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Topic: Return of the Book Thread (Read 1296409 times)
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Draegan
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10043
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So I just finished the Lightbringer series ( http://www.brentweeks.com/series/the-lightbringer-series/) and it's decent at best. It had good characters, decent writing, but the total plot of the story was pretty weak as well as the conclusion to it. The magic system and lore of the world was really ripe for a great grand-arc story but I think it was squandered unfortunately. It felt empty at the end. I read the first...2, maybe 3 books of this series and was kind of enjoying it. His Night's Angel series was really good, so I'll probably at least finish this one. Shame it doesn't hold up; I really liked the magic system. I mean if you liked the first few, you'll like the last few. The ending seemed rushed. Probably could have had another book in there. The transition to the last element of the story was pretty abrupt. Also, you were beginning to learn a bit more about the history and prophecy and answer interesting questions and then all of the sudden it was like you missed a whole book of exposition on stuff. If you finish it, ping me somewhere and we can compare notes. From some of the author's notes, this was supposed to be a trilogy that got stretch out into a 5 book series. I'm willing to bet, he could have made it an 8 book series but he didn't because he didn't want to Robert Jordan it. The whole setting and character are ripe for some kind of Black Company like treatment.
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Cyrrex
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Posts: 10603
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Roughly 30 years after the rest of you have read it, I finally started Black Company. I cannot yet put my finger on what it is, but it is written in a way that I have to adjust something in my brain to sorta....line up with it? Does that make sense? I mean, not as extreme as reading Dostoevsky, but some kind of adjustment to better absorb the language. Strange. He has a certain way of writing.
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"...maybe if you cleaned the piss out of the sunny d bottles under your desks and returned em, you could upgrade you vid cards, fucken lusers.." - Grunk
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Teleku
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10510
https://i.imgur.com/mcj5kz7.png
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Roughly 30 years after the rest of you have read it, I finally started Black Company. I cannot yet put my finger on what it is, but it is written in a way that I have to adjust something in my brain to sorta....line up with it? Does that make sense? I mean, not as extreme as reading Dostoevsky, but some kind of adjustment to better absorb the language. Strange. He has a certain way of writing.
Yeah, it's written in a very different manner than usual. Took me a bit to adjust to it also.
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"My great-grandfather did not travel across four thousand miles of the Atlantic Ocean to see this nation overrun by immigrants. He did it because he killed a man back in Ireland. That's the rumor." -Stephen Colbert
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Khaldun
Terracotta Army
Posts: 15158
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This will seem weird, but for some reason the first time I read it, The Black Company reminded me of Treasure Island both in the language and in the way that takes you into the mindset of pirates and makes that the main perspectival frame of most of the book, despite Jim being a good boy and all that. But it's also that the book has a kind of interesting archaism to it--it feels slightly musty in a good way.
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Reg
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Posts: 5271
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For me it was the first fantasy book I'd read about being completely loyal to your friends and not worrying much about Good and Evil.
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Sky
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Posts: 32117
I love my TV an' hug my TV an' call it 'George'.
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Cook lost his writing style after he went to writing full-time. Those first books were so magical because he wrote it while working in a factory. He'd think about what to write while working on his task, then while waiting for the next part to come down the line, would write it down.
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lamaros
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8021
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They're like a transcribed spoken history. Sort of like a memory and a dream. The first few books are great. I never finished the series though.
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Draegan
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10043
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I read a bunch and have a general memory of them. No idea where I stopped.
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Fraeg
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1015
Mad skills with the rod.
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Reading Joel Shephard's sci-fi series Spiral Wars. He isn't breaking any new ground but for a Humans meet the rest of the universe tale it is pretty gosh darn good Just finished book six and am a little concerned that it sounds like he is stretching it out to a 10 part series.
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"There is dignity and deep satisfaction in facing life and death without the comfort of heaven or the fear of hell and in sailing toward the great abyss with a smile."
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Mosesandstick
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Posts: 2474
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Figured that after a decade on f13 I needed to read the Chronicles of the Black Company. Definitely enjoyable, but I've not got any desire to read any more of the books.
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lamaros
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Posts: 8021
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I'm re-reading Cook's Garret P.I. series for the third time.
It's a perfect pre-sleep read for me. Enough going on to not get bored, but not too engrossing or at all challenging.
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Khaldun
Terracotta Army
Posts: 15158
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Priory of the Orange Tree is a fairly good read but pretty bog-standard. Long and doesn't really earn it. Lots of the usual tropes but the characters kind of grabbed me well enough. I wouldn't rush to it.
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Fraeg
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1015
Mad skills with the rod.
