[QuickTidal]

Briar King, on 06 June 2013 - 08:05 PM, said:

Fuck yes I got my Abaddons Gate in mail today!! Only 500 pgs left of Gai Gin before I can start it lmao...

You are gonna love it, I'm about 200 pages in and it's already the best of the three for me. Villain set up form the outset (I think 3 chapters in), and things pop off right from the get-go. Solid, solid stuff. And you won't believe what they did with the

Spoiler

Miller cliffhanger from CALIBAN'S WAR

[QuickTidal]

stone monkey, on 08 June 2013 - 10:48 AM, said:

Today the Amazon Fairy woke me up by bringing:

The Rook by Daniel O'Malley - a cursory inspection of which shows that, speaking as an actual Brit, the author has no command (or perhaps knowledge) of British idiomatic speech whatsoever (which is a criticism I could fruitfully aim at The Milkweed Tryptych too) :S

Abaddon's Gate by James SA Corey - which, yet again, leads me to wonder how those two came up with that nom de plume; it's not an anagram...

1. I thought that Tregillis pulls it off to a degree more than O'Malley. But at least it's not like Paul Cornell, whose LONDON FALLING is a near incomprehensible British slang book that alienates the rest of the world by being TOO British.

2. "James" and "Corey" are Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck's middle names respectively. And S.A. are Daniel's daughters initials (info from Abraham's website)

[Overactive Imagination]

Finally ordered the darkness that comes before. Haven't read Bakker at all before... looking forward to it

[Ukjent]

It's something special.

[stone monkey]

QuickTidal, on 08 June 2013 - 12:23 PM, said:

1. I thought that Tregillis pulls it off to a degree more than O'Malley. But at least it's not like Paul Cornell, whose LONDON FALLING is a near incomprehensible British slang book that alienates the rest of the world by being TOO British.

tbh I disagree. Both are equally guilty, from what I can see, of having British characters speak in the idiom of the author - O'Malley is Australian, Tregillis is Canadian iirc. And I'm not actually referring to slang or vocabulary; but they also matter too - grammatical construction is an area where British English can be quite different from the Englishes spoken in the Commonwealth (which tend to be more influenced by American English). In Tregillis' case it's possibly even more egregious imo, because some of his characters are Brits of the 40s, 50s, and 60s, who would speak nothing like the way he has them speak; they would sound quite different to even Modern Brits.

For example: both Tregillis and O'Malley use the construction: go [verb] a/the [noun]". This is a particular bete noir of mine (although I have been accused of being a "precious snowflake" in such matters) because no one ever uses that particular construction here; we say "go and..." Such things stick out like a sore thumb. Arguably this may be a result of editing, but I doubt it.

It works both ways for me btw, I get annoyed when British writers write Americans or Canadians or Australians or what have you that sound like Brits; it's a matter of having control of your register.

Given that Paul Cornell is British, I think he gets a pass on writing Brits that actually sound like Brits - even if they do sound like Southern Jessies...

This post has been edited by stone monkey: 09 June 2013 - 11:21 AM

[QuickTidal]

stone monkey, on 09 June 2013 - 11:10 AM, said:

QuickTidal, on 08 June 2013 - 12:23 PM, said:

1. I thought that Tregillis pulls it off to a degree more than O'Malley. But at least it's not like Paul Cornell, whose LONDON FALLING is a near incomprehensible British slang book that alienates the rest of the world by being TOO British.

tbh I disagree. Both are equally guilty, from what I can see, of having British characters speak in the idiom of the author - O'Malley is Australian, Tregillis is Canadian iirc. And I'm not actually referring to slang or vocabulary; but they also matter too - grammatical construction is an area where British English can be quite different from the Englishes spoken in the Commonwealth (which tend to be more influenced by American English). In Tregillis' case it's possibly even more egregious imo, because some of his characters are Brits of the 40s, 50s, and 60s, who would speak nothing like the way he has them speak; they would sound quite different to even Modern Brits.

For example: both Tregillis and O'Malley use the construction: go [verb] a/the [noun]". This is a particular bete noir of mine (although I have been accused of being a "precious snowflake" in such matters) because no one ever uses that particular construction here; we say "go and..." Such things stick out like a sore thumb. Arguably this may be a result of editing, but I doubt it.

It works both ways for me btw, I get annoyed when British writers write Americans or Canadians or Australians or what have you that sound like Brits; it's a matter of having control of your register.

Given that Paul Cornell is British, I think he gets a pass on writing Brits that actually sound like Brits - even if they do sound like Southern Jessies...

Fair enough. You're a Brit, so I defer to your knowledge on the subject over mine (which comes from my relatives).

Though, it should be noted, Tregillis is American...he's a part of GRRM's writing troupe with S.M. Stirling, Danial Abraham and Melinda Snodgrass and lives in New Mexico.

