I started rereading Way of Kings because I do not remember much of anything about the series and all I've noticed is that Sanderson needs a more aggressive editor.
The guy likes to write these massive tomes, which okay, but so much of this plot could move so much faster.
I just think there are huge parts that could be cut out. Going to spoiler just in case but don't think I'm revealing much.
Like everything from eshonai's perspective until the very last one is blank space in my mind. Venli is also boring as sin. I would have rather read about raboniel's perspective. Half the book is from navani's perspective so it's like 700 pages of self loathing. Kaladin had some really strong things going with helping with ptsd in other people in the beginning. I get why that was there in the end, but the connection was weak and the resolution of those threads were basically nonexistent. The adolin shallan stuff was actually pretty interesting but you have to read an entire 3rd of the book with hardly a mention of them, and after the end of their part I did not give a shit about the middle 3rd of the book. The resolution for Maya was a little disappointing, though I have a feeling adolin is going to figure out how to undeadeye spren in the next book.
I have to give him credit for the output that he does, but yeah he needs an editor to help him pare things down so he can tie together the important bits better.
BaidolI will hold him offEscape while you canRegistered Userregular
I wouldn't bet on it happening. Sanderson has a couple of editors and a small army of alpha/beta readers and writes the stories he wants to write. Personally, I thought Rhythm of War was not as good as Oathbringer as an individual book, but I am pretty hype about what it sets up for Book 5.
the possibilities for book 5 are exciting. I just hope he can pull off a lot of the things it feels like he is building towards. Using the terminology from his class, he has made a lot of "promises" whether intentionally or not. I just hope it turns out well. It's going to be a while until we see book 5 though. He is doing a lot in between now and then.
I fully recognize it's my problem that he's got so much writing going on.
Similarly, at my ripe age of 35 and now having two kids I'm gravitating to TV shows that have shorter series and videogames that don't promise one hundred hours of content.
I got my goodreads report for the year and my average length of book was 434 pages and yeah, that sounds about right, but man being a fantasy fan is a bear sometimes.
In general I think that Sanderson could stand to cut down on page count but I make an exception for stormlight which I think would be diminished without a very intentional choice to lean into that “late stage wheel of time” style where we are telling an end-of-the-world story from the entire world’s perspective.
StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
I'm rereading The Once and Future King, a book that I haven't read since I was quite a bit younger, and it's a real weird book to go back to.
I'm still in The Sword in the Stone, which is the part I was least interested in revisiting (you know me, I'm all about that ugly Lancelot content), but some of the language used here and the way it's deployed is fascinating in a way that I never would have picked up on when I was younger. And sometimes frustrating in a way that probably wouldn't have bothered me when I was younger (although who knows, I was a pedantic little fucker).
Also some of it is extremely racist in a very casual way - people are compared to indigenous Americans with some very unpleasant language, and a falcon just busts out the n-word at one point for essentially no reason. Mostly product of its time stuff, but it still caught me off guard. Also I know I've recommended this book as an Arthurian semi-primer, and I apologize if anyone took that recommendation and was similarly surprised - I still recommend it but y'know, at some point a deranged falcon is gonna say the n-word.
Jane and Owl reminds me of an idea I had for a videogame, very touching interaction and stuff
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JedocIn the scupperswith the staggers and jagsRegistered Userregular
Dang. Missed it by that much.
Due to being slightly distracted by...something, I don't really remember, probably not important, I undershot last year's reading total by a solid 10,000 pages. Most of what I did read was comfort reading rather than seeking out challenging titles. I reread all of Discworld, all of the Dresden Files, and the entire Vorkosigan Saga.
I didn't have any one-star reviews this year, but I had a pair of two-star reads. The Man With the Golden Torc by Simon Green and The Southern Book Club's Guide To Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix were both a combination of boring, derivative, and generally unpleasant places to stow my brain for long periods of time.
I had five five-star ratings this year, and they're all books I'd wholeheartedly recommend. The Song of Achilles and Circe by Madeline Miller are both among the prettiest, smartest, and most profound novels I've ever read. Don't let a lack of familiarity with the source material scare you off, they're both fully-fleshed and enjoyable books even if you're as ignorant of the Iliad and Odyssey as I am.
Ben Aaronovich's Rivers of London series are all solid four-star urban fantasy, but Foxglove Summer really hit it out of the park. It's like a really good Dresden Files novel mixed with a really good X-Files episode.
The Pursuit of William Abbey is either my first or second favorite Claire North book, jostling with The End Of the Day based on my mood and the weather. It's a straight-up bonkers spy novel mixed with It Follows, and carried out with North's ability to relentlessly trace out all the weird implications of paranormal intrusions into the mundane world.
