[Mentalist]

JPK, on 10 February 2018 - 08:28 PM, said:

Mentalist, on 10 February 2018 - 08:02 PM, said:

finished "The Gone-Away World" . Solid ending, had to re-read that last fight, because it was such a neat moment of awesome.

Also, one chapter from the end of "Heroes Die" , and Caine is one devious bastard.

So, has it lived up to all the fucking hype?

It's very good. The ending is tight, and plotting devious.

Does it make want to drop F-bombs everywhere? Not really.

Still, once I finished it, "Blade of Tyshalle" was only 6 bucks on Kindle... so naturally I clicked "buy" .

EDIT: for commute, I'll be buying "Farlander", as well as Maark's "Incarnate" next weekend with my next paycheck... so for this week, I'll try to read Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch

at home, working through my old TRP purchases from March 2016- this time it'll be "World War Z"

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 11 February 2018 - 06:39 PM

[JPK]

Baco Xtath, on 11 February 2018 - 12:38 AM, said:

Veniss Underground is awesome. I really need to re-read it. Try Vandermeer's Borne and Strange Bird. They're similar in craziness and there's a third Three Astronauts (or something) coming out soon. They're not as creepy but they definitely have their moments.

I have Borne both hardcover and now audiobook formats and I plan on getting to it sooner rather than later. I have yet to find myself disappointed by VanderMeer.

Mentalist, on 11 February 2018 - 04:57 PM, said:

JPK, on 10 February 2018 - 08:28 PM, said:

Mentalist, on 10 February 2018 - 08:02 PM, said:

finished "The Gone-Away World" . Solid ending, had to re-read that last fight, because it was such a neat moment of awesome.

Also, one chapter from the end of "Heroes Die" , and Caine is one devious bastard.

So, has it lived up to all the fucking hype?

It's very good. The ending is tight, and plotting devious.

Does it make want to drop F-bombs everywhere? Not really.

Still, once I finished it, "Blade of Tyshalle" was only 6 bucks on Kindle... so naturally I clicked "buy" .

As has been previously noted the f-bombs really kick in with later books. I'm really looking forward to seeing your commentary on Blade of Tyshalle though, it's one of my top 5.

[Aptorian]

I didn't like Blade of Tyshalle much. The first half of the second book was very unappealing to me in terms of the plot and the bad guy. I think the ending sort of made it worth it but I definitely like Book 1 and 4 more than the second book.

[Macros]

I forget which book is which, I think one and three? Were the best for me.
Book 4 was a bunch of navel gazing shite

[polishgenius]

For me Tyshalle had the parts that came closest to a slog- not that I ever came close to putting it down, but there were parts where it got a bit unrelenting and draggy- but it also has some of the highest highs in the series. I definitely like it better than 3 on their individual merits, which on first read was just a bit too simple, although in the context of the series 3 needs to be what it is because if it wasn't, 4 could not be the mindblowing explosion of whatthefuck awesomeness that it is.

[End of Disc One]

Agreed with polish

[Abyss]

JPK, on 11 February 2018 - 06:29 PM, said:

Baco Xtath, on 11 February 2018 - 12:38 AM, said:

Veniss Underground is awesome. I really need to re-read it. Try Vandermeer's Borne and Strange Bird. They're similar in craziness and there's a third Three Astronauts (or something) coming out soon. They're not as creepy but they definitely have their moments.

I have Borne both hardcover and now audiobook formats and I plan on getting to it sooner rather than later. I have yet to find myself disappointed by VanderMeer.

Mentalist, on 11 February 2018 - 04:57 PM, said:

JPK, on 10 February 2018 - 08:28 PM, said:

Mentalist, on 10 February 2018 - 08:02 PM, said:

finished "The Gone-Away World" . Solid ending, had to re-read that last fight, because it was such a neat moment of awesome.

Also, one chapter from the end of "Heroes Die" , and Caine is one devious bastard.

So, has it lived up to all the fucking hype?

It's very good. The ending is tight, and plotting devious.

Does it make want to drop F-bombs everywhere? Not really.

Still, once I finished it, "Blade of Tyshalle" was only 6 bucks on Kindle... so naturally I clicked "buy" .

As has been previously noted the f-bombs really kick in with later books. I'm really looking forward to seeing your commentary on Blade of Tyshalle though, it's one of my top 5.

Fucking right.

Alternative Goose, on 11 February 2018 - 06:50 PM, said:

I didn't like Blade of Tyshalle much. The first half of the second book was very unappealing to me in terms of the plot and the bad guy. I think the ending sort of made it worth it but I definitely like Book 1 and 4 more than the second book.

polishgenius, on 11 February 2018 - 09:35 PM, said:

For me Tyshalle had the parts that came closest to a slog- not that I ever came close to putting it down, but there were parts where it got a bit unrelenting and draggy- but it also has some of the highest highs in the series. I definitely like it better than 3 on their individual merits, which on first read was just a bit too simple, although in the context of the series 3 needs to be what it is because if it wasn't, 4 could not be the mindblowing explosion of whatthefuck awesomeness that it is.

