Return of the Book Thread

[KallDrexx]

Also finished the first 2 books in the Black Fleet trilogy by Joshua Dalzelle. I enjoyed his previous series, Omega Force, too but Black Fleet reads better and seems a bit more mature. As always, space battles and tactics is fun! (Plus he portrays very well how boring/wearing it is waiting forever to get into engagement range with enemy ships in a solar system, and how the "gravity well" will work against you if you aren't prepared to use it).

I had a huge urge to read a good space sci fi novel and was struggling in my random searching of Amazon.  Randomly came across you mentioning this book and read them.  That thoroughly scratched the itch and I enjoyed it a lot.  So thanks for mentioning it.

It also gave me a huge urge to play Eve again, but I managed to wave that off :P.

[Quinton]

So, in the department of good news, The Commonweal #3, Safely You Deliver, is going to land on April 4th.

For those that haven't read the first two books in this series, this is an excellent time to do so (should they sound interesting).  I love these books.  They're so not-traditional-fantasy it hurts in a number of ways.  Reviews I felt were representative of my feelings about these linked below.  Book one feels a bit like a The Black Company book, if it were set in a very different world and society (but still plagued by terrifying powerful sorcerer-empires and the like).  Book two is a "going to sorcery school" book that avoids the common tropes and involves vast works of magical civil engineering.

#1 The March North
"Egalitarian heroic fantasy. Presumptive female agency, battle-sheep, and bad, bad odds."
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/949140615
Purchase: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=MoIOAwAAQBAJ

#2 A Succession of Bad Days
"Egalitarian heroic fantasy.  Experimental magical pedagogy, non-Euclidean ancestry, and some sort of horror from beyond the world."
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1312170804
Purchase: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=tYyxCQAAQBAJ

#3 Safely You Deliver
"Egalitarian heroic fantasy.  Family, social awkwardness, and a unicorn."
Announcement: http://dubiousprospects.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-release-date-isnt-today.html
PreOrder: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=Oju2CwAAQBAJ

The books are available on various other services, but the Google Play Store version is downloadable as DRM-free EPUB (suitable for various readers or conversion to MOBI via Calibre for Kindles, etc) using the vertical "..." menu on the cover image once purchased.

Somewhat spoiler-y even without making spoilers visible, there's a TV Tropes page about the series:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/Commonweal

[Johny Cee]

The March North is mostly Cook, in the same way the early Malazan books are mostly Cook.  Large portions of Black Company combined with borrowing from the Dread Empire books.  Some interesting ideas, pretty good storyline, but it very much feels like a first novel and a self-published novel.  It would have really benefited from a good professional editor. 

The second book has more interesting ideas, and is a really neat premise.  The writing is worse than the first book.  Less unique character voices, many sound alike.  The dialogue for the main character kind of fits the story (kind of dim guy that actually had a magic parasite making him dim, Flowers for Algernon type deal) but many of the other characters start to talk just like him including comma abuse and meandering run-on sentences.

It very much feels like a book where the author met with some success in his first book, then doubled-down on his idiosyncrasies rather than cleaning them up and further developing his craft.  I'd guess a fast release schedule (one a year) combined with hefty page counts are going to exacerbate this.

The series has potential in the same way Lovecraft did some great, imaginative stuff despite some of his writing sometimes being "bad" with the purple prose, descriptions, etc.

[Quinton]

I feel like things improved in a number of ways in the second book.  I do think characters are differentiated more by their viewpoints and content of their speech rather than its style, which one could argue if it's intentional or a limitation, but it doesn't detract from the strengths of the book for me.  I'm also rather fond of the intricate complex-to-unpack, highly parenthetical sentences, maybe because I know people who talk somewhat like that, maybe because it forces me to slow down and pay attention which is not horrible.  It's certainly a polarizing thing.  Some people really don't enjoy the way Graydon puts sentences together and in that case, I can see that seriously limiting the enjoyability of the books.

The second book definitely explores the setting in far more detail and leans a lot less on external style influences (or at least any I'm familiar with), and I found the take on magic in this world and learning magic to be a very enjoyable departure from other gone-to-sorcerer-school type settings.

Admittedly I'm a big fan of these, so somewhat biased here.

[Johny Cee]

I feel like things improved in a number of ways in the second book.  I do think characters are differentiated more by their viewpoints and content of their speech rather than its style, which one could argue if it's intentional or a limitation, but it doesn't detract from the strengths of the book for me.  I'm also rather fond of the intricate complex-to-unpack, highly parenthetical sentences, maybe because I know people who talk somewhat like that, maybe because it forces me to slow down and pay attention which is not horrible.  It's certainly a polarizing thing.  Some people really don't enjoy the way Graydon puts sentences together and in that case, I can see that seriously limiting the enjoyability of the books.

