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MazeofTorment
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Feb 07, 2005 11:06 pm
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Location: United States of America
PostPosted: Sat Jun 22, 2013 1:38 am 
 

Nahsil wrote:
I'm glad I took a class on Nietzsche and we read Zarathustra in it, because I would have missed a LOT of its content without someone who'd actually studied Nietzsche as a guide

Yeah, dude. It helps a lot. Its good to read him over and over as much as you can but it definitely helps to have some guidelines. Not an easy guy to understand at all. Been thinking of writing some guidelines for a friend of mine so they can "get" what he's saying. Always very cryptic and esoteric in much of what he says. But once you know where he's coming from its all very understandable and enlightening. The fact that I liked him when I was young without truly understanding the full scope of what his message is is kind of a testament to his unique style. I always got a vague, general understanding from him, but once you actually take a class and get some basics established, it all makes much more sense. I feel that I can say at this point that I understand him completely for the most part and can finally see why so many people say Thus Spoke is his best work. You get all his philosophy but in a more artistic way.
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darkeningday
xXdArKenIngDayXx

Joined: Mon Aug 23, 2004 1:20 pm
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Location: United States
PostPosted: Sat Jun 22, 2013 2:31 am 
 

Thanks Abom and FSM. Just started Palace of Love and it's dope as fuck. I think I'm actually going to re-read what I've read so far so I can take better notes on the whole series (due to some slight disappointment and general apathy early on, I only filled up like two pages which is criminally underweight for what this deserves). Thanks again and again for the recommend.

@Nahsil I've loaned the Gene Wolfe book to my roommate (who's obsessed with the Herberts and the Asimovs and the Clarkes of the world) while I read the Vance novel, and while he won't say that it's 'better' than any of those... he's also refusing to put it down. I'm already looking forward to picking it up after Demon Princes.


I've also discovered that my library has very nearly every Vance novel ever published; any one-off, lesser known novels anyone would care to recommend as soon as I'm done with these? I'd much prefer sci-fi/sci-fantasy over pure fantasy, if possible. Thanks!
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failsafeman
Digital Dictator

Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 8:45 am
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 22, 2013 3:41 am 
 

The Durdane trilogy is Vance's best (tied with Demon Princes), so go for that next. Each book is only like 200 pages long, so by today's standards it's basically a single novel. The flavor is much different from Demon Princes though, be warned. The protagonist is essentially a regular dude who lives in an oppressive society, so as you might expect from such a setup he tries to fight back, but with unexpected results.

Other than that there's the Planet of Adventure series, 4 books which are all very fun but intentionally less weighty than Demon Princes/Durdane. The protagonist is essentially a typically capable but bland adventure hero who is stranded on an absolutely fascinating planet. It's in a very strategically valuable position, so three spacefaring alien races all have significant presences there, mostly to keep an eye on each other and prevent anyone else from having full control, while a fourth indigenous race stays hidden underground. Each book revolves around the hero's interaction with one of the races as he tries to survive, find out who blew up his ship and why, and finally secure a way home. Really it's Vance's worldbuilding and sense of adventure that's on display here, as each of the alien races is fascinating and yet utterly different from one another, and the hero and his sidekicks predictably have lots of exciting escapes, schemes, heists, rescues, basically every kind of action scenario you can think of. Not as deep as Vance's absolute tip-top best, but very, very fun.

Otherwise you might try a collection of his short stories, as he's written many good ones, with my nod going perhaps to "The Moon Moth". I've also read Maske: Thaery, which is a standalone novel but reads as if he intended it to start a longer series that he never got around to writing (and, sadly, now never will). Even so it's self-contained and very entertaining, if perhaps a bit straightforward.
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darkeningday
xXdArKenIngDayXx

Joined: Mon Aug 23, 2004 1:20 pm
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 23, 2013 12:23 am 
 

Durdane it is, then! My library appears to have everything you've mentioned outside of his short story collections. Awe well; I'm sure Amazon will have them. I may read Wolfe before Durdane, though; I guess it'll rest on the speed of my roommate's reading comprehension. Wouldn't be the first time.
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~Guest 226319
President Satan

Joined: Tue Apr 20, 2010 4:41 am
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 23, 2013 12:25 am 
 

Got a book about Hezbollah today by some Army guy who's a professor now. Looks interASSting.

Checked out reviews on amazork. The only highly critical review is by an ultra-zionist criticizing it for not regurgitating ultra-zionist propaganda. This has allayed my concerns that it would do so.

