[Use Of Weapons]

 MTS, on 29 July 2011 - 01:19 PM, said:

 Abyss, on 28 July 2011 - 07:05 PM, said:

I acknowledge the differing opinions out there, but for me the series took a serious nosedive after SHE IS THE DARKNESS and never recovered.

Definitely. Although the ideas were somewhat interesting, it just wasn't that compelling.

I think Cook made a serious error by sidelining Lady and making her sister the main villain. Cackling insanity just isn't a compelling adversary. I was really disappointed by how predictable the final pages were.

[Abyss]

 Ulrik, on 28 July 2011 - 09:48 PM, said:

After disappointment with Dance with Dragons, I have (strangely) need of some good military sci-fi. Any ideas? ...

Go to Baen.com and grab Weber's STARS AT WAR (massive spaceship battles kaboom!), ASHES OF EMPIRE (spies vs alien spies plsu massive spaceship kaboom!) and COUNCIL WARS (sf with fantasy elements plus soldiers vs orcs with lots of stabby and the odd kaboom!) series, and Ringo's POSLEEN WARS (armoured suits vs lizard centaur eating machines with healthy dose of ka-boom, minimal spaceships) and Weber/Ringo's MARCH UPCOUNTRY (elite soldiers march across planet, shoot things a lot) series. All are free and great fun mil-sf.

 Briar King, on 29 July 2011 - 12:39 AM, said:

... On that note I need to fucking read book 3 my fucking self before Abyss has an evil nerdgasim and trys to fucking murder me.

Don't be silly.
Now lean back a bit closer to the window and stop moving around so much.

 King Kazma, on 29 July 2011 - 12:37 PM, said:

I finished GHOST STORY by Butcher last night and now I find myself stuck in the same void-sucking hole that I was in after TCG. Nothing is comparing. I picked up no less than 5 books from my TBR pile last night afterwards and couldn't get into ANY of them.

Blerg.

Stupid awesome books making other books not compare. LOL

This is where having DWD and Codex Alera standing by works in my favour.

[T77]

 MTS, on 29 July 2011 - 01:19 PM, said:

 Abyss, on 28 July 2011 - 07:05 PM, said:

I acknowledge the differing opinions out there, but for me the series took a serious nosedive after SHE IS THE DARKNESS and never recovered.

Definitely. Although the ideas were somewhat interesting, it just wasn't that compelling.

I'm reading Water Sleeps and it could turn out to be one of my favorites. I liked the books of the South and I am enjoying the Glittering Stone books. I think Cook tries to do something different with each book and not make it the same characters and storyline in each book - and to me he makes it work. He is on another level IMO and far and above most fantasy authors.

[Use Of Weapons]

Mediocre Cook is still streets ahead of most of the pap that gets published nowadays, 'tis true. But compared to what had gone before, there's no comparison. The only real comparison you can make in fantasy is from one of an author's books to another of that same author's books.

[QuickTidal]

 Briar King, on 29 July 2011 - 07:21 PM, said:

@ Quick Kazma(lol that name change fucked with my head for a bit) how was Ghost Story compared to Dead Beat, Death Masks...?

It was awesome, totally worth the wait. It's not quite the same type of balls out action finale's as those two volumes, but it makes up for it in other ways. Probably one of the best in the series, just not for the reasons you are thinking of. Don't worry, it's really great.

[Mott]

I was doing so well with Dresden it was a book series I was managing to actually read and then I got stuck halfway through Grave Peril and despite really enjoying it I can't seem to focus on reading any more, I've started on Great Expectation and I'm a few chapter into that and enjoying it...lets see how far I'll get with this one before I slow to a stop.

[QuickTidal]

 Queen Mott, on 29 July 2011 - 11:00 PM, said:

I was doing so well with Dresden it was a book series I was managing to actually read and then I got stuck halfway through Grave Peril and despite really enjoying it I can't seem to focus on reading any more, I've started on Great Expectation and I'm a few chapter into that and enjoying it...lets see how far I'll get with this one before I slow to a stop.

That's where I first got stuck...give it a rest and then come back to it....it gets SO good.

