[Serenity]

QuickTidal, on 10 March 2014 - 03:50 PM, said:

polishgenius, on 10 March 2014 - 03:33 PM, said:

Because I got bored of waiting for the second book in Elizabeth Bear's Eternal Sky series, Shattered Pillars, to come down in price (I'm a touch tight for money atm), I decided to go back to some of her previous work instead, and picked up the first in The Edda of Burdens, All the Windracked Stars.

I've only just started, about fifty pages in, but holy shit. The setting hooked me in about five seconds, it's basically all I ever wanted in a book... post-apocalyptic dying earth new weird post-cyberpunk norse folklore. Basically Ragnarok happened and then there was a whole new world and that went through its cycle and then Ragnarok happened again but the world didn't quite die, humanity built an empire on the ashes, based on a mixture of magic and technology, and then humans being humans, eventually they arranged their own, non-Ragnarok radioactive war-apocalypse and now the remains of the world are ticking towards their final death with only a few cities left and this is where we (and the last remaining Valkyrie, the hero of our story) come in.


And Bear writes some quality prose (think Guy Gavriel Kay with a more adventorous imagination) so it's fucking great. Early days but I'm already in love with it.

I also wish to read this book.

Damn you PG.

Ditto!

Just read the sample on Amazon. It pretty much hooked me straight away, too. Thanks for the rec, PG.

[ansible]

Man, I have read a lot of stuff since I last posted in this thread..let's see...

The Gap Cycle, Donaldson
The Death Gate Cycle, Weis/Hickman
The Lies of Locke Lamora, Lynch
Anathema, Stephenson
Some Borges short stories
The Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu
Book of Mercy, Cohen
Book of Longing, Cohen
A Man for All Seasons, Bolt
The Night Angel Trilogy, Weeks
Mere Christianity, Lewis (reread)
The Chronicles of Narnia, Lewis (reread) (not sure how long ago this was...)
Steelheart, Sanderson
Damned, Palahniuk
Miracles, Lewis
The Magus, Fowles (reread)
1Q84, Murakami
A Wrinkle in Time, L'Engle (reread)
Henry V, Shakespeare (reread)
Macbeth, Shakespeare (reread)
The Fifth Head of Cerberus, Wolfe (reread)
11/22/63, King
Gate of Horn/Book of Silk, Andre-Drussi
The Sunset Limited, McCarthy (reread)
Sleep and Dreams, Silverstein
Various books on Python, Perl, PHP, bash, awk, Oracle, and Linux

Um...I know I'm missing some stuff, I should keep better track. I guess some of those are 3-7 books in a series though, which takes more time than it appears to me in a list... Anyway I can't remember, the books are too many!

So most recently I finished Anathema and damn, it was amazing. Was trying to find something to read next that was shorter, picked up the first book in the The Long Price Quartet from the shelf and was hooked by the prologue. So I'm reading that now.

[Salt-Man Z]

Donaldson's Fatal Revenant has me hooked. Why is Covenant being such an a-hole? Such mystery!

[ansible]

Briar King, on 12 March 2014 - 05:04 PM, said:

Ans: how is Death Gate Cycle? I've almost picked those up for yrs but just never have.

I tore through all seven books in a row pretty quickly, and picked them all up in one visit at Half-Price for cheap. I would definitely recommend them, I went back and bought a second set of all seven books to give to my dad for Christmas. Really fun and interesting read, themes and concepts intelligent and well-developed. Go forth and read!

I was going to say more about the actual details of the books but I figured that might spoil some of the fun that comes from everything being slowly revealed to you over the course of the series and then seeing it all come together in the end.

[McLovin]

I've oftimes thought of picking that series up myself, cheers for reminding me.

[Abyss]

ansible, on 12 March 2014 - 06:27 PM, said:

Briar King, on 12 March 2014 - 05:04 PM, said:

Ans: how is Death Gate Cycle? I've almost picked those up for yrs but just never have.

I tore through all seven books in a row pretty quickly, and picked them all up in one visit at Half-Price for cheap. I would definitely recommend them, I went back and bought a second set of all seven books to give to my dad for Christmas. Really fun and interesting read, themes and concepts intelligent and well-developed. Go forth and read!

I was going to say more about the actual details of the books but I figured that might spoil some of the fun that comes from everything being slowly revealed to you over the course of the series and then seeing it all come together in the end.

McLovin, on 12 March 2014 - 06:41 PM, said:

I've oftimes thought of picking that series up myself, cheers for reminding me.

I'll second the reco. Interesting settings, some great characters, some novel ideas, very 'high fantasy' stuff in a good way.


Weis/Hickman have a certain style that will either work for you or not. I found that they go for the steady build to big finish per book, and they aren't big on action (except for at the big finish), which can throw off some readers. That said, i found the series moved at a good pace. I read it when i was 20sish and enjoyed it, reread it a decade later and still enjoyed.

[Baco Xtath]

Finished my marathon listen of Words of Radiance - 48 hrs in one week. Overall, it was fun. His writing (I shan't call it prose) is clumsy, his humor is childish, and his action sequences are comic-esque. But I knew all that going in and so once I resigned myself to this, I had fun with it. I'm not sure if I'll continue with the series. Probably, I'll wait till his closer to the end and then check the consensus.

Now starting Canticle (Psalms of Isaak #2) and Happy Hour in Hell (Bobby Dollar #2). I thoroughly enjoyed the first installments of both so really looking forward to these.

Also, had to put down Calde of the Long Sun. Struggling with this one so I'm taking a break and reading Petty Pewter Gods by Glen Cook.

