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Post by Reviewer on Dec 5, 2021 17:36:09 GMT
I thought Project Hail Mary was fine, better than Artemis at any rate. But I don't think I'll read another of Weir's. Not because I think he's necessarily a terrible writer (maybe a tad overrated), just because it feels like he's writing basically the same book over and over. And I've read it, and don't really want to read it again unless there's something new to it. Disclaimer: I'm not much of a science/tech/engineering enthusiast, so I probably don't get quite the same level of "science man solves problems using real science!" joy that others might get from these things. I'm more appreciative of good characters, and this is... not a strength of Weir's. That was power much my thinking for this. It’s far too similar in style and approach, which for a lot of books (crime for example) it’s often less of an issue but there are just too many instances of the same thing in each book - problem, solution, goes wrong, gets fixed, causes new problem etc. It’sa decent book but I don’t think I need another one like it for a long time.
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Post by Chopper on Dec 5, 2021 17:45:22 GMT
Cool, cheers lexw ! I will give them a pass as I have no huge interest in the universe
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Post by Bill in the rain on Dec 8, 2021 13:28:50 GMT
I'm not sure if this is a good place to post it, but since I know a few people from RPS read some of her books:
Record of a Spaceborn Few is 99p on kindle at the moment smile.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07355XC7L 3rd in Becky Chambers chilled out space trilogy.
If there's somewhere better to post stuff like this, let me know.
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Post by Techno Hippy on Dec 8, 2021 13:32:31 GMT
I've started reading 16 ways to defend a city after some recommendations in this thread (or was it on the previous site?) and it's fine, but fairly dull. It is keeping me interested though.
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Post by Sarfrin on Dec 8, 2021 15:42:24 GMT
I'm not sure if this is a good place to post it, but since I know a few people from RPS read some of her books: Record of a Spaceborn Few is 99p on kindle at the moment smile.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07355XC7L 3rd in Becky Chambers chilled out space trilogy. If there's somewhere better to post stuff like this, let me know. I sort of see this as a general 'stuff about books' thread.
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ekz
New Member
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Post by ekz on Dec 8, 2021 21:06:33 GMT
Bleak seasons - Glen Cook. Black company #7 I think? Really unsure where I sit on this one. It was... Weird. 6/10.
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Immaterial
New Member
A real person people.
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Post by Immaterial on Dec 9, 2021 0:15:34 GMT
War of the Maps- Paul McAuley -10/10
Absolutely brilliant. If you like the Dying Earth of Jack Vance, or the Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe, you will love this.
Humanity, reinvented by post-humans, is living on the outside of a Dyson sphere, in the midst of sufficiently advanced technology. There's a genetic threat, a retired copper and a big bad.
I've had a soft spot for McAuley ever since he wrote Fairyland, and I can't quite understand why he's not more popular.
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lexw
New Member
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Post by lexw on Dec 9, 2021 13:44:31 GMT
War of the Maps- Paul McAuley -10/10 Absolutely brilliant. If you like the Dying Earth of Jack Vance, or the Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe, you will love this. Humanity, reinvented by post-humans, is living on the outside of a Dyson sphere, in the midst of sufficiently advanced technology. There's a genetic threat, a retired copper and a big bad. I've had a soft spot for McAuley ever since he wrote Fairyland, and I can't quite understand why he's not more popular. Based on Fairyland, which was excellent on a lot of levels,but also flawed (I enjoyed it), I'd say it's probably an inability to write characters anywhere near as compelling as his scenarios. He also doesn't write with depth of Wolfe or the vividness of Vance. Neither of whom are particularly popular despite being critically well-regarded (indeed Wolfe has been called the greatest writer of English in the 20th century and that's only slightly hyperbolic in my opinion), perhaps because all three are both a tad challenging and depressing to read (Vance the least so on both counts except the sheer rape-y-ness of some of his stuff is a bit much if very typical of his era). That said, that does sound interesting and I could give MacAuley another chance.
