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Read a [book].

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Posts

  • MahnmutMahnmut Registered User regular
    Kate Elliott rocks and I think she’s really perfecting her craft over time. Excited for the rest of Unconquerable Sun. The Spiritwalkers trilogy was some of the most fun I’ve had all year

    Steam/LoL: Jericho89
  • SeptusSeptus Registered User regular
    Hrmph, of course it's a series though. Can the first book stand alone?

    PSN: Kurahoshi1
  • JedocJedoc In the scuppers with the staggers and jagsRegistered User regular
    I'm currently reading a book written in the 1980s. One of the plot points involve crimes and shady real estate dealings from the 1950s, and I realized that to these characters, that's like me talking about things that happened in the 1990s.

    Books were a mistake.

    GDdCWMm.jpg
  • LalaboxLalabox Registered User regular
    So i finished the second Locke Lamora book, and yeah, i enjoyed it a bit more than i remember enjoying the first one.

    It is really funny that it builds all this tension and intrigue around trying to pull off a grand heist, and the main characters are getting played and getting in over their heads as they they plot in secret and they're feeling the pressure as dangerous peoples' patience runs out and then suddenly they're told "no, it's actually time for you to go on a pirate adventure", to which even the characters say "you what mate"

    It's a fun pirate adventure, but everything just kinda gets put on hold.

    Re: the grim and gruesome stuff, i guess the world and wildlife is pretty similar to Dishonored, and i don't mind it so much there.

    but it still feels a bit like scott lynch really revels in coming up with incredibly cruel and painful ways for people to die. there's only so many descriptions fates worse than death before it starts to get a little much. I guess it gets rubbed into your face a bit more with prose.

  • LalaboxLalabox Registered User regular
    I also just finished Annihilation, which is definitely very special

    i kinda just want to read all sorts of things about it now. Maybe not so much about answers to what was going on, because that seems very much besides the point, but people's reactions and more emotional and thematic stuff.

  • 3cl1ps33cl1ps3 I will build a labyrinth to house the cheese Registered User regular
    Lalabox wrote: »
    I also just finished Annihilation, which is definitely very special

    i kinda just want to read all sorts of things about it now. Maybe not so much about answers to what was going on, because that seems very much besides the point, but people's reactions and more emotional and thematic stuff.

    Well, there are two more books in the trilogy!

  • HobnailHobnail Registered User regular
    I quite liked the Annihilation sequels but I actually lost the plot somewhat there near the end
    I never really understood what those sinister nerds were actually up to in the lighthouse

    Broke as fuck in the style of the times. Gratitude is all that can return on your generosity.

    https://www.paypal.me/hobnailtaylor
  • 3cl1ps33cl1ps3 I will build a labyrinth to house the cheese Registered User regular
    Hobnail wrote: »
    I quite liked the Annihilation sequels but I actually lost the plot somewhat there near the end
    I never really understood what those sinister nerds were actually up to in the lighthouse
    I always got the sense they were trying to bring about exactly what happened to Saul.

  • HobnailHobnail Registered User regular
    Like in the Bible

    I guess probably not

    Broke as fuck in the style of the times. Gratitude is all that can return on your generosity.

    https://www.paypal.me/hobnailtaylor
  • LalaboxLalabox Registered User regular
    Gideon the Ninth just showed up in the mail yesterday

    i hadn't realised that she's wearing aviators on the cover

    this is even better than i thought

  • KanaKana Registered User regular
    this is by no means a unique observation on Gideon, but
    god I love how when Gideon shows up everyone's like, "Wow, this mysterious warrior is so dark and stern and mysteriously dangerous!"

    And then the eventual payoff as Gideon finally starts talking to people and everyone is uniformly like, "Well this is not what I was expecting."

    It makes me laugh every damn time

    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.
  • QuantumTurkQuantumTurk Registered User regular
    Kana wrote: »
    this is by no means a unique observation on Gideon, but
    god I love how when Gideon shows up everyone's like, "Wow, this mysterious warrior is so dark and stern and mysteriously dangerous!"

    And then the eventual payoff as Gideon finally starts talking to people and everyone is uniformly like, "Well this is not what I was expecting."

    It makes me laugh every damn time

    It's this over and over
    0f9.jpg

  • knitdanknitdan In ur base Killin ur guysRegistered User regular
    About 2/3 of the way through The Tyrant Baru Cormorant and it’s kind of funny how much more comfortable Seth Dickinson is writing his characters as being very very horny at all times than he was in Traitor, where it was all about furtive glances and (mostly) repressed desires.

