Eh kids watch Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and think that's who the man is. Obviously not. People are ignorant.
He's one of my idols as well. The man did what he wanted and marched to the beat of his own drum. Was he the best more respectable human? Absolutely not, neither am I though. I have a half sleeve tattoo for the bastard.

The Dispossessed is goddamn great, I haven't zoomed through a book this voraciously in years. Le Guin 2020

You're welcome.

Alastair Reynolds - Revenger
Reynolds' new novel, a stand-alone in a new setting. Taking place in the Solar System millions of years in the future, it's basically a -surprise- revenge story with motley crews sailing with the solar wind and looking for loot and treasure within ancient technological remnants of earlier human civilisations. And space pirates. It's somewhat similar to House of Suns in that it's very, very far into the future, with multiple civs having come and gone again, worlds destroyed and rebuilt again and again on the ruins of the old ones, but the scope is much smaller and technology not nearly as insane. There's also actual aliens in this one.
It's pretty nice, I liked the world and all the little details, hints and glimpses Reynolds offers of the wider universe and its history. The story itself and the protagonist was okay, not too original and some things seemed predictable, but it kept me interested. Not his best, but not his worst either. Could use some fleshing out.

Becky Chambers - A Closed and Common Orbit
A sort-of sequel to the delightful The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (which I've seen fittingly described as Firefly + Farscape), though not a direct continuation (well, not exactly) and missing all the major characters from the first book. Chambers is a very "warm" writer, or how to put it, the interactions, characters' experiences and storylines are all described in a very loving and relatable way, despite the obvious sci-fi divide, and simply endearing/moving. No cheap emotional theatrics, just great shaping of characters by exploring themselves, each other and their world. I also continue to enjoy the author's descriptions of all the social and other nuances that come with the interplay between all the various alien races in the setting. While almost definitely still being far, far, far too anthropocentric in the end, it's leagues ahead of your usual planet-of-the-hats collection of humanoid alien races.

Emma Newman - Planetfall
While I thought the overall story here could have been better, especially the rushed ending, hardly exploring the overall forces behind it, this one had a very fluid approach to incorporating short bursts of how-things-ended-up-this-way flashbacks into the present-day happenings and characters, steadily revealing more and more lies and monstrosities and thereby shedding new light on things already established. Also great handling of a somewhat unreliable protagonist narrator.

Please post this in the New Pictures thread or dig up one of the various tattoo threads! I'd LOVE to see that. I'm a huge fan (although I need to read more of his stuff) of his uncompromising approach to life. I'm also extremely proud that he's from my hometown, specifically the Highlands neighborhood which is basically a hub of weirdness and artistic folk.

I'm going to start with Gene Wolfe. Is it recommended that I commence with the New Sun and then the Long Sun cycles? Is there a reccommended reading order?

Book of the New Sun for sure.

New sun>urth of the new sun>castle of days>long sun>short sun. I really reccomend getting lexicon urthus as well, which is a dictionary of sorts that helps clarify some of the more dense allusions in the text.

forgot to post about my second reading of New Sun.

it was brilliant. That ending just gives me chills. There's still so much left to figure out but i feel like all the answers are hiding somewhere in the text. It's this grand metafictional puzzle and every step towards understanding it is glorious.

Gimme your best new sun theory.

The Alzabo mentioned at the start has to have some significance IMO. Vodalus led his crew into past Severian's tomb to consume his flesh and be united with the New Sun (kinda like a hedonistic Eucharist)

and there's so much biblical allegory too, I love it. Baldanders is like some kind of false messiah and Typhon is pretty clearly satan. (His meeting with Severian is pretty close to the temptation in the desert.) It's not just the bible that wolfe refers to though. There are also all these freaky references to Borges and pulp fantasy and all other sorts of things. I feel like when it comes down to it BOTNS is more than just its story and has some omnipresent themes of the history and meaning of art

I am really looking forward to these Gene Wolfe books, you guys speak so highly of them. I have a fair bit of reading to do related to my studies after which my brain is free- I think these books will be my summer read.

So some people might remember that I don't have a very high opinion of Stephen King. Well, last year I finally caved in and started the Dark Tower series, and ended up really liking The Gunslinger. I knew going in that there would be some really stupid ideas introduced in later books (Stephen King being a character in his own book, for example), and even in this one the whole "multiverse" thing seemed pretty out-of-place, but for what it was it worked really well and it had some extremely memorable scenes. It more or less worked as a standalone too, as just one episode on Roland's eternal quest for the Tower.

