Release Edition
What Book are you eagerly awaiting for in 2016/2017?
What book published in 2016 did you read?
What book released in 2016 disappointed you?
Fantasy
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Science Fiction
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>What Book are you eagerly awaiting for in 2016/2017?
THE
VINDICATION
OF
MAN
Princess is gonna come home, we'll have some more awkward Wright-writes-women chapters and Montrose is going to punch a galaxy in the face. And Witchbro is back, probably going to see him elevated to machine godhood too. I'm excited.
>Witchbro
Mixed feelings, would have been better if he were consigned to the lost mythic human past remembered only by Montrose and Azarchel. On the other hand we're going to see some crazy tech sand things have actually worked out pretty well so far.
Pretty sure we do know that Rania built an Iron Menelaus when she got lonely.
QUICK
POST BOOKS THAT FEATURE MANIPULATION OF MATHEMATICAL CONCEPTS
Montrose deserves a break now and then. His knights went off to marry hot Nymphs and lead fulfilling lives, his best friend is his worst enemy, and his wife is taking her sweet time obeying the speed of light and all that.
I recall a sample chapter Wright posted where Mickey's marrying a Rania clone but I think he took it down. The excised first chapter of Vindication is still up though.
>He laughed at himself and laughed for joy, and the noise was so like the braying of a donkey that Trey danced back in a swirl of blue-gray films, startled, and the eyes on the hat of Mickey grew wide in shock, but, off to one side of the field, Blackie del Azarchel scowled and rose up and threw his uneaten half bag of popcorn to the grass.
It's little moments like this that make the series for me.
Like, changing mathematical concepts or discovering new ones? In Count to a Trillion, whose fourth sequel comes out in a little less than a month, explorers find an alien monument with math taking you from 1=1 to game theory and economics, gently leading you to the discovery that your exploitation of the antimatter star it orbits will show the civilization that put it there that you're worth enslaving, and that their fleet is coming and you don't theoretically have the ability to stop it.
It also has psychohistory on it.
Like, math textbooks?
Flatland
That Count to a Trillion plot sounds awfully similar to Revelation Space.
Books related to the thread topic, my little newfriend.
>That Count to a Trillion plot sounds awfully similar to Revelation Space.
How so? Did the Spaniards mutiny and take their starship back to Earth, dooming humanity to eternal slavery all from the hubris of their leader in that one too? And if it has horse AIs I'm going to read it right now.
>What book published in 2016 did you read?
The ones I read published this year were:
The Blood Mirror - starts off slowly/awkwardly/badly before Breeks finds his feet after the first quarter. Kip should really stop taking away the screen time from the better written characters of Gavin, Teia and Kariss Whiteoak, Kip's story is essentially filler and Tisis is quite unbearable. Breeks has improved the characterisation of Andross, there were a few plot twists I didn't see coming but they were far away and far in between but I feel that the third book was too long and didn't focus on what was important and instead departed into Kip's slice of life story featuring him and his friends. The story was also too clean compared to the third book which brought a sense of mythos and the Colour Prince/Zymun were almost conveniently absent in a conspicuous fashion. In short, the series should have stayed a four books and it's become overlong, bloated and fallen into the trap of the uninteresting POVs holding the book back.
Goldenhand - disappointment compared to the original three books but thankfully better than Clariel. Abhosen is an overrated series that should have stayed three books. There was little to no sense of danger and it was essentially a painfully prolonged romance and filler.
Mistborn: Secret History - Ahh, the case of the fucking retcon. While it was interesting to see the worldhoppers and God, it really didn’t actually work other than the slowly falling to pieces part. Gods are best when they're absent or not always there.
The Spider's War: I read all five of these books in one fell swoop. As always, Daniel Abraham makes a good compromise between beige prose and purple prose in my opinion. He's a promising writer and the strongest characters in his series are Geder who is terribly relatable in a way and unreliable and Komme who develops into a sympathetic character. Politics/economics are not often seen in fantasy and the author doesn’t overshadow their prose with magic which is refreshing to see. The books take a slow stately pace but manages to be interesting.
Children of Earth and Sky: Kay does it again. Kay and Abraham write similarly, but there’s a subtlety in Kay that’s astounding. The standout part of this novel was Gurçu the Destroyer, Prince Cemal and Pero Villani’s respective characterisations and the worldbuilding is marvellous as always. However, this book is still inferior compared to Tigana and will not touch as many heart strings.
The Obelisk Gate: Interesting use of person place and time. A very cute story about Schaffa and Nassun despite their age difference with prose that I enjoyed. The only real weakness in the writing was the fact that Essun did almost nothing to find Nassun and a lot of worldbuilding details needed to be revealed.
Calamity: I remember almost nothing about this book other than the fact that Calamity was a whiny child and Prof’s daughter decided that she could spontaneously dimension hop.
The Bands of Mourning: Something, something steam punk airships.I don't remember what else happened other than the fact that Kelsier might be alive.