The second book definitely explores the setting in far more detail and leans a lot less on external style influences (or at least any I'm familiar with), and I found the take on magic in this world and learning magic to be a very enjoyable departure from other gone-to-sorcerer-school type settings.

Admittedly I'm a big fan of these, so somewhat biased here.

Dude, I talk like that sometimes.  I had a parenthetical sentence in my last post.  It works for the main character in book two with the Flowers for Algernon conceit, but then a bunch of the other characters start talking in the same manner, and the narrative voice kind of moves in that direction.  It felt more like a bunch of author avatars then different characters.  The first book, the characters did have different voices.

Basically the characters all started sounding like a mildly autistic engineer rather than people of different backgrounds and education levels. 


The idea is really great....  "How would a society in a high magic work and develop" and using magic for things normally taken care of by technology.  The society set up was interesting, with co-ops and local/nation-state governance.  I think it was let down by the dialogue and character development.

[Viin]

Black Fleet trilogy by Joshua Dalzelle

It also gave me a huge urge to play Eve again, but I managed to wave that off :P.

I too had to fend off an urge to play Eve again. Thankfully I remembered the hours of boredom followed by the explosive-but-over-in-an-instant action which the book can summarize in a single sentence.

I believe someone mentioned that Daniel Abraham was one of the co-authors of The Expanse series (which I enjoyed) so I picked up his The Dragon's Path. For whatever reason, I could *not* get into this book. About 1/3rd through I had to stop. There's not a single character I was actually interested in following.

Instead I've started reading yet another space drama: Constitution by Nick Webb. Currently on Warrior (book #2), and it's pretty good. Nothing amazing like The Culture, but probably as good as Dalzelle's books.

[lamaros]

So it seems with Harper Lee passing I missed the news that Eco also died. I guess I will try and finally read the Island of the Day Before to honor him. Or just re-read a favourite.

[Endie]

Black Fleet trilogy by Joshua Dalzelle

It also gave me a huge urge to play Eve again, but I managed to wave that off :P.

I too had to fend off an urge to play Eve again. Thankfully I remembered the hours of boredom followed by the explosive-but-over-in-an-instant action which the book can summarize in a single sentence.

Not to derail but your local, friendly F13 corp, Bat Country, are in Pandemic legion now and we don't do the sitting for hours on a POS thing any more as a rule.  Sometimes enemies coward out but mainly it's all fights all the time.

[Margalis]

So I got a book of short stories from the library called "The Gods of HP Lovecraft." The idea is 12 authors write stories about 12 Lovecraft gods.

The first story, which is all I've read, might be the worst short story I've ever read. It's essentially a long lecture on climate change and the power of femininity. Even if you like those themes, which I will admit don't particularly appeal to me, it's incredibly preachy and repetitive. On nearly every page is a reminder that the central character comes from a long line of powerful distinguished women and that climate change is bad. There is basically no plot, nothing happens, and the Lovecraft tie feels grafted on.

I can see on paper how the premise sounded interesting:


But the execution is a disaster.

[Johny Cee]

So I got a book of short stories from the library called "The Gods of HP Lovecraft." The idea is 12 authors write stories about 12 Lovecraft gods.

The first story, which is all I've read, might be the worst short story I've ever read. It's essentially a long lecture on climate change and the power of femininity. Even if you like those themes, which I will admit don't particularly appeal to me, it's incredibly preachy and repetitive. On nearly every page is a reminder that the central character comes from a long line of powerful distinguished women and that climate change is bad. There is basically no plot, nothing happens, and the Lovecraft tie feels grafted on.

I can see on paper how the premise sounded interesting:


But the execution is a disaster.

Most Lovecraftian stuff is really terrible, with the exceptions of Laird Barron and Caitlin Kiernan.

[HaemishM]

Most Lovecraftian stuff is really terrible, with the exceptions of Laird Barron and Caitlin Kiernan... and that awesome HaemishM.

FTFY 


Don't hate me, couldn't resist.

[satael]

Most Lovecraftian stuff is really terrible, with the exceptions of Laird Barron and Caitlin Kiernan... and that awesome HaemishM.

FTFY 


Don't hate me, couldn't resist.

