Author Topic: Books (Read 174142 times)

Luther Lansfeld · « **Reply #1275 on:** July 17, 2015, 05:52:21 PM »

Words of Radiance - Finally finished this after a few months of chipping at it. It's good but hampered by Kaladin not being all that great or exciting, although he's a lot better than he was in Way of Kings. Shallan backstory is good times. The book reminds me a bit of The Great Hunt in that it felt like shit was really getting real toward the end of the book. I'm interested in seeing what the series does with Eshonai. I'm pretty pumped for the third book in general, because Dalinar is my favorite character in the series and it is supposed to feature his backstory.

Order of the Phoenix - I haven't finished it yet but it's pretty great. I mostly read the book on the bus and I had to hide my tears when reading the scene with Neville at the hospital on Christmas Day. I think the book does an excellent job of making it hit home just how terrible Voldemort is (Mad-Eye Moody talking about all the people in the photograph was pretty touching) instead of just avoiding talking about him altogether (which is a pretty understandable reaction). The last two books really transition between a kid's series and a young adult series and I can't wait to read the last two.

superaielman · « **Reply #1276 on:** August 03, 2015, 12:43:23 AM »

Barrayar- This was fantastic. Bujold's writing took a massive jump in quality between this and Shards of Honor; she does a far better job with scene construction and pacing in general with this book. Going to read Young Miles right after this.

Luther Lansfeld · « **Reply #1277 on:** August 08, 2015, 06:09:51 AM »

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - The book starts off relatively weaker than the other two later books that I've read, but it does some great foreshadowing and final setting building for the last book, and the last parts are excellent. I've known the spoiler for a long time and I still got pretty sad about it. Really excited to finish the series.

EDIT: I realized I forgot to post about 3 and 4. 3 is pretty good, nice mystery setup and great finish but overall not as good as the later books. 4 is great and somewhat subversive to your expectations but it is hampered a bit by the plot twist at the end.

superaielman · « **Reply #1278 on:** August 10, 2015, 05:48:36 PM »

2/3ds of the way through Young Miles. The Warrior's apprentice is a lot of fun; it lets Miles quickly go explore the world around him and stumble into progressively higher stages of leadership. The death in the book Bothari was shocking enough and makes perfect sense in context. The second short story is very brief (Mountains of Mourning) but gives a nice preview into exactly the issues facing Barrayar as a world and Miles's district in general.

As I said to VSM, Ivan is a lot of fun as a supporting character. Miles and Aral's blindness to his relative competence is hilarious, since both are usually better than that type of error.

Free Falling

Finished this. Leo Graf and the story of the Quaddies is impressive and a lot of fun to read, and Brucie baby made for an incredibly scummy villain. Onto Miles, Mayhem, and Mystery! I just started this one. It's off to the usual fun- Miles running headlong into trouble and some poor sap along for the ride.

Bujold is absolutely worth reading. Best way to describe it is as deeply character driven hard Sci-Fi. Bujold does a fine job with plot and worldbuilding, but the main attraction to the books are the characters. She gives every one of her characters an immense amount of depth; she is hands down the best scifi writer I have seen in the genre at handling that kind of thing (Take notes, Turtledove). Cordelia's Honor can be tough going, but once you get past that start it is pretty amazing.

Dhyerwolf · « **Reply #1279 on:** August 21, 2015, 07:18:59 PM »

Just to check, Salvatore doesn't really have anything worth reading, right?

Grefter · « **Reply #1280 on:** August 21, 2015, 08:29:04 PM »

For you? Probably not. Weiss and Hickman are probably as trashy licensed fantasy property as you can stomach. Salvatore and Ed Greenwood are pretty counter Dhyer.

Dhyerwolf · « **Reply #1281 on:** August 23, 2015, 07:22:37 AM »

Too bad. I was reading some stuff and I really, really like him as a person. To stay on target, I've been reading Melissa McPhial's a Pattern of Light and Shadow series. The last 200 or so pages of the second book may be my favorite 200 pages of any book ever thanks to basically having a lot of extremely excellent twists (albeit ones I probably should have seen coming) and mid-series payoffs. I finished book 2 at con and was sad to see that B&N wasn't carrying book 3 (since it's only been out about a year).