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino was my favorite book in college, and I am pleased to report that it remains rad.
Man, lockdown really did a number on my brain. I didn't complete a single book between April 18 and May 29, which is almost certainly the longest I've gone without reading a book since I learned to read. Fuck off, 2020, I'm glad you're dead.
Simon Green is such a weird bird. Everything I've read of his has been this disjunctive melange of satire, body horror, and deeply overwrought blood-death-drama. I remember not hating some of his books as a teen but also kind of wishing he'd make his mind up.
I can't remember which of you recommended Boom Town about Oklahoma City, but I am enjoying the heck out of it so far. The alternating chapter structure is really compelling.
JedocIn the scupperswith the staggers and jagsRegistered Userregular
That...sounds like something I would do, so I'm taking credit. I liked that book too, but I wasn't sure how much of that was the novelty of reading a book about where I live. Glad you're digging it!
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JedocIn the scupperswith the staggers and jagsRegistered Userregular
Oh and hey, if you're interested in shaking up your reading in the new year, here's the bingo card my library is using for our Winter Readfest Challenge.
You only have to get five in a row to complete the challenge, but some of my friends across the system are seeing who can be first to a blackout.
Hi all I need a good palate cleansing fiction book!
I like and read anything. I think I want something sci-fi, something with a twist on the tale. A good anthology would be nice, something I can jump in and out of fairly easily. I really haven’t read much sci-fi apart from Dan Simmons and Starship Troopers
Well it's not an anthology, but the first 4 murderbot books are all just novellas, fairly quick ones at that. You can read through the first 1 pretty quick, and it's a nice play on a lot of classic sci fi ideas about androids and such.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
See above - Ann Leckie is good. A bunch of people here will probably recommend Becky Chambers, I find her a bit saccharine but definitely a good jump in/jump out author. Neil Asher if you’re looking for space James Bond, though he tries to be libertarian-Iain-M-Banks which can be grating. Very readable, though. I always picture his gabbleducks as looking like shoebills.
And back down to earth, Tim Maughan maybe? Or old school - William Gibson. Or actually,if you’ve not read much SF at all, just read Snowcrash, that’s a good romp.
Walter John williams also has a lot of high concept short stories and novellas out there
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
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3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
Hi all I need a good palate cleansing fiction book!
I like and read anything. I think I want something sci-fi, something with a twist on the tale. A good anthology would be nice, something I can jump in and out of fairly easily. I really haven’t read much sci-fi apart from Dan Simmons and Starship Troopers
Red Rising. It's fine as a stand alone book but there are sequels to continue the story as well.
Settling down with a rye, some cheese, and (long overdue) Ancillary Justice. *chefs kiss emoji*
I cannot wait to hear what you think!
I read like, 3/4 of it last night which was more than I intended to, so that should tell you something. I like it a lot!
The perspective juggling required to write as a person who is sometimes a single but distributed mind and sometimes a collective of independent agents and sometimes a lone individual is bonkers, and she does it so fucking well. I can feel my brain bending every time things get disjunct.
The philosophizing between characters is a bit sophomoric, which is frustrating - these are galaxy-spanning civilisations, you'd think the discussion might have moved beyond Racism 101. But the more things change, etc.
I've been re-reading Excession, (and by 're-reading' I mean I bounced off it so hard as a teenager that I haven't dared go near it or anything else the guy wrote for 20+ years), I was... I don't want to say 'delighted' exactly, but coming across this passage that's so 2020-apropos made me feel like I'd picked the right time to revisit it:
"Their cruelty was the point. They were not thoughtless. They knew they hurt their own kind and others, and they revelled in it; it was their purpose. The rest - the robust joviality, the blokish vivacity - was part happy accident, part cunningly exaggerated ploy..."
3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
Excession is definitely his weirdest book by a country mile, and that's saying something for him.
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JedocIn the scupperswith the staggers and jagsRegistered Userregular
edited January 2021
One of the bingo squares for the Winter Readfest is to re-read my favorite book from childhood.
I am simultaneously jazzed to discover that Space Cat by Ruthven Todd is available as an ebook on Hoopla, and depressed to realize that my favorite book as a child in 1994 was originally published in 1952.
Excession is definitely his weirdest book by a country mile, and that's saying something for him.
I did briefly check around the internet as to whether there was a better starting point to get into the Culture novels but that just opened my eyes to a fraught landscape of warring sentiences with an array of strident opinions and a severe lack of consensus (by which I of course mean Reddit)
Excession is definitely his weirdest book by a country mile, and that's saying something for him.
I did briefly check around the internet as to whether there was a better starting point to get into the Culture novels but that just opened my eyes to a fraught landscape of warring sentiences with an array of strident opinions and a severe lack of consensus (by which I of course mean Reddit)
Reading Culture in the published order is the way to go IMO.