2 goes to a dark dark place, but it makes the climb back up so much more imfuckingpressive. That said, anyone who just wanted more of what made bk 1 awesome is doomed to disappointment at least a little.

Macros, on 11 February 2018 - 08:35 PM, said:

I forget which book is which, I think one and three? Were the best for me.
Book 4 was a bunch of navel gazing shite

Briar King, on 11 February 2018 - 11:48 PM, said:

Bk 4 sucks 5 day long unwashed balls.

You can both fucking leave.

...I mean that in a fucking nice way.

[Macros]

Oh go and gargle silks balls abyss. Book 4 is a waffling mess

[Maark Abbott]

Onto The Unholy Consult at last. Even just the recap reminds me of why brevity simply should not be. And to see a chapter in the contents headed 'The Incu-Holonias'? This promises to be most Ready indeed.

[Salt-Man Z]

Abyss, on 12 February 2018 - 04:19 AM, said:

anyone who just wanted more of what made bk 1 awesome is doomed to disappointment at least a little.

Stover always refuses to write the same book twice, thank God.

[Aptorian]

Finished The Southern Reach Book Three: Acceptance. I don't accept that book at all. As much as I enjoyed Vandermeer's writing I didn't like Book 2 or 3 much at all. They feel so different and so lacking in terms of what Book 1 offered. There's no real answers in the end or deepening of the mystery and there's no real understanding on my part.

The stuff that Vandermeer lets slip about the nature of Area X and the conclusion felt so very unsatisfying and ultimately unimportant to me. I feel like Book 1 is better read as a stand alone take on a modern Lovecraft tale and one should never bother to read the other books because they lessen the mystery of the first. In that sense this is very Lovecraftian, because it's the unknowable that is scary, it is the mystery that terrifies. Not what ever book 3 offered up in the end.

Started up Johannes Cabal the Necromancer which I've learned is a part of a series of books about Cabal getting into super natural trouble. Only read 40 so pages but so far it's pretty amusing and witty. It's like reading a mix between Douglas Adam's satirical wit and Erikson's Bauchelain and Korbald Broach novels.

This post has been edited by Alternative Goose: 12 February 2018 - 05:03 PM

[Salt-Man Z]

Just read Gail Simone's run on the Red Sonja comic (19 issues.) Great stuff, the best Red Sonja books I've read yet. Which, granted, is not saying a lot, but it's still really good. (Margueritte Bennett's series was pretty solid, too. What I'm saying is Red Sonja's pretty good when a woman's writing it.)

[QuickTidal]

Alternative Goose, on 12 February 2018 - 04:54 PM, said:

Finished The Southern Reach Book Three: Acceptance. I don't accept that book at all. As much as I enjoyed Vandermeer's writing I didn't like Book 2 or 3 much at all. They feel so different and so lacking in terms of what Book 1 offered. There's no real answers in the end and there's no real understanding on my part.

So the answers are scattered in random comments and actions throughout the trilogy, but in ACCEPTANCE they are contained/summed up in like one sentence or paragraph (I can't recall the exact sentence), and it's a blink and you miss it thing too (I VERY nearly missed it myself).

spoilers for the denouement.

Spoiler

Here is the BEST rundown of the "answers" I've seen on Reddit that lines up with what I read and how I viewed it.

There was a cataclysm that wiped out Area X's "homeworld" (for lack of a better term) which is what lies across the border, going by the mentions of ruined cities and exploding comets. Area X was scattered across the universe and pieces of it ended up on hundreds/thousands of worlds, but they're still connected and attempting to regenerate. The piece that ended up on Earth, inside the lighthouse lens, is the conduit to the rest of Area X. This is what I think Henry figured out - he thought he was detecting supernatural manifestations, but it was actually an alien organism (he tells Saul that he figured it out, but it wasn't what he thought it was). The Crawler is keeping the link alive via the biological scripture it writes, "coordinates" to each piece of Area X and the worlds that the biologist now traverses.

Area X was watching us as we watch creatures in a tidepool, attempting to understand and unable to communicate, and like Saul told Gloria by their own tidepool, it can hurt us badly without meaning to. One passage seems to imply that it had a symbiotic relationship with the doomed species from its homeworld, and now it might be a somewhat-confused parasite without a host, a topic the biologist / Ghost Bird thinks about at a couple points. I don't believe the Crawler or Area X ever meant to harm anyone. The topographical anomaly, the plant, both shaped like the lighthouse, were a question asked by Area X that humans couldn't understand. Control provides the answer to that question when he bunny-hops into the light of the bloom at the base of the tower. What was the question? I'm simply not sure. Maybe regarding our biology, something Area X couldn't quite grasp without a good sample? It (mistakenly?) copied Lowry's cell phone assuming it was biological. It might require this from every world it inhabits in order to regenerate. The book of course implies that we may never know the "why" of something.

