[Itwæs Nom]

death rattle, on 08 December 2016 - 08:53 PM, said:

If you're looking to prioritize authors, may I suggest an up-and-comer named God? He's got a couple books out already you may want to get your hands on.

He already is reading Malazan

Although starting a Malazan reread paralelly to your current Malazan read could also be a good idea

[EmperorMagus]

I cannot understand how people have actual TRPs. I've been left looking for a good book for the last week after I finished Use of Weapons. Like where do you people find so many worthwhile books.

[amphibian]

EmperorMagus, on 08 December 2016 - 11:25 PM, said:

I cannot understand how people have actual TRPs. I've been left looking for a good book for the last week after I finished Use of Weapons. Like where do you people find so many worthwhile books.

Go read the rest of Banks's catalog. Then go through all of Alistair Reynolds, Elizabeth Bear (Jenny Casey series), David Brin, and so many more. That's 20+ books right there. Add in all the newer authors coming along and the old classics and you see why people have TRPs.

Maybe you're too young to get a real TRP going.

[Mentalist]

EmperorMagus, on 08 December 2016 - 11:25 PM, said:

I cannot understand how people have actual TRPs. I've been left looking for a good book for the last week after I finished Use of Weapons. Like where do you people find so many worthwhile books.

Try going thru the last few years of this thread. TONS of good reccos.

then add those to goodreads and see what pops up.

[fievelgoespostal]

Im on book 4 of the Demon Cycle series. I've seen that the series after the 1st book gets trashed in many places, so I held off on picking the series up. I'm glad I started reading it. I was expecting the series to take a turn after the likes of the Ravens Shadow series... I dont know why people give Brett such a hard time over the Demon Cycle. Hell... every book in the series has 4*+ rating in both Amazon and Goodreads.

[Salt-Man Z]

EmperorMagus, on 08 December 2016 - 11:25 PM, said:

I cannot understand how people have actual TRPs. I've been left looking for a good book for the last week after I finished Use of Weapons. Like where do you people find so many worthwhile books.

I felt the same way not quite 10 years ago when I finished my first read-through of Malazan and I was like, what do I read now? Then I found this place and places like LibraryThing and GoodReads and Tor.com and book blogs, and then you discover someone like Glen Cook or Gene Wolfe who writes great stuff and has a back catalog 30+ books deep, and soon you're browsing the Half Price Books clearance racks daily, picking up $1 paperbacks because "the guys on the forums liked this one" and then you're hopelessly hopelessly lost. (And let's not mention what happens when you get an e-reader and discover all the (legal!) places to find cheap and free ebooks...)

[Salt-Man Z]

fievelgoespostal, on 09 December 2016 - 12:48 AM, said:

every book in the series has 4*+ rating in both Amazon and Goodreads.

And Michael Bay's Transformers movies do gangbusters at the box office!

[fievelgoespostal]

Salt-Man Z, on 09 December 2016 - 04:38 AM, said:

fievelgoespostal, on 09 December 2016 - 12:48 AM, said:

every book in the series has 4*+ rating in both Amazon and Goodreads.

And Michael Bay's Transformers movies do gangbusters at the box office!

Touche


I usually find that Goodread ratings match pretty closely to how I feel when I am lukewarm about a book. Take Queen of Fire by Anthony Ryan for example. It's like 3.6 on Goodreads..and is probably a fair rating imo.

I have just found myself pleasantly surprised that after reading so much hate/mediocrity about the series, I actually like it quite a bit. I was expecting the bottom to fall out...maybe even expecting it to slide beyond the Ravens Shadow series

[Abyss]

Mentalist, on 08 December 2016 - 05:09 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 08 December 2016 - 04:56 PM, said:

Apt, on 08 December 2016 - 04:44 PM, said:

You should read the first 4 books of Codex Alera and then never read the last 2 books. It's the way I am sure Butcher meant for the series to be experienced.

Do not listen to our resident heathen Apt. The last two books are amazing.

They are spectacular (as in, filled with spectacle scenes), but the plot gets much weake once the rebellion arc is resolved and

Spoiler

Tavi re-discovers his magic and "destiny"

So I'm with Apt on this, the series gets weaker towards the end. But topping the awesome of Book 2 would never be easy.

