overgeeked
B/X Known World
What made you feel manipulated?
What are you reading in 2023?
- Thread starter Ralif Redhammer
- Start date
dragoner
KosmicRPG.com
For space opera I really like Leigh Brackett Leigh Brackett - Wikipedia
Eyes of Nine
Everything's Fine
Just the formula for the chapters - it creates a "false" sense of suspense. Or maybe more accurately enhances the suspense (because fictionally there is also suspense) using a formal technique as opposed to a narrative technique
Citizen Mane
The bitters are excellent for your liver.
Finally finished this one. I found it frustrating and thought-provoking, ambitious but ultimately unsuccessful. The narratives about Frank, May, and the titular Ministry worked better for me than the vignettes did -- the latter often felt superficial and sometimes unpleasantly polemical. I often had the feeling of being lectured, which was a bit grating, especially as I generally agree with the arguments that were presented. Oh well.
Vlad Taltos books by Brust?
Citizen Mane
The bitters are excellent for your liver.
Trying something a bit different: The Hope That Kills by Ed James, the first of the DI Fenchurch series. I'm about ten percent in so far, and it's pretty paint-by-numbers right now, but I expect I won't really know if it's any good until it's over. There's a lot of time for it to get weird or interesting.
EDIT: I'm somewhat hopeful after reading this from Warren Ellis (THE HOPE THAT KILLS, Ed James) --
EDIT: I'm somewhat hopeful after reading this from Warren Ellis (THE HOPE THAT KILLS, Ed James) --
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Ralif Redhammer
Legend
I finished REH's Conan of Cimmeria. A mixed bag, with some high points, but also some very problematic stories.
Now I'm reading Larry Niven's The Magic Goes Away.
Now I'm reading Larry Niven's The Magic Goes Away.
Citizen Mane
The bitters are excellent for your liver.
It was fine, a page-turner, good on the procedural end of things. I don't regret reading it, but I don't know that I'll be back for the next eight books — this was published in 2020, so that's, uh, quite the pace. Also, the summaries for the next five books start like this (from his website):
- "On a busy London street, a young woman is attacked in broad daylight and left bleeding to death on the pavement."
- "When the body of a young City lawyer is discovered on an East London building site, assaulted and brutally murdered, initial enquiries lead DI Simon Fenchurch to a driver employed by Travis, a controversial new app-based cab company. Within days another woman is found murdered, Fenchurch finds that she’s another Travis driver."
- "A university student is found strangled to death in her bedroom..."
- "The body of a young woman is found in a London hotel room, the victim of a suspected poisoning."
- "When a young woman is killed, squashed between a London bus and a white van..."
overgeeked
B/X Known World
Finished the book tonight.
I still can't tell if I like Patterson's style or not, but I think I've figured out why it's off for me. It's like he wrote this as a screenplay for a TV mini series, then reformatted it for prose with some minor tweaks like adding quotation marks and dialogue tags. Each screenplay scene is turned into one chapter. And the chapters are absurdly short. I read this as an ebook with 349 pages. There were 130 chapters. That's one chapter per 2.68 pages. Tiny. Tiny chapters. His description is about as sparse as a screenplay throughout the novel. There's no transitions to speak of. Not really any deep inner monologue scenes or much in the way of rumination. The story was definitely laden with twists and turns. Every chapter ended with a twist or revelation of some kind. I can see why it's a page-turner and why a lot of people like it. I'm just not sure I like it.
Sacrosanct
Legend
My Appendix N continues with Roger Zalazny
That, and reading Furies of Calderon
That, and reading Furies of Calderon
Parmandur
Book-Friend
So, this year I got into a reread (through audiobook) of the Wheel of Time series, and hot darn do those books just get better the more Inexperience then, warts and all. Magnificent, ambitious, and now that I know where they are going, even the slog in the middle is interesting. Just finished Winter's Heart today, which ends with a nice bang. They really hold up as prise when read aloud, which I had not cottoned to just reading them.
I also read (on paper) Perenisi by Susana Clarke in March, and @Whizbang Dustyboots is right, that is a stellar piece of work. I preferred Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, but I really appreciated how concise and original this was l, leaving me wanting more. Clarke may be one of the greatest living English writers.
I finally caved to my wife's demands to start the stormlight Archives a couple months ago, despite it not being finished, and I'm now all caught up. So now I'm all in, and even despite Brandon Sanderson's absurd work ethic and productivity, I guess that I'm stuck thinking about this through about 2040. These books are a pretty great read, particularly when it becomes clear what he is doing with the structures of each.
I also read (on paper) Perenisi by Susana Clarke in March, and @Whizbang Dustyboots is right, that is a stellar piece of work. I preferred Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, but I really appreciated how concise and original this was l, leaving me wanting more. Clarke may be one of the greatest living English writers.
I finally caved to my wife's demands to start the stormlight Archives a couple months ago, despite it not being finished, and I'm now all caught up. So now I'm all in, and even despite Brandon Sanderson's absurd work ethic and productivity, I guess that I'm stuck thinking about this through about 2040. These books are a pretty great read, particularly when it becomes clear what he is doing with the structures of each.
I own two stormlight books.... Still looking at them from the outside only.
I did take the Jack Reacher book out of my little library, and will start it tomorrow
Parmandur
Book-Friend
The Stormlight books are solid reads, kind of intense because they are page turners and also really long.
The first book, Way of King's is, essentially, The Mighty Ducks or Remember the Titans, but with Warhammer style power armor.
Eyes of Nine
Everything's Fine
I might have to go back and read the Calderon books, I enjoyed them.
Ralif Redhammer
Legend
I finished reading Larry Niven's The Magic Goes Away. It's got a lot of modern parallels, with its theme of dwindling resources. The interior art by Esteban Maroto is mostly cool, though the one female character, described as wearing robes and leathers, is depicted in typical chainmail bikini in the art.
Now I'm reading James Branch Cabell's Figures of Earth. Never read any of Cabell, but he comes highly praised, if somewhat forgotten.
Now I'm reading James Branch Cabell's Figures of Earth. Never read any of Cabell, but he comes highly praised, if somewhat forgotten.
Alzrius
The EN World kitten
Given that Esteban Maroto was the one who made that outfit famous by putting Red Sonja in it (two years prior to when Niven's original short story was published), I'd say it's more archetypal than typical, but YMMV.
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