    “I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
    -Indiana Solo, runner of blades
  • LalaboxLalabox Registered User regular
    So, i really like Gideon. Page wise, looks like i'm a little under halfway through, just as things have started to kick into gear.

    there was definitely a lot leading up to it that really made me like the book and character, but honestly it was
    "The arms kind of look like swords. I want to fight it"

    ok, it was also
    her being an absolutely useless lesbian whenever she talked with Dulcinea

  • Lost SalientLost Salient blink twice if you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered User regular
    I genuinely loved Gideon and am excited and intrigued by Harrow.

    No spoilers but when things start to unfold in Gideon things REALLY start to unfold

    RUVCwyu.jpg
    "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
  • tynictynic PICNIC BADASS Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited January 2021
    oh hey I was bored at a friend's house so I churned through Altered Carbon. No plot spoilers, just vague thoughts
    I know there was a lot of disappointment when the author started parroting TERF talking points but having now read his work I'm not remotely surprised. Extremely gender essentialist, and frankly shockingly heteronormative and non-queer for a book set hundreds of years hence. The dude-iest of dude lit. But that's because (as others have noted), it's not cyberpunk at all, it's noir with a techno-fetish.

    Considered in that light it was ok-ish - but it did lean unreflexively into all the worst elements of the genre without considering the social conditions and norms that produced the original pulp noir. Not a lot of self-awareness. That said, the central body-hopping conceit and some of the peripheral details were conceptually compelling - I can see why it got picked up for TV.

    tynic on
  • pookapooka Registered User regular
    I'm an hour and 8 chapters in to The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires, and I'm forcing myself to stop. because the beau and I are doing our own weekly book club, and having just started this book, I don't know how far he's reading, and I've probably blown past given he is a slower reader. Oops!

    Anyway, it's fun so far, but definitely light reading. I see Jedoc didn't like it, and goodreads, hmm, varies, but there's room for me to enjoy what I can before it shits the bed.

    I last read a nothing of a book, a cozy (the first Lady Hardcastle book), it was fine.

    In a complete coincidence, I also recently read This Is How You Lose the Time War, months on from the other half saying I should read it. I knew nothing going in, saw exactly where it was headed with the first letter, and settled in to enjoy the dreamlike nature and throwback epistolary form. I liked it throughout, and it had some lovely poetic phrases that evoked fond feelings/memories. I've been trying to read Neuromancer every so often the past year, and just cannot get past where they get their first job, so it was nice to read soft sci fi that moved from the jump.

    I picked up The Moth: Occasional Magic months ago because.. it was on clearance, i was familiar with the concept, and it was pretty. And the old man who sold it to me literally gave me a book of his paintings, so I felt compelled to buy something. It's nice for a snack! I'm also thinking of picking up Nothing Much Happens for the same kind of ease, but guaranteed bummer free.

    I used to read voraciously, and depression/anxiety killed that for a long time, so it's nice to have more ability to sit and calmly read.

    lfchwLd.jpg
  • V1mV1m Registered User regular
    Hobnail wrote: »
    I quite liked the Annihilation sequels but I actually lost the plot somewhat there near the end
    I never really understood what those sinister nerds were actually up to in the lighthouse

    Much like the author, apparently. Jeff Vandermeer reckoned he had some kind of minor psychotic break while/as a result of writing the trilogy

  • V1mV1m Registered User regular
    tynic wrote: »
    oh hey I was bored at a friend's house so I churned through Altered Carbon. No plot spoilers, just vague thoughts
    I know there was a lot of disappointment when the author started parroting TERF talking points but having now read his work I'm not remotely surprised. Extremely gender essentialist, and frankly shockingly heteronormative and non-queer for a book set hundreds of years hence. The dude-iest of dude lit. But that's because (as others have noted), it's not cyberpunk at all, it's noir with a techno-fetish.

    Considered in that light it was ok-ish - but it did lean unreflexively into all the worst elements of the genre without considering the social conditions and norms that produced the original pulp noir. Not a lot of self-awareness. That said, the central body-hopping conceit and some of the peripheral details were conceptually compelling - I can see why it got picked up for TV.

    Reminder that Iain M Banks was writing his "Well obviously people are gonna at least try* out being other genders if they can, I mean only a weirdo wouldn't right?" future society in the eighties.

    No excuses.