Disagree.
The series steadily amps up over the course of the six books. It's not deep plot and massive character development, but the action and scope and sheer epic fantasy epicness escalate nicely and were a blast to read.

polishgenius, on 08 December 2016 - 05:53 PM, said:

I'll say this for Codex Alera, it's better than late-period David Eddings.

Agree.

But to be fair late period Eddings is just early period Eddings recycling.

[Abyss]

Hammerhead88, on 08 December 2016 - 07:43 PM, said:

Abyss, on 08 December 2016 - 05:59 PM, said:

Hammerhead88, on 08 December 2016 - 01:25 PM, said:

Reading this forum most days has made my to read pile so big! I haven't read too much fantasy until I started at the beginning of this year, and have absolutely no idea what to prioritise on my TRP!

Good.


If I have to suffer, ALL OF EVERYONE ELSE must suffer too.

As far as prioritizing, you don't really. Just go w whatever you feel like reading. Me, I try to shift the tone/type... if I blast thru an epic fantasy series, I'll read some urban fantasy next, then maybe something One and done darker... and all of that gets punted if one of my 'priority' authors has a book come out at any point.

If something is getting a lot of positive buzz on forums I frequent, I may read it sooner just to be able to participate in the discussion while it's hot.

Also, peer pressure.

Yes this sounds good, ill try and mix it up like this I think,

who are your priority authors?

End of Disc One, on 08 December 2016 - 08:57 PM, said:

After Erikson, my priority authors are Bakker, Stover, and Sanderson.

Those (EoDO are you one of those clones I forgot to purge?) plus
Ian Esslemont
Jim Butcher
Ben Aaronovich
Warren Ellis
Richard Morgan
China Mieville

...also 'Ilona Andrews' but only their Kate Daniels series and spinoffs,

...and GRR Martin but that's a masichistic thing.

Mentalist, on 08 December 2016 - 11:40 PM, said:

EmperorMagus, on 08 December 2016 - 11:25 PM, said:

I cannot understand how people have actual TRPs. I've been left looking for a good book for the last week after I finished Use of Weapons. Like where do you people find so many worthwhile books.

Try going thru the last few years of this thread. METRIC FUCKTONS of good reccos.

FTFY.

Salt-Man Z said:

I felt the same way not quite 10 years ago when I finished my first read-through of Malazan and I was like, what do I read now? Then I found this place and places like LibraryThing and GoodReads and Tor.com and book blogs, and then you discover someone like Glen Cook or Gene Wolfe who writes great stuff and has a back catalog 30+ books deep, and soon you're browsing the Half Price Books clearance racks daily, picking up $1 paperbacks because "the guys on the forums liked this one" and then you're hopelessly hopelessly lost. (And let's not mention what happens when you get an e-reader and discover all the (legal!) places to find cheap and free ebooks...)

This.
So much this. I started buying books because 'well I'm going to read it eventually anyways so I might as well' and my TRP went from a single shelf to an entire pice of furniture, with layers. And levels. And books on even that top level that isn't really a shelf.

And things got ugly when I went ereader.

[Macros]

Abyss, on 09 December 2016 - 09:39 AM, said:

Mentalist, on 08 December 2016 - 05:09 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 08 December 2016 - 04:56 PM, said:

Apt, on 08 December 2016 - 04:44 PM, said:

You should read the first 4 books of Codex Alera and then never read the last 2 books. It's the way I am sure Butcher meant for the series to be experienced.

Do not listen to our resident heathen Apt. The last two books are amazing.

They are spectacular (as in, filled with spectacle scenes), but the plot gets much weake once the rebellion arc is resolved and

Spoiler

Tavi re-discovers his magic and "destiny"

So I'm with Apt on this, the series gets weaker towards the end. But topping the awesome of Book 2 would never be easy.

Disagree.
The series steadily amps up over the course of the six books. It's not deep plot and massive character development, but the action and scope and sheer epic fantasy epicness escalate nicely and were a blast to read.

polishgenius, on 08 December 2016 - 05:53 PM, said:

I'll say this for Codex Alera, it's better than late-period David Eddings.

Agree.

But to be fair late period Eddings is just early period Eddings recycling.

Disagree, so many pointless plot holes in 5/6 it's august painful.
Also Mary sue

[Abyss]

Macros, on 09 December 2016 - 11:00 AM, said:

Abyss, on 09 December 2016 - 09:39 AM, said:

Mentalist, on 08 December 2016 - 05:09 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 08 December 2016 - 04:56 PM, said:

Apt, on 08 December 2016 - 04:44 PM, said:

You should read the first 4 books of Codex Alera and then never read the last 2 books. It's the way I am sure Butcher meant for the series to be experienced.

