Return of the Book Thread

[lamaros]

Just started reading Embassytown by China Mielville. It's still very early into it and I'm definitely not enjoying it as much as his Bas-Lag books but that might just be that he hasn't had enough time to really get the world building done so far.

Don't expect much world building. Mieville sucks at it as a norm, not an exception, and Embassytown is really really bad at it. In my view the book is ok, but gets very boring second half unless you have recently had a lobotomy and/or want someone to drag out a few hundred more pages of trying to be clever and not realising it's all very obvious.

[Morat20]

Well, people saying that need to die in a car fire.

I'm reading The Long War because the wife got it for me (wasn't that impressed with The Long Earth).  It's ... the same.

It's a lot more Baxter's book than Pratchett's. A lot more. I think I read that Pratchett had the idea of this weird parallel earth thing way back before he hit it big, might even have written a short story on it, and then set it aside. Discworld took off and he never went back.

For some reason, he resurrected the notion and teamed up with Baxter. Pratchett's writing doesn't fit the story he's really working on there, and Baxter's does. (Honestly, it was a pretty solid choice). Well, Baxter's does once you hit him with a stick every time he tries to get too sciency. The guy likes his sci-fi hard on the science.

Honestly, it reads like an odd Pratchett idea written by Baxter where Pratchett's only job is to keep the science minimal and more on world building/interaction.

[Ironwood]

I finished it.  It was awful.

[Morat20]

I finished it.  It was awful.

I'd avoid Baxter then. it's like that, only with the word "quantum" used a lot more. At least his more galaxy-spanning sci-fi stuff.

Although the collection of Xelee short stories wasn't bad.

[dd0029]

I really enjoyed the first half of The Long Earth. There's a fair bit of that gee whiz neat new idea stuff there. I've tried twice now with The Long War and just can't get into it.

[dd0029]

Something is wrong with me and reading lately, I'm keep finding nitpicky things not to like. In this instance, Words of Radiance by Sanderson. On the whole, it's a step down from the first. There's a whole lot of talking and walking, but not much in the way of doing until the very end when all sorts of stuff happen. I'm also not really sure how he's going to stretch this out for another 8 books if 10 is still his plan. Things are just hurtling along at this point. I actually found the interludes between parts to be generally the most interesting. That does bring me to one big wtf about the book.

[Chimpy]

I thought it was actually much tighter than the first one, but a lot of that could be me being familiar with the world versus the first one where I was trying to wrap my head around what the hell all of the weird ecological stuff meant.

[shiznitz]

Does anyone know how the Belgariad reads these days?  I have such found memories but some of the stuff I read back then has been shit when I return to it.

[Teleku]

Its.... probably best to keep it that way.  I went back and re-read some of it a few years back.  Its not pure shit, but it certainly reads like something at a 12 year old boys reading level.  I really loved the entire series (Belgariad, Mallorian, and the two prequel books) when I read it back in the day.  I have a strong suspicion that it will be spoiled big time if I attempt an entire reread.

[dd0029]

Poorly last I read older Eddings. I suggest keeping your fond memories. I really loved The Elenium series in high school. I read it several times. I was on a nostalgia kick a bit ago and took it for a whirl. Not a good idea. It's not that it's bad, they just aren't well written, journeyman level writing at best.

Some stuff holds up well though. My first fantasy book was The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander. While spectacularly grim for a children's book, it still holds up really well.

[Khaldun]

That whole series holds up well for adult readers. Taran Wanderer particularly.

[Chimpy]

Does anyone know how the Belgariad reads these days?  I have such found memories but some of the stuff I read back then has been shit when I return to it.

I think it holds up fairly well if you realize you are reading young adult fantasy. It is not high art by any means but it is easy to read and it was actually looked at by a real editor since it was published by Del Rey and not TOR.

