Return of the Book Thread

[Ironwood]

Oh man, I'd forgot about the multiple gang bang bit.

lol.

[lamaros]

Hamilton's Mispent Youth summaries all his female characters and attitudes. It's unreadable drek.

His other books have this in a much smaller extent, but also have his engaging ideas and smooth readable style, which makes them OK to good.

[MahrinSkel]

David Weber's appeal escapes me. I read Hornblower the first time around and thought it was ok; Rule 63 and pew-pew laserfire does not improve it much.

Mostly, because I didn't like Hornblower, and the endless trivia about sailing technology left me cold, but the same plots and tropes mixed with SciFi spacewarp technobabble worked for me. And then as the universe became wider and deeper, it was fun watching it unfold.

--Dave

[Khaldun]

Except that it took ages in Weber's books before events stopped just being the SF-cosplay version of the Napoleonic Wars. I don't mind SF authors starting from a point of real-world or fictional inspiration, but I expect them to respect their own world-building and characterization enough that the ongoing narrative goes to some new places.

[Shannow]

Wait that Weber series ACTUALLY WENT SOMEWHERE? People need to stop buying his shit because it was blatantly obvious he was just stretching it out to sell more books.

[Khaldun]

Not really, but eventually he did stop just saying, "And then Space Robespierre schemes against Space Marat while in the wings Space Napoleon is plotting...And now back to Space Lady Hornblower, pew pew".

[Morat20]

Not really, but eventually he did stop just saying, "And then Space Robespierre schemes against Space Marat while in the wings Space Napoleon is plotting...And now back to Space Lady Hornblower, pew pew".

Eric Flint did it. Whomever it was that introduced the Space Super Spy. At least that's who Weber blames. :)

[Ironwood]

Don't know if it was mentioned, but the Abercrombie YA Shattered Sea books are rather good.   Naturally, there's tons of Abercrombie in there, as he really, really reuses his own well, but they're easy to read and clever enough.

[lamaros]

Don't know if it was mentioned, but the Abercrombie YA Shattered Sea books are rather good.   Naturally, there's tons of Abercrombie in there, as he really, really reuses his own well, but they're easy to read and clever enough.

Was just coming to say the same thing. First two are very readable.

[Khaldun]

Ok, that's a buy!

Enjoying Nicole Kohrner-Stace's Archivist Wasp. I guess it's "YA" at least in its marketing but it doesn't read to me that way except for a certain amount of Hunger-Gamesishness lurking around the edges.

[NowhereMan]

I've started the first book in Stephenson's Baroque Cycle. I'm about 15% in so far and I'm kind of wondering... is there a story here? I mean beyond stylised portrayals of early modern scientific thinkers? I get the impression it's not a fully 'real world' take but there's not a lot of proof so far. If I hadn't been listening/reading stuff about Newton/Hooke/the Royal Society and the connections between alchemy and early science (thanks History of Alchemy podcast!) I'd probably be more intrigued but there isn't really anything there so far for me besides Stephenson's writing style, which I generally enjoy.

I know his books tend to spend quite a while on very gentle world building before revealing plot, is this going to go fantasyesque or am I in store for historical thriller? I know I could just wiki it but wonder what other people here's opinions are. Bearing in mind I enjoyed Reamde up to the terrorist finale final third and utterly loved Anathem.

[Chimpy]

The story eventually shows itself, but it takes quite a while. I have really enjoyed all of the Stephenson stand alone novels (even though his endings suck because they are obviously rushed) but the Baroque Cycle was hard for me to get through.

[Khaldun]

Don't forget that he's imitating a picaresque narrative, which means kind of by its nature a sort of aimlessness and one-thing-after-another stuff.

[Rendakor]

I couldn't finish Baroque Cycle; I think I got about halfway through the first one before losing interest.

[Ironwood]

I've started the first book in Stephenson's Baroque Cycle. I'm about 15% in so far and I'm kind of wondering... is there a story here?

No.

You may rationalise a story after a while, since your brain can't process wasting the sheer amount of time his shitty, shitty, shitty whale of a Cycle takes you to read, but ultimately, No.  No story.

[Rasix]

Does his work get any better than Snowcrash? While it had some interesting parts, I wasn't completely thrilled by it.  I love interesting settings and world building, but there just seemed to be too much tangential nonsense that took away from the plot. 

I probably read that 7 years ago, so perhaps my tolerance for wordy bullshit has strengthened. 

[HaemishM]

If you didn't like Snowcrash, stop reading his work. You will fucking hate everything else he's done. It is his best work.

The only thing he's done that isn't remotely as wordy and meandering as the rest of his stuff is the novel he did as Stephen Bury with his uncle, Interface. It's actually a good story with a decent ending that doesn't lose itself.

I love Stephenson, but his tendency to meander on tangential stuff that only makes sense later if at all just gets worse and worse with each new book.

[Khaldun]

I could see not liking Snow Crash all that much and still liking The Diamond Age, but yeah.

I think even folks that didn't like Snow Crash overall have to love the first 25-30 pages, which are pretty much breathtaking writing.