Do not listen to our resident heathen Apt. The last two books are amazing.

They are spectacular (as in, filled with spectacle scenes), but the plot gets much weake once the rebellion arc is resolved and

Spoiler

Tavi re-discovers his magic and "destiny"

So I'm with Apt on this, the series gets weaker towards the end. But topping the awesome of Book 2 would never be easy.

Disagree.
The series steadily amps up over the course of the six books. It's not deep plot and massive character development, but the action and scope and sheer epic fantasy epicness escalate nicely and were a blast to read.

polishgenius, on 08 December 2016 - 05:53 PM, said:

I'll say this for Codex Alera, it's better than late-period David Eddings.

Agree.

But to be fair late period Eddings is just early period Eddings recycling.

Disagree, so many pointless plot holes in 5/6 it's august painful.
Also Mary sue

The plot holes are debatable. Some of them. I ack some are glaring, just didn't bother me vs the enjoyment.
We've already had the Mary Sue debate. I remain disagreeable.

[polishgenius]

Calling Tavi a Mary-Sue is an insult to hard-working Mary-Sues everywhere.

[End of Disc One]

Salt-Man Z, on 09 December 2016 - 04:37 AM, said:

EmperorMagus, on 08 December 2016 - 11:25 PM, said:

I cannot understand how people have actual TRPs. I've been left looking for a good book for the last week after I finished Use of Weapons. Like where do you people find so many worthwhile books.

I felt the same way not quite 10 years ago when I finished my first read-through of Malazan and I was like, what do I read now? Then I found this place and places like LibraryThing and GoodReads and Tor.com and book blogs, and then you discover someone like Glen Cook or Gene Wolfe who writes great stuff and has a back catalog 30+ books deep, and soon you're browsing the Half Price Books clearance racks daily, picking up $1 paperbacks because "the guys on the forums liked this one" and then you're hopelessly hopelessly lost. (And let's not mention what happens when you get an e-reader and discover all the (legal!) places to find cheap and free ebooks...)

Aye. Although I never caught up on my TRP, my interests were limited to specific series. First it was Star Wars. Then WoT, then ASoIaF and Malazan. While I was reading these, I didn't have much interest in other books. Then I joined this forum and a couple of others, and then Goodreads. My TRP will never recover.

[QuickTidal]

Reading the 4th Horus Heresy book FLIGHT OF THE EISENSTEIN by James Swallow. So far it's pretty good. It seems like this runs (for at least a portion of it) alongside the story in GALAXY IN FLAMES, just from the Death Guard angle...so that ought to be interesting when everything goes to hell on Istavan III.

[Aptorian]

I'm curious about the Horus Heresy books, how good are they? What are they about? Is it just Space Marines bashing the shit out of one another for 500 pages or is there world building and cool expositions about chaos and xenoscum and the light of the emperor, etc?

I've always wished somebody would write a post-40K series about the Emperor returning to life/ascending to true god-hood and the Human Empires uniting and having Golden Age-like battles against the Tyranid and Robot Death Guys, etc.

[QuickTidal]

Apt, on 09 December 2016 - 02:31 PM, said:

I'm curious about the Horus Heresy books, how good are they? What are they about? Is it just Space Marines bashing the shit out of one another for 500 pages or is there world building and cool expositions about chaos and xenoscum and the light of the emperor, etc?

I've always wished somebody would write a post-40K series about the Emperor returning to life/ascending to true god-hood and the Human Empires uniting and having Golden Age-like battles against the Tyranid and Robot Death Guys, etc.

There are 3 or 4 VERY good authors penning books in the Horus Heresy series (Dan Abnett, Graham Mcneill, and Aaron Dembowski-Bowden are the big hitters) and as a result they have some hefty world building, some very poetic notions and themes. In fact in the first three books there is not as much space marines bashing the shit out of each other (or xenoscum) as you'd assume there would be. But the series is 50+ books long as it stands or something...and so after the initial layout of the series ideas and such, you would need to pick and choose, which is what I'll do...and I'll likely do that down author lines. But so far they are very good books.

[EmperorMagus]

First of all, Codex Alera was a great four book series and a (at best) mediocre six book series. Yes, the epicness was really ramped up at the end, but there are a lot of books that try to be epic and very few books without plot holes.