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Priory of the Orange Tree is a fairly good read but pretty bog-standard. Long and doesn't really earn it. Lots of the usual tropes but the characters kind of grabbed me well enough. I wouldn't rush to it.
started it got maybe 50 pages in and it never really grabbed me. The beauty of libraries. I just started Seven Blades in Black by Sam Sykes. 73 pages in and while I like the storyline so far his writing style is a huge turn off. Given that I bought it as a spontaneous birthday gift to myself while on vacation I will grind on through it. Or Catass to a victory of the final page as some of us might have once said so many years ago
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"There is dignity and deep satisfaction in facing life and death without the comfort of heaven or the fear of hell and in sailing toward the great abyss with a smile."
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Khaldun
Terracotta Army
Posts: 15158
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Yeah. I have it on my shelf waiting. For anyone who didn't do Black Leopard, Red Wolf, that's fucking worth it. It's kind of like Ngugi wa'Thiongo, Robert E. Howard, George R.R. Martin and N.K. Jemisin had a baby.
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Salamok
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2803
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Figured that after a decade on f13 I needed to read the Chronicles of the Black Company. Definitely enjoyable, but I've not got any desire to read any more of the books.
A graphic novel without the graphics, you gain appreciation for it more as he switches points of view though and you wont get that unless you read multiple books.
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Mosesandstick
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2474
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I think Chronicles is the first 3 books? I enjoyed it, and I think the writing improved a lot between the first and second books. For me it was just a bit confusing and sometimes felt like a series of events instead of a cohesive narrative.
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Teleku
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Posts: 10510
https://i.imgur.com/mcj5kz7.png
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The first three books are the most disjointed and also the weirdest. After the first three books, it basically then sets out on one long epic story/narrative for the next 6 books. I'd say start reading the next one after (shadow games?) and if that one doesn't grab you, then you can probably skip the rest.
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"My great-grandfather did not travel across four thousand miles of the Atlantic Ocean to see this nation overrun by immigrants. He did it because he killed a man back in Ireland. That's the rumor." -Stephen Colbert
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Mosesandstick
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2474
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This means I now need to get another Black Company book because of f13? Just kidding, I'll pick it up some time and post my thoughts when I'm done. Thanks folks.
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NowhereMan
Terracotta Army
Posts: 7353
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When you're done with that go out and try a honeycrisp
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"Look at my car. Do you think that was bought with the earnest love of geeks?" - HaemishM
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Cyrrex
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10603
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When you're done with that go out and try a honeycrisp But only if you have a Diet Dr. Pepper to wash it down.
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"...maybe if you cleaned the piss out of the sunny d bottles under your desks and returned em, you could upgrade you vid cards, fucken lusers.." - Grunk
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HaemishM
Staff Emeritus
Posts: 42629
the Confederate flag underneath the stone in my class ring
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For those of you not in Discord who might have been interested in some of my books, specifically the Cthulhu series, after a talk with Dave I decided to take that series into the KDP Select program. Mostly that means I only sell that series on Amazon for at least the next 90 days, but it also means those of you who pay for Kindle Unlimited can now read it as part of your sub. Enjoy The Stepping Stone Cycle
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Reg
Terracotta Army
Posts: 5271
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I just finished the latest two books of the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. There's two because the book just got too long so it had to be split.
There's so much happening in these. By the end the Dresden universe has changed irrevocably. I won't say anymore for fear of spoiling things but if you're a Dresden fan you want to read these books right away.
They're called Peace Talks and Battleground.
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NowhereMan
Terracotta Army
Posts: 7353
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Oh shit he released two? I went straight into Battleground (just finished it ) and it had been so long since reading the last one I just assumed that I'd not quite remembered all the details. Weirdly apart from the main bad guys in the latter it didn't feel that out of step with what I remembered from the rest of the series but it definitely felt really weird that it rushed straight into an epic finale the whole of his latest book being a single battle. I don't know if I can be bothered to go back and buy a full price book that I didn't particularly need, might put it on my wish list and wait for a kindle deal on this.
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"Look at my car. Do you think that was bought with the earnest love of geeks?" - HaemishM
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Reg
Terracotta Army
Posts: 5271
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I had no idea he'd released any new books at all until last weekend. I just came across a book review of Peace Talks on google and found out about them then. You want to read Peace Talks for sure though at some point. It's got a lot of background information that's important in Battleground a future books in the series.
For anyone else who hasn't started these yet. Try to read the last two or three short stories Butcher wrote if you can. They explain one of the main characters in the new books that you might not know about unless you've read them.
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Fraeg
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1015
Mad skills with the rod.