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Immaterial
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Post by Immaterial on Dec 9, 2021 13:50:00 GMT
Point taken around some of his characters, but he this time he does get pretty well under the skin of his protagonist- that said, a couple of the supporting characters are cardboard cut-outs. I might fite you a little bit on the vividness, though.
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Post by Chopper on Dec 9, 2021 16:00:03 GMT
I'm halfway through the second of the Book of the New Sun books, and I'm pretty conflicted on what I've read. On one hand, when I'd finished the first, I immediately bought the second. On the other, I'm finding it a pretty disorienting reading experience. The protagonist veers wildly between being the most innocent man in the world, blundering into one tricky situation after the other (the narrative is based around lots and lots of blundering, really), while at times he's the most confident, ruthless, perfect-judgement-possessing character in the book. I guess there's a whole unreliable narrator thing going on, but still. I'm enjoying the writing and the world, and the other characters, such as they are explained at all, but the other big issue I'm having is that the whole Vodalus thing, as a driver of the plot, is completely unbelievable and flimsy to me. The protagonist gives up a life he loved, risks death, goes on all these disjointed madcap adventures, based on a momentary meeting in a graveyard at the dead of night. I suppose he is mad, but still. All that may sound harsh, but I'm looking forward to seeing it all come together in the end.
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lexw
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Post by lexw on Dec 10, 2021 13:33:12 GMT
I'm halfway through the second of the Book of the New Sun books, and I'm pretty conflicted on what I've read. On one hand, when I'd finished the first, I immediately bought the second. On the other, I'm finding it a pretty disorienting reading experience. The protagonist veers wildly between being the most innocent man in the world, blundering into one tricky situation after the other (the narrative is based around lots and lots of blundering, really), while at times he's the most confident, ruthless, perfect-judgement-possessing character in the book. I guess there's a whole unreliable narrator thing going on, but still. I'm enjoying the writing and the world, and the other characters, such as they are explained at all, but the other big issue I'm having is that the whole Vodalus thing, as a driver of the plot, is completely unbelievable and flimsy to me. The protagonist gives up a life he loved, risks death, goes on all these disjointed madcap adventures, based on a momentary meeting in a graveyard at the dead of night. I suppose he is mad, but still. All that may sound harsh, but I'm looking forward to seeing it all come together in the end. In my opinion it does come together more in the later books, but there is always a certain amount of "No but really why Severian?!". He's the most unreliable narrator I can immediately think of, by some considerable margin (who doesn't come across as an outright liar anyway). As you go through the books sometimes you get three or more retellings of the same event, and none of them quite match up, leaving you with a lot of questions. Sometimes though it's worth just sitting back and not trying to figure out the "WHY!?" of Severian and just enjoying the bizarre events and wonderful language. I dunno if he's mad as much as, he's an incredibly different person when writing this down (or telling the story, I forget), to who he was at the start, and I don't think he necessarily entirely remembers why he did stuff so is sort of attributing rationales to his behaviour that maybe aren't accurate. Also there's all the literally mind-altering business.
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lexw
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Post by lexw on Dec 10, 2021 13:37:31 GMT
Point taken around some of his characters, but he this time he does get pretty well under the skin of his protagonist- that said, a couple of the supporting characters are cardboard cut-outs. I might fite you a little bit on the vividness, though. You might be right re: vivid, I think maybe "immediacy" was the word I was looking for.
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Post by Chopper on Dec 10, 2021 18:02:04 GMT
In my opinion it does come together more in the later books, but there is always a certain amount of "No but really why Severian?!". He's the most unreliable narrator I can immediately think of, by some considerable margin (who doesn't come across as an outright liar anyway). As you go through the books sometimes you get three or more retellings of the same event, and none of them quite match up, leaving you with a lot of questions. Sometimes though it's worth just sitting back and not trying to figure out the "WHY!?" of Severian and just enjoying the bizarre events and wonderful language. Yeah, it's quite disorienting for me to read - as well as trying to figure out the world and the language (to be fair, it's only the first few chapters that were a struggle in that regard, being plunged into the thick of it), there's all this stuff going on, plus some seeming inconsistency, but all in all I'm enjoying it. Looking forward to seeing what happens next.