[NowhereMan]

Something is wrong with me and reading lately, I'm keep finding nitpicky things not to like. In this instance, Words of Radiance by Sanderson. On the whole, it's a step down from the first. There's a whole lot of talking and walking, but not much in the way of doing until the very end when all sorts of stuff happen. I'm also not really sure how he's going to stretch this out for another 8 books if 10 is still his plan. Things are just hurtling along at this point. I actually found the interludes between parts to be generally the most interesting. That does bring me to one big wtf about the book.

On the wtf thing:
I liked the book overall but the main meat of this is going to be that war with Odium and the Voidbringers, we're 2 books in and he's really just setting that up. I'd be disappointed if it took half the series just to get to the main action.

[lamaros]

So I read the Locke Lamora book after the recent re-recommendations in this thread. I was quite underwhelmed in the end. I just want to read something good. It feels like all the authors these days are just awful at their world building and obviously spend most of their time watching films, not reading. Everything tries far too hard to be cinematic.

[Cyrrex]

Does anyone know how the Belgariad reads these days?  I have such found memories but some of the stuff I read back then has been shit when I return to it.

I read it about a year ago, based partly on some discussion in this thread.  You can tell that it is what passed for reasonable fantasy way back when, but it definitely feels more like a young adult read nowadays.  It is also the typical boy-goes-on-a-long-journey-and-discovers-he-is-awesome story.  If that's your thing, you'll find it passably entertaining. 

[Viin]

So I read the Locke Lamora book after the recent re-recommendations in this thread. I was quite underwhelmed in the end. I just want to read something good. It feels like all the authors these days are just awful at their world building and obviously spend most of their time watching films, not reading. Everything tries far too hard to be cinematic.

You get a bit more world building in a second book, but it's slower.

Maybe this would help find something? http://www.goodreads.com/list/tag/world-building

I've been on a Culture marathon lately, so my world building need is fulfilled at the moment! (Currently taking a break to read Under Heaven)

[Khaldun]

I've found Felix Gilman's new series (two books so far) set in a fantastic/surreal American West to be doing some effective world-building that is rather different than the standard Tolkien maps-and-languages approach.

Ysebeau Wilce's YA (but rather mature) novels starting with Flora Segunda also take place in a very carefully imagined fantasy/alt-history 19th Century California, where a still-powerful Aztec Empire to the south threatens a nominally-independent "Califa". Some very thoughtful world-building around magic, spirits, and politics.

[Johny Cee]

Just finished River of Stars, by Guy Gavriel Kay.  It's a loose sequel to Under Heaven with the same setting but a couple hundred years later.  Really, really good.  Alternate world ancient China, with a couple of supernatural/magical realism flourishes.  Kay is just an amazing author, and really people should check his stuff out.  He got his start helping to edit The Silmarillion.

Yes that was an enjoyable book, though it did remind me too much of that thinly veiled propaganda piece that was the movie Hero.  I know the story was inspired by actual evens in China, but i think i would have preferred a different ending...

Well...

[Johny Cee]

I've found Felix Gilman's new series (two books so far) set in a fantastic/surreal American West to be doing some effective world-building that is rather different than the standard Tolkien maps-and-languages approach.

It's pretty straight Weird West, which isn't the biggest sub-genre but it is a sub-genre dating back to the pulps of the '30s and does include things like Dark Tower and Deadlands.  Tolkien is the 800 lb. gorilla of fantasy, but there are lots and lots of sub-genres that rise and fall and rise again that are pretty distinctive from "Secondary world epic fantasy".  Portal fantasy, sword and sorcery, various kinds with "Weird" stuck in the front (New Weird like Mieville and Vandermeer had alot of buzz a few years ago), Dying Earth (Vance, Book of the Long Sun), Magic School (Earthsea, Norton, Harry Potter), etc.

Really liked the first book, bout half way through the second right now.


As an unrelated recommendation:

Do you like Lovecraft?  Try Laird Barron's short stories.  He "gets" cosmic horror and has some fantastic short stories.  Look for "The Broadsword" (refers to a hotel, not a sword, where the main character is staying) and "Men from Purlock" (lumber camp in the early 20th century disturbs something best left alone), wish I could remember the names of some of the other standout short stories.

