Working musical is good but really the book is where it's at.
― Daniel_Rf, Tuesday, 5 September 2017 10:23 (six years ago) link
no sci-fi for calvin trillin:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/20/books/review/calvin-trillin-by-the-book.html?_r=0
― scott seward, Tuesday, 5 September 2017 13:19 (six years ago) link
So James Atlas has a new book about being a biographer. Does this mean his excellent Delmore Schwartz bio will come back into print?
― When I Get To The Borad (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 6 September 2017 02:27 (six years ago) link
Ha, sorry, wrong ILB thread, was momentarily fooled by Calvin Trillin.
― When I Get To The Borad (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 6 September 2017 02:28 (six years ago) link
For some reason I need to tell someone this, and there is nowhere else appropriate: I have just (finally) remembered that my years-long-lost copy of Memoirs Found in a Bathtub, the pursuit of which has seen many a basement box ransacked and bookcase peeked behind, was in fact a library book, which I returned promptly and without fine after reading.
― Dan I., Monday, 11 September 2017 21:48 (six years ago) link
starting in on Lavar Tidhe's "Central Station" and Clifford Simak's "City":
― Οὖτις, Monday, 11 September 2017 22:22 (six years ago) link
second-tier Lem imo
xp
― Οὖτις, Monday, 11 September 2017 22:23 (six years ago) link
hi nerds :) i just finished Name of The Wind, and started Wise Man's Fear today. I forgot that he's still working on Bk 3 though so i might try for a more leisurely pace with this one
I really love the writing but Kvothe as a character is v frustrating though. Like for someone that smart he is a goddamn meathead. Also I did get kind of tired of "hey let me tell you how great I am at this thing" but it's still a really engaging story all the same.
Also I dont even know the full deal w Deanna yet but omg srsly this is like Raymond Chandler 101 and he is a lummox
― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 12 September 2017 05:34 (six years ago) link
I got halfway through the first book and got a bit tired of the main character, then put it away. It gets a bit "Mansplaining: The Fantasy Role Playing Game."
If the third book gets good reviews, I'll try again though. The writing is good - it reminds me of the trashy mainstream fantasy I read as a teenager, except with sentences that adult me wouldn't cluck at.
On recommendation, I just read the kids' book Holes, which has some magical realism whatnot. It's so good.
― Chuck_Tatum, Tuesday, 12 September 2017 12:47 (six years ago) link
Those books are so weirdly overrated and the main character is one of the most irritating creations in the genre's history. The endless "Kovthe is really really good at sex" section in the second book is completely laughable
and yet I probably will still read the third one lol
― Number None, Tuesday, 12 September 2017 13:00 (six years ago) link
I liked NotW well enough but it did not put enough... er, wind at my back to drive me into the second book. Robin Hobb is still champ of currently active doorstop fantasy writers IMO. VG I think you would like her.
― harbinger of failure (Jon not Jon), Tuesday, 12 September 2017 14:15 (six years ago) link
*googles* whoa she has like 9000 books! where should i start?
― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 12 September 2017 16:50 (six years ago) link
Farseer trilogy seems to be her classic. Starts with Assassin's Apprentice.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Tuesday, 12 September 2017 16:54 (six years ago) link
thx!
― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 12 September 2017 17:00 (six years ago) link
Yes and it feeds into subsequent trilogies. The first three areFarseer trilogy (the ones with assassin in the title)Liveship trilogy (the ones with ship in the title)Fool trilogy (the ones with fool in the title)
And it goes on from there. Iirc the only books she's written that don't fit into that world are the soldier son trilogy (which djp is always quick to tell us are super gross).
She just published the final book in this setting this year. I'm quite a ways back from that, in the fool trilogy.
― harbinger of failure (Jon not Jon), Tuesday, 12 September 2017 17:12 (six years ago) link
Farseer/Liveship/Tawny Man series are all great. Stay far far far FAR away from the Soldier Son trilogy, which actively angered me to the point where I have refused to pick up any of her other books.
xp: lol hi dere, I am predictable
― this iphone speaks many languages (DJP), Tuesday, 12 September 2017 17:16 (six years ago) link
You're Dan Perry?
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Tuesday, 12 September 2017 17:19 (six years ago) link
seriously though, I don't know what she was thinking re: Soldier Son aside from "how can I come up with a unique magic system" without completing the thought with "that people will want to read about without hurling"
xp: last time I checked
― this iphone speaks many languages (DJP), Tuesday, 12 September 2017 17:20 (six years ago) link
Why was it that bad, I thought it was just gross in a gross-out way?
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Tuesday, 12 September 2017 17:21 (six years ago) link
I haven't read it.
Maybe it wasn't as terrible for anyone else, but for me the whole concept of stuffing yourself with food past the point of fullness causes me psychosomatic pain.
― this iphone speaks many languages (DJP), Tuesday, 12 September 2017 17:25 (six years ago) link
Sounds kind of funny, is it used for comedy?
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Tuesday, 12 September 2017 17:30 (six years ago) link
Not in the slightest.
― this iphone speaks many languages (DJP), Tuesday, 12 September 2017 17:31 (six years ago) link
my bad, it's called the tawny man trilogy not the fool trilogy, thx djp
― harbinger of failure (Jon not Jon), Tuesday, 12 September 2017 18:12 (six years ago) link
I've never read a John Wyndham book and kinda want to. Should I? What's a good one?
