I didn't like Ender's Game, but it's actually really understandable why it won so many awards. It was basically a really cleverly constructed Mary Sue story about a small wimpy misunderstood kid who manages to literally kill his bullies thanks to his superior brain, but he kills them in such a way that he's completely off the hook morally, and he's the most special kid ever but it's believable because he's SUPPOSED to be the most special genius kid ever! Basically all of that typical nerd fantasy bullshit (except for sex, I guess) is interlinked in such a way that it can be textually justified, and therefore defended against accusations of "Mary Sue-ness" .

Essentially, it's a blatantly stupid, guilty pleasure for neckbeards that, through some clever writing, manages to obscure that fact and allow people to read it guilt-free.

What you wrote is all true... and that is why it baffles me that it won so many awards. You'd think that literary awards would do better than shitty neckbeard fantasies.

...Or then again, maybe not.

Wow that's a great article, and John Scalzi is awesome especially his book Redshirts. He even almost managed to fix Stargate: Universe, which is an impressive achievement in and of itself.

Oh yeah, "HugoGate" or whatever crap they're calling it is a huge fucking deal right now. I'm sure you've seen George R R Martin's 9000 posts on the subject. But really, it just serves to highlight how suspect the Hugos have always been. People like to believe that they're this amazing award chosen by the most dedicated and well-read fans and won only by the highest-quality writers, but really it's just a popularity contest that's highly influenced by fads and marketing. After all, to nominate a book, readers (in theory) have to have read it in the first place, and what books are they most likely to have read? The ones with the biggest publishers, the biggest marketing budgets, the best distribution, written by the most famous authors. Besides which, how smart do you think the average sci-fi reader really is? That's not to say good authors never win, and in general the winners do tend to be good, but there have been plenty of terrible winners (Ringworld, Ender's Game), and plenty of great books that either didn't win or weren't even nominated.

I guess maybe it's just my metal side that's inherently skeptical of any sort of official "award".

Yes, unfortunately all very true, absolutely no argument there.

About Scalzi, I heard of him before, he seems a rather good and prominent feminist figure (or at least, the skeleton whiners and gamergaters really really hate him which makes him A-OK in my book), but I've never read any of his stuff so I don't know if, like Gaiman, he's a cool dude with shitty books or if he's also a good writer. Anyone (other than darkeningday, of course) familiar with his works?

Just picked up a few books on the cheap from amazon:

Arthur Machen - The White People (Dodo Press)
Jack Vance - Emphyrio
Jack Vance - The Gray Prince

I'm so excited to finally have some Machen in print. I've read a few of his stories on a computer screen but it murders the atmosphere. I adored The Great God Pan and I loved what I read of The Three Impostors but I'm not sure I ever finished it, truthfully.

No idea about either Vance books I'm just a blind devotee and I know I don't have those two. I'm hoping they're really short novels, he smashes that format.

Obviously you're specifically not asking me but while I thought Redshirts was great and hilarious, it's definitely not worth reading if you're not a Trekkie. I'm intrigued by his Old Man's War series but I've heard mostly negative things from people who are smart.

the old man's war series was easily-digestible and harmless. i'm guessing morrigan would hate it.

Stumbled across a description of "Way station" by Clifford Simak and felt compelled to track down a copy. Seems strange that a hugo winner would be out of print, but there you go:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksb ... k-heinlein

i have an epub copy if you want. i assume being out of print we're not breaking any laws?

I dunno, you do live in Germany...

Thanks, but I found a second hand copy cheap.

I'm not familiar with Scalzi's persona, but I've read Old Man's War and while it was a fairly easy read, it was nothing to warrant all the praise it got. It's been a while I read it, but it seemed a bit light and superficial to me. I'm quite a bit into military sci-fi, or well, at least in theory. Too often the books end up being too superficial like Scalzi's. I enjoyed David Drake's Hammer's Slammers a lot more than Scalzi.

I've read a few of the Old Man's War books, they're very good, clever entertainment. But yeah, hardly a deep writing revelation. From what I recall the books thankfully don't take themselves too seriously.

