Book Recommendations

[Faceless]

I got mail today! I excitedly opened the packaged. It was heavy. It was the dimensions and weight of a sizable hardback book, I knew what this was. Much excitement. I have a couple people eagerly awaiting my receiving The Blade Itself so that I can start the series. They're so enthusiastic about this that they've offered to read it again at the same time, so that we can discuss it as I go.

I open the package. I drop the spine of the book into the palm of my hand, with glee. Oh, no. Book two; which had the delivery date of roughly a week and a half later than book one.

Well, at least it looks nice on the shelf.

Tom Clancy's Clear and Present Danger is still a fun read, I guess.

[Arkandel]

@faceless For some reason I didn't enjoy that series as much as I did. I love most of his work though - The Heroes and Red Country, damn.

[WildBaboons]

@arkandel Yes. His standalone novels are just fantastic

[Faceless]

@arkandel said in Book Recommendations:

@faceless For some reason I didn't enjoy that series as much as I did. I love most of his work though - The Heroes and Red Country, damn.

The Heroes is definitely on my list, though I'll be reading the series first. I've been told I have to read The Heroes because a character from the series has a larger(or main?) part in it and reminds them of one of my own, so I want to see what the hell they're talking about.

[Arkandel]

@faceless The Heroes is a fucking brutal book. It's amazing, and without mercy.

[Aria]

@Faceless -- I just started "The Blade Itself" a few days ago, though it's currently on pause. Since the boyfriend owns that one, I tend to put down books I own when my limited-availability ebooks pop up from my waitlist at the local library. (And my copy of "White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America" just popped up.)

I should be back to it in a few weeks, if you want to go through it together!

[Faceless]

@aria said in Book Recommendations:

I should be back to it in a few weeks, if you want to go through it together!

I'll be down for that. I'll be starting it once I get it. Which is projected as no later than the 21st, apparently.

[Aria]

@faceless Yay!! Book buddies. Now which one of us is bringing the food and which one is bringing the booze?

[Faceless]

@aria said in Book Recommendations:

@faceless Yay!! Book buddies. Now which one of us is bringing the food and which one is bringing the booze?

I'll bring the bourbon. All I have is some chicken with cheese, rice, and brocolli.

[WildBaboons]

I'm almost done Oathbringer and that makes me sad. It will be 3 years until the next Stormlight book is out

And I still bet the next one will be out before Rothfuss' book.

[Arkandel]

@wildbaboons

1. I finished it a few days ago, and it was great. I thought it was a little more oriented toward younger-readers during the first half of it, and thought perhaps Sanderson's other work has been influencing this one, but the final one third was pretty hardcore at times.

2. The guy is a machine. For all we know he has the next one half-written by now.

3. What's Doors of Stone?

[WildBaboons]

@arkandel He is a machine.. and awesomely transparent about his progress and works to come. So I checked..

https://brandonsanderson.com/state-of-the-sanderson-2017/#schedule

Sometime 2020

[Misadventure]

Now if we could get him to work on his RPG.

[Derp]

Why is Peace Talks not out yet? Sheesh.

[Packrat]

I just finished Iron Gold, the new Red Rising book by Pierce Brown.

Conclusion? It is pretty great, I would say better than Morning Star though I am unsure if it is better than Golden Son. It has multiple viewpoint characters and so rather than getting a Darrow-centric view of the setting you get a nice slice through different parts of it, also the glorious revolution to overthrow the wicked dictatorship and break the chains?

Well it broke a lot of other things and mostly succeeded through co opting the existing members of the ruling class, then only won in some places before settling into an endless, grueling war, leading to more compromises for the war effort. It is wonderful especially seen through the eyes of characters who are this time actually adults.

Also the fucked up solar system resulting would be a pretty great RPG or MUSH setting. Kind of a gritty space opera cyberpunk almost with everything from space-mafia vikings on hoverbikes with cybernetic eyes to Space Knights fighting aerial duels with cool sword/whip things. Also refugee camps, half smashed cities on a terraformed luna, etc.

[Sunny]

@packrat Not gonna lie, that sounds pretty incredible.

[fortydeuce]

@Olsson got to Locke Lamora before i did. I'll also add R.A. MacAvoy's Lens of the World series. Also an interesting take on low(ish) fantasy, some neat gender representations, and a first-person narrator that doesn't drag or get boring at any time. Nazhuret (main character) is rootable but flawed. The only reason I found the series as a kid was because it was on the discard bookshelf at my library; I feel like nobody but me has ever read it. Start with the eponymous first book.

I'll never be able to write like Patricia McKillip, but Winter Rose is a fantastic and haunting take on Tam Lin. Her writing is lyrical and spare and breathtaking in that book, and it's probably the best standalone fantasy novel I've ever read.

[Arkandel]

@packrat said in Book Recommendations:

Also the fucked up solar system resulting would be a pretty great RPG or MUSH setting. Kind of a gritty space opera cyberpunk almost with everything from space-mafia vikings on hoverbikes with cybernetic eyes to Space Knights fighting aerial duels with cool sword/whip things. Also refugee camps, half smashed cities on a terraformed luna, etc.

The issue with games like this translating to a MU* is we'd never be able to get enough people to play the villains in the first place - which is an absolutely critical part of the setting.

Even if those were NPCed instead, that the concept of outsmarting your enemies is a major trope in the series as well, and it's one that traditionally doesn't get done well on MU* politics.

Having said all that, I'd still play the hell out of it if someone did it

[Coin]

My aim for this end of the month is finishing A Conjuring of Light by V.E. Schwab, and then I'm picking up the latest Riordan books I haven't gotten to yet.

[ixokai]

@ixokai said in Book Recommendations:

@Arkandel @saosmash

I second NK Jemisin is great. I can't reccommend The Inheritance Trilogy, starting with The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, enough.

All of her stories have very intense and interesting and different worlds. They are very atypical fantasy that don't delve into easy tropes, she has great characters, and while there is a lot of world-building, it doesn't bog down the pacing a lot, imho.

Right, so!

Another trilogy by Jemisin is the Broken Earth trilogy, whose first book is The Fifth Season. The last book was recently released and I just finished re-reading the series before reading the last, and wow, its great. As usual she has very interesting, diverse, deep characters and an interesting world. It's got a lot of strong, deep women, notably. Plus a gay guy and a transgendered woman, and lots of people of color -- without it actually being about race or sexuality at all. Its just there, a part of the world, no one blinks.

Now, to be forewarned, the perspective these books are written in is a little odd -- it switches in chapters between second and third person, but always in a way that sounds narrated, which takes some getting used to, but its for a really good reason. But I know some people are very sensitive to POV.