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Abominatrix
Harbinger of Metal

Joined: Fri Oct 24, 2003 12:15 pm
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 24, 2013 10:42 am 
 

failsafeman wrote:
The Durdane trilogy is Vance's best (tied with Demon Princes), so go for that next. Each book is only like 200 pages long, so by today's standards it's basically a single novel. The flavor is much different from Demon Princes though, be warned. The protagonist is essentially a regular dude who lives in an oppressive society, so as you might expect from such a setup he tries to fight back, but with unexpected results.

Other than that there's the Planet of Adventure series, 4 books which are all very fun but intentionally less weighty than Demon Princes/Durdane. The protagonist is essentially a typically capable but bland adventure hero who is stranded on an absolutely fascinating planet. It's in a very strategically valuable position, so three spacefaring alien races all have significant presences there, mostly to keep an eye on each other and prevent anyone else from having full control, while a fourth indigenous race stays hidden underground. Each book revolves around the hero's interaction with one of the races as he tries to survive, find out who blew up his ship and why, and finally secure a way home. Really it's Vance's worldbuilding and sense of adventure that's on display here, as each of the alien races is fascinating and yet utterly different from one another, and the hero and his sidekicks predictably have lots of exciting escapes, schemes, heists, rescues, basically every kind of action scenario you can think of. Not as deep as Vance's absolute tip-top best, but very, very fun.

Otherwise you might try a collection of his short stories, as he's written many good ones, with my nod going perhaps to "The Moon Moth". I've also read Maske: Thaery, which is a standalone novel but reads as if he intended it to start a longer series that he never got around to writing (and, sadly, now never will). Even so it's self-contained and very entertaining, if perhaps a bit straightforward.


I was quite enamoured with To Live Forever. It is early Vance, but a very atmospheric, fascinating and short read. Also recently started Araminta Station and am loving it,e ven though I"m forced to use an audiobook, much to my chagrin..at least the reader is quite good! Don't want to say too much about Araminta yet except that you can certainly expect Vance's keen sense of world building and social detail, and there's a lot of both in here, but it's never dull and always relevant. His dry sense of humour is at a very high level in this book, too.
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caspian
Old Man Yells at Car Park

Joined: Tue Dec 07, 2004 11:29 pm
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 24, 2013 10:58 am 
 

I tried Vance and I really wanted to like him :( There's a few wonderful moments, the first two stories of Dying Earth in particular are absolutely gorgeous bits of writing. Almost all of it after that went from kinda ok to, well, quite shit.

Think of it as 1st two stories of DE= Mystification and Voyager
The rest of his work = the rest of the Manilla Road discog.

Spent so much time on Vance! And on Manilla Road. Poor little caspian :(


On a non-overrated note, just red through all of CAS's stuff that Night Shade Books published a few years ago- stoked I got them before they went out of print but wished I'd got vol.2! Oh well. Currently really enjoying the last volume (as it's chronological, it was his last work), a really matured writing style and I rather enjoyed the way he started experimenting with different styles and whatnot. His early/mid stuff was a little bit one dimensional, good as it was.
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Abominatrix
Harbinger of Metal

Joined: Fri Oct 24, 2003 12:15 pm
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 24, 2013 11:06 am 
 

caspian wrote:
I tried Vance and I really wanted to like him :( There's a few wonderful moments, the first two stories of Dying Earth in particular are absolutely gorgeous bits of writing. Almost all of it after that went from kinda ok to, well, quite shit.

Think of it as 1st two stories of DE= Mystification and Voyager
The rest of his work = the rest of the Manilla Road discog.


Hahaha. Ok, well, I never thought there was a real drop in quality in those stories, but the first one is certainly waht grabbed me and wouldn't let go, way back when I basically wouldn't read anythign with the "fantasy" label on it. Did you try the Demon Princes?
Quote:

Spent so much time on Vance! And on Manilla Road. Poor little caspian :(


On a non-overrated note, just red through all of CAS's stuff that Night Shade Books published a few years ago- stoked I got them before they went out of print but wished I'd got vol.2! Oh well. Currently really enjoying the last volume (as it's chronological, it was his last work), a really matured writing style and I rather enjoyed the way he started experimenting with different styles and whatnot. His early/mid stuff was a little bit one dimensional, good as it was.



yeah, agreed. He was the only one of those big Weird Tales writers to really continue past the thirties, even though he didn't write a lot of fiction at that time. You should see all the synopses and drafts for unfinished stories on his website..the guy was worse at finishing stuff than i am! A lot of them seem like they would have been pretty interesting, too.
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Nahsil
Clerical Sturmgeschütz

Joined: Sun Jan 08, 2006 2:06 pm
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 24, 2013 2:09 pm 
 

caspian wrote:
Think of it as 1st two stories of DE= Mystification and Voyager
The rest of his work = the rest of the Manilla Road discog.