There seems to be a connection between the plants and safe portals into Area X. Saul falls through one in the trapdoor room of the lighthouse and sees the pile of journals (also a temporal anomaly) with the bloom on top. Not coincidentally the same place that some version of Whitby finds the plant and the cell phone. This part I'm pretty flimsy on, though, and I wonder what actually happened in the storage cathedral when the plant bloomed.

There are variations on this theory... stuff like that Area X isn't even ON earth, but is like a tide pool on some other planet and is a wormhole to ours...

But the broad answer is inadvertent terraforming/intentional experimentation and SENTIENT terraforming by an alien race. The Crawler is the key to that, writing the code forever.

One of the key points Vandermeer is driving home is the fact that we are not going to be able to understand contact with all other forms of life in our universe...and it may very well look VERY strange to us.

This is kind what Ghost Bird comes to the realization of...and I assume what the Director already knew.

Salt-Man Z, on 12 February 2018 - 05:21 PM, said:

Just read Gail Simone's run on the Red Sonja comic (19 issues.) Great stuff, the best Red Sonja books I've read yet. Which, granted, is not saying a lot, but it's still really good. (Margueritte Bennett's series was pretty solid, too. What I'm saying is Red Sonja's pretty good when a woman's writing it.)

That is my favourite thing that Gail has ever created. It's great start to finish, and I have every issue in floppy to commemorate how great that art was too.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 12 February 2018 - 05:26 PM

[Macros]

My progress on dune chapter house has basically stalled out because of work, I found the dune books I had to read large chunks at a time, not just a chapter here and there, and figure this one is the same.
I kinda want another popcorn series to throw myself into, I ripped through the 7/8 Gaunts ghosts books I hadn't read yet there recently and really enjoyed being in a universe for a load of short fun reads.
Knowing me as you do, any recommendations, something with a solid chunk of books, but not door stopper epics, or navel gazing. Action action action, dark comedy optional. Some of my favourite series are Sharpe and Scarrow eagle books.
Any suggestions fair people of Malazan empire?

[Abyss]

Macros, on 12 February 2018 - 07:33 AM, said:

Oh go and gargle silks balls abyss. Book 4 is a waffling mess

First you hate on Caine, now you hate on Silk. And waffles.


...there no end to your heresies. Expect my assassins in the morning.

Salt-Man Z, on 12 February 2018 - 04:28 PM, said:

Abyss, on 12 February 2018 - 04:19 AM, said:

anyone who just wanted more of what made bk 1 awesome is doomed to disappointment at least a little.

Stover always refuses to write the same book twice, thank God.

EXACTLY.


...tho it sort of works against us in that he kind of isn't writing any books at all lately.... rumours of RAITHE OF THE BOEDECKEN notwithstanding.



Just finished SOON I WILL BE INVINCIBLE by Austin Grossman. This has been in the TRPFH for ages. When it was written it was fairly original for being a superhero story in book form. I suspect it would have read better than, or else i just continue to try to find an author who can actually write a great text novel about superheores and am doomed to disappointment. The book follows two POVs, Dr Impossible, a super villain evil genius, and Fatale, a would-be superhero cyborg. The problem is that so so much of the book is derivatove of the same basic stories comics have been telling for ages, that the odd bit of originality is kind of lost along the way. of the two Dr Impossible's pov is far far more fun, but even then it crosses into caricature far too often. A decent read for what it was, but doesn't beat Tom King's ONCE CROWDED SKIES for the genre (and that book was a market fail...irony given how King is now a go to for DC, previously Marvel).

[Mentalist]

so, if Peter Grant is supposed to be a born and bred Londoner, why does he refer to a "soccer" ball?

This bugs me way more than it should.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 13 February 2018 - 05:40 AM

[polishgenius]

Abyss, on 12 February 2018 - 06:51 PM, said:

or else i just continue to try to find an author who can actually write a great text novel about superheores and am doomed to disappointment.

Samit Basu, Turbulence. And the sequel, Resistance. You're welcome.

Quote

so, if Peter Grant is supposed to be a born and bred Londoner, why does he refer to a "soccer" ball?

Have you got a US edition? Coz I don't remember this happening at all.

[Morgoth]

Gnomon, and it's awesome.

[Aptorian]

Is that like pokemon for garden gnomes?

[Morgoth]

Alternative Goose, on 13 February 2018 - 08:41 AM, said:

Is that like pokemon for garden gnomes?

It's exactly like that, yes.