Book Recs
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Do we have one of these threads yet?
I just finished Janelle Monáe’s sci-fi anthology The Memory Librarian. The vibe I got was she maybe did the world-building and then each story is written by a different collaborative author. It’s like surveillance state stuff. Very visual. Highly recommend.
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Dammit, I guess I’ll paste from MSB.
Some good books I’ve read lately:
Iron Prince, by Bryce O’Connor. Sci-fi, progression fantasy, fun dialogue, light romance. If you like ‘military school’ settings this works pretty nicely.
The Hedge Wizard by Alex Maher. Just about as close to D&D a book can be without being published by WotC, with some mature dialogue (F-bombs, nothing extreme) and just a touch of grimdark fantasy. A lowly wizard in search for money to pay the bills enters a party to enter a dungeon. Fun, diverse and interesting characters made it a good read for me. I enjoyed the magic system, and its ‘dungeons’ setup could make for an intriguing MUSH setting!
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@helvetica
I picked this up a month or so ago and am psyched to get into it. I love the narrative flow of her albums so it felt like it’d be meatier than the standard ‘non-lit celebrity doing a book’ tends to be.Right now I’m working through my backlog of ‘books I bought but never read’ so my reading is a mixed bag right now, but it made me finally get around to ‘Watership Down’. I was prepared to like it but the depth of the world-building and rabbit psychology in ways that were both relatable and believably alien really impressed me. Kinda mad at myself for not reading this when I was younger.
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@Third-Eye The short story aspect makes it a little easier to pick up and put down. Not the same investment as a whole ass book. ETA: And an elegant example of they/them pronoun use in literature, which can be challenging to find.
re: Watership Down, my undergrad capstone involved a short story about a puppy that was a stand-in for American identity (absolute trash, btw) and every single workshop people were like
nervously waiting for it to turn his adventure into Watership Down and unconvinced I just wanted to do a goddamned nice thing that was nice. -
Mentioned in the SPACE thread, there is Remembrance of Earth’s Past - The Three Body Problem, The Dark Forest, and Death’s End
Without too many spoilers, the basic gist is that after we sent out radio telescope broadcasts, we got a response back a few years later: ‘DO NOT ANSWER. I am a pacifist on my planet, but if anyone else finds out where you are, they will 100% attack and colonize Earth. You are lucky, we do not know how far away you are. But if you answer, we can figure it out quickly. So DO NOT ANSWER.’
And it continues to spiral from there. It’s great and full of existential dread and JWT is cool and took tons of pretty pictures FULL OF SPACE ALIENS THAT WANT TO KILL US ALL.
Also Netflix is working on a show, which… could be cool if they aren’t guaranteed to drop it after the second season. Also, it’s by the GoT guys, so who knows how that will work out.
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@helvetica THAT WAS AMAZING!
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My current book is Weapon Brown messed-up cyberpunk Peanuts comic and The Andy Warhol dairies cause of the Netflix doc. Enjoying them both a ton!
https://www.whatisdeepfried.com/comic/weapon-brown/ Webcomic Verison. I own the hardcover and got it at a play a few years ago of Dog sees God.
(edited to add link)
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I think this series has mostly gone under the radar but Gideon the Ninth was one of the most delightful reads I’ve had in a while.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42036538-gideon-the-ninth
Very casual to read it is about lesbian space necromancers sort of meets hunger games. Anyway, the wife did quite an in-depth review in case helpful.
Current Projects:
Twitch -> https://www.twitch.tv/dukewhisky
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I’ve been reading Progression Fantasy books lately since it scratches an itch I’ve had for some time, and while ultimately fun, many of these titles aren’t authored by professionals - meaning there is limited editing, they were written as part of a web series, etc.
So when I switched over to a recommendation in my to-read list - Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff, it was such a difference in terms of quality, attention to detail and prose.
I can’t recommend that book enough. It’s kind of like The Witcher-meets-vampires. In a medieval fantasy world the sun all but stopped working a couple of decades back, so humanity was besieged by bloodsucking fiends led by the Eternal King.
It’s really well written, the world itself is rich and full of detail and depth, and the characters are quite distinct and fascinating. I haven’t finished it yet but there’s a second installment coming up.
Unless it screws up the ending, it’s a 9/10 from me.
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@Whisky said in Book Recs:
I think this series has mostly gone under the radar but Gideon the Ninth was one of the most delightful reads I’ve had in a while.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42036538-gideon-the-ninth
Very casual to read it is about lesbian space necromancers sort of meets hunger games. Anyway, the wife did quite an in-depth review in case helpful.
I am part way through this and my library loan is about to expire. This is extra annoying because my library doesn’t let you renew ebooks and I had to wait several months to get it at all, so I’m either going to have to buy it or spend several months on the waitlist again.
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@Whisky said in Book Recs:
I think this series has mostly gone under the radar but Gideon the Ninth was one of the most delightful reads I’ve had in a while.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42036538-gideon-the-ninth
Very casual to read it is about lesbian space necromancers sort of meets hunger games. Anyway, the wife did quite an in-depth review in case helpful.
I am part way through this and my library loan is about to expire. This is extra annoying because my library doesn’t let you renew ebooks and I had to wait several months to get it at all, so I’m either going to have to buy it or spend several months on the waitlist again.
whisper turn off the wifi/internet connection on your ereader until you’re done and it won’t take your book away
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@Aria Aww have you been enjoying it??