That brings us to today, when I caved in again and started The Drawing of the Three. Holy fucking shit is the drop in quality immediate and dizzying. It's like stepping off a cliff. The opening scene has Roland being maimed by these fucking ridiculous "lobstrosities," yes, that's lobster monstrosities called by the text "lobstrosities." His trigger finger on his right hand gets eaten off right away, for essentially NO REASON. This is an incredibly dire wound for a guy whose entire identity revolves around being able to SLING GUNS, and there's really no reason for it - it's a hallmark of good writing that important character events happen because of important character traits, i.e. events that affect characters reflect who they are. In this case, nope, Roland gets crippled because he falls asleep on a beach. The big ol' sleepyhead!

Setting that aside, the word bloat here is just incredible. King is notorious for being a "spewer", but The Gunslinger was uncharacteristically tight. There wasn't ever a point where I thought "ok Stephen, let's move things along." The Drawing of the Three makes me think that almost constantly - the whole protracted scene with Eddie on the plane is just ludicrously bloated, with viewpoints from all kinds of characters, all kinds of stupid, lengthy details added in for no reason, like the thoughts of the stewardess who suspects Eddie, the overlong description of that stupid pointless old lady who the customs guys bump into on the way onto the plane, just all of this nonsense that does nothing to either drive the narrative or build the character of anyone who actually matters. It's honestly painful to get through.

In short: Stephen King was on a lot of coke when he wrote this.

It only gets worse from there.

Just finished this myself. I really hope Reynolds revisits this universe- while the story was pretty decent (albeit super predictable), I loved the backstory. It reminds me of Malazan- a series I really, really need to finish- in that it just effortlessly hints at this vast amount of lore, and while it only skims the surface of it it still serves the story nicely. I'd give it a 7/10 but yeah, if he can write a few really cracking tales in that universe I'd be really really stoked.

For sure, you really get the sense of deep and vibrant history oozing out of everything. All those references to the various Occupations, the putative generation ship returning from its trip around the "Swirly", the Ghosties and their tech, the Sundering, the alien races/war, etc.

Same for the House of Suns universe and to a somewhat lesser extent Pushing Ice. Would be a waste not to revisit. I guess Reynolds is not the super-thorough, mythopoeic loremaster Erikson is (and the other guy, whatshisname), but he knows how to construct a fascinating, tangible world and convey it to the reader. He's got IDEAS, but he also knows that the dose makes the poison.

This is an amusing little guide to NPR's top 100 fantasy and sci-fi books.



I guess I have some work to do, only finished 7 of those

I just finished Tree of Smoke, a really cool but not mindblowing Vietnam War novel by Denis Johnson.

I'm halfway through Klaus Kinski's Kinski Uncut book, which is an autobiography but he made a lot of it up and/or embellished to make it more interesting. It's a lot of fun.

Man, for a supposed bastion of culture like NPR, they picked a mostly bestseller, crowd-pleasing, unchallenging list. I've read 43 of them myself. Almost none would appear on a personal top 100. I mean, Terry Goodkind? Really?

I loved the first four DT books, 5 was good, 6 was ok, but the last one was so bad it made me want to find King and beat him with a bat. Its been a long time since I read that particular one but it does have an impact and doesn't really slow him down that much since he kills with both hands equally well. It does drive some of the story in that one as he is dealing with the aftermath of the attack.

I loved the mythology and world he was building in that series, but man was the last book a pile of shit.

I enjoyed the last book in the Dark Tower series apart from the part with the man in black. I could have done with fewer scenes in the "real world" but that's true for the entire series. The 6th book and the last hundred pages or so of the 5th book were when I almost stopped the series altogether. Repeatedly.

I'm about 100 pages into Caldé of the Long Sun. Man, I was not expecting this much action all at once and at the start of a novel (especially from Wolfe!). This series got quite a bit more unexpected once the characters arrived in Limna in the last book. He started dangling suggestions of mysteries and plot threads to come like he did all the time in BotNS. Obviously this is a step down from BotNS but I'm enjoying it.

The Dispossessed had a pretty anticlimactic ending, I thought. Overall I really enjoyed it, lots of great quotes, really nice picture of an anarchist society...do wish more had happened toward the end though. So he basically gave up and went home? No trying to spark revolution on Urras? No communication with the socialist/anarchist groups there? I mean he shook things up on Anarres for sure, but I'd like to have seen more. I wish there was a sequel.

Also the long distance relationship stuff was intense for me because I'm dating someone in Australia right now, hahah. I sent her voice clips of me reading certain relevant passages.