[Maven]

60th Anniversary of Farenheit 451. Seems especially relevant today.

[MahrinSkel]

I finished it.  It was awful.

I'd avoid Baxter then. it's like that, only with the word "quantum" used a lot more. At least his more galaxy-spanning sci-fi stuff.

Although the collection of Xelee short stories wasn't bad.

Did I miss something?  I found the one big hole in the series was that the Xeelee were always offstage, we saw their artifacts and their aftermath, but we never got more than superficial descriptions of them.  Is this a collection of short stories that fills it in?  What was the title?

--Dave

[Polysorbate80]

I downloaded & reread Brian Daley's Hobart Floyt/Alacrity Fitzhugh trilogy over the weekend.  It's cheesy space opera but entertaining as hell. 

It's a bummer that the kindle versions are riddled with typos; it looks like they just did an OCR scan and never proofread it at all.

[dd0029]

It's a bummer that the kindle versions are riddled with typos; it looks like they just did an OCR scan and never proofread it at all.

Lots of ebook editions are terrible. The most common mistake I see is ignoring section breaks. That can be really jarring if you don't catch it.

Anyway, I read two books by Daniel Wilson. Robogenesis, the follow up to Robopocalypse, and Amped. I really enjoyed the Robogenesis. It's a much better book than Robopocalypse. It feels much better thought out.

Amped, however, was not that good. First, for all the talk that the amps made people smart, not a single one of the amped people was all that bright.

I read a quote somewhere. Someone talking about writing science fiction, something along the works of, "I guess it works, but I can't see how they got there." I just don't buy the branch Wilson sees for this sort of technology. If it did what he says it does on the tin, there wouldn't be a company, country or military in the world without amped individuals at the helm. It's too good a competitive advantage to pass up. This would be Gattaca rather than some mishmash of the Japanese internment.

[Shannow]

Robopocalypse was fucking awful.

[Khaldun]

Do you feel like the people in charge of the world today are better, brighter, more skilled, or otherwise in possession of some significant genetic or biological advantage over everyone else?

Meritocratic systems of selection and promotion, even before our current oligarchs started ratfucking the whole thing, were not particularly consistent in putting the best and the brightest in charge. In dealing with a pretty wide variety of companies and institutions, I've found that the guys at the top of strongly hierarchical structures are often distinguished only by their drive to be at the top and by a singular lack of concern for the moral consequences of their behavior. Structures that are more flat, less hierarchical, produce a wider variety of people who are nominally in charge. The really bright, imaginative, dynamic, creative, etc. people are usually two or so levels down from the top in a pyramidal structure, somewhat closer to leadership in a flatter organization.

Wilson's a weak writer but I don't think that enhanced people would inevitably be in charge of things or would necessarily convey comparative advantages on the organizations they were in charge of. When I think of some of the brightest and most insightful people I know, I often am not thinking of people who should be leading the companies or organizations they work for--often because their intelligence would be very hard for others to imitate or reproduce, and so it would be a situation of the leader saying, "Ok, now we'll do this and then that!" and everyone else going, "Um, I don't get it" and therefore not really doing this or that the way that the leader wanted.

[Ingmar]

I assumed the competitive advantage he meant was in terms of outcompeting normal people for the top positions.

[Johny Cee]

Do you feel like the people in charge of the world today are better, brighter, more skilled, or otherwise in possession of some significant genetic or biological advantage over everyone else?

Meritocratic systems of selection and promotion, even before our current oligarchs started ratfucking the whole thing, were not particularly consistent in putting the best and the brightest in charge. In dealing with a pretty wide variety of companies and institutions, I've found that the guys at the top of strongly hierarchical structures are often distinguished only by their drive to be at the top and by a singular lack of concern for the moral consequences of their behavior. Structures that are more flat, less hierarchical, produce a wider variety of people who are nominally in charge. The really bright, imaginative, dynamic, creative, etc. people are usually two or so levels down from the top in a pyramidal structure, somewhat closer to leadership in a flatter organization.