[Ukjent]

The Tyranny of the Night was awesome. Now i just have to buy the rest of the series.

This post has been edited by Graablick: 12 March 2014 - 09:12 PM

[Chance]

Graablick, on 12 March 2014 - 09:12 PM, said:

The Tyranny of the Night was awesome. Now i just have to buy the rest of the series.

The series only get better.

Going through the Vorkosigan saga right now and finding it light but greatly entertaining.

[QuickTidal]

Finished WORDS OF RADIANCE (loved it, full thoughts in ded thread).

Starting Lev Grossman's THE MAGICIANS later tonight.

[QuickTidal]

Briar King, on 13 March 2014 - 02:59 AM, said:

Is Death Gate the same generic fantasy style as Dragonlance?

In style/tone? Yes.

But in every other way no. It's unique enough to blaze its own path and is interesting for that.

[QuickTidal]

Wow, so I got two chapters into THE MAGICIANS...most pretentious, boring book with a protagonist I wanted to punch out ever.

It has no charm, no characters I wanted to identify with, and a main character who should be wiped from the face of the planet to save him from his own selfish mopiness.

Fucking TERRIBLE.

sorry to those who liked it, I just can't get into it. Not my type of book at all.

Going to try out Abyss' R. Meluch Merrimack series on Kindle. Bought MYRIAD.

Oh, but PG...I also grabbed the Kindle sampler of ALL THE WINDWRACKED STARS by Elizabeth Bear (having never read Bear before)...and holy crap! SUCKED RIGHT IN! Seriously. The sample covers:

Spoiler

Kasimir and Muile in the aftermath of the war...through the fight with the vile-wolves...up to the "miracle" of reconstituting Kasimir's broken body with metal and hydraulics.

and I am, based only on that...totally 100% in for book 1. Will be buying it tonight. Thanks for the recco!

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 13 March 2014 - 01:08 PM

[Abyss]

QuickTidal, on 13 March 2014 - 11:22 AM, said:

...Oh, but PG...I also grabbed the Kindle sampler of ALL THE WINDWRACKED STARS by Elizabeth Bear (having never read Bear before)...and holy crap! SUCKED RIGHT IN! Seriously. The sample covers:

Spoiler

Kasimir and Muile in the aftermath of the war...through the fight with the vile-wolves...up to the "miracle" of reconstituting Kasimir's broken body with metal and hydraulics.

and I am, based only on that...totally 100% in for book 1. Will be buying it tonight. Thanks for the recco!

STOP ENCOURAGING HIM
DAMMIT QT YOU'RE NOT HELPING!

[Hound]

I hate you all, because my TRP keeps growing and growing with all those fantastic recommendations (seriously, that sample chapter of All The Windwracked Stars? HOOKED!)

[polishgenius]

QuickTidal, on 13 March 2014 - 11:22 AM, said:

Wow, so I got two chapters into THE MAGICIANS...most pretentious, boring book with a protagonist I wanted to punch out ever.

It has no charm, no characters I wanted to identify with, and a main character who should be wiped from the face of the planet to save him from his own selfish mopiness.

Fucking TERRIBLE.

sorry to those who liked it, I just can't get into it. Not my type of book at all.

I immediately loved the presentation and prose and that of the book, so my take on it is altogether more positive- but it might be worth knowing that the complete dickheadedness of Quentin and the other main characters is a large part of the point, since the whole series is about their character development from assholes to better people.
I just absolutely love the way Grossman writes magic though.

Quote

Oh, but PG...I also grabbed the Kindle sampler of ALL THE WINDWRACKED STARS by Elizabeth Bear (having never read Bear before)...and holy crap! SUCKED RIGHT IN! Seriously. The sample covers:

Spoiler

Kasimir and Muile in the aftermath of the war...through the fight with the vile-wolves...up to the "miracle" of reconstituting Kasimir's broken body with metal and hydraulics.

and I am, based only on that...totally 100% in for book 1. Will be buying it tonight. Thanks for the recco!

Good, isn't it? I finished it today, am gonna buy the second one later on as well.

It's a very odd combination of stuff, but then, not moreso than Perdido Street Station or Thunderer...

[Baco Xtath]

polishgenius, on 13 March 2014 - 04:24 PM, said:

Good, isn't it? I finished it today, am gonna buy the second one later on as well.

It's a very odd combination of stuff, but then, not moreso than Perdido Street Station or Thunderer...

Would this be good as an audiobook? Or would it be too hard to follow, confusing?

[polishgenius]

Baco Xtath, on 13 March 2014 - 06:49 PM, said:

Would this be good as an audiobook? Or would it be too hard to follow, confusing?

It's mostly not too confusing, though Bear does seem to deliberately stay away from 'as you know' exposition, meaning there's quite a bit of fantastical detail you have to work out from context and conversation rather than being told, so you have to be paying attention.

Also she uses font to differentiate between people conversing telepathically to when they're talking, which might get a tad confusing if the audiobook doesn't have a way to do the same as there are occasions when there's two conversations, one speech and one mental, going on in the same scene. Other than that though, narratively it's pretty straightforward and I never found myself skipping back to check details.

[Nicodimas]

I'm enjoying words of radiance about 1/3 the way done in a single sitting..

[Tiste Simeon]

Oops I accidentally just bought the Edda of Burdens trilogy and it is now on my Kindle. Totally an accident.

[Coco with marshmallows]

meandering through Arcanum by Simon Morden.

It's.....okay.

Seems largely YA level in plotting, etc. It's got some good ideas, just not terribly well executed I think.