Most of the newly released books were a disappointment.
Dunkey kun, is that you? Desu desu sempai.
No.
Jesus fuck you finished blood mirror already?
Wish I was still neet, I had to go to work, and I still have Jonathan strange to finish .... just
No but around the end of the first book, 'humanity' triggers a marker that alerts a hyper-advanced civilization to their existence who then proceeds to activate (they're post-human machines) and attack human civilization throughout its different star systems.
There's also a short story in the same universe involving an alien structure involving increasingly difficult mathematical problems as a barrier to continue ascending.
>retcon
Kelsier being alive is legitimate old news.
>>There's also a short story in the same universe involving an alien structure involving increasingly difficult mathematical problems as a barrier to continue ascending.
That's pretty cool. Do they have to build better and better transhuman minds to figure them out? One of the neat things about Count to the Eschaton is how it's not just singularity and we're finished, the beings that can control matter at a molecular level are mere playthings to the beings that can store information in nuclear bonds, and so on and so forth. Oh, and that there's no moral superiority to having a bigger brain.
>Gods are best when they're absent or not always there.
They're extremely powerful mages trying really hard to be gods and doing a horrible job at it. Harmony was probably the best-prepared mortal ever and he still sucks at it. That's one of those themes you guys mock me for saying Sanderson has.
/r/ something like glen cook black company. Started instrumentalities of the night series but found it stylistically subpar.
Guys I got a request for recs as I'm failing on my own
Don't care if it's scifi or fantasy but I'm looking for books, ideally single pov, where the main character goes through extensive training.
The one example I've read is Blood Song which is mainly about the main character's time in military academy
Ender's Game.
What PKD story should i read?
Ive read UBIK, androids dream, maze of death, three stigmata, timeslip, and man in high castke
I was thinking about scanner darkly but it sounded like it was about frugs rather than precogs/androids/timetravel
Scanner is one of his best books.
Anyone love harry harrison? I'm a big fan and i was just wondering what other people's favorites are from him. I personally enjoyed the deathworld books and the stainless steel rat.
Red Rising.
Get past the first part.
Deathworld was pretty fun, yeah. Haven't read it in ages.
I'm with the other user. Scanner is probably his best book.
>What Book are you eagerly awaiting for in 2016/2017?
Oathkeeper, Stormlight Archive Book 3
Waiting for the next Gentleman Bastards book. Still no confirmed publish date and it has already been pushed back several times.
Danger! Human.
>Do they have to build better and better transhuman minds to figure them out?
Something like that, yeah. They swap out more and more of their body parts for artificial machine parts in order to compute faster, cool themselves, that sort of thing. The further they go up, the more humanity they lose.
Working on Earthsea at the moment.
Oh, but they're not turning gas giants into computronium or building Dyson clusters to get the processing power or anything.
Wright does this cool thing where they still consider themselves humans no matter how grotesque or godlike they become, because it's the thought patterns that count. That's how the MC is able to have a pistol duel with the planet Jupiter or at least a legally bound proxy at the end of book 3. Some AIs become narcissists, some become humanitarians, one big one at least converts to Christianity, because they're all just people, even if they are very clever.
That's good stuff. Perfect length for a novel. Stop after Farthest Shore, I've heard.
Nope. Nothing that extreme. en.wikipedia.org
Is this series just a normal book series, or a fleshed out meta-verse? Sounds neat, regardless.
The novels are kind of baroque, in that most of the transhumanist action happens offscreen and gets pieced together after the fact. The first is MC waking up after humanity's first interstellar voyage to find out that his best friend came home and conquered the Earth, and their efforts to create strong AI and brain upgrades. The second and third are the MC waking up after another eight thousand years after his best friend's lieutenants have all had time to have their way with humanity, and about all the weird human subspecies that were created.
The fourth is three closely connected stories of how we were conquered and used to colonize neighboring star systems as part of the great quest to turn as much mass into thinking matter as possible because our spiral arm is in massive debt. The fifth should be about how we build/ascend into AIs strong enough to attract the notice of galactic intelligences, and the sixth and final, coming out next year, will carry us on to the Heat Death.
And the whole story is also about MC and his friend fighting for the love and attention of a space princess. Said friend is closely based on Blackie DuQuesne from EE Doc Smith. There's tons of other easter eggs for fans of old SF in there.
The rat is pretty based.
Why does that spoiler sound familiar?
I'm not too keen on transhumanism in my books though. I mean, I don't dislike it or have a problem with it but I don't go out of my way to read stories featuring it. My interests are more along the lines of future technology (obviously transhumanism would fit this) but more-so related to space itself, of which Revelation Space and the Xeelee Sequence were rife with, imo.
My favorite part of the entire RS universe is probably the last ~20% of the second trilogy book involving an inter-system space chase between two ships with inertial dampeners, all the while effects on the conscious crew's bodies were elaborated on in full detail as well. I don't know why I enjoyed it so much but it really stuck out to me.