He's pretty great for historicalish stuff, I enjoyed both Tai Pan, Shogun and Noble House, though his writing/characters are basically just strong males doing strong male stuff with impunity. They are pretty different than King Rat though.


I'm reading A 100 Years of Solitude, and at this point, I'm kinda just slugging through it without much enjoyment - I'm about two-thirds of the way I reckon. I don't get why everyone seem to love it. Luckily I have some Laird Barron (Occultation) waiting for me for when I through.

I personally really liked the second book and especially the ending. However, I would address the first point here, because it comes up a lot and I don't really get it. Why would solving the mysteries be a bad thing? To me, that's like reading the first couple chapters of a book and then setting it down, thinking "wow, I love that this author is building up to something. I better stop reading now so I never find out what it is!" I get that speculating on the mysteries is often more interesting than their actual mundane outcomes, but I don't get the desire to leave them forever unsolved or speculative. The author has a vision, and usually that vision begins with the answer and the mystery itself is developed second. I personally would prefer to see an author's vision fully realized if it is something I'm really getting into.

In the case of Hyperion, I really liked that the anthology style of the first book was a setup for every major plotline that was further developed in the rest series (cruciforms, the Shrike, the Time Tombs, the TechnoCore, the Ousters, etc).

Because, as I said, the mysteries were way cooler to read about when they were mysterious? The explanations were kind of dumb/lame. Maybe Simmons had some grand vision for everything, sure, but his vision mostly sucked and not actually knowing what it was he was going to do with the threads of mystery he was weaving in the first book was far more interesting than having the curtain lifted and seeing the crappy vision unveiled.

I mean I guess in practical terms it wouldn't really be feasible to ONLY read Hyperion - the only way you can know the answers to the mysteries are lame is to read them, and chances are you're going to want to find out regardless of what warnings you get. Plus it makes it kind of hard to discuss it with other people. Really, rather than wishing I'd only read the first one, I wish that Dan Simmons had just died young and never written Fall of Hyperion.

Also he turned into the most horrible racist xenophobic nutjob after 9/11, to an almost cartoonish extent, so wishing an early death upon the guy isn't quite as assholish as it might seem.

I certainly disagree with you guys on Fall of Hyperion, but uh... that's certainly disappointing to hear. I had no idea. I wasn't sure about the Endymion books since I heard bad things but I thought maybe it was exaggeration but now I certainly won't give that guy a dime.

Yeah, he definitely went off the deep end. The Endymion books are quite a bit weaker. Although still entertaining, They are more cliche-ridden and get bogged down with a lot of filler chapters (apparently at this point he was going through a big Eastern philosophy kick, because he has half a book dedicated to the characters hanging out in a monastery, and all the new age philosophy and psychobabble that goes along with that), and ultimately lead to an unsatisfying conclusion. To be honest, it leaves things open for another two books just like Fall of Hyperion did, however it looks like it will never happen. On the other hand, I loved the conclusion of Fall of Hyperion. Endymion is only worth reading to know what happens next.

You loved Space Jesus? Seriously?

with endymion he tried to re-write the story exactly like ray feist does every second book - the "oh, uncle martin got that part wrong!" bits were fairly cheap... i'd still recommend them, that's really a minor gripe, but it did get a little ridiculous in parts. has anyone read any of simmons' horror stuff?

Regarding Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion, the sequel wasn't all that bad if you don't go in expecting the same kind of literatural effort of referencing various stories and genres, but just space opera - with perhaps a rather dumb ending. Of course, it does ruin all of the mystery left by the first book, but a mystery solved is never as appealing as a mystery left hanging. I feel that the whole thing could've just been left with the first one and it would've been a whole. It's the journey that matters, not the destination. For Simmons's horror stuff, I've read one book, can't remember the title right now, but it was about an author who returns to his hometown to face the (real) ghosts of his past or some such. Felt somewhat like a Stephen King book from the late 80s, early 90s. It was an entertaining enough read, but nothing really remarkable.