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
Excession is definitely his weirdest book by a country mile, and that's saying something for him.
I did briefly check around the internet as to whether there was a better starting point to get into the Culture novels but that just opened my eyes to a fraught landscape of warring sentiences with an array of strident opinions and a severe lack of consensus (by which I of course mean Reddit)
I strongly recommend starting with The Player of Games, which is (iirc) the shortest Culture novel and one of the best, and is definitely the best intro to the series.
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3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
Excession is definitely his weirdest book by a country mile, and that's saying something for him.
I did briefly check around the internet as to whether there was a better starting point to get into the Culture novels but that just opened my eyes to a fraught landscape of warring sentiences with an array of strident opinions and a severe lack of consensus (by which I of course mean Reddit)
I strongly recommend starting with The Player of Games, which is (iirc) the shortest Culture novel and one of the best, and is definitely the best intro to the series.
I actually think Consider Phlebas is a better intro ironically because of how critical of The Culture the protagonist is. It's also the grimmest one by a fair margin so you can get that out of the way early.
The Player of Games is probably my favorite overall, though; I honestly think about it on at least a weekly basis. Hydrogen Sonata is a close second.
One of the bingo squares for the Winter Readfest is to re-read my favorite book from childhood.
I am simultaneously jazzed to discover that Space Cat by Ruthven Todd is available as an ebook on Hoopla, and depressed to realize that my favorite book as a child in 1994 was originally published in 1952.
Way to fund school libraries, rural New Mexico.
There's nothing wrong with older books. It's like music. The social undertones might change in lyrics, but people still listen to and appreciate older things. There are radio stations across the country that "play the hits from the 80s 90s and today!"
Also if the fellowship of the ring was published around that same time. Should that not have been in your school's library?
I think my favorite book when I was little was Pearls of Lutra, but I'm not sure it would hold up if I reread it now. Maybe we the descriptions of food would lol.
I also finished Gideon and I think I wasn't the biggest fan. I enjoyed red rising much more as a hunger games-esque different districts in a thunderstone story.
I made the "mistake" of reading Hydrogen Sonata first, not realizing it was the most recent one and that it would be the last.
It was fine. Starting with Phlebus or Player would probably be better.
Also, my Ancillary Justice story is that I didn't really understand it...right up until I finished it and said "what the fuck?! I have to know what happens next RIGHT NOW"
Right in that last 10% or so it clicked with me and I fell in love with it.
Double also: everybody should read Ann Leckie's fantasy book The Raven Tower. I'm pretty lukewarm on fantasy novels generally, but somehow this one was laser targeted at me. Probably because it's about a big rock and not some cool hero.
So y'all were right that harrow is both going harder and more interesting than gideon. Still in it so don't spoil it but spoiler for a joke on the...spoiler.
at, "so that the nine houses didn't become none houses with left grief"I let out an audible "fuck you!" Like I would for any terrible pun. Just perfectly unprepared for a shit post in the middle of the book. Here for it tho.
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The guy likes to write these massive tomes, which okay, but so much of this plot could move so much faster.
I have to give him credit for the output that he does, but yeah he needs an editor to help him pare things down so he can tie together the important bits better.
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198004484595
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198004484595
Similarly, at my ripe age of 35 and now having two kids I'm gravitating to TV shows that have shorter series and videogames that don't promise one hundred hours of content.
Now onto The Essex Serpent, because I'm borrowing off a friend's bookshelf rather than delving into my own back catalogue. This is a problem.
Murderbot is SO good.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
I'm still in The Sword in the Stone, which is the part I was least interested in revisiting (you know me, I'm all about that ugly Lancelot content), but some of the language used here and the way it's deployed is fascinating in a way that I never would have picked up on when I was younger. And sometimes frustrating in a way that probably wouldn't have bothered me when I was younger (although who knows, I was a pedantic little fucker).
Also some of it is extremely racist in a very casual way - people are compared to indigenous Americans with some very unpleasant language, and a falcon just busts out the n-word at one point for essentially no reason. Mostly product of its time stuff, but it still caught me off guard. Also I know I've recommended this book as an Arthurian semi-primer, and I apologize if anyone took that recommendation and was similarly surprised - I still recommend it but y'know, at some point a deranged falcon is gonna say the n-word.
The other chapters are very good too, but they don't make me quite as whimsical
I'm not sure if whimsical is the correct word
It's a very good book
Yeah, I think that's better
Jane and Owl reminds me of an idea I had for a videogame, very touching interaction and stuff
Dang. Missed it by that much.
