Return of the Book Thread

[Ironwood]

You didn't like Seafort ?


 
 

[Sky]

Interesting sub-genre you've created there, Khaldun. Transvestite sea captains of the British Empire.

[Ironwood]

No, but seriously, by the sound of it the books are just reworks of Seafort.  I wouldn't be surprised if the author was the same dude wearing a dress.

[Sheepherder]

but that's hardly an excuse, any more than it would be to take Sir Samuel Benfield Steele of the North-West Mounted Police and give him breasts, a laser gun and a robot malamute and pretend you'd just done something cool.

[Morat20]

Horatio Hornblower, granted, is just as boring a character as Honor is, but that's hardly an excuse, any more than it would be to take Buck McSquarejaw of the Canadian Mounties and give him breasts, a laser gun and a robot malamute and pretend you'd just done something cool.

Well, he did actually write some sea battles in another book.

But actually, he DID do something -- there's not exactly a huge overlap between "sci-fi fan" and "age of sail" fan. How many people do you think have read both Weber and Horatio Hornblower? Or anything set in the age of sail?

Shit is derivative, and the war porn style of writing (this, Tom Clancy, a dozen other authors including the spy porn genre) all write pretty derivative shit, often ripping wholesale off older stuff not many of their readers will recognize. And that's sort of the point, insofar as virtually NONE of those readers will ever read the source material that got ripped off in the first place. Some might, after reading Weber, who wouldn't otherwise.

People who'd never bother reading about sea battles in galleons get an exposure to some of the notions in books they will read.

Weber for me is pretty much beach reading, pretty much like playing Halo. :) It's what I read when I don't want much more than a distraction.

[Murgos]

I'll take this opportunity to chime in with, if you like Hornblower even a little bit, or anything to do with Napoleonic Era Britain, you should probably read Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series.

All the naval actions and most of the people in them are pretty close to historic reality, very well told and, once you are over the language gap, immensely entertaining.

[Xilren's Twin]

For those who read and enjoyed the Mistborn series, looks like a video game is now in the works.
I've always thought the logical way Sanderson works out his magic systems could make for an interesting adaptation, but IP based games are such a crap shoot, who knows.  Having to obtain the metal "fuel" to power the various skills, being able to interact with metal in the regular word, balancing forces in opposition...could be interesting if well done.

[ghost]

I'm currently reading The Blood Sugar Solution by Mark Hyman.  It's damned good and falls in line with many of my previously held suspicions about the food industry and diabetes.  It's worth reading, even if you think you're healthy. 

[Furiously]

Anyone read "Ready Player One"?

[Abagadro]

Ya. I talked about it up thread.  It's fairly entertaining if you are of a certain vintage but the writing leaves a bit to be desired as it is a somewhat basic in plotting and rather repetitive.

[ghost]

Finished Neuromancer tonight.  I had never read it before because it never sounded particularly interesting from the jacket summary, but I'm glad I read it.  It's crazy to think that Gibson wrote that in 1983.  It is quite a prescient body of work-  who knew that the Matrix movies would have come out so similar.   

Now I'm going to read The Hallowed Hunt by Mary McMaster Bujold.  I like her style.  I'm also still listening to the Eye of the World on my way back and forth from work.  Darkfriends.  Lulz.   

[Sheepherder]

That name is indeed terrible.

[Rasix]

Giving Malazan books another go.  K'Chain Che'Malle..    The Elder races are all so ridiculous.  Picking up on a lot of small details I managed to overlook in the first read through.  He packs the books full of them.

[Chimpy]

I should retry Malazan, ok maybe not. Unlike sky I can't fucking stand the Karsa shit or the non tehol bedict/bugg shit on the "other" continent.

[murdoc]

I liked the Malazan books when they focused on Malazans. I liked the Karsa stuff at first, but it never really pays off and am of the same opinion on the 'non Tehol/Bugg' stuff.

Finally finishing up the First Law trilogy, after taking a little break from reading fantasy. Ripped through 'Before they are Hanged' over the weekend and have started in on 'Last Argument of Kings'.

[Sky]

I think I petered out on Erikson around book 7. Should go finish that up. As much as I love the Karsa parts, it's true he kind of wastes the potential of the amazing start.

Almost through the first Imager book by Modesitt. Haven't been reading too much fiction and wanted something light and fast. It's a well-done version of the standard Modesitt novel. Took me a few to get over the first person perspective, but it's filling the niche in my day nicely.

[HaemishM]

I finished up Lisa Hinsley's Ultimate Choice (self-pubbed novel) and didn't like it at all. I blogged my review but suffice to say the characters were all annoying, the world made no sense but at least she tried to tackle some heady subject matter without giving the characters an easy out. Better than a Piers Anthony book.

I started on Scott Nicholson's The Red Church (self-pubbed Christian horror novel). The guy is a good writer, but two things contributed to me not finishing the book. 1) I think I'm a bit jaded on horror novels. It reads like Stephen King without the cursing or atheism and I've done that to death. 2) He can't help slipping in religious messages and it hurts the book because you can feel the author's hands when it happens.

Started reading Haggard's King Solomon's Mines. I've never read any of the Allan Quartermain novels and thought it was about time. Plus, Amazon had it for free on the Kindle so I figured why not.

[Chimpy]

Almost through the first Imager book by Modesitt. Haven't been reading too much fiction and wanted something light and fast. It's a well-done version of the standard Modesitt novel. Took me a few to get over the first person perspective, but it's filling the niche in my day nicely.