Second, I apologize if I sounded like I was fishing for recommendations up thread; there was no such intent. The problem I have with having a TRP is that I have very specific tastes in books and some things put me off a series so hard that I can never look at it the same. For example, I only like reading hard sci-fi (i.e. hard sci-fi is the only genre of science fiction I've touched in the past two years). So if there is a book with excellent characters, plot, pacing, and everything else but the science is non-existent and/or blatantly wrong I can't really read it. On the other hand, there are very few books that have everything mentioned above as well as science. That is the reason I'm not reading the rest of the Culture books, they are great, but they don't have the things that make me tick.

Similarly, I highly prefer my books to be a part of a series. There are very few authors who can create characters that I care about in a single book. Consequently, there are very few standalone books that I start. Lions of Al-Rassan was a very well written book, but I never got more than halfway through it because I just didn't care about the characters, nor did I care about what happened to them by the end of the book (although the very, ehem, well written sex scenes were part of the reason as well. Listening to them on the bus was really uncomfortable).

So the problem with me using Goodreads or Amazon is that they show me books based on what other people have read. Most of those books I don't even care enough to start. I haven't used the Tor site, so I can't comment on it much. I agree that this thread has a ton of excellent recommendations. That's why almost every single book I start is something I've seen mentioned on here.

Not to sound too snobby, I do have a few guilty pleasures. I read a lot of first person adventure romance crap that no self respecting person would touch with a ten feet pole. I even like (sorta, it's nostalgic) Sword of Truth.

[Mentalist]

EmperorMagus, on 09 December 2016 - 09:14 PM, said:

First of all, Codex Alera was a great four book series and a (at best) mediocre six book series. Yes, the epicness was really ramped up at the end, but there are a lot of books that try to be epic and very few books without plot holes.

Second, I apologize if I sounded like I was fishing for recommendations up thread; there was no such intent. The problem I have with having a TRP is that I have very specific tastes in books and some things put me off a series so hard that I can never look at it the same. For example, I only like reading hard sci-fi (i.e. hard sci-fi is the only genre of science fiction I've touched in the past two years). So if there is a book with excellent characters, plot, pacing, and everything else but the science is non-existent and/or blatantly wrong I can't really read it. On the other hand, there are very few books that have everything mentioned above as well as science. That is the reason I'm not reading the rest of the Culture books, they are great, but they don't have the things that make me tick.

Similarly, I highly prefer my books to be a part of a series. There are very few authors who can create characters that I care about in a single book. Consequently, there are very few standalone books that I start. Lions of Al-Rassan was a very well written book, but I never got more than halfway through it because I just didn't care about the characters, nor did I care about what happened to them by the end of the book (although the very, ehem, well written sex scenes were part of the reason as well. Listening to them on the bus was really uncomfortable).

So the problem with me using Goodreads or Amazon is that they show me books based on what other people have read. Most of those books I don't even care enough to start. I haven't used the Tor site, so I can't comment on it much. I agree that this thread has a ton of excellent recommendations. That's why almost every single book I start is something I've seen mentioned on here.

Not to sound too snobby, I do have a few guilty pleasures. I read a lot of first person adventure romance crap that no self respecting person would touch with a ten feet pole. I even like (sorta, it's nostalgic) Sword of Truth.

No offnce meant, purely an observation:

You need to either

1) expand your tastes (which is likely to compromise your current high standards)

Or

2) spend a disproportionately large amount of time searching for few books that'd fit your exceedingly exacting requirements.

Either way, good luck, and try not to turn hobby into a science,

[Puck]

^What Ment said. I have similarly high standards as you (though in different fields, for example, if the prose is not on par with what I want, it becomes a problem for me), but I've learned to look for the good sides (read, those I enjoy, which are not necessariry the same one sothers enjoy) in a book as long as those less good ones are at least readable. Still, while many easily call a book great I simply cannot do so unless it ticks off all of my must-haves and consequently often come off as snobby and opinionated when passing judgement on a book. I admit to having read books just to see just how bad (from my point of view) they can get. It's all about finding an angle that works towards making a book readable for you. I have by now arrived at the conclusion that not every book I read has to be up to my ideal standards, since it makes me appreciate those that do even more.

This post has been edited by Puck: 09 December 2016 - 11:10 PM