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@Whisky said in Book Recs:
I think this series has mostly gone under the radar but Gideon the Ninth was one of the most delightful reads I’ve had in a while.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42036538-gideon-the-ninth
Very casual to read it is about lesbian space necromancers sort of meets hunger games. Anyway, the wife did quite an in-depth review in case helpful.
I am part way through this and my library loan is about to expire. This is extra annoying because my library doesn’t let you renew ebooks and I had to wait several months to get it at all, so I’m either going to have to buy it or spend several months on the waitlist again.
whisper turn off the wifi/internet connection on your ereader until you’re done and it won’t take your book away
@Roz Eeeee! This worked. THANK YOU.
We can now go back to glaring at each other balefully from our respective corners.
(Also @Whisky : Yes! I’m only about seven chapters in, though, because I got the download notification from Overdrive while I was still in the middle of finals, then went off to my in-laws for a few busy days.)
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@Whisky said in Book Recs:
I think this series has mostly gone under the radar but Gideon the Ninth was one of the most delightful reads I’ve had in a while.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42036538-gideon-the-ninth
Very casual to read it is about lesbian space necromancers sort of meets hunger games. Anyway, the wife did quite an in-depth review in case helpful.
I am part way through this and my library loan is about to expire. This is extra annoying because my library doesn’t let you renew ebooks and I had to wait several months to get it at all, so I’m either going to have to buy it or spend several months on the waitlist again.
whisper turn off the wifi/internet connection on your ereader until you’re done and it won’t take your book away
@Roz Eeeee! This worked. THANK YOU.
You’re welcome! I have made extensive use of this trick over the years. And I’ve been assured by librarian friends that it has no impact on the next person in the waitlist getting the book, etc., so I feel NO GUILT about what I guess essentially boils down to cheating. I JUST WANT TO FINISH MY BOOK
she/her | playlist
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@Whisky said in Book Recs:
I think this series has mostly gone under the radar but Gideon the Ninth was one of the most delightful reads I’ve had in a while.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42036538-gideon-the-ninth
Very casual to read it is about lesbian space necromancers sort of meets hunger games. Anyway, the wife did quite an in-depth review in case helpful.
I am part way through this and my library loan is about to expire. This is extra annoying because my library doesn’t let you renew ebooks and I had to wait several months to get it at all, so I’m either going to have to buy it or spend several months on the waitlist again.
whisper turn off the wifi/internet connection on your ereader until you’re done and it won’t take your book away
@Roz Eeeee! This worked. THANK YOU.
You’re welcome! I have made extensive use of this trick over the years. And I’ve been assured by librarian friends that it has no impact on the next person in the waitlist getting the book, etc., so I feel NO GUILT about what I guess essentially boils down to cheating. I JUST WANT TO FINISH MY BOOK
Honestly, I turn the wifi on my tablet off half the time, anyway. I hate having it sit there pinging and buzzing and chiming about all of the exact same things coming through on my phone.
Now I just know to be strategic about when I turn it on and off.
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@Aria That’s non-ironically
one ofthe main reason I choose to read on a Kindle than my tablet. It’s not that it’s easier on the eyes, the weight, the capacity, etc.It’s just that if I have a tablet in my hand the temptation to use access one of the myriad instant-gratification options is just… too much. I’ll switch over to Reddit since it’s easier than to focus on what’s on the page, or I’ll get a popup from one of my FB contacts. And then that’s that.
And physical books just ain’t gonna happen. I’ll never win the fight for shelf space.
E-book readers salvaged my reading habit, frankly.
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Any recs for grimdark fantasy stuff that isn’t oppressor porn?
Prince of Thorns by Lawrence ruined my week. I forced myself to finish Bakker’s Prince of Nothing/Aspect Emperor series hoping that the few interesting philosophical questions would pay off. They didn’t, not at the level needed to balance the rest of the shit in there.
I just want something that’s grounded in like, materialist speculative fantasy about how geography, history and culture conflicts traits might influence made up societies. And I want those people to have swords and magic.
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@shit-piss-love said in Book Recs:
Any recs for grimdark fantasy stuff that isn’t oppressor porn?
The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman was, in my opinion, excellent.
Anything by Joe Abercrombie is top notch, starting with his First Law work.
I’m not sure what you’d qualify as oppressor porn (a lot of grimdark fantasy probably touches on some definitions of it), though.
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I’m not sure what you’d qualify as oppressor porn (a lot of grimdark fantasy probably touches on some definitions of it), though.
Sexual assault apologia. Glorification of colonial/feudal societies. “It’s okay because religion”. Etc.
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@shit-piss-love said in Book Recs:
Any recs for grimdark fantasy stuff that isn’t oppressor porn?
I’ll echo @Arkandel on his Joe Abercrombie recommendation. I never managed to finish his First Law pieces, in no small part because of the library loan issue getting me every damn time, but my husband is obsessed. Like, to the point that I have alerts set up on his publication dates so I can let @insomniac, for whom time does not exist and calendars are a laughable suggestion, to expect something soon.
As for e-readers over tablets, I picked a tablet specifically because I get ebooks from enough different sources that I needed to have the ability to use apps rather than a proprietary system. I picked a wifi-only tablet in the hopes that I would end up using it more like an e-reader than like a giant version of my phone and also because they’re way cheaper than ones that have cellular network access.