The Imager Portfolio books are all good. I could not even get past chapter 2 in the new one but I really liked the first 3. It was obvious that there was actually some proofreading in the first 3 which Modesitt has gotten less and less of in the Recluce etc. books.

As to what I am reading, I took a break from my Barsoom and Sherlock Holmes reading on my kindle to start reading a bit about Ireland/Scotland before my vacation. Picked up a book at the library called "Whiskey, Kilts, and The Loch Ness Monster" which is a recent book by an American who decided to visit all of the places a couple of guys visited on a famous tour of Scotland in 1773. It is quite entertaining, should finish it by the end of the weekend.

[Sky]

It was obvious that there was actually some proofreading in the first 3 which Modesitt has gotten less and less of in the Recluce etc. books.

Oh yeah. Been so long since I've read Modesitt that I forgot the overwhelming urge to mark up the book with corrections. The Corean stuff was atrociously un-edited.

[Ard]

Heh, you want bad editing, Feist's most recent book has the wrong first chapter in it.  It's from some significantly earlier draft of the book, and includes the blatantly wrong characters doing stuff.  It's extremely obvious by the time you get halfway through the book.  Being the first chapter, you think someone would have caught that before printing.

[Morat20]

Heh, you want bad editing, Feist's most recent book has the wrong first chapter in it.  It's from some significantly earlier draft of the book, and includes the blatantly wrong characters doing stuff.  It's extremely obvious by the time you get halfway through the book.  Being the first chapter, you think someone would have caught that before printing.

I hear they've released the e-version like four times now, still fucked up.

[Sky]

I hear they've released the e-version like four times now, still fucked up.

Patching books now?

Yeah, technology is the future. For retards.

[Murgos]

Patching books now?

Yeah, technology is the future. For retards.

Yeah, books never had errata or edits in later editions before the internet ruined it for everyone.

[tgr]

LOTR SP1

[Morat20]

LOTR SP1

*Patched Elf names to be more confused.
*Uodated Quest Log to add Nazgul attack pre-Rivendell.
*Increased number of hobbit meals pre-noon.
*Reduced number of mobs in tutorial.

[Johny Cee]

LOTR SP1

*Patched Elf names to be more confused.
*Uodated Quest Log to add Nazgul attack pre-Rivendell.
*Increased number of hobbit meals pre-noon.
*Reduced number of mobs in tutorial.

While Tolkien was alive, he regularly proofed and fixed the text as new spelling errors creeped in every edition (elfs/dwarfs versus elves/dwarves was a big one, for instance).  Also, Tolkien changed the riddle game section of the Hobbit in later editions to match the later version from LOTR.

Also, he did regularly patch Elf names and histories.  Galadriel was OP because she kept getting her history buffed until she could solo Dol Guldor, and Glorfindel was kind of an oops (separate character with the same name as dude in Gondolin) that became a "sure, why not?" when Tolkien said it was the same guy sent back from the West.

[ghost]

Yeah, you saw errors before in real print versions, but I don't think they were anywhere near what we see now.  There's definitely less interest in proofreading when it won't cost you quite as much to fix, particularly with web journalism. 

[Murgos]

I doubt if it's less interest in proofreading as much as it is, "Keep costs down as much as possible." leading to less time & talent for editing.

[ghost]

I doubt if it's less interest in proofreading as much as it is, "Keep costs down as much as possible." leading to less time & talent for editing.

But if there's less time and talent, i.e. money to pay for time and talent, then by definition there is less interest in editing and proofreading.  In the old days they could blow shittons of money with one fuckup.  Can you imagine having a whole chapter out of place?  I don't remember seeing those types of errors in many books prior to the internet era, but now that everything is online you simply go in and edit on the fly.  Of course there's less interest in editing because there are anal bastards that read things that will send you an email and essentially edit for you.  For free.   

[dd0029]

Been reading more of the cheap Kindle fantasy. After the awesomesauce that is Mercedes Lackey's City of Heroes novelization, I've been staying away from the superhero books. For some reason, I decided to give Jim Bernheimer's Confessions of a D-List Supervillain a try. It was a pleasant surprise. The premise is that something happens and these mind control worms take over everyone except for a minor mad scientist villain because he never got out of his robot armor. He accidentally captures a controlled superhero sent to capture him and begins the process of saving the world, supervillain style.

[HaemishM]

I finished up H. Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines. I read it mostly because it was free on the Kindle and I had never read any of the Quatermain stuff. I liked it, though it was quite interesting seeing how blatantly racist the colonialist attitudes of the time period were. Good read for anyone who likes the whole dashing Indy Jones genre.

Started reading Stephenson's Anathem. Very, very dense. This man loves his wordplay too much sometimes.

[dd0029]

Just finished up Kate Griffin's newest Matthew Swift book, The Minority Council. I'm not sure what it is about it that I really like, but these things are like crack. London wasn't as much a character in this one as it was in the previous books.

[Bzalthek]

I'm in the middle of The Passage by Justin Cronin.  I am enthralled.

[Ironwood]

Read Clash of Kings in a couple of hours because the wife left it sitting there and it was a bank holiday.

The style and quality of writing was far greater than I expected.

[Murgos]

Read Clash of Kings in a couple of hours because the wife left it sitting there and it was a bank holiday.

The style and quality of writing was far greater than I expected.

I would say, un-ironically, that GRRM's prose is among the best being written now.  I would also say that his nuance for scene details and foreshadowing is also similarly superb.

I would also say that he has completely lost the thread in the latest two books.