So...it's almost all really great, except for a couple lesser efforts?

I'm going to assume that's what you mean. :P
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failsafeman
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 24, 2013 4:57 pm 
 

Abominatrix wrote:
I was quite enamoured with To Live Forever. It is early Vance, but a very atmospheric, fascinating and short read.

Well I'll be damned, I actually just ordered that one a few days ago during a big sale at an online bookseller. Only cost me $2.50, with free shipping! Also picked up a Gene Wolfe's Castleview, a collection of sci-fi novellas (including two by Gene Wolfe and Ursala K Le Guin), M John Harrison's The Centauri Device, and the first of Greg Bear's Majipoor books. I have a lot of reading ahead of me, especially considering a month or so ago I got a good haul of Philip K Dick and Michael Moorcock stuff.
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Nahsil
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 25, 2013 1:22 am 
 

I've never read anything by Moorcock, but I assume based on the fact that people like it when metal bands write lyrics about his works he doesn't suck? He's not a Terry Goodkind?
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Calusari
Metalhead

Joined: Thu Apr 27, 2006 1:36 am
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Location: Australia
PostPosted: Tue Jun 25, 2013 3:09 am 
 

Huh. Richard Matheson has died. RIP.

I feel terrible saying this, but I honestly had no idea he was still alive... :oh shit: Ah, well. Another sci fi legend gone this year.

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Napero
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 25, 2013 3:47 am 
 

I finished reading A Game of Thrones. It indeed was a good book, easily worth my time, and the fact that it only took me about two months is evidence of excellence.

The topmost thought it left is that the TV series is a virtually perfect adaptation of it, within the limits that the TV format and its budget constraints place on the production. The flaws people complain about are on the same level as on the LotR films, and I think some freedom must be allowed for the film crew.
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hakarl
Metel fraek

Joined: Sat Sep 29, 2007 1:41 pm
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 25, 2013 4:21 am 
 

Napero wrote:
I finished reading A Game of Thrones. It indeed was a good book, easily worth my time, and the fact that it only took me about two months is evidence of excellence.

The topmost thought it left is that the TV series is a virtually perfect adaptation of it, within the limits that the TV format and its budget constraints place on the production. The flaws people complain about are on the same level as on the LotR films, and I think some freedom must be allowed for the film crew.

It can be easier to see that way, when you've first experienced the adaptation, and only then read the original work. At least for me, when I read something without having seen the movie/series/theatre adaptation/opera/cartoon/puppet show, I imagine everything so vividly that others' visions of the characters' appearances and their surroundings, as seen in the casting choices and scene designs, can rarely satisfy entirely. To me, the TV series seemed alien and different in atmosphere compared to the books, the lacking scenes and characters merely contributing to that.
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Napero
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 25, 2013 5:26 am 
 

I see what you mean, Ilwhyan, but for the sake of fairness, pretty much everything on the LotR movies also satisfied me, and I saw them after reading the trilogy three times; the only character that seemed awkward there was Galadriel, who, to be fair, is perhaps the trickiest character to portray in the series. So, I believe I would be quite satisfied with the TV series even if I had read the book first.

It is a pity it happened in this order, though. Books are books, and for me, they are way more about total immersion than anything visual. I partially agree, partially not, I guess.
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Scorntyrant
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 25, 2013 5:38 am 
 

Just finished the 3rd of Giles Kristian's "Raven" books. If you like historical fiction a la Bernard Cornwell they are pretty awesome. And who doesn't like Vikings? Some of the most stridently anti-christian historical fiction as well.
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failsafeman
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 26, 2013 1:33 am 
 

Nahsil wrote:
I've never read anything by Moorcock, but I assume based on the fact that people like it when metal bands write lyrics about his works he doesn't suck? He's not a Terry Goodkind?

