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Post by ch00beh on Sept 3, 2016 8:01:00 GMT -5
Ready Player One was delightful. Something in the same vein of a not-cynical character striving against all the odds, if you haven't gotten caught up in the Martian craze, that's recently entered my top 5. And it's easy to read in like one or two sittings over a weekend.
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Post by Krazy Glue on Sept 22, 2016 8:26:38 GMT -5
I'm reading NOFX's autobiography "the hepatitis bathtub and other stories" it's an absolutely wonderful piece of literature, even if it literally starts with the line "the first time i drank piss" but to be perfectly honest, what else do you expect from a Punk Rock band?
Best moment so far, Eric Melvin (the drummer) completely fucked off his face on heroin stole "some kid's" van took it for a joyride down hollywood boulevard smashing shit up, the kid who's van it is was asleep in the back, they wake up, start freaking the fuck out and Melvin turns round and says "shut the fuck up or I'll kill you, I will fucking kill you" and the kid naturally terrified gets taken on a ridiculous joyride. 2 years later, NOFX get booked in to play a gig, Melvin, now completely clean after months of rehab, is approached by Billy Joel Armstrong of Green Day, who goes "I was a bit nervous about playing with you guys tonight" turns out, yup, the kid in the back of the van was none other than Billy Joel Armstrong! Oh and they stole the red hot chilli pepper's outfits, but that's another story =)
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Post by ch00beh on Oct 13, 2016 12:26:17 GMT -5
I finished I Am Not A Serial Killer and it’s basically everything I wish I could do with my sociopathic characters.
Basic synopsis is that John Cleaver is a sociopathic high school student with a fascination with serial killers. He doesnt want to become one; he’s just super into their methodology and motivation. One day there is a murder in his small town that looks like a wild animal, but John thinks it might be something more sinister...
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Post by ch00beh on Nov 6, 2016 23:52:00 GMT -5
Finished The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu yesterday and give it a 4/5. It is an astoundingly good translation--story was conveyed wonderfully but the language and phrasing still had that eastern poetry, structure, and themes to it. As a synopsis, the book is about first contact with aliens using China’s Cultural Revolution as its starting point.
Finished Ghost Talkers by Mary Robinette Kowal today and I give it a 5/5 as a solid WWI spy thriller, but instead of a cool and collected spy or grizzled vet, the main character is a non combatant lady whose job is to talk to the spirits of dead soldiers to get information for the Allies, who promptly gets in over her head after discovering a traitor. It is a wonderful low powered fantasy type novel set amidst an epic, tragic backdrop that I feel like most people on this forum would enjoy.
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Post by ch00beh on Mar 10, 2017 18:51:55 GMT -5
Finished Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch and I am so in love with the Gentleman Bastard series as usual as this book was a coming of age and romantic comedy disguised as a medieval heist. Lovable self destructive rogues are the best. 5/5
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Post by {WW}BetaBloodWolf7 on Apr 3, 2017 0:32:59 GMT -5
I've been reading the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan (and, to a lesser extent, Brandon Sanderson). It's a superb fantasy series full of characters and plenty of different story lines that all tie back together very well, somn that surprised me a bit since the series is 14 books long (15 books if you include the prequel, which I haven't read yet. Robert Jordan put a lot of work into the world he made and it shows; the various peoples are pretty different and you can get a good feeling for who is from what nation pretty quickly just by a couple of details and the magic system is pretty snazzy (even has a nice twist to it that I don't really see get played upon much elsewhere).
Go. Read it. Now.
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Post by ch00beh on Apr 3, 2017 0:38:16 GMT -5
i finished the first wheel of time book a couple months ago and it was just a bunch of boys not knowing how to act around girls for about 700 pages while whining a bunch. like i get it, they are acting like real teenagers stuck in an end of the world scenario, but it is not the kind of thing i am into. also
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Post by {WW}BetaBloodWolf7 on Apr 3, 2017 1:42:16 GMT -5
It starts out a bit slowly, yeah, but it gets a good bit better as it goes. By the third or fourth book they're pretty much done with the "I'm a kid and can't do shit" bit and they all start getting wrapped up by those girls that they don't know how to act around.