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I read both of them and I think I reached peak Dresden a few books ago. I mean I enjoyed them and all, but at this point I think I am just seeing it through to the end of the series. I look forward to him getting back to his other series. Reading Bob Woodward's Rage and it is good just as Fear was, but I really wish it was a speculative fiction book
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"There is dignity and deep satisfaction in facing life and death without the comfort of heaven or the fear of hell and in sailing toward the great abyss with a smile."
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WayAbvPar
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I finished the latest Dresdens a few weeks ago. The 2nd book was exhausting- (mild spoiler) I enjoyed the series more before it started ramping up to apocalyptic levels. That is probably why I liked Skin Game so much- it was a couple of days long, and focused on specific, discrete, contained events rather than worldwide stuff.
I will definitely read them all, but I am getting the feeling there is no way to finish them that will leave me feeling satisfied.
Still my fav series though. Harry (and Butcher) are flawed, but they are a lot of fun.
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When speaking of the MMOG industry, the glass may be half full, but it's full of urine. HaemishM
Always wear clean underwear because you never know when a Tory Government is going to fuck you.- Ironwood
Libertarians make fun of everyone because they can't see beyond the event horizons of their own assholes Surlyboi
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Khaldun
Terracotta Army
Posts: 15158
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Trying Deborah Harkness, A Discovery of Witches.
Struggling to get started on it. There's just something so off about the way she describes academia and the inner voice of her protagonist really annoys me.
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Khaldun
Terracotta Army
Posts: 15158
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Ok, never mind, I checked with my fantasy-loving, feminist friends and they also really do not like the book, so I'm out. Very Twilight.
Seven Blades in Black up next.
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Johny Cee
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Posts: 3454
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I'm really late, but there are 3 days left in a Glen Cook charity bundle. $29 gets you most of his stand-alones, Dread Empire, and less popular series for e-readers. https://bundleofholding.com/presents/GlenCook- Dragon Never Sleeps is great. Space Opera. - Passage at Arms is Das Boot in SPAAACCEEEE! Also, really good. - Dread Empire is really good (and the direct basis for Malazan amongst other things... at least one "big" Erickson character is directly ripped off from these books). First trilogy is fantastic, later stuff veers hard from heroic fantasy and is almost depressing. - Tower of Fear is great, but also depressing.... It's medieval/classical Middle Eastern quagmire, complete with the rebel faction being half organized crime/half doomsday cult and the occupiers being casually terrible. Oh, and everyone dies. - Swordbearer is good. Classic cursed sword, but other stuff is going on in the background. Black Company and Garrett not included. Edit: I did like Darkwar (depressing, everybody dies) and Starfishers (depressing, not everybody dies, but the known galaxy is going to be stuck fighting a generational war that the viewpoint character recognizes willl stunt society). The only two books I don't care for are Sung in Blood (is a historic pulp/Doc Savage mashup that is kind of mehh) and Matter of Time (SF/time travel).
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« Last Edit: February 04, 2021, 01:21:03 PM by Johny Cee »
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BobtheSomething
Terracotta Army
Posts: 452
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I’m going to have to look for some of those in paperback.
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Phildo
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I have a soft spot for Darkwar and Starfisher as well.
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Johny Cee
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3454
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I’m going to have to look for some of those in paperback.
They were all reprinted by Nightshade Books... which I guess went bankrupt but is now an imprint somewhere else. The Nightshade prints are pretty awesome, but then most of the Nightshade stuff is pretty solid. I just googled it and was paging through the books published and the covers (and books reprinted) are great! https://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/night-shade-books/I kind of want to order that William Hope Hodgson "Dream of X" but I fucking know how fucking painful the original Night Land shit is to read even if its one of biggest modern influences for everything horror adjacent. There are (rewritten? re-edited) versions kicking around. Original paperbacks were pretty expensive 15 years ago, but they seem dirt cheap now. Before all his stuff got reprinted a couple books were worth $100-200 range.
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MahrinSkel
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Posts: 10857
When she crossed over, she was just a ship. But when she came back... she was bullshit!
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The Star Kingdom series from Lindsay Buroker (on Amazon Unlimited) is pretty good. Space opera, protagonist is a less hyper Miles Vorkosigan type. Mostly unspoken background is that AI on Earth went transcendent and kicked us out, but built a network of gates and a fleet of colony ships to give us a dozen systems to paddle about in, while erasing all records of where Earth is. That was a long time ago, and our protagonist is navigating the baroque politics of a pretty decadent culture.
--Dave
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--Signature Unclear
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Khaldun
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Posts: 15158
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Really enjoying Seven Blades in Black.
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lamaros
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8021
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I started reading the Dresden books. Read about 5 and will probably read a few more, but something is a bit off. Just a bit too... try hard?
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