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Post by Sarfrin on Dec 11, 2021 23:31:22 GMT
Alice by Christina Henry. What happens after Alice comes back from Wonderland and is rightly declared insane by all and sundry is well trodden ground in literature (and even gaming) now but Henry does a very good job of it. It's not a profound work of literature or anything but it's very readable and very well written. There are sequels which I'll definitely be reading.
I'm currently reading Beyond the Rift by Peter Watts. It's a collection of short stories and they're well written and very imaginative. For example the first one is The Thing, but from the perspective of the Thing and it's great (except he fucks it up in the last line). But... every single story so far has a reference to sexual violence or something like comparing a stab wound to a vagina and it's starting to creep me out. If that holds true for the one I'm reading now I'm noping out and not reading anything else he's written.
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Immaterial
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Post by Immaterial on Dec 14, 2021 15:22:40 GMT
He has a very broken-looking cat in his author pic on amazon.
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nazo
Junior Member
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Post by nazo on Dec 14, 2021 15:54:19 GMT
A Man With One of Those Faces - Caimh McDonnell
A comedy-thriller set in Dublin. I enjoyed this, though not quite as much as The Stranger Times by the same author; it was amusing rather than funny (for me anyway) but kept me interested throughout.
4/5
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Post by Sarfrin on Dec 14, 2021 15:59:10 GMT
He has a very broken-looking cat in his author pic on amazon. Christ. Is that cat even alive? Anyway he also apparently has an obsession with putting the word rape in every short story he writes so I'm out.
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Post by Tonka (🐑,🪤) on Dec 16, 2021 14:47:47 GMT
Anne Rice has died. I read a few of the vampire books back in the 90's and found them to be okay. I think Queen of the Damned was the last one I read. I was surprised, to say the least, to see how many of the things she wrote.
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Post by dfunked on Dec 16, 2021 14:59:14 GMT
Rusty Young - Marching Powder 9/10
After giving up part way through powder wars, for some reason I decided to go with another "true" story about drugs and a larger than life Scouser. This one thankfully doesn't devolve into endless "and then ten more villains shows up armed to the teeth with pipes and crowbars, and I took them all down with me bare fists" tales... So yeah, didn't get on with powder wars at all but absolutely loved this despite how far fetched a lot of it is. Probably helps that McFadden doesn't come across like a total arsehole.
Absolutely fascinating stuff even if you have to take it all with a pinch of salt.
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Rich
Junior Member
Posts: 1,819
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Post by Rich on Dec 16, 2021 21:38:51 GMT
The First Law Trilogy - Joe Abercrombie
Really enjoyed this and can't add any more than MolarAm said a few pages back. Very easy to read with a good injection of humour.
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Post by Bill in the rain on Dec 19, 2021 13:16:31 GMT
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MolarAm🔵
Full Member
Bad at games
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Post by MolarAm🔵 on Dec 20, 2021 12:25:07 GMT
Bullet Train, by Kotaro Isaka
A man boards a bullet train to get revenge for his son. But it turns out the train is full of other assassins! Each with their own assignments and little personality quirks! One of them really likes Thomas the Tank Engine!
Predictably, mayhem ensues. It's a bullet train... LITERALLY
It sounds like the script for a Tarantino movie, basically (apparently it's already being adapted). But man it's a whole lot of fun all the same. Punchy dialogue, lots of twists and turns, just a really good time all round.
Highly recomeded
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lexw
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Post by lexw on Dec 20, 2021 13:56:47 GMT
I'm on the fourth Painted Man book by Peter V Brett now.
At this point I'm kind of reading them out of spite (to myself or the author I dunno). The problem that emerged in the second book has not gone away.
So the first book introduces an interesting world, and does POV stuff from three likeable and different characters, and keeps the plot moving. Then the second book just devotes tons of time to additional characters, all of whom are total wankers and basically not likeable, and in an unpleasant society full of fanaticism, violence (sexual and otherwise), irrationality, and backstabbing. Then it gets back to the other characters and you're like "Yay!" and it justifies another good POV and they're interesting.
