge loss following catastrophe is an irksome YA trope and is one of the reasons I didn’t think I was gonna like the book very much initially.
Plus, you can build tree houses right on the turbine pylons so you can draw up the ladders at night to keep the zombies out.
My dude, sounds like you got yourself a setting.
What is the matter with me
Oh hey me too! It uh, well, there's worse stuff out there, but also way better
Yeah,
I liked the detail of none of the older actors/musicians knew much about science, and the younger ones were flabbergasted that they didn't take the opportunity to learn and of it before everything went to hell. But someone should have been more competent with all that sort of stuff.
I read it through in an evening and felt like I'd been lightly clubbed with a very stupid stick, 7 out of 10
Kinda justifies the Ottoman practice of killing off siblings once the heir is declared.
Then again, weak heirs would mean you are stuck with them until they have kids.
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
A stand out at the yard sale highly anomalous
Spoiler-y thoughts:
The sweat is where the book started to lose me a little, and I'll fully admit this is because 2020 has drained me and my ability to muscle through nasty stuff is quite reduced, but the premeditated and awful cruelty of the entire scenario was really starting to upset me after the dogs. There was a part of me going "lady, you're a fucking elk, you do not have the right to kill these people," and shortly after I had that thought three things twigged in my brain in this order:
1. The premise of the book is a front, and the elks are actually Native Americans. The Native Americans in the book are a stand-in for white people.
2. The book wants you to feel disgusted and angry at Elk Head Woman taking vengeance like this, to show you how easy it is to disregard that someone's been wronged if you don't view them as human.
3. Stephen Graham Jones played me like a fucking fiddle.
From that realization I pretty much devoured the rest of the book, even if some of the gore was...a lot...and the ending was not what I expected, which is good. I've had too much of bleak horror that just ends on "and then everything sucked," the cycle breaking and some amount of hope coming out of all this was a welcome reprieve. The ending felt a bit abrupt but endings are also really hard to pace so I gladly give that a pass.
Overall, heck of a book.
I joined the 3daynovel contest for the like 4th or 5th time ever and actually completed it this this time. For anyone that doesn't know about that contest, it means you have to write your novel between 12:01 AM on the Saturday of Labor Day Weekend and 11:59 PM on Labor Day (the Monday). I had no outline (although you can have one) and only had a rough idea of what I was going to write about or the shape my story was going to take when starting the contest.
That was rough, but I finished it and submitted it.
My submission was only 20,000 words. I wrote around 24,000 total but ~4,000ish got expunged during editing.
It's a novella, but a novella counts as a "book," right? I can tell people I wrote a "book," right?
Noxious Toastalgia: "A serial killer who uses poisoned toast against his victims reflects on his childhood with a shocking revelation!"
And then I wondered how many of the entries would be... purely historical by the time he turned 18, and it made me extremely sad and angry.
idk I might get it for him anyway, I hope it doesn't make him as mad at our generation as it makes me.
he's the dude who wrote the Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z, right?
I enjoyed both of those books! World War Z was a clever presentation of the zombie apocalypse story.
I thought that was orangutans.
Although there are similarities I suppose.
They are not transdimensional energy beings
Are they unidimensional energy beings?
Hmm.
TOGI Spoilers
- There is, I think, intended to be an element of the ironic death at play with the Elk Head Woman's murders. She is killing indigenous people in ways that are frequently used as evidence of... I guess racial inferiority is the blunt way to put it - getting into drunken fights, going "off the reservation", that sort of thing. Calling her racist for this doesn't quite work given what she is, but that element is there for sure.
- The chapters narrated by the Elk Head Woman are told in the second person. Make of this what you will, but the implication is definitely that you the audience are at least partially responsible for these murders - whether that is a message targeting the reader as a presumed colonizer or as a person who is reading a slasher book and wants to see blood, I can't be entirely sure.
It's great
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
Very happy with most of the voices. The narrator does a good job describing the panels. I quite liked the change of the narrator during the Tales in the Sand (and the other cast changes in there). I'm not so thrilled with Morpheus. He's fine, though, and he's growing on me.
I have not had much luck appreciating the casting or direction for Death. She's at odds with my (admittedly nebulous) internal choices. She doesn't come across as, I dunno, cheerful? perky? as I imagined her. She's supposed to be irritated at Dream in The Sound of Her Wings, but it comes across as more bullying than I would have preferred.
https://www.tor.com/2017/11/08/this-world-is-full-of-monsters/
It's a good one so here you go
Gosh, I really do enjoy Joe Abercrombie.
Steam - Talon Valdez :Blizz - Talonious#1860 : Xbox Live & LoL - Talonious Monk @TaloniousMonk Hail Satan
I remain unhappy with Death's actress, Ka--
wait.
this is Kat Dennings?!
that seems extra weird to me, because -- while she's not my first choice -- if I'm looking for down-to-earth and cheerful, she ought to be able to deliver.
anyway, a few minor complaints aside, I thought they did a great job.
A memory called empire - fantastic
City in the middle of the night - good but uneven
Children of time - good so far
Up next is either the newer piketty or that massive surveillance capitalism tome. Finished The Technology Trap which was also excellent (compared modern day to industrial revolution with a focus on labor and technology)
.... and then they opened the book proper with some rambling speculative pop-sci that I guess was supposed to ground the subject within the science and obsessions of the era, but instead dragged the prose down into a Sci-Am blog style* that bored me to heck.
I'll have to struggle through though, I promised my friend.
* no offense to Sci-Am blogs, I've written my share, but it's not where i go to for great feats of literature.