Very unsettling villain cast as well. Bethamin is especially creepy.

superaielman · « **Reply #1282 on:** August 23, 2015, 07:23:44 PM »

Miles, Mystery, and Mayhem- I finished Cetaganda. It's an interesting look at the the planet/people who have been rivals/enemies to Barraynar from the very start. Ivan was a lot of fun in this book and Miles... well, he kind of acted like an idiot. Ivan rightly called him out on this more than once (Even though Miles was right to act the way he did). The scenes with the Emperor in particular drove home that Miles definitely was not among friends.

E: Ethan of Athos was really *really* strange but I ended up enjoying it. It was nice to see Quinn again, and Ethan was surprisingly likeable considering what a screwed up society he comes from.

Captain K · « **Reply #1283 on:** August 23, 2015, 11:24:54 PM »

The Sword of Shannara: Okay let's start with the positive. Brooks *can* write. He's very good with descriptive storytelling, giving a vivid view of each scene.

The negative? Holy fuck this is the biggest ripoff of any media I've seen, ever. This isn't like Lord of the Rings. It *is* Lord of the Rings. The characters are direct copies. The situations are direct copies. Hell they even have Theoden and Wormtongue, Gandalf's fight with the Balrog, everything.

I'm going to read the next two books since I bought it as a trilogy, but I sure hope there's an original thought coming soon.

Sierra · « **Reply #1284 on:** August 24, 2015, 07:53:31 PM »

Quote from: The Daleks on August 23, 2015, 11:24:54 PM

Holy fuck this is the biggest ripoff of any media I've seen, ever. This isn't like Lord of the Rings. It *is* Lord of the Rings.

I'm inclined to say Dennis McKiernan's [series Cid forgets the name of due to sheer mediocrity] was worse about this because he genuinely intended to blatantly rewrite LotR until lawyers appeared, and then he just changed the absolute bare minimum to avoid said lawsuit. But I haven't read either of these series in like twenty years, so, details, largely forgotten and probably academic. (My one really solid memory of Sword of Shannara is that there is a dude named Alcoholics Anonymous.)

Shale · « **Reply #1285 on:** September 03, 2015, 10:15:39 PM »

I used a day of air travel and hotel room downtime to burn through The Martian, and it was a really good light read. Very engaging, Mark Watney has a great voice (Damon is pretty much perfect casting for him, too) and Weir wrings a lot of drama out of science gambits variously succeeding or failing to science properly. Style-wise, the first novel-ness of it comes through in that it's very much Chekhov's Gun: The Book. So, so many guns conspicuously put above doors before they shoot somebody in the foot.

Luther Lansfeld · « **Reply #1286 on:** September 03, 2015, 11:03:38 PM »

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Excellent book, great ending, I cried way too much.

Lady Door · « **Reply #1287 on:** September 04, 2015, 12:21:19 AM »

I liked The Martian. Hilariously, it just made me think of a good classic sci fi that didn't concern itself with much more than the next exciting thing. Considering the amount of "science" in it, that is a really good thing. Also that they're making a giant movie out of it, so the "science" thing gets a little more credibility.

Also, Andy Weir's a nice guy and his website sucks so a book was the next best thing.

--

I started reading Infinite Jest and am about 30 pages in. Currently, my impression is "Uhhh..."

SnowFire · « **Reply #1288 on:** September 04, 2015, 11:20:22 PM »

Glad to see Ciato has good taste. I have my complaints about Harry Potter books 5-7 but on the whole a lot of the whining about them comes down to nitpicking + Rowling having to take a universe of possibilities and make an actual ending where one thing happens.

In more belated comments, I'll echo Grefter that Salvatore is probably too trashy for what I perceive to be Dhyer's tastes. He has some very readable books, but there's ultimately not a lot there.

The Daleks, I think Brooks famously used The Lord of the Rings as a "guide" while he was writing Sword of Shannara (while being a lawyer as his day job, writer by night). 2 buddies meet up with warrior prince dude (who is younger than Aragon, at least), wizard/druid guy solves a puzzle to get into cave, the last part of the quest involves Our Heroes solo infiltrating the lair of the bad guys, yupyup. Dunno about the writing hype, though... it's been a long time, but I recall some "first novel" hiccups. Which is not all bad, some charming earnestness is nice, but I seem to recall a fair amount of... how to put it... hyperbolic bluster? Oh shit yeah I've got elf senses despite being a half-elf, I am so awesome, etc.