  • LalaboxLalabox Registered User regular
    so i guess i really enjoyed Gideon the Ninth

    there was a lot of bits (especially in her notes on the characters' names at the end) where it seems like the author is Extremely Online but in a just subtle and restrained enough way that it hit very hard each time one of those bits came up

    and the characters (especially Gideon) feel like the sort of lesbian characters i've seen small little snippets of in fan comics and little snippets of writing that have popped up on tumblr or twitter and it was delightful to spend an entire book with them


    i guess i'm gonna head into the city in the next couple of days and buy Harrow

    i'll finally be able to click on all those spoilers on the last page

  • PeenPeen Registered User regular
    tynic wrote: »
    oh hey I was bored at a friend's house so I churned through Altered Carbon. No plot spoilers, just vague thoughts
    I know there was a lot of disappointment when the author started parroting TERF talking points but having now read his work I'm not remotely surprised. Extremely gender essentialist, and frankly shockingly heteronormative and non-queer for a book set hundreds of years hence. The dude-iest of dude lit. But that's because (as others have noted), it's not cyberpunk at all, it's noir with a techno-fetish.

    Considered in that light it was ok-ish - but it did lean unreflexively into all the worst elements of the genre without considering the social conditions and norms that produced the original pulp noir. Not a lot of self-awareness. That said, the central body-hopping conceit and some of the peripheral details were conceptually compelling - I can see why it got picked up for TV.

    I want to enjoy it as brainless noir-in-the-future pulp nonsense but man Dicky Morgan has made that downright impossible and it's super irritating. It's not a good book but it's a book I used to enjoy and now I kinda can't.

  • MegaMan001MegaMan001 CRNA Rochester, MNRegistered User regular
    Lalabox wrote: »
    so i guess i really enjoyed Gideon the Ninth

    there was a lot of bits (especially in her notes on the characters' names at the end) where it seems like the author is Extremely Online but in a just subtle and restrained enough way that it hit very hard each time one of those bits came up

    and the characters (especially Gideon) feel like the sort of lesbian characters i've seen small little snippets of in fan comics and little snippets of writing that have popped up on tumblr or twitter and it was delightful to spend an entire book with them


    i guess i'm gonna head into the city in the next couple of days and buy Harrow

    i'll finally be able to click on all those spoilers on the last page
    The reveal about the Teens being child soldiers commanded by the...First House? Were those the Lieutenants? Was a great part of that book.

    I am in the business of saving lives.
  • DouglasDangerDouglasDanger PennsylvaniaRegistered User regular
    edited January 2021
    I finished reading a Close and Common Orbit

    It was very good,
    very powerful message and theme about finding yourself and finding friends and trusting them
    I don't know what to read next

    I downloaded a sample of a Arthurian book, the one with Wart and Kay, but I'm not really feeling it

    I don't know if I want to smash myself in the head with a Pynchon book again or find something else

    Hm

    Sorry for not using the spoiler tag

    DouglasDanger on
  • Grey GhostGrey Ghost Registered User regular
    Tamsyn Muir used to write Homestuck fanfic, and once you know that a lot of her particular style of writing both humor and character relationships really makes sense

  • tynictynic PICNIC BADASS Registered User, ClubPA regular
    Grey Ghost wrote: »
    Tamsyn Muir used to write Homestuck fanfic, and once you know that a lot of her particular style of writing both humor and character relationships really makes sense

    ... Christ this makes me feel old

  • V1mV1m Registered User regular
    tynic wrote: »
    Grey Ghost wrote: »
    Tamsyn Muir used to write Homestuck fanfic, and once you know that a lot of her particular style of writing both humor and character relationships really makes sense

    ... Christ this makes me feel old

    I'm just glad to have someone I can pin the blame on.

    Fuckn Tamsyn Muir.

  • Pereza0Pereza0 Registered User regular
    I still haven't gotten over the fact the MSPA forums died more or less unrecoverably.


    They got absolutely steamrolled by the Homestuck fandom at some point, but they were a lot more than just a fan forum for a long time and I have fond memories there.


    Fuck Tamsyn Muir

  • tynictynic PICNIC BADASS Registered User, ClubPA regular
    I always felt the real creative Homestuck fandom was on Tumblr and the forums were mostly a place for teenagers to come and start stupid fights

    but maybe that was just the admin/mod perspective.

  • Brovid HasselsmofBrovid Hasselsmof [Growling historic on the fury road] Registered User regular
    Finished Season of Storms. Didn't end up liking it as much as I expected at the start, but it was ok.