Not at all. In fact it'd be pretty hard to find an author who wrote fantasy who's more different from Moorcock than Goodkind. For one, he absolutely hated Tolkien, and wrote most of his best material in an era when sci-fi and fantasy book lengths tended to be much shorter than they are today. The vast majority of his novels tend to be less than 300 pages long. While he did write some really excellent stuff, he also had a really really bad habit that began developing after he'd been writing for about 10 years that makes it difficult to tell which is which when making a purchase. He got popular writing very action-oriented fantasy, like the Elric books, but as time went on he got less and less interested in that style and focused more writing less popular books, which were often good for what they were, but usually far less lucrative. This meant that, in order to make ends meet, he continually had to go back and write action-oriented fantasy stuff that he simply wasn't interested in anymore, and the result was nearly always terrible. It's easy enough to avoid the series that were written in this fashion, but he also went back and wrote new, crappy additions to the Elric saga (which had ended conclusively in the 60s) that were meant to nest seamlessly between earlier books but which totally fuck up the continuity.

Basically, if you know what to read, Moorcock is very good and very rewarding. If you just pick a book at random, it's as likely to be crappy as it is to be good. A good place to start is The Ice Schooner, a stand-alone novel set in a future ice age, where men hunt land whales on massive sailing vessels mounted with skis. The premise sounds cheesy (and awesome!) but the actual novel is much more serious, dealing with the constant push and pull between tradition and progression. Of course, this is all against a backdrop of action and excitement in a wild setting. The Ice Schooner is easy enough to find, and at around 200 pages with no sequels it's a pretty small investment to see if you're interested in reading more Moorcock.
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Scorntyrant
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 7:18 am 
 

Reading Sade: A Biography by Maurice Lever. It's the second biography of De Sade I've read, the other being Neil Schaeffer's one. About a quarter of the way through now -
Lever is better researched and says a lot more about his family and early life, but it's too early to say how they stack up regarding literary criticism.
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Conservationism
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 29, 2013 10:04 pm 
 

Napero wrote:
Books are books, and for me, they are way more about total immersion than anything visual.


I agree with this. Books require you to invest so much of yourself in visualizing and understanding them that they become part of you. Movies can be watched as a spectator.
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volutetheswarth
Our Lady of Perpetual Butthurt

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PostPosted: Mon Jul 01, 2013 12:07 am 
 

What editions of A Song of Ice and Fire paperback books did you lot get? Right now where I am they're selling only the 2011 and 2013 editions. I personally wanted the 2011, not for the artwork but for the paper quality that seems from appearance; whiter and less fragile, unfortunately these books are a little small and seem slightly irritating to read. I just want a paperback that want degrade and yellow quickly over time but I found it quite difficult to establish what grade of paper it is, does anyone know of what I should look out for?

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MARSDUDE
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 01, 2013 2:46 am 
 

Yeah, so I'm the happiest fucker this side of Keswick, right now. My dad bought me Hunter S. Thompson's 'The Curse of Lono'-- which I've yet to read, let alone see, touch, and smell-- for my birthday. Hurry the fuck up, July 11th.

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talvikki77
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 03, 2013 3:33 pm 
 

When I read the first post, for a moment I thought "working on" meant working on writing. Then I realized it meant reading XD What I'm working on writing is, omg, so girly, but if you all want to hear about it I'll be happy to blather about it :P

What I'm reading is Caliban's War by James S.A. Corey. It's the second book in a near future space opera trilogy. "James" is actually two people and one of them is somehow associated with George R.R. Martin (his assistant or something like that?) so the writing is top notch. I think I liked the first book better, because this one has some political machinations going on that I find sort of boring, where the the first one was interplanetary action all the way through. But the characters are still great - unique, complicated, and they tend to screw up a lot, which is refreshing XD Also, these guys write strong female characters pretty well without giving in much to the tendency to sexualize them.

Gene Wolfe..I need to read more of him. I enjoyed Shadow of the Torturer but haven't gotten around the reading the rest of the books that go with it.
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inhumanist
Metal freak

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PostPosted: Thu Jul 04, 2013 1:52 pm 
 

http://www.humblebundle.com/

New Humble eBook Bundle. Any opinions on the authors?
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 04, 2013 1:57 pm 
 

Currently reading Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. Now, I don't know how highly you people hold the man, but so far, I find the book to be bloody boring.

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Tired
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 04, 2013 3:47 pm 
 

As far as Moorcock goes, I think The Eternal Champion is strangely underrated (even by MM himself), probably because he wrote it as a teenager. I love it myself, and it is sort of essential as far as the mythos go. It has some pretty hilarious plot twists... Yet I know many people who love Elric, but haven't ever read it. Hawkmoon on the other hand sucks, though, IMO. It's often really obvious he wrote those books very quickly and on drugs...