Wilson's a weak writer but I don't think that enhanced people would inevitably be in charge of things or would necessarily convey comparative advantages on the organizations they were in charge of. When I think of some of the brightest and most insightful people I know, I often am not thinking of people who should be leading the companies or organizations they work for--often because their intelligence would be very hard for others to imitate or reproduce, and so it would be a situation of the leader saying, "Ok, now we'll do this and then that!" and everyone else going, "Um, I don't get it" and therefore not really doing this or that the way that the leader wanted.

Generally, the people in charge of hierarchical structures are better at social interactions, whether it's being able to lead or disguising the fact that they are vicious self-promoters.  If you made one subsection of "people with good Social IQ" smarter, I don't see how they wouldn't bury the rest unless the procedure also made them borderline autistic.  Just like most things, being good at something isn't just dependent on how "smart" you are, since everything from habit to empathy to knowledge (how many Nobel awarded scientists make ridiculous statements for things outside of their fields?) to intangible leadership and social skills can be as or more important.

If you made the process widely available, though, I don't see how you could argue that the people with those other characteristics wouldn't end up in charge over people with the same base characteristics but without the boosted intelligence.

[lamaros]

Do you feel like the people in charge of the world today are better, brighter, more skilled, or otherwise in possession of some significant genetic or biological advantage over everyone else?

Purely biological, no? But I'm something of an environmental determinist, so mere biology misses a lot of the point for me.

I do think they are more skilled at what they need to be to get to where they are - obviously - and that some of those a very useful and helpful skills beyond just being used for personal advantage. I also think that there are a huge range of organizations in the world and that they actually vary quite significantly in what is required to be successful within them and to make them successful.

I don't really agree that those in charge of hierarchical structures are better at social interactions, unless you have a very limited and specific idea of what those social interactions are.

[dd0029]

My thinking was more driven by what I see every day. I work in a library in an upper middle class area. Every day during the school year, once school gets out that place is packed with kids and tutors. There can't be that many kids having problems needing tutors. These are kids who's parents want their children to get into the best schools and will do what it takes to make that happen. These parents, if offered the opportunity to send their kid in for a 10 minute operation - as described in the book - and get a genius out of it, the money would be on the table so fast. These are children and grandchildren of guaranteed voters. The whole basis for the book never would have happened.

[dd0029]

The library has Tower Lord by Anthony Ryan on order so I put my name on the list. It's the second in a series The first book was self published and shows it from the orginal title Raven's Shadow Blood Song (Raven's Shadow #1). Getting past that original title was something of a feat, but one well rewarded. It's your standard boy with a secret destiny story, but told with a competent, mildly refreshing voice. There are some predictable turns, but some not so predictable turns as well. All in all a good one and I'm glad I re-read it for the sequel.

[Khaldun]

Just finished Katherine Addison's The Goblin Emperor. It kept me pretty enthralled even when I was wanting to dislike it for a bit of Mary Sue-ism. (Basically the young half-goblin, miserably isolated son of an elvish emperor suddenly inherits the empire when his father and all of the other heirs die in an accident, and has to quickly adapt to being emperor while surrounded by political intrigue--but he's a nice guy unlike most previous emperors and slowly begins to win people to his side.)

[dd0029]

Tower Lord was entertaining as generic epic fantasy, but something of a disappointment as a follow up to Blood Song.

[Xilren's Twin]

Just read Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey (who is actually 2 people, neither of which is named James).  Pretty decent Space Opera and noir detective story combo.  In the same sci fi vein os Peter Hamilton.  I'll check out the others by "them".

Oh yeah, found this tidbit too...

On April 11, 2014 Syfy announced that they gave a order for a direct-to-TV series based on the Leviathan Wakes and "The Expanse" series. The cable network ordered 10 episodes, produced by Alcon Television Group (ATG). Academy Award-nominated screenwriting duo Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby (known for the films Children of Men and Iron Man) wrote the pilot; they will continue to serve as writers, as well as executive producers.

So, yeah.

[lamaros]

The first book is easily the best.

[Khaldun]

Yes. Third book has some pretty annoying stuff in it.