I recently finished Iain M. Banks's The Hydrogen Sonata and that was the last of his Culture novels that I hadn't read. I don't often feel sad or melancholy regarding authors/musicians/actors/directors passing away, but now I have to admit that it is rather bittersweet to have finished it since there will be no more forthcoming and yet almost all of them have been very top notch reads.

More the at the end. I didn't enjoy every element of it, but I didn't enjoy every part of the first book either. Together they work for me. I could have done without Endymion because even that doesn't provide a satisfying ending.

God's body, The Name of the Wind was really cool. Had some faults, but was otherwise a well-written, well-told story.

About 200 pages or so into David Brin's Existence. Digging it so far.

At the moment I'm really "stucked" with this idea of Sci-fi involving aliens or in general different enviroments. I'm really bored of reading of humans, with all the stuff we can immagine 95% of people write about humans. And aliens are humanoid too! I want an alien like the Solaris one, that we have to understand and that is not fully compatible with human views of thing. I'm reading Hyperion now, I like the idea of the Shryke and the ambient itself but there is too much humanity. Can someone point me to some writer?

Well, the first one that comes to mind is The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks. Not one of his Culture-series, but it still does feature human(oid)s as protagonists, but mostly it revolves around their interaction with gas giant-dwelling species that live millions of years. The Dwellers aren't exactly as alien or indecipherable as the planet in Solaris though.

Rewinding the thread a bit, I finally got around to reading The Croning, and I have to say I really wasn't impressed. I liked the general concept, but honestly this description sounds like you read an entirely different book than I did. Barron's style was just really obnoxious and inappropriate a lot of the time, as he would consistently wreck the creepy atmosphere with really silly, cliche word choices - there's the scene where Kurt is urging Don not to go down to the basement, and he insists that they get in his Range Rover and "put the pedal to the metal." Now, that may be exactly the kind of lame cliche a real person might use in that situation, but it took me right out of the moment and had me rolling my eyes at a time when I should have been immersed in tension and dread. Then there's the part where the High Priest character is revealing all these terrible secrets to Don, and Don calls him a "scoundrel." It may not sound like much, but this kind of crap kept happening consistently and at the worst times, when the atmosphere was at its most important. These would have been really easy fixes, too, just a synonym switch, and any competent editor should have caught them.

Less easy to fix would have been the terrible pacing. The beginning starts off interesting with the retelling of the Rumplestiltskin fairy tale, then jumps to an eventful time in Mexico, but then just ends up dragging and dragging for the vast bulk of the middle. The characters were fine, but I definitely wouldn't call them "extremely" strong, because at least for my part their daily doings weren't enough to carry the narrative when there wasn't horror stuff being built up or hinted at. There are just tons of parts where they just kind of talk to each other and nothing really happens, for example when Kurt tells the group about his "ghost story experience," which I found super lame, even the "big reveal" about the true nature of the "ghost" that he tells Don later.

Honestly, I was ready to just quit reading altogether, but a couple of reviews online agreed that while the middle was really dull, the ending was very good, and so I carried on. Thankfully the ending really was quite good, and tied everything together in a clever way and provided a twist that I didn't see coming, but honestly it just served to annoy me by wasting a really good idea on such a flawed execution.

Man, Existence was just not good. It started off slow but somewhat enjoyable, kinda started to build and then just nothing. It's really hard for me to really say it sucks because it's obvious Brin put in loads upon loads of effort into the world-building (and the setting itself was truly something), but yeah, it kinda sucks.

Just finished reading The Grimscribe's Puppets. It's an anthology that serves as an homage to the writing of Thomas Ligotti, with stories purported to be inspired by his style and themes. Now, I really didn't think the Ligotti influence was that apparent for about 80% of the stories in the book. Unless Ligotti is the only writer ever to write surreal, vignette like stories with confusing endings that sometimes make sense...and sometimes just left me confused. 4 stories really stood out to me. 1 was the best one in the anthology, 20 Simple Steps to Ventroliquism by Jon Padgett. This one is genuinely Ligotti inspired, and is simply masterful. It escalâtes compellingly, while having some fun dark humour at play. Nicole Cushing's The Company Town was also super dark, but quite funny in it's own morbid way. I look forward to reading more of her stuff. Cody Goodfellow's Wishing Well is something only Cody Goodfellow could write and is almost a mini anthology unto itself. Finally, The Blue Star by Eddie M. Angerhuber was VERY Ligotti. With very evocative prose and atmosphere. I really don't want to spoil any of these stories, but I believe it's a worthy collection of strangeness.