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Azmodes
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 04, 2013 4:45 pm 
 

inhumanist wrote:
http://www.humblebundle.com/

New Humble eBook Bundle. Any opinions on the authors?

I've read some stuff by Robert Charles Wilson, notably the book featured in the list, "Spin". It's a great sci-fi novel. Good flow/storytelling, cool concepts that get you thinking.

Of the others I only know Cory Doctorow by name. Not really familiar with his work, other than him offering all his stuff for free on principle and a vague memory of people having positive things to say about his novels. I think he usually tackles the whole singularity/post-scarcity thing.
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Azmodes
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 04, 2013 5:32 pm 
 

Max Brooks - World War Z
So I decided to buy this in eBook form on impulse. Well yes, the Brad Pitt movie was an obvious catalyst, but I didn't watch it (yet), just saw a trailer and got interested in the book, since it was advertised as an interesting and complex look into the geopolitical, societal, environmental and whathaveyou-al consequences of an all-out zombie apocalypse (unlike the movie, which just seems to be a zombie action flick). And it didn't disappoint. A damn thorough effort, for one thing. The choice of making it a collection of lengthy (pseudo-)interviews detailing differing stages of the war and nothing else was a wise one. (though in my opinion, while effectively done, Brooks could have made the different interviewees a bit more distinct in their diction, there is a certain level of sameness to it, that -while not directly interfering with getting a picture of the setting and the stories told- does hamper the impression that these are supposed to be dozens of diverse people from all over the world) All in all, not going to dig for any fancy adjectives and detailed descriptions now, just saying it's simply a very interesting and entertaining read.

Pippa Goldschmidt - The Falling Sky
One of my favourite authors, Alastair Reynolds, gave this a very positive review so I ordered it immediately. It's basically the protagonist (an astronomer) trying to juggle an important discovery of hers and its effect on the scientific community while also dealing with much more personal issues, among them the death of her sister during her childhood. It's a quite subtle novel, not what I usually read and some people are probably gonna expect more science fiction in this than there really is (hint: it's non-existent, if you don't count the discovery). As a debut novel I think this is pretty impressive, the style is concise and quick, to-the-point, but also carrying depth and complexity.
Spoiler: show
What bugged me a bit is that the Big Bang theory-overturning discovery was never resolved or even further delved into. But that's not really a criticism, I am aware that this was deliberately left hanging since said issue was clearly never intended as the focus of the book and the exact nature of the anomaly irrelevant, but still. I guess that's the one part in me that still was yearning for an eventual bigger, sci-fi element in the narrative. Well, read for yourself, this is a quality book that should please a wide selection of tastes. Just don't expect anything more (genre-wise) than a touching and insightful story of a young woman trying to find her place in the world (as cheesy as this might sound).


Currently reading: James S. A. Corey - Leviathan Wakes
Well damn, what a vicious page turner. Awesome space opera so far. This has some very cool descriptions of a solar-system-spanning humanity divided. Only 150 pages in and already ordered the next novel in this trilogy.
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Azmodes
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 04, 2013 6:02 pm 
 

Forgot one:
Richard Garfinkle - Celestial Matters
More enjoyable because of its interesting premise than the actual story, this takes places in an alternate universe where the cosmos is in fact geocentric and several other ancient (Greek) world views hold true (mainly Aristotelian physics, from how I understood it), as well as some Far Eastern stuff ("Taoist alchemy"). So yeah, pretty cool how these concepts are played with and their ramifications explored, that's a plus here. The story itself is... okay, though nothing that really grips one except for a few passages. Alexander the Great died old and what followed was a 1000-year war between two equally vast Greek and Chinese empires that is still ongoing. Garfinkle, while not actually bad, isn't really that good a wordsmith and some of his dialogue and descriptions are clumsy and ultimately resulting in a somewhat tiring last act. That said, he obviously put a lot of thought into fleshing out the world and its physics, but I could never quite connect with it. It read more like a prolonged thought experiment with characters doing stuff mainly to demonstrate this or that quirk of the in-world science. Maybe that was the unashamed idea, all things considered, but the fact remains that the book is lacking a certain balance between gimmicky setting and actual storytelling substance. In closing, this is has merit because of the unique setting (and a certain degree of creativity), but if you're looking for a good story, you might want to look elsewhere.
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Napero
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 04, 2013 6:34 pm 
 

Azmodes wrote:
Pippa Goldschmidt - The Falling Sky

I seriously need to know what the discovery in this novel is. Google couldn't tell me.
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Azmodes
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 05, 2013 5:31 am 
 

Nevermind the title. :P She discovers two galaxies with different redshifts that appear to be physically connected.
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Napero
GedankenPanzer

Joined: Sun Jan 02, 2005 4:16 pm
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 05, 2013 5:52 am 
 

Azmodes wrote:
She discovers two galaxies with different redshifts that appear to be physically connected.