    Now to read something that isn't about Geralt of Rivia. I have Children of Time and Gideon the Ninth on my Kindle, neither of which I actually remember buying. I guess I should read those. Though I have kind of really gone off starting book series' that aren't completed yet.

  • PeenPeen Registered User regular
    This is apparently Moby Dick but with dragons and that's enough of an idea for me to give it a shot!

    41f98+93NJL._SX329_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

  • knitdanknitdan In ur base Killin ur guysRegistered User regular
    Finished The Tyrant Baru Cormorant
    ahahaha suck it Farrier and Corrinde

    Seems to be setting up a confrontation with the armored dudes in the very last area with the lightning, which probably means the story will go nowhere near there

    Still don’t know who Renascent and Stargazer are, do we? That seems odd. I would think at least one of them might have revealed themselves after Baru pulled her coup off.

    I’m also confused about the geography of the last chapter and the limited map doesn’t help

    It describes them starting out in the Black Tea Ocean, on one side of the world, then ending up in the Mother of Storms on the other, without really explaining how they got from one place to the other

    Unless maybe they sailed so far south they got around the Mbo continent?

    Like I said the map doesn’t help much in this case

    Will keep an eye out for Book 4 but won’t hold my breath. It could be several years.

    “I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
    -Indiana Solo, runner of blades
  • DouglasDangerDouglasDanger PennsylvaniaRegistered User regular
    I guess I'm reading Gravity's Rainbow

  • LiiyaLiiya Registered User regular
    edited January 2021
    Hello thread,

    I'm not sure if this counts but I've been trying to find a copy of Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith Vol 1 by Charles Soule, Jim Cheung, & Giuseppe Camuncoli which is a graphic novel/comic and I can't find it online to buy anywhere!

    What's the deal? Any ideas? Help me thread you are my only hope .

    Liiya on
  • QuantumTurkQuantumTurk Registered User regular
    Going to memories of empire from gideon/harrow is a twist let me tell you. Both great (at least so far, I'm still early in memories) but the difference in how serious the book takes itself is huge.

  • PeenPeen Registered User regular
    edited January 2021
    Liiya wrote: »
    Hello thread,

    I'm not sure if this counts but I've been trying to find a copy of Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith Vol 1 by Charles Soule, Jim Cheung, & Giuseppe Camuncoli which is a graphic novel/comic and I can't find it online to buy anywhere!

    What's the deal? Any ideas? Help me thread you are my only hope .

    @Liiya There's some second hand ones you could get in the UK here but I was wrong they're kind of expensive, I'm not giving up though.

    Peen on
  • LiiyaLiiya Registered User regular
    Peen wrote: »
    Liiya wrote: »
    Hello thread,

    I'm not sure if this counts but I've been trying to find a copy of Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith Vol 1 by Charles Soule, Jim Cheung, & Giuseppe Camuncoli which is a graphic novel/comic and I can't find it online to buy anywhere!

    What's the deal? Any ideas? Help me thread you are my only hope .

    @Liiya There's some second hand ones you could get in the UK here but I was wrong they're kind of expensive, I'm not giving up though.

    @Peen thank you so much! I may get it second hand, thank you!

  • TaminTamin Registered User regular
    Grey Ghost wrote: »
    Tamsyn Muir used to write Homestuck fanfic, and once you know that a lot of her particular style of writing both humor and character relationships really makes sense

    Also, in her words, "turgid Animorphs fanfiction"

  • MegaMan001MegaMan001 CRNA Rochester, MNRegistered User regular
    Finished Season of Storms. Didn't end up liking it as much as I expected at the start, but it was ok.

    Now to read something that isn't about Geralt of Rivia. I have Children of Time and Gideon the Ninth on my Kindle, neither of which I actually remember buying. I guess I should read those. Though I have kind of really gone off starting book series' that aren't completed yet.

    GIDEON

    GIDEON GI-D-EON!!!!

    I am in the business of saving lives.
  • MegaMan001MegaMan001 CRNA Rochester, MNRegistered User regular
    Tamin wrote: »
    Grey Ghost wrote: »
    Tamsyn Muir used to write Homestuck fanfic, and once you know that a lot of her particular style of writing both humor and character relationships really makes sense

    Also, in her words, "turgid Animorphs fanfiction"

    Put "turgid" in front just about any literary description and I. am. There.

    Turgid biography.

    Turgid historical fiction.

    Turgid haiku.

    I am in the business of saving lives.
  • 3cl1ps33cl1ps3 I will build a labyrinth to house the cheese Registered User regular
    Turgid obituary.

This discussion has been closed.