I actually quite enjoyed Stepping Stone Cycle 1-3 (though my favorite Lovecraftian author is definitely a Finnish author named Boris Hurtta)

[RhyssaFireheart]

Most Lovecraftian stuff is really terrible, with the exceptions of Laird Barron and Caitlin Kiernan... and that awesome HaemishM.

FTFY 


Don't hate me, couldn't resist.

I was actually tempted to post this, but didn't because I wasn't sure for some reason.  I should have known pimping out another user here couldn't be all bad. :D

[WayAbvPar]

Been on a non-fiction kick for a while now.

Meet The Beatles was decent, and had some background stuff I hadn't heard before. 3/5

Crack 99 is about the government's attempt to track down and prosecute a notorious software pirate. Pretty interesting subject, but the writing style is not the best (written by the federal prosecutor). Probably not worth full price, but I got it on a one day special for like $1.99. 3/5

Manhunt is about the search for and killing of Osama bin Laden. I fucking loved it. Tons of detail, lots of quotes from almost everyone involved. Also an HBO doc now. 5/5

Currently reading A Narco History which covers the history of Mexico's interaction with drugs. Lots of political history. Pretty dry so far, but I am barely into the 1990s section. 2.5/5 from what I have read, but hoping that goes up as it covers less politics and more crime.

[NowhereMan]

On the non-Fiction thing, finished 1491 and found it really interesting and well-written pop history. He pretty consistently cites historians and archaeologists and tends to go for decent range of figures, even if he is concentrating on a few main figures (so I feel fairly confident he's not a crank basing all of this on a handful of crackpots). He certainly delves into opposing views and lays out why they are suspect and why people might resist newer ideas (as well as similar cases from the history of the subject)

The basic point is a popular presentation of newer ideas in the history of pre-Columbian Americas, primarily claiming that the Americas were far more populous, urban and generally 'advanced' than common history presents. One of the major reasons for this being that almost all accounts of pre-Columbian civilisation come from European contact and accounts that are themselves from well after the time of Columbus, just because white men never ventured into a part of the Americas before 1533 or whenever doesn't mean that the massive, massive fall out from first contact hadn't already fully hit. Thus our popular picture of native lifestyles and cultures are based on an encounter of effectively post-apocalyptic survivors reduced to a shadow of their former civilisation. Later in the book he makes the interesting point that even things like the Great Plain or the Amazon rainforest being untouched natural preserves are a consequence of this, he argues native cultures generally managed to live in accord with nature but that didn't mean leaving everything alone. The huge abundance of life in North America was down more to the top predator having been effectively removed from the ecosystem by European disease and the general pressure of refugees from the East causing societies to collapse.

Overall it's definitely a very different picture of American civilisation pre-contact than I've ever really seen. It's focused much more heavily on Central and South America and delves into some of the political issues involved in the area of study itself. I think it handles things sensitively and explains some of why there's so much hostility towards archaeologists and historians among native groups, without necessarily endorsing that hostility. If it's a period of time you don't know about or are a little interested in it's a really great read.

[Johny Cee]

On the non-Fiction thing, finished 1491 and found it really interesting and well-written pop history. He pretty consistently cites historians and archaeologists and tends to go for decent range of figures, even if he is concentrating on a few main figures (so I feel fairly confident he's not a crank basing all of this on a handful of crackpots). He certainly delves into opposing views and lays out why they are suspect and why people might resist newer ideas (as well as similar cases from the history of the subject)

The basic point is a popular presentation of newer ideas in the history of pre-Columbian Americas, primarily claiming that the Americas were far more populous, urban and generally 'advanced' than common history presents. One of the major reasons for this being that almost all accounts of pre-Columbian civilisation come from European contact and accounts that are themselves from well after the time of Columbus, just because white men never ventured into a part of the Americas before 1533 or whenever doesn't mean that the massive, massive fall out from first contact hadn't already fully hit. Thus our popular picture of native lifestyles and cultures are based on an encounter of effectively post-apocalyptic survivors reduced to a shadow of their former civilisation. Later in the book he makes the interesting point that even things like the Great Plain or the Amazon rainforest being untouched natural preserves are a consequence of this, he argues native cultures generally managed to live in accord with nature but that didn't mean leaving everything alone. The huge abundance of life in North America was down more to the top predator having been effectively removed from the ecosystem by European disease and the general pressure of refugees from the East causing societies to collapse.

Overall it's definitely a very different picture of American civilisation pre-contact than I've ever really seen. It's focused much more heavily on Central and South America and delves into some of the political issues involved in the area of study itself. I think it handles things sensitively and explains some of why there's so much hostility towards archaeologists and historians among native groups, without necessarily endorsing that hostility. If it's a period of time you don't know about or are a little interested in it's a really great read.