Nah I thought it had a good ending, it was meant to be downbeat. Sparking a revolution wouldn't have made sense because he wasn't a revolutionary - he was a scientist. The idea was that EVERYBODY, from the anarchists on his Anarres, to the aristocrats on Urras, to the revolutionaries there, were trying to use him as a pawn to gain power, rather than actually being concerned with science for science's sake. Only the sort of "deus ex machina" of the Terrans allowed his discoveries to be properly used. I think the point was that this kind of pure knowledge and shared science is the only true anarchy - every kind of human institution, even an anarchist revolutionary cell, is going to develop centers of power and ego. Note the irony that the main power center Shevek encounters on Anarres is scientific, the one area it least belongs in.

A big shake-up ending wouldn't have made sense, since it wasn't what the message of the entire novel was about.

Hans Moravec - Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence
Been meaning to tackle this one for quite a while. It's from the late 80s, but doesn't come across as all that dated, considering the fast-evolving field dealt with. Most of the predictions are actually pretty on-point. It's a bit short, but trenchant and I was also struck by how many of my favourite sci-fi authors/stories it seemingly inspired with its various thought experiments. Smart dude, methinks.

Alexander Waugh - The House of Wittgenstein
I picked up a second-hand German edition of this at a local bookstore up north because I had run out of stuff to read for an upcoming bus trip and needed something on short notice. It seems well-researched and is an easy read, if overly anecdotal/point-by-point and rather abrupt in switching between narratives.

New The Expanse arrived yesterday!

I'm gonna be on a plane for 20+ hours tomorrow. Loaded some Octavia Butler and Margaret Atwood on my Kindle, hope I like one of em. Wanted some intelligent scifi that's also an engaging read.

Can anyone provide some Arthurian fiction recs they enjoy? Naturally, I have "Le Morte d'Arthur," but I don't know where to begin with how much and how expansive that world is beyond it. Doesn't have to be only strict interpretations of the legend, either. Anything tangential with more referential elements is fine, too.

I really really enjoyed "The Idylls of the Queen", by Phyllis Ann Carr. Basically a Knight of the Round Table is poisoned at dinner at Camelot, and Queen Guinevere is the prime suspect - Sir Kay has to find the real murderer in order to exonerate her. Except of course being medieval England, he doesn't have access to any kind of forensics, so he has to rely on trying to unravel the web of motive and opportunity - was the knight who died really the target? If not, who was the real target, and why? Camelot has a long history filled with shady events and the book does a great job of turning a lot of typical interpretations on their ears - Lancelot is shown to be a bloodthirsty glory hound, Kay is made to seem much more sympathetic, as is Morgan Le Fay.

Anyway, cool novel, and the author definitely did her research on Arthurian myth.

Warlords Chronicles, by Bernard Cornwell. Really good stuff.

Some more info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Warlord_Chronicles

I also remember enjoying The Mists of Avalon way back, as they were an interesting take on the Arthurian myth (essentially focusing on the women/female POVs, though it didn't neglect the male characters either), but it's been almost two decades since I read them, so I don't know how they'd hold up. I remember really enjoying the POVs of Morgan and Vivian, and finding Guinevere (who is interpreted as a Christian zealot in this story, unlike in Cornwell's story where she remains pagan and is much cooler xD) absolutely infuriating.

I do like how both these authors do not hold back on showing Christianity (and the Christians of the time) in a rather shitty light. They don't paint a perfect rosy picture of pagans either, mind, but they do come across as far more sympathetic. Which is how it should be.

Edit: to add to what failsafeman said, yeah, the character interpretations vary extremely wildly from one story to another. In the Warlords Chronicles, Morgan is kind of an unhinged weirdo, but Guinevere and Nimué (aka Vivian, I think?) are pretty cool. Merlin is a weirdo too, kinda creepy and lecherous and a bit of a grumpy jerkass, but still oddly charismatic because of all his mischief. Lancelot is a supreme douchelord. xD Whereas in Mists of Avalon, (this is from memory, I could be a bit off) Morgan and Vivian are wise, sensible and sympathetic, Guinevere is a stupid, brainwashed zealot, Merlin is the more commonly seen calm, wise old man we're used to, Lancelot is a conflicted but generally a decent man.

"Sord at Sunset" by Rosemary Sutcliffe. A mostly historically plausible account of the tales. Arthur is a Romanized Briton and the supporting cast speak Welsh.