The third book focuses mostly on the interesting four, but still we keep having to hear about these godawful wankers, and it's like, whhhhhhyyyyyyyy?!?!? Whenever it's not about them (or not from their POV) it's like 10x better.
But the author very clearly enjoys writing about their peculiar, shitty backstab-fest of a society way more than his main plot, so we're constantly dragged back to it. Like the main characters will actually advance the story, then we have to hear about how so and so shitty person elaborately maneuvered another even shittier person into some sort of horrific situation. It's all plausible, but it's like, why do we care? At this point we know the personalities of literally everyone involved, and none of them are growing as characters.
The fourth book has yet more POVs from the wankers, ugh, why? Please can we leave them and their shitty problems alone? Oh great now we're having new POV wanker, and oh now she's flashing back so we have to endure her entire goddamn backstory.
Also the title of the third book is a total lie. It's called The Daylight War, which the previous book talked about a lot. Literally the first chapter and only the first chapter is about that
Just really hoping it gets back on track. If these were physical books, not Audible (I had a bunch of spare credits), I'd have flicked through them and probably given up when I saw how many pages were allocated to the wankers.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 20, 2021 14:14:47 GMT
Bullet Train, by Kotaro Isaka A man boards a bullet train to get revenge for his son. But it turns out the train is full of other assassins! Each with their own assignments and little personality quirks! One of them really likes Thomas the Tank Engine! Predictably, mayhem ensues. It's a bullet train... LITERALLY It sounds like the script for a Tarantino movie, basically (apparently it's already being adapted). But man it's a whole lot of fun all the same. Punchy dialogue, lots of twists and turns, just a really good time all round. Highly recomeded That sounds brilliant.
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Post by drhcnip on Dec 20, 2021 14:33:08 GMT
9/10 bonkers, but great noticed that some people on goodreads complained about the audiobook...this is not a book i can see working in the audio format
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lexw
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Post by lexw on Dec 20, 2021 16:47:54 GMT
this is not a book i can see working in the audio format This is always helpful to know, thank you. I've read a number of books I'd just never suggest be read as audiobooks (anything by Gene Wolfe) whereas others are almost better as them (all the Rivers of London books).
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Post by drhcnip on Dec 20, 2021 18:55:35 GMT
this is essentially a sequence of different snippets of thoughts and observations from the time from lots of different factual sources and fictional characters...i could only see it working if it was a full-cast recording so you could identify the different voices - otherwise it'd be stop/start with sources & character names, almost like a set of footnotes
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Post by Bill in the rain on Dec 20, 2021 23:11:17 GMT
*takes the Gene Wolfe books off audible wishlist*
Does anyone have that thing where there's a book they really want to read, but they keep putting it off because (a) it might be a disappointment, or (b) once it's over it's over? Especially when it might be the last in a series.
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Post by Tonka (🐑,🪤) on Dec 21, 2021 7:48:04 GMT
*takes the Gene Wolfe books off audible wishlist* Does anyone have that thing where there's a book they really want to read, but they keep putting it off because (a) it might be a disappointment, or (b) once it's over it's over? Especially when it might be the last in a series. Yep. Anything by Ursula K Leguin or Kim Stanley Robinson for the reasons you mention. Especially A, I don't want them to fail.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 21, 2021 22:23:53 GMT
The Tommyknockers (for the umpteenth time) 9/10
This story about a small town being consumed by an insidious alien presence is prime 80s Stephen King batshit cocaine-fueled crazy in the best possible way and I'll never understand the hate it gets (the fucking awful 1992 TV miniseries probably didn't help). Best parts include a talking Jesus picture explaining soldering and Brylcreem, a main character yelling about Chernobyl just in case you didn't get the allegory, and a truly epic battle with a murderous Coke machine. Really hope there's a screen adaptation that does this glorious insanity justice, one day.
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