Anyway I like Elfstones, and Wishsong is okay. (Not a spoiler: as the name suggests, one of the main characters literally has the ability to alter reality with wishes from the start of the book. Needless to say the narrative doesn't spend tons of time on her since she's basically unstoppable. Not surprised they left this out / nerfed it in later books!)

metroid composite · « **Reply #1289 on:** September 06, 2015, 06:57:01 AM »

Sooooooooo...someone was handing out free books at PAX, advertised it as kind-of like Ender's Game. I like Ender's Game, and had no plans for the airplane, so I accepted a copy. Book was called...

Red Rising

and...I enjoyed it!

There's bits that remind me a bit of song of fire and ice (but without the jumping perspective), and bits that remind me a little of Huxley's Brave New World.

I did wonder at who had been giving out the books for free, though. The cynic in me wondered if it was the Sad Puppies--certainly the book is pulp-action-y with a straight male protagonist, so this sounded plausible. Plus, the human race is split into castes kind of like Brave New World, and the ruling caste (the "golds") gave me a bit of a creepy "Aryan Nation" kind of vibe. They are the bad guys, granted, but the book spends a fair bit of time on them and their politics.

(Actually, on the back of the book it says Random House was giving out the books for free, which makes sense given that it's apparently going to be a trilogy, and there's a movie being made even though the book is barely a year old; they're just hoping by giving this out for free people will get into the series...and I have to admit I'm considering picking up the second book).

Excal · « **Reply #1290 on:** September 06, 2015, 07:27:59 PM »

Not too surprising a publisher would be handing a book out for free. Baen has its own free library on its own website where they have a few dozen books you can just download for free and they've been handing out free e-books for about a decade now, at least. It's what got me reading the Honor Harrington series.

Luther Lansfeld · « **Reply #1291 on:** September 10, 2015, 07:09:49 PM »

Hey Dhyer, have you read Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey? Is it any good?

metroid composite · « **Reply #1292 on:** September 12, 2015, 06:02:36 AM »

Welp, so the marketing worked

Golden Sun (second in the Red Rising series).

Yeah, yeah, there's some space battles and land battles and people rising up. But this book is really all about coming out of the closet; that felt like the focal point of the book.

I may be biased, though >_>

Dhyerwolf · « **Reply #1293 on:** October 02, 2015, 05:19:47 AM »

Quote from: Luther Lansfeld on September 10, 2015, 07:09:49 PM

Hey Dhyer, have you read Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey? Is it any good?

Sorry, I just saw this. I have read the first book, but not the sequels. It was definitely worth the read and from my recollection, I think you would like it. For some reason, I basically remember this book less than every other fantasy book I've ever read, so I'm on a little shaky ground here. It's really well liked though, and as opposed to say Rothfuss, there are valid reasons for this. The sequels are on my list of books to read (although for some reason when I am in bookstores, I tend to forget I am looking for them).

The Duck · « **Reply #1294 on:** October 04, 2015, 02:51:00 PM »

So, I haven't read anything that isn't a journal article or otherwise non-fiction in about seven years, so I'm open to any recommendations. I'm pretty behind on fiction not written by Kazuo Ishiguro and am pretty open-minded. Can be any genre, but I feel like I haven't read any new fantasy in over fifteen years so if there are new series worth reading I'd be open for that too.

Captain K · « **Reply #1295 on:** October 04, 2015, 03:41:59 PM »

Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson is a good place to start.

Dark Holy Elf · « **Reply #1296 on:** October 04, 2015, 03:47:24 PM »

As far as fantasy from the last 15-20 years goes, my first two recommendations would probably be Robin Hobb or Brandon Sanderson. I'd start with Assassin's Apprentice or Mistborn. The former I'd recommend for her strong characters and plenty of grey morality (and her less-than-grey villains are some of the most hateable I've seen in ficiton, and I say that as praise), the latter is more exciting, action-oriented fantasy with a very coherent magic system and some intriguing mysteries.

The Duck · « **Reply #1297 on:** October 04, 2015, 05:07:43 PM »

I have read the Farseer and Tawny Man trilogies, but I see that she has some recent releases (Fitz and the Fool?), so I may catch up on that.

Dark Holy Elf · « **Reply #1298 on:** October 04, 2015, 05:47:37 PM »

Her Liveship Traders series is also really good.

Dhyerwolf · « **Reply #1299 on:** October 04, 2015, 08:07:03 PM »

Quote from: The Daleks on October 04, 2015, 03:41:59 PM

Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson is a good place to start.

I would definitely start here. Super basically got most of the DL to read this, and I believe that it was universally very well liked here.

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Author Topic: Books (Read 174142 times)