The Lost City of Z (was getting alot of airtime on NPR) is really good and deals with exploration of the Amazon and theories related a previous Amazonian cultures.  North and South America were both far more populated than originally thought, but suffered pretty substantial population decline/collapse due to disease transmission.  Largely this wasn't know since it happened to pre-literate people and no Europeans were around to record it.

I think it's a fable to argue that native cultures were more "in tune with nature", essentially treading too closely to the old Noble Savage stereotype.  Largely the same kinds of slash and burn agriculture were used as native/poor populations use now, so much of animal kills were used because it was far harder to hunt animals with stone age weaponary (so animal products were far more scarce)/no domesticated large mammals, etc.  Prevailing theories for the fall of a couple of Native civilizations pre-European contact, for instance, is actually population collapse due to environmental degradation. 

Political agendas surely factored in to discounting native South American civilizations (especially by South American countries who treated native and mixed populations abominably), but a major problem was the lack of evidence outside of a few primary documents.  The jungle/wilderness reclaimed everything within a generation of population collapse (and the inter-Native wars of conquest that followed a population collapse)...  the next Europeans through a couple decades later would have just encountered what appeared to be virgin jungle/wilderness.  Combine limited primary evidence with the late 19th/early 20th century rise in sensationalist Lost City theories and it took years (and ground scanning radar!) before these theories gained credibility.

Warpaths is a great read on North America (primarily Iroquois). 

[lamaros]

Hmm, I think I still have 1491 on my shelf unread from my Mexico trip. I might have to give it a go.

[HaemishM]

Since some of you guys have asked for updates in the past, I'll turn on my whoring mode again to tell you I've released a new book in the cyberpunk series, The Bridge Chronicles. So far it's only available on Smashwords and Amazon as eBooks but I'll be doing the paperback in the next week as well.

Smashwords
Amazon

Enjoy!

[K9]

I'm finishing up Mary Beard's SPQR right now. It's clear pretty much from the get go that this lady has a deep abiding fascination with the Romans, and it comes through in her writing in a really positive way . Given how complex some of the history gets (trying to explain Augustus' family tree for example) she manages to keep the prose ticking over nicely and never seems to get too bogged down. Combined with her evident passion and knowledge this makes for a great read imo.

[Lucas]

I finished to read all the books of the "Witcher" saga by Andrzej Sapkowski (italian translation). No, it's not the best saga I've ever read (Katharine Kerr's "Deverry" cycle is still my favourite one), but there's a LOT of brilliance to be found in many sequences of the books.

Now, as you might know, the first two books are collections of short stories, centered around Geralt, that also introduce some of the main "players" of the "proper" saga that starts with Book 3 (notably Yennefer and Ciri, but also Dandelion). With those first two volumes, you can perceive that the Author is still trying to find his "feet", so to speak, while keeping the narrative more focused. But I always felt that both those factors remained true for all the books.

Yes, he expands the narrative but, considering that he finished writing it in 1999 (another book should come out in the next few months, but it's another collection of short stories placed between book 2 and 3), I feel he could have done much more with the material he conceived; but of course, on the other hand, you risk to suffer of scope gigantism, something Jordan and Martin know very well :P

Characterization: LOVE IT. Damn, Ciri is fantastic, Bonhart is scary and badass just like Vilgefortz, Yennefer is such a kickass bitch, Triss is adorable and Field Marshal Duda (or "Windbag" in english) is basically the best book character of all time (nah, kidding, but he's great :D ).

Personally, the highlight of the whole saga is the fight at the Gull's Tower; the ending, but the last book as  a whole is....bizzarre, but with some nice narrative devices.
---------------

Finally, if you played the videogames, you can't but try to analyze them together with the books, and after reading the saga I have to praise CD Project even more for what they've created. Atmosphere, dialogues, plot (with some weak points here and there, yes) are so faithful to the books that I'm now having a lot more fun playing the third chapter knowing what happened before (for that matter, I can't wait to get to Toussaint :D)

[Viin]

I've been reading Haemish's new book, Reclamation. Not finished yet, but nice work Haemish. Your writing style has markedly improved since the first book (not that it was bad).

[HaemishM]

Danke. Glad you're digging it.

[NowhereMan]

Started reading Cousteau's Silent World. Obviously it's in translation but the flowery French prose comes through and it's really interesting. If you've ever gone SCUBA diving it's fascinating reading about some of the pioneering stuff and seeing some of the stuff that continues to today. It's also fascinating hearing him talk about things like the bends which they understood even less than today, some of their approaches to dealing with it are kind of 

[lamaros]

Can anyone recommend some good imaginative SF or Fantasy from recent years I might have missed? I can't find anything that grabs my attention.