Due to being slightly distracted by...something, I don't really remember, probably not important, I undershot last year's reading total by a solid 10,000 pages. Most of what I did read was comfort reading rather than seeking out challenging titles. I reread all of Discworld, all of the Dresden Files, and the entire Vorkosigan Saga.
I didn't have any one-star reviews this year, but I had a pair of two-star reads. The Man With the Golden Torc by Simon Green and The Southern Book Club's Guide To Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix were both a combination of boring, derivative, and generally unpleasant places to stow my brain for long periods of time.
I had five five-star ratings this year, and they're all books I'd wholeheartedly recommend. The Song of Achilles and Circe by Madeline Miller are both among the prettiest, smartest, and most profound novels I've ever read. Don't let a lack of familiarity with the source material scare you off, they're both fully-fleshed and enjoyable books even if you're as ignorant of the Iliad and Odyssey as I am.
Ben Aaronovich's Rivers of London series are all solid four-star urban fantasy, but Foxglove Summer really hit it out of the park. It's like a really good Dresden Files novel mixed with a really good X-Files episode.
The Pursuit of William Abbey is either my first or second favorite Claire North book, jostling with The End Of the Day based on my mood and the weather. It's a straight-up bonkers spy novel mixed with It Follows, and carried out with North's ability to relentlessly trace out all the weird implications of paranormal intrusions into the mundane world.
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino was my favorite book in college, and I am pleased to report that it remains rad.
Man, lockdown really did a number on my brain. I didn't complete a single book between April 18 and May 29, which is almost certainly the longest I've gone without reading a book since I learned to read. Fuck off, 2020, I'm glad you're dead.
Steam profile.
Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2
You only have to get five in a row to complete the challenge, but some of my friends across the system are seeing who can be first to a blackout.
I like and read anything. I think I want something sci-fi, something with a twist on the tale. A good anthology would be nice, something I can jump in and out of fairly easily. I really haven’t read much sci-fi apart from Dan Simmons and Starship Troopers
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better
bit.ly/2XQM1ke
And back down to earth, Tim Maughan maybe? Or old school - William Gibson. Or actually,if you’ve not read much SF at all, just read Snowcrash, that’s a good romp.
I cannot wait to hear what you think!
Red Rising. It's fine as a stand alone book but there are sequels to continue the story as well.
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198004484595
I read like, 3/4 of it last night which was more than I intended to, so that should tell you something. I like it a lot!
The philosophizing between characters is a bit sophomoric, which is frustrating - these are galaxy-spanning civilisations, you'd think the discussion might have moved beyond Racism 101. But the more things change, etc.
"Their cruelty was the point. They were not thoughtless. They knew they hurt their own kind and others, and they revelled in it; it was their purpose. The rest - the robust joviality, the blokish vivacity - was part happy accident, part cunningly exaggerated ploy..."
I am simultaneously jazzed to discover that Space Cat by Ruthven Todd is available as an ebook on Hoopla, and depressed to realize that my favorite book as a child in 1994 was originally published in 1952.
Way to fund school libraries, rural New Mexico.
I did briefly check around the internet as to whether there was a better starting point to get into the Culture novels but that just opened my eyes to a fraught landscape of warring sentiences with an array of strident opinions and a severe lack of consensus (by which I of course mean Reddit)
Reading Culture in the published order is the way to go IMO.
I strongly recommend starting with The Player of Games, which is (iirc) the shortest Culture novel and one of the best, and is definitely the best intro to the series.
I actually think Consider Phlebas is a better intro ironically because of how critical of The Culture the protagonist is. It's also the grimmest one by a fair margin so you can get that out of the way early.
The Player of Games is probably my favorite overall, though; I honestly think about it on at least a weekly basis. Hydrogen Sonata is a close second.
There's nothing wrong with older books. It's like music. The social undertones might change in lyrics, but people still listen to and appreciate older things. There are radio stations across the country that "play the hits from the 80s 90s and today!"
Also if the fellowship of the ring was published around that same time. Should that not have been in your school's library?
I think my favorite book when I was little was Pearls of Lutra, but I'm not sure it would hold up if I reread it now. Maybe we the descriptions of food would lol.
I also finished Gideon and I think I wasn't the biggest fan. I enjoyed red rising much more as a hunger games-esque different districts in a thunderstone story.
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198004484595
It was fine. Starting with Phlebus or Player would probably be better.
Also, my Ancillary Justice story is that I didn't really understand it...right up until I finished it and said "what the fuck?! I have to know what happens next RIGHT NOW"
Right in that last 10% or so it clicked with me and I fell in love with it.
Double also: everybody should read Ann Leckie's fantasy book The Raven Tower. I'm pretty lukewarm on fantasy novels generally, but somehow this one was laser targeted at me. Probably because it's about a big rock and not some cool hero.