[Mentalist]

Chapters had a buy 3 get 1 free event again. And I just happened to find some money i've put away before I went on my vacation. Some mild splurging followed.

Ian Banks-the first 3 Culture novels, in a boxed set. I've been meaning to try to read Banks for a while, and he's finally in stores in Canada since recently


China Mieville-Railsea

Jim Butcher- Side Jobs Gonna get me a Dresdencraqck fix whilst I wait for "Cold Days" to go mmpb


Brian Sanderson- Warbreaker another one that's been on the to read pile for a while.

James Corey - Leviathan Wakes - there's been a lot of buzz around this one, and I always want to read more sci-fi series.

Tim Wagonner - The Nekropolis Archives - yeat another Angry Robot Omnibus. These are very thematic, trope-heavy books, but they are usually a fun light read, so I keep buying them.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 09 June 2013 - 05:56 PM

[Fist Gamet]

Heroes Die, Blade of Tyshalle, Caine Black Knife, Caine's Law...fucking love my fucking kindle


Fucking fuck

That is fucking all

[Serenity]

I've been meaning to get some books on Tudor history for a while, and Mantel's awesome Bring Up the Bodies has finally pushed me into doing it. So:

Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn by Alison Weir

Winter King: The Dawn of Tudor England by Thomas Penn


I also got the first two David Weber 'Honor Harrington' books free for Kindle, based on a friend's rec.

[Abyss]

Keith Melton's ZERO DOG WAR.
Goodreads positively glows about this comedy/urban fantasy and it's hard not to want to give something with this writeup a try...

Quote

Description: The first bullet is always free. After that, you gotta pay. Zero Dog Missions, Book 1 After accidentally blowing up both a client facility and a cushy city contract in the same day, pyromancer and mercenary captain Andrea Walker is scrambling to save her Zero Dogs. A team including (but not limited to) a sexually repressed succubus, a werewolf with a thing for health food, a sarcastic tank driver/aspiring romance novelist, a three-hundred-pound calico cat, and a massive demon who really loves to blow stuff up.
...Product Warnings Contains explicit language, intense action and violence, rampaging zombie hordes, a heroine with an attitude and flamethrower, Special Forces commandos, ninjas, apocalyptic necromancer capitalist machinations, absurd parody and mayhem, self-deluded humor, irreverence, geek humor, mutant cats, low-brow comedy, and banana-kiwi-flavored gelatin.

[QuickTidal]

Neil Gaiman's latest THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE was out early, so I picked it up.

Not cheap though...it's only about 170pgs in length and the hardcover came to $27....were I not a collector of Gaiman hardcovers and a die hard fan, I might have kindled it.

Still, very excited to read it as it sounds just amazing.

[Imperial Historian]

Went to a Gaiman reading and signing last night to pick this up (about 1500 people showed up to an event where they were expecting a few hundred... so the queue was long). So far it is excellent, possibly the best thing he has written.

He also talked about a few projects potentially in the works, including a HBO adaption of American Gods which he has finished a script for, he's looking at writing a musical, currently in talks about a short video game, and he could not comment at this time on an adaptation of good omens (which would be awesome).

[QuickTidal]

Yeah, he's doing a ticketed event in my city and I snagged tix, so I'm super jazzed to meet him.

Glad to hear the book is good, I've got it on deck after I finish FoD.

[polishgenius]

No early Gaiman for me, but there was early The Quarry (Iain Banks' last) so I got that. This is gonna be bittersweet...

This post has been edited by polishgenius: 15 June 2013 - 04:34 PM

[lastname]

Bought Furies of Calderon today. Also ordered TCG while I was at it.

[lastname]

Briar King, on 17 June 2013 - 02:29 AM, said:

lastname, on 16 June 2013 - 07:57 AM, said:

Bought Furies of Calderon today. Also ordered TCG while I was at it.

Alera! Fucking A!
Someone tell me to shut up!!

Not me. If the book continues to be this much fun, I might well join you in your chant!

[Puck]

Bookdepository are doing their 100 books in 25 hours thing again, so I managed to get my hands on:

As easy as Pi by Jamie Buchan [seemed like a fun little book]
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch
The Company by K. J. Parker
Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillis

I also recently bought Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast Trilogy and Vandermeer's City of Saints and Madmen after reading and loving his Veniss Underground, but it's taking its sweet time to arrive; I sure hope it will do so eventually.

All in all, quite happy with today's purchases.

[Ukjent]

Daniel Abraham The tyrant's law and Peter F. Hamiltion Great North road arrived today.

[Abyss]

Gilman's HALF-MADE WORLD. Looking fwd to this due to comments elsethread.

[QuickTidal]

Abyss, on 25 June 2013 - 02:25 PM, said:

Gilman's HALF-MADE WORLD. Looking fwd to this due to comments elsethread.

I found it quite good, just not great.

A very existential, ephemeral story that has concepts that are strange and weird...which is probably part of the appeal.

Sentient guns tho...pretty cool.