Ah, thanks. That makes sense in the context. The oddity she found could well have been something weird but contrived, but that sounds like a very fine and well-thought piece of strangeness.
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talvikki77
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Joined: Mon Oct 22, 2012 3:20 pm
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 05, 2013 12:54 pm 
 

Azmodes wrote:
Currently reading: James S. A. Corey - Leviathan Wakes
Well damn, what a vicious page turner. Awesome space opera so far. This has some very cool descriptions of a solar-system-spanning humanity divided. Only 150 pages in and already ordered the next novel in this trilogy.

This is the "first book" I mentioned (I'm reading the sequel). I was really impressed with the (interplanetary) "world" that they built - so intricate, with so many different societies, which were a very believable blend of societies/cultures from Earth. And like you said a pageturner. Let me know what you think at the end, I would be interested in comparing views on the novel :)
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Scorntyrant
Metalhead

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PostPosted: Sun Jul 07, 2013 9:22 pm 
 

I started "the book of the new sun" over the weekend. Wow, this is just incredible. A lot of people seem to find it difficult, but I'm finding the writing style really absorbing - beautiful prose in parts. I really like the deliberate anachronisms too.
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Nahsil
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 07, 2013 10:28 pm 
 

Yessssss, the prose is beautiful. Sure the terminology can be a little obscure, but you get the picture even without understanding every single word. He paints pictures with his words, the individual strokes are important but not key.
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UnholyAnalDeathWorship
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 08, 2013 12:16 am 
 

Anyone here ever enjoy the novel Kafka On The Shore by Haruki Murakami?

Damn good book. Read it in about a week and I usually don't read books that fast, especially 400+ pages. Everything in it just kept me on my guard and I always wanted to find out what was coming next. Really knows how to set a climax and builds anticipation better than most authors I know of.
Also puts many different perspectives in your head so I like that about it, too. Definitely recommend it to anyone.

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Under_Starmere
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 08, 2013 12:16 am 
 

The Cult of the New Sun grows powerful.
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caspian
Old Man Yells at Car Park

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PostPosted: Mon Jul 08, 2013 12:25 am 
 

Just read a fairly chunky Elric anthology by Michael Moorcock. It was real good and I recommend it, but
Spoiler: show
I was kinda disappointed by the increasing ambiguity of Elric's fate. It honestly felt a bit forced, like Moorcock had to be edgy and ensure there's never a happy ending for Elric. A shame as I felt he was a very likeable character.. Was pretty bummed he never really found happiness. The compilation of stories was not an exhaustive one, though. Really hope Elric finds peace somewhere along the line. I also felt his reliance on stormbringer was somewhat over the top too. Most stories simply relied on the sword instead of Elric's skill and cunning, lots of "the black blade sung as its' rune glowed their enigmatic black radiance" all with Elric plowing through a few million enemies.. a bit old. I understand that there's a complicated relationship with the sword, but in the anthology I have it was only hinted at and never was really explored properly.


Ultimately the scenery generated was great and the amount of metal band names thrown around was pretty funny too :) Highly recommended, the writing style seems to be this very agreeable halfway between 30's pulp and the more modern, Robin Hobb GRRM etc. style of fantasy too.
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failsafeman
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 08, 2013 2:22 am 
 

Did the compilation not include "Stormbringer"? Because I'm pretty sure that one depicts Elric's fate unambiguously.
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Nahsil
Clerical Sturmgeschütz

Joined: Sun Jan 08, 2006 2:06 pm
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 08, 2013 3:03 am 
 

Under_Starmere wrote:
The Cult of the New Sun grows powerful.


I have a copy of Urth of the New Sun on its way. Definitely can't leave this series without knowing how things end.
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caspian
Old Man Yells at Car Park

Joined: Tue Dec 07, 2004 11:29 pm
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 08, 2013 3:30 am 
 

failsafeman wrote:
Did the compilation not include "Stormbringer"? Because I'm pretty sure that one depicts Elric's fate unambiguously.


Didn't! :( I'll try to find that one though, I saw it under the "other books by moorcock..." section at the front and it sounded promising.
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