[WayAbvPar]

If you didn't like Snowcrash, stop reading his work. You will fucking hate everything else he's done. It is his best work.

The only thing he's done that isn't remotely as wordy and meandering as the rest of his stuff is the novel he did as Stephen Bury with his uncle, Interface. It's actually a good story with a decent ending that doesn't lose itself.

I love Stephenson, but his tendency to meander on tangential stuff that only makes sense later if at all just gets worse and worse with each new book.

Snow Crash was goofy and mostly satirical (but I still loved it). I would say Cryptonomicon is his best work (haven't finished Seveneves yet) to date. I have enjoyed mostly everything he has written though, so maybe I am just a fanboy.

[Ironwood]

I'd say Cryptonomicon was his best too because, actually, when you get to the end, you realise there WAS a story.  Not an ending tho, but you can't have everything.

 

[Chimpy]

I could see not liking Snow Crash all that much and still liking The Diamond Age, but yeah.

That's funny, because it seems like the majority of people heap scorn on The Diamond Age. I liked it a lot, but it seems like anytime you admit to that the spergy "Snow Crash is the only Stephenson book wirth reading!" patrol come out with their pitchforks.

[WayAbvPar]

I'd say Cryptonomicon was his best too because, actually, when you get to the end, you realise there WAS a story.  Not an ending tho, but you can't have everything.

 

Ha, I considered mentioning the distinct lack of a cohesive ending. Pretty much a given if you see his name on the spine. Getting there is usually a lot of fun though.

e- and I loved TDA. Except for the drumming part, which felt extremely long when I read it the first time, but was a lot shorter the second time through.

[HaemishM]

I loved the Diamond Age too, but the ending was just terrible. It was like 90% fantastic world building and then, "WELP, we're done here. Toodles!"

Snow Crash is still my favorite.

[lamaros]

Anyone recommend Blood Meredian?

I may need a 12th holiday book. I love holiday reading.

[Johny Cee]

Anyone recommend Blood Meredian?

I may need a 12th holiday book. I love holiday reading.

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy?  It's good, but holy shit you'll be depressed.  I guess that's par for the course with McCarthy, though.

[lamaros]

Yeah. I've been meaning to give him another go after not liking The Road that much, and have covered enough lighter genre fiction I'm ready for something heavy again.

[BobtheSomething]

Anyone recommend Blood Meredian?

I may need a 12th holiday book. I love holiday reading.

Edit.  Blood Meridian was intense and difficult to read through, though brilliant.  It is probably a better book than The Road, but somehow even darker.

[Ironwood]

I loved the Diamond Age too, but the ending was just terrible. It was like 90% fantastic world building and then, "WELP, we're done here. Toodles!"

Snow Crash is still my favorite.

It was worse than that because it was so self-referential.  "Hey, chaps, I started with a bell ringing and I'm now ending with a bell ringing, so you can pretty much forget what happened in between because I can't write a fucking ending to save my life.  Let's just chuck everyone into the sea.  That's how life began on this Earth anyway.  Aren't I Clever !  BELLS."

I also didn't like what he did with his female character towards the end at all.  "Hey, there's this girl that grows up despite adversity and strong, so let's have her working in a whorehouse.  And then raped.  And then let's make her a Princess !!!!"

Seriously.  Fuck off.

[K9]

Just finished Sanderson's Way of Kings. It's an easy read but something about it just left me feeling a little empty.

Also, I'm growing increasingly impatient with the high fantasy 'invent shit for the sake of it' syle of writing. I don't need an author to invent a million different types of food, and arcane clothing systems, and unimportant cultiral norms and stuff to make a story interesting. Maybe it's all building to something, but I can barely even register the dozen or so different variations of human he seems to want to invent. I suspect most of that stuff could be streamlined and the book wouldn't suffer a jot.

That said, I'd like to read the next book in the series, so it can't be all so bad.

I'm also still trying to read Infinite Jest, but I don't know when it's going to start paying off.

[Rendakor]

Thought I was at the end of Seveneves, but NOPE.JPG there's another third of the book left.

[Shannow]

Just finished Sanderson's Way of Kings. It's an easy read but something about it just left me feeling a little empty.

Also, I'm growing increasingly impatient with the high fantasy 'invent shit for the sake of it' syle of writing. I don't need an author to invent a million different types of food, and arcane clothing systems, and unimportant cultiral norms and stuff to make a story interesting. Maybe it's all building to something, but I can barely even register the dozen or so different variations of human he seems to want to invent. I suspect most of that stuff could be streamlined and the book wouldn't suffer a jot.

Agreed, while I did enjoy the books keeping track of what the fuck everything actually is was painful.

[lamaros]

If its not significant to the plot don't bother, if it is then do but keep it simple and coherent. Nothing shits me more than when they make all this shit up and it isn't internally consistent and coherent.

[shiznitz]

Writers don't write for you. They write what is interesting to them and hope someone else will like it enough to pay for it. If every fantasy writer just set their story in a proto-typical Middle Earth, many fewer books would be written.

[lamaros]

Writers are not a single unified group.

[Ironwood]

This Quantum Thief Trilogy is hard fucking going.