East of Eden - John Steinbeck
Was a bit nervous going into this, since everyone I talked to about him warned me that he's really dry and slow and that they hated having to read Grapes of Wrath in highschool. Gave it a shot anyway and it was worth all 600 pages, one of the better books I've read, really. Really compelling story that unfolds at a rather slow pace, although this didn't bother me at all. For the most part the biblical parallels were really well done and didn't get in the way of the story. Found the character development very interesting, especially with Adam. Despite being a slice of life sort of story for a lot of it, it does dig into some really dark shit (especially with Cathy/Kate) and it's not hard to see why it was controversial when it came out.

The one thing I didn't really like was the occasional and inconsistent use of first person narrative when the Hamiltons came up. Honestly, I felt he went into too much irreverent details regarding the Hamiltons. The other thing I'm kind of on the fence about is that giant conversation about the original Hebrew version of the Cain and Able story and what got lost in translation, and the "Timshel" thing which came up again at the end (found how he used that word at the end kind of pretentious). However interesting the idea is, the conversation didn't really seem like something that would happen under the circumstances, and I kind of would have preferred if he didn't make it so blatant the book was really about Cain and Able, it wasn't that hard to figure out and the title of the book is even from that part of Genesis.

Minor gripes aside, an excellent book.

Anyone got any recs for me for non-fiction? I'm not too picky. I just want to learn about some interesting/useful subject.

I read this recently and it was awesome.

But then, I find maps cool and fascinating... I don't know if that's weird or not. >_>

Edit: another great non-fiction book I read a while ago was The Great Mortality, a book about the plague (specifically the Black Death) that's really well-written and informative.

Uhh...nonfiction...

Jon Ronson. Literally any book, but So You've Been Publicly Shamed, Them, and The Psychopath Test are amazing. Matt Taiibi's Griftopia and The Great Derangement are essential reads if you wanna get angry learning random shit. Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking is an excellent memoir of a Russian-American and her journey through discovery history through the cuisine. Really all excellent stuff.

Thanks, Morrigan and Frog. I'll check some of those out late tonight.

Fwiw, I literally just started reading a book on criminal psychology (I'm getting dragged into the abyss of true crime): Analyzing Criminal Minds - Forensic Investigative Science for the 21st Century. Probably no one on MA gives a shit about it, but I'm weird enough to be reading it

That black death rec looks pretty cool Morrigan- cheers for that. Been meaning to read up on that era, between the black death, the mongols and various great famines the 1300s sounded like a truly horrible time to be alive

Thanks to failsafeman, Morrigan, and Scorntyrant for those titles. It'll take a couple days for all of them to get transferred and arrive at my local library, but it's worth it. Yeah, I'm still a traditionalist in that way where I prefer tangible books when possible.

I also went for "Any Old Iron" by Anthony Burgess.

Is wanting to read a physical book something you have to justify now?

My go-to for non-fiction is history. I'm currently reading one about the history of Russia. I really liked Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond (although I know some really dispute his conclusion), even take away the big hypothesis and you still get a fascinating (although obviously highly condensed) overview of the history of human development. Pretty much any non-fiction from Hunter S. Thompson is great.

On non-fiction, I'd also recommend Karlo Štajner's 7000 Days in Siberia, an autobiographical account of a Yugoslav communist's experience in the Soviet gulags for being convicted of working for the Gestapo (untrue, of course). The presentation is very objective, leaving it to the reader to form his/her own opinions. Very insightful and utterly tragic, probably not something one can read for a quickie. Great nonetheless.

I love maps too, so it's obviously not weird.

So I've had the first book in Steven Erikson's Malazan series, Gardens of the Moon, for a year or so, I read maybe the first twenty pages a few months back but it didn't really pique my interest enough at that point so I shelved it for awhile while I read some other things. Today I gave it another go and read for about two hours, and I now find it to be pretty goddamn awesome. I think Paran's character didn't really interest me too much, and still hasn't really grabbed me yet, but once it moved over to the wizards with Tattersail and Hairlock, it got a lot more engaging to me, and it seems like the earlier scenes were carefully set up to reveal just enough to provide foreshadowing for whatever the fuck is going on with the empire and the moon thingy and Tayschrenn. It's got me pretty stoked, I feel like this might be my new fantasy obsession for awhile.

Anyone else read the series/have an opinion on it? I know I've talked about it with Macmoney a bit on the chat, but who else around here has read it/tried to read it?

EDIT: Just realized this could cause 3 of my favorite authors to be named Stephen, alongside Donaldson and King. Just kinda funny to notice that.