― Chuck_Tatum, Tuesday, 12 September 2017 18:59 (six years ago) link
The Day of the Triffids is his most famous work for a reason
― Number None, Tuesday, 12 September 2017 19:21 (six years ago) link
Chocky isn't bad
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 12 September 2017 19:21 (six years ago) link
They're all good imo but yeah I would with Triffids. Kraken Wakes is more of the same, Chocky is classic YA.
― angelo irishagreementi (ledge), Tuesday, 12 September 2017 19:25 (six years ago) link
Seen some really passionate for The Chrysalids.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Tuesday, 12 September 2017 19:38 (six years ago) link
What about Robin Hobb's books under the name Megan Lindholm? Her real name is Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Tuesday, 12 September 2017 19:40 (six years ago) link
omg she's megan lindholm?
i've had wizard of pigeons on my list to read forever but it's out of print
ok def reading robin hobb then
― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 12 September 2017 20:00 (six years ago) link
Yeah IIRC she hit some sort of wall wrt writing and decided fuck it, pen name time, and had a renaissance.
I haven't read any OG lindholm stuff.
― harbinger of failure (Jon not Jon), Tuesday, 12 September 2017 20:23 (six years ago) link
On recommendation, I just read the kids' book Holes, which has some magical realism whatnot. It's so good. Haven't read the book, but really liked the movie.
― dow, Tuesday, 12 September 2017 20:44 (six years ago) link
IT'S SO FUN READ IT NOW
― Chuck_Tatum, Tuesday, 12 September 2017 20:56 (six years ago) link
WYNDHAM: The Day of the Triffids and The Chrysalids are the pure good stuff.
Just read Dave hUTCHINSON'S SPACE OPERA NOVELLA aCADIE, WHICH WAS FUN AND CLEVER AND fuck I can't use caps lock properly
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Tuesday, 12 September 2017 23:24 (six years ago) link
Been looking at hundreds of listings of small press magazines and buying a few here and there. It's just astonishing how many there were. DF Lewis made a thread with cover scans of a lot of the magazines he appeared in. Cover art quality is all over the place. http://vaultofevil.proboards.com/thread/672/small-press-cover-ark?page=1
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Wednesday, 13 September 2017 15:58 (six years ago) link
Lavie Tidhar's "Central Station" is okay so far - a lot of description (some of which gets p repetitive) and not much in the way of a plot or central conflict 100 pages in, he seems more preoccupied with detailing this exotic tableau he's come up with. idk, I'll probably finish it but I'm getting the impression this isn't going to amount to much more than a bunch of wacky concepts and ethnographic mash-ups.
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 13 September 2017 17:11 (six years ago) link
That's about right for Central Station, I enjoyed it but it's more a collection of interlinked short stories (a lot of it is previously published in Interzone etc) than a novel that actually builds to something.
― めんどくさかった (Matt #2), Thursday, 14 September 2017 10:27 (six years ago) link
Sounds Vancian? I'm intrigued.
― harbinger of failure (Jon not Jon), Thursday, 14 September 2017 11:04 (six years ago) link
I actually liked the repetitiveness of the descriptive passages, kinda hypnotic.
― めんどくさかった (Matt #2), Thursday, 14 September 2017 13:11 (six years ago) link
His Gorel books are weird adventure stuff.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 15 September 2017 16:10 (six years ago) link
watched this yesterday. almost cried! i'm an old softy. sound/video is messed up but it doesn't matter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Deuas-AuzbU
― scott seward, Tuesday, 19 September 2017 16:46 (six years ago) link
I haven't read a ton of Vance but I don't get a Vance vibe from Tidhar. As far as old-school references go, he does have one story in here that is an extended riff on CL Moore's first and best-known story, "Shambleau", and there's a number of other minor refs to other sci-fi works ("ubicked" is used as a verb, for ex.)
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 19 September 2017 16:51 (six years ago) link
I've read first two earthseas in a sitting each and have really enjoyed the sparse simplicity of them tbh
VG, if you want even more robin Gibb advice, the liveship and rain wilder books are imo skippable
Essentially Fitz and the fool are great and there's none of those books to keep you going (though if you found kvothe a maddening meathead I dunno how frustrated some of the mcguffining will make you tbh)
― passé aggresif (darraghmac), Tuesday, 19 September 2017 17:11 (six years ago) link
That is an autocorrect
But it is a damn fine one
woudl read sci-fi books written by Robin Gibb. Sad mopey space operas about ships crashing into each other
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 19 September 2017 17:13 (six years ago) link
i finally went back to reading The Mote In God's Eye. i was kinda limping through it. when does it become the greatest sci-fi novel ever written (according to heinlein)? it's okay. i've read about five books in the meantime. but i'll finish it. don't know if i'll get to the sequel though.
(sometimes my brain can't handle the idea of collaborations. it's a thing i have. it makes me nervous not knowing who wrote what. i tend to avoid them. which is irrational, but it's a brain thing...)
― scott seward, Tuesday, 19 September 2017 17:30 (six years ago) link
what would be the prose analogue of the gibb banshee falsetto?
― harbinger of failure (Jon not Jon), Tuesday, 19 September 2017 17:32 (six years ago) link
When an alien consciousness speaks in italics
― passé aggresif (darraghmac), Tuesday, 19 September 2017 17:32 (six years ago) link
One of the Tidhar Gorel books is called Black Gods Kiss so that has to be another Catherine L Moore reference. I think he calls Gorel "guns and sorcery".
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Tuesday, 19 September 2017 17:37 (six years ago) link