I've been meaning to read Grimscribe's Puppets. I have another book in that series, the one in homage to "the king in Yellow", and I think the same criticism could be applied - that it's a bit of a stretch sometimes to associate the stories with the original.

Re-reading "Confederacy of Dunces" for the umpteenth time at the moment. Such a great book.

I stopped half-way through that book (A Season in Carcosa). As you said, the associations are a bit of a stretch, & the authors try too fucking hard, to the point where I suppose the connection is just there for the sake of association. A rather hamfisted collection, really. Grimscribe's Puppets is definitely better.

What a classic. Such a tragic history attached to such a funny book. I could definitely re-read that sometime.

I'm really leery of any blatant "shared universe" type stories - it seems just a hair's breadth away from fanfiction, and so many of the ones I've read completely miss the tone and intent of the originals that they might as well have just written a story about their own Old God with incomprehensible names. If it's not fanctiony, it often seems like a blatant attempt at advertising - a publisher gets their roster of authors to each contribute a story to an anthology with a famous author's name on it, and hopefully that will get their unrelated work some exposure. Nothing terribly wrong with that, I suppose, but it still smacks of commercialism.

Just finished Mistborn (the first book, not the series itself). Was really, really enjoyable and the magic system was quite unique and cool. Wish I'd have started here instead of the Stormlight Archive with Sanderson, cause it almost just felt like a rough draft compared to the majesty of a book like Words of Radiance.

Just finished reading Gene Wolf'e The Knight and I'm gonna dive into The Wizard soon. I went into this knowing that it was sort of a standard fantasy novel, but Gene Wolfe-ified, but I wasn't sure exactly what that would mean.



In fact, I might suggest this as a good entry point for people who've yet to dive into Wolfe, as it's action-packed, touches on enough familiar fantasy tropes and has a standard enough story so as to not be completely confounding, yet also contains enough Wolfe-ishness to give new readers an idea as to what this author's M.O. is. Looking forward to The Wizard.

Ehhhhhhhhh, I enjoyed The Knight and I need to finish The Wizard, but I wouldn't recommend it as a starting point for his work, simply because it doesn't have the same level of beautiful prose as BotNS. There are some really standout passages for sure, I loved the spire going off into the sky with the staircase and the pool on top, etc etc, but the protagonist being a kid means the prose and perspective and thus the overall story is a bit more adolescent and basic. I mean, I wouldn't call it young adult lit, but one of the best things about Wolfe for me is his writing style, which is strongly linked to his protagonists.

Yeah, that's definitely true, but sometimes I think there's sort of a profound beauty in the way Able (that's *Sir* Able, thanks) describes things with a somewhat limited vocabulary and childish awe. I also appreciate how he takes the time to explain what certain medieval terminology means because he's knowingly writing for a contemporary audience. There's just sort of a matter-of-fact simplicity to the writing that I find compelling; it kind of reminds me of the down-to-earth yet profound dialogue you find in Faulkner, mixed together with the more purple prose bits of Faulkner that he'd get wrapped up in whenever he went through long dialogue-less sections.

I guess I'd amend my recommendation to say that it might be a good starting point for folks used to less challenging fantasy books who might be overwhelmed by the more dense stuff.

Something I really liked about The Knight is how adolescent the writing was. I love how Wolfe manages to not only see things from his characters' perspectives, but put it basically the way they would. It's really impressive and goes a hell of a long way of not only creating, but selling the atmosphere.

That's fair, yeah. It's not what I most like about him, but he does pull it off well.

I'm reading Fifth Head of Cerberus right now, it's got some really interesting stuff going on. I'm not as huge a fan of the "native" (if that's what you wanna call it) sister-world passages, but it's super compelling overall, and there are cool aspects of both worlds.