[Viin]

Can anyone recommend some good imaginative SF or Fantasy from recent years I might have missed? I can't find anything that grabs my attention.

Have you read the Red Rising trilogy? Or all of Hugh Howey's stuff?

[lamaros]

Can anyone recommend some good imaginative SF or Fantasy from recent years I might have missed? I can't find anything that grabs my attention.

Have you read the Red Rising trilogy? Or all of Hugh Howey's stuff?

No to Red Rising (thanks, will check it out), yes to Hugh (who seems like a top chap, but not my cup of tea - a little ungrounded in the world building).

[WayAbvPar]

Finally finished the Mistborn trilogy. I enjoyed the hell out of it- thanks to all of you who recommended it. I seem to remember a lot of people disliking the third book...I think it was my favorite. I really liked the reveal of how everything fit together (even though the deus ex machina was overwhelming).

[RhyssaFireheart]

Finally finished the Mistborn trilogy. I enjoyed the hell out of it- thanks to all of you who recommended it. I seem to remember a lot of people disliking the third book...I think it was my favorite. I really liked the reveal of how everything fit together (even though the deus ex machina was overwhelming).

But the deus ex machina was kind of the whole point, in a way, especially once it's tied into the rest of his Cosmere books.  Not that it's necessary to know anything about them to enjoy the Mistborn series, but it's cool nonetheless.  Sanderson does do a great job of tying everything together.

I still need to pick up the next two books in the Wax and Wayne set - I just tend to balk at paying more than $10 for ebooks.  There's no fucking reason for that that I can understand.

[NowhereMan]

Finally finished the Mistborn trilogy. I enjoyed the hell out of it- thanks to all of you who recommended it. I seem to remember a lot of people disliking the third book...I think it was my favorite. I really liked the reveal of how everything fit together (even though the deus ex machina was overwhelming).

You'll be pleased to know that the (unplanned) 1.5 trilogy is underway. It's Wild West era setting for the Mistborn world and pretty fun, started as a novella Sanderson wrote because he was on a long plane ride and bored and he enjoyed it enough it turned into a whole new novel, which he enjoyed writing so much it's now become another trilogy in between the planned first (traditional fantasy era) and second (urban fantasy era) ones. Third one (Fantasy turned into Sci-Fi) will be coming out God knows when based on his expanding writing schedule.

I think the third trilogy is also vaguely envisaged to be a bit more Cosmere related (technically almost all of Sanderson's different series happen in the same universe, some stuff has been set up to hint at this and he envisages the end game of a few of the series involving tie ins with other ones).

Edit: damnit beaten

Also there's a new Laundry Files novel out (I was unaware of this until recently) and apparently Scott Bakker's finally going to finish the Aspect Emperor Trilogy for those who like philosophical writing and poorly handled call outs of the misogyny inherent in the fantasy genre.

[Chimpy]

Can anyone recommend some good imaginative SF or Fantasy from recent years I might have missed? I can't find anything that grabs my attention.

Have you read the Red Rising trilogy? Or all of Hugh Howey's stuff?

No to Red Rising (thanks, will check it out), yes to Hugh (who seems like a top chap, but not my cup of tea - a little ungrounded in the world building).

I have read a handful of L.E Modessit's sci-fi books recently and they have been pretty decent. Solar Express is his newest one which I just finished and I liked it. It is a break from his "formula" he uses on pretty much all of his fantasy stuff, which is refreshing.

[Khaldun]

I sort of lost patience with the Bakker stuff much as I appreciated some parts of it.

[shiznitz]

Can anyone recommend some good imaginative SF or Fantasy from recent years I might have missed? I can't find anything that grabs my attention.

Django Wexler series? Fantasy + muskets, great protagonist (female disguised herself as male to join the army). Book 1 is The Thousand Names. Book four, the finale, is due soon.

[Samwise]

I'm about halfway through "Seveneves" (Stephenson's latest) and loving it.  The book starts with the moon exploding.  Very strong echoes of "The Martian" as well as any number of disaster/survival sci-fi stories, with Stephenson's usual bent toward pop-sci porn and dynastic lines of quirky geniuses.

[Chimpy]

It also ends with his bent for ending things in a hurry 

[Samwise]

Aw, that's a little disappointing.  I feel like he's been getting progressively better at writing endings.