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Post by ch00beh on May 15, 2017 16:12:22 GMT -5
Ancillary Justice is an amazing, weird piece of sci fi and I love it. The protagonist is a spaceship trapped in a human body seeking revenge against the thousand bodied emperor of the galaxy, yet despite the grand scope, it's a pretty introspective story about loyalty and betrayal. Leckie does a great job of narrating from a super alien perspective about a super alien galaxy while still making it feel familiar. Highly highly recommend to anyone who wants to read a story featuring a robutt give a clinically detached narration of her anxiety over choosing the correct gendered pronouns when not speaking in her native (ungendered) language. 5/5
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Post by ch00beh on Sept 28, 2017 16:18:16 GMT -5
vacation means lots of books get read
Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson was a 5/5 for me. There are very few books (in fact I can't think of any off the top of my head) that have gotten me to get up and fist pump IRL, and WoR made me do that twice. Partially because of the most anime final fight scene, but mostly because I've become super attached to all the characters. I want to be Shallan when I grow up.
Promise of Blood by Brian McClellan was a 3/5. Fuckin' dank-ass idea of basically smashing together the French revolution with Wanted to make mages who fuel their magic with gunpowder and taking place in the turbulent time aftermath of a coup, but the writing left a lot to be desired. Not that the writing itself wasn't tight; it's just that scenes could have used a lot more simmer time, and plot threads needed more time to breath. I guess this is what it's like to read shit I write and it's kind of frustrating?
The Golem and the Jinni is 6/5 stars. It is beeeaaaautiful. As the title suggests, the story is about a golem and a jinni who suddenly find themselves in turn of the century New York, but their story is deeply intertwined with the lives of other immigrants trying to make a living in this crazy place called America.
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Post by ch00beh on Sept 30, 2017 17:55:04 GMT -5
Handmaid's Tale: 5/5, tho it's like 2real rn. i also considered knocking off a point cuz the diction gets in the way sometimes with unnecessarily obscure words, but most of the time the language is perfect, and i appreciate the stream of conscious style since it would've been super easy to eff that up and be super confusing, but it's not. the intense focus on taste weirded me out at first, too, then i realized that was also intentional for making me want to berf. juxtaposition is funsies. I have started the Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin and the prologue omg the prologue is incredible. i have a feeling this is going to be a 5/5, but i'm only a couple chapters in and i'm dreading whether or not the second person will start grating on me. so far it's been handled well, though. (for more second person fun, i really enjoyed You'll Surely Drown If You Stay so everyone go read that real quick)
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Post by ch00beh on Dec 6, 2017 22:32:53 GMT -5
follow up for the Fifth Season: it was a 6/5. Absolutely gorgeous prose, incredibly rendered world, fantastic characters. This is some super unique SFF that still has a deeply character driven story, and I highly highly recommend it.
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Post by Beelzebibble on Feb 14, 2018 7:06:27 GMT -5
Choobs has got me on The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss.
Things I am all about: * Kvothe alternately charming and intimidating his way into getting a bunch of free clothes * Kvothe kickin' it with "What what." guy * Kvothe spying on other students' admission interviews at the University
Things I am not all about: * The Chandra Nalaar or whatever
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Post by ch00beh on Feb 16, 2018 18:29:34 GMT -5
kvothe really spends most of the books frantically trying to obtain shurts then subsequently ruining them
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Post by Beelzebibble on Feb 16, 2018 18:41:32 GMT -5
Good, I'm on board for that.
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Post by asmo on Nov 24, 2018 13:42:10 GMT -5
If someone recommends me some cool genre fiction within ONE MONTH i will read it
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Post by asmo on Nov 24, 2018 14:53:34 GMT -5
In case anyone cares, I just finished reading Chimera by John Barth and Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. Definitely a lot of parallels between the two formally (mythological metafictional explorations of new literary forms in our postmodern hellscape) and thematically (love and death and legacy). WARNING: Everyone needs to read some Calvino if you haven't (Cosmicomics or Invisible Cities or If On A Winter's Night a Traveler are all really good + also short). I love Barth too -- more than Calvino, maybe -- but most of his books are long fun word labyrinths and thus harder to force someone to read.
Also I just started the third book in the vorrh trilogy; i kind of feel like they actually aren't very good, but at least the setting is pretty unique (in my fantasy novel experience at least) and the author tried really hard to make a confusing dislocated narrative of real people, fake people, milk robots, and cyclopes with weird sex organs.
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Post by ch00beh on Dec 4, 2018 20:06:33 GMT -5
it's not genre fiction but The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal was dope. Alternate history where a meteor hits DC thus accelerating manned spaceflight efforts. Follows the story of a former WASP and computer (human woman variety) named Elma York as she tries to become the first woman in space.
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