[POOPOO MCBUMFACE]

 Queen Mott, on 29 July 2011 - 11:00 PM, said:

I was doing so well with Dresden it was a book series I was managing to actually read and then I got stuck halfway through Grave Peril and despite really enjoying it I can't seem to focus on reading any more, I've started on Great Expectation and I'm a few chapter into that and enjoying it...lets see how far I'll get with this one before I slow to a stop.

Great Expectations is an excellent book, but be warned, it pretty much slows to a crawl at about the middle third. It picks up again and gets far more intense in the last third, but I was bored as hell at some points around the middle.

[QuickTidal]

Picked up the first of Conn Iggulden's Khan Dynasty books WOLF OF THE PLAINS...and this historical fiction is hitting the spot and filling my post-Dresden void!

[amphibian]

 UseOfWeapons, on 29 July 2011 - 08:26 AM, said:

Military sci-fi? I have to nominate David Weber's current series, the Safehold series. Premise: humanity is at war with an immensely powerful, ancient alien civilisation, the Gbaba, who seem to do nothing except go around exterminating nascent space-faring races. Driven to the brink of extinction, man decides on a last gamble -- they'll send a fleet of colonists on a journey of light millenia, and restrict their technological level so that the Gbaba aren't drawn to finish the job by any emissions. Then, with time and knowledge of what they face, they'll build back up to a level where they can meet the threat.

Only, things in the colony don't go exactly to plan, when a megalomaniacal dictator decides that the religious basis for the technological restriction needs a God-figure, and he has the perfect candidate. Skip 800 years or so, and the Church of God Awaiting is firmly established, and technology is at a woefully pre-industrial level, and all knowledge of the Gbaba has been lost.

Or has it?

_Off Armaggeddon Reef_
_By Schism Rent Asunder_
_By Heresies Distressed_
_A Mighty Fortress_
_How Firm A Foundation_ (forthcoming, Oct 2011)

On your recommendation I picked up Off Armageddon Reef and at the 1/5th mark, it's... not good. Does this series get better?

Weber seemingly has no idea how to convey subtlety, avoid info-dumps or let the characters breathe much.

[Serenity]

 King Kazma, on 30 July 2011 - 12:52 AM, said:

Picked up the first of Conn Iggulden's Khan Dynasty books WOLF OF THE PLAINS...and this historical fiction is hitting the spot and filling my post-Dresden void!

Good book, I enjoyed that one a lot, but wasn't so keen on the follow up (Lords of the Bow).

I finished PKD's The Man in the High Castle, which was a decent read, and am now reading The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula Le Guin.

[amphibian]

 amphibian, on 30 July 2011 - 02:50 AM, said:

 UseOfWeapons, on 29 July 2011 - 08:26 AM, said:

Military sci-fi? I have to nominate David Weber's current series, the Safehold series. Premise: humanity is at war with an immensely powerful, ancient alien civilisation, the Gbaba, who seem to do nothing except go around exterminating nascent space-faring races. Driven to the brink of extinction, man decides on a last gamble -- they'll send a fleet of colonists on a journey of light millenia, and restrict their technological level so that the Gbaba aren't drawn to finish the job by any emissions. Then, with time and knowledge of what they face, they'll build back up to a level where they can meet the threat.

Only, things in the colony don't go exactly to plan, when a megalomaniacal dictator decides that the religious basis for the technological restriction needs a God-figure, and he has the perfect candidate. Skip 800 years or so, and the Church of God Awaiting is firmly established, and technology is at a woefully pre-industrial level, and all knowledge of the Gbaba has been lost.

Or has it?

_Off Armaggeddon Reef_
_By Schism Rent Asunder_
_By Heresies Distressed_
_A Mighty Fortress_
_How Firm A Foundation_ (forthcoming, Oct 2011)

On your recommendation I picked up Off Armageddon Reef and at the 1/5th mark, it's... not good. Does this series get better?

Weber seemingly has no idea how to convey subtlety, avoid info-dumps or let the characters breathe much.

I have insomnia, so I finished the book. It's almost entirely Age of Sail naval battles with some religious and secular politicking combined with spies. That's not military sci-fi, dude.

I can see this appealing to some, especially the Patrick O'Brian fans, but it's not "military sci-fi as Gothos was looking for and I was looking for. Also, judging by the wiki summaries this series ain't wrapping up until at least 12 or 15 books in, and Weber is just now releasing the fifth - which probably won't be getting beyond the Age of Sail tech either.

[Use Of Weapons]

Yeah, well, Weber isn't big on subtlety. But the SF premise is always in the background, and while the tech advancement is pretty slow in the first few books, it's always there, and picks up pace very quickly. Plus, you have Merlin/Nimue, who I love as a character. While the villains never get much beyond cheek-munching, moustache-twirling nob-ends, some of them do get reformed.

But if you want space-battles and freakin' lasers on sharks treecats, try his other big series, which Abyss name-checked above.

Or try David Gunn's Death's Head series, which may be more to your taste. Proper mil-sci-fi, with cyborgs, aliens, vast fuck-off guns and a smattering of small-scale psionics. With enough swearing to qualify as one of Stover's Caine novels, and a hard-as-nails sergeant as the protagonist. I reckon it's exactly what you're after.

And Iain M. Banks _Against A Dark Background_ is a sure-fire winner.

[amphibian]

 UseOfWeapons, on 30 July 2011 - 07:22 PM, said:

Or try David Gunn's Death's Head series, which may be more to your taste. Proper mil-sci-fi, with cyborgs, aliens, vast fuck-off guns and a smattering of small-scale psionics. With enough swearing to qualify as one of Stover's Caine novels, and a hard-as-nails sergeant as the protagonist. I reckon it's exactly what you're after.

And Iain M. Banks _Against A Dark Background_ is a sure-fire winner.

Righto, old chap. I'll get crackin' on those.

[JPK]

Just finished Blood Rites. Decided to sideline Dreams of Steel and go for Altered Carbon. I highly suspect I'm going to be happy with this choice.

[amphibian]

 Briar King, on 31 July 2011 - 02:52 AM, said:

I need a recommendation. Im in the mood for a good SciFi shootem up, something with alot of space vessel battles, galactic wide empires at war...etc

For individual super-badass sci-fi soldier stuff, Armor by John Steakley.

For some trippy low-rent hustler accidentally has a mega-weapon against the plague threatening the entire galaxy on board and runs from bad guys stuff, Appleseed by John Clute.

For an intense psycho-thriller involving spaceship battles, alien empires and some profoundly weird shit, Blindside by Peter Watts (which is available for free online at his website).

For a sort of James Bond take on galactic empires colliding, shoot'em ups, space battles, light political games, the Ensign Flandry series by Poul Anderson starts off like that and gets a wee bit more politicky as it goes on. But the female aliens are super hot - just like they would be in a space James Bond.

[Use Of Weapons]

 Briar King, on 31 July 2011 - 02:52 AM, said:

I need a recommendation. Im in the mood for a good SciFi shootem up, something with alot of space vessel battles, galactic wide empires at war...etc

I'd go for Scott Westerfeld's _The Risen Empire_, which is the first SF novel I've ever seen with nano-scale flying spacecraft. Great premise, great characters, and a galaxy-spanning scope. Loads of fun.

Walter Jon Williams's Dread Empire's Fall series is also lots of fun, though the lack of FTL means there aren't as many space battles (IIRC, it's mainly planetary based).

And of course, Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy will keep you going for a very long time.

[Dolorous Menhir]

Terminal World by Alistair Reynolds. A talented man.

[LadyMTL]

 silvenquesti, on 31 July 2011 - 12:04 AM, said:

Just finished Blood Rites. Decided to sideline Dreams of Steel and go for Altered Carbon. I highly suspect I'm going to be happy with this choice.

Altered Carbon is very good and I'm not really all that into sci-fi / noir thrillers / whatever you'd call it.

Having finished two fantasy books back to back (Dance with Dragons and Wise Man's Fear), I decided to switch it up a bit and now I'm reading Keith Richards' autobiography, Life.

[Bauchelain the Evil]

Finished The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. Beautiful book. Heartwrenching. I strongly recommend it.