Another neat thing is that the 'ending' of the RS universe involves nanomachines whose sole intent is to terraform any planet they come across into ripe vegetation but they begin doing this to such an extreme that all human-populated systems are consumed, and such a large quantity of the Milky Way is consumed that they force humanity to flee to another galaxy to escape.
And, of course, manipulation of mathematical concepts tickles me although I lack the mathematical knowledge to understand much of it.
The Simulacra.
Doctor Bloodmoney is alright and it doesn't drag on.
I would not recommend Counterclock World.
Valis is my favorite of his. Also check out Flow my Tears
meant to reply to this post
The Dread Empire prequels by Cook are good (The Fire in His Hands and With Mercy Towards None), the rest of the series is pretty crap though.
Time Out of Joint
OK, 300 pages into WoT, I will definitely finish the opener, then play it by ear. I feel like some of the derivativeness is almost comical, like the author is playing it up for laughs: Trollocs? Mat and Perrin are moe as fuck though.
The series is growing on me (I'm on book 6 at the moment) but everyone says that 8-12 are all pure shit so I'm apprehensive.
The similarities to LoTR was intentional, and you also sort of have to keep the context of the fantasy industry at the time in mind. It was the sort of story that was popular back then and that's all there really is to it.
I would say read the first 3 books and if you don't like it don't go on. Books 4, 5, and 6 are probably some of the best in the series (but can move pretty slowly at times) and they are really the point in the series where the scope widens considerably.
It's not that they're pure shit, and for the most part they're kind of short so it's not that hard to get through them, it's just that they focused on side-plots that dragged on and would have been trimmed heavily if the publishers hadn't been trying to milk the series for more books. The second time I read the series through I found those books were considerably less tedious than I had remembered from my first attempt. Don't let the internet's opinion sway your own.
Just read them and move on because it's certainly not worth dropping the series over. Sanderson has a lot of faults as a writer but he definitely revived the series and did a good job of tying it all together, especially given how little time he had to get adjusted to the series before the publisher expected his first contribution.
Yeah, I guess they would have been more infuriating if you read them as they came out, what with long breaks between books and Jordan's failing health.
Yeah, that's called stockholm syndrome.
The first book does not really give you any idea of what to expect from the entire story. The plot of Eye of the World is like an abridged version of LotR that just leads into WoT's actual plot. Eye of the World contains so much foreshadowing it's crazy, it's actually super dense with it, but when you're reading it for the first time it goes mostly unnoticed. It's almost like he designed the superficial plot of the novel to be derivative and simplistic on purpose as misdirection.
>everyone says that 8-12 are all pure shit
Absolutely nah. Some of Matt's best scenes are in those books.
>The ending to blood mirror
god damn it
what a crock of shit
Is that a GOOD crock of shit or a BAD crock of shit user.
It's horrible
I meant to say - did you think that the ending was well written or badly written.
It's completely abominable
I didn't think it was as good as the previous three and dragged, but I felt that the ending hit the right notes.
Half the book was about kip not being able to have sex
If I could draft black luxin to forget the Kip scenes I would. God. What shit filler.
I'm looking forward to By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of the Death Penalty. It should make for a very interesting read.
The entire book was overhyped shit can full of nothing but disappointments
>2 more years until something actually happens
>What book published in 2016 did you read?
The Medusa Chronicles - pretty good
Revenger - it was ok
Red Rising 3: Morning Star - meh, getting too old for this YA
The Great Ordeal - halfway through, good so far.
Brandon Sanderson - I like his cosmere stuff
>What Book are you eagerly awaiting for in 2016/2017?
Death's End which I have but haven't read yet
Stormlight archive book 3
Reynolds's sequel to The Prefect that should appear in 2017
The Thorn of Emberlain
7 Things To Do Before You Die in Talgarth (Shades of Grey #2) never
RIP
I heard we aren't getting a shades of grey sequel.
What's this book gonna be about? The mc learning to throw people on a pyre while being cucked by his wife?
Marrying a girl while you were a virgin and she is not, is not a good thing. She will use her pum pum to control you.
I was planning to an hero soon... this fucking writer scum.
It was to be 3 books, then you hear it's four, was to be 4 books, then you hear it's five.. was to be five books, then...
for your sake, you should go ahead, with the way its going, its going to get a lot worse and you should relish the memories of the first 3 books
>Dying with the series incomplete EVER
He'd probably come up with a sequel to Lightbringer after the last book and then you wouldn't be around to enjoy it.
The great ordeal, best book of 2016. Cant wait for he unholy consult. Bakker still has it.
Trying to get into Bakker, but it's pretty hard with English as a second language.
Translations into my language are utter shit though, especially Fantasy and SF, so I am gonna keep at it anyway.
That's got more with the fact that Bakker has shit tier writing. The translation isn't the problem and neither is your English.
Sorry, didn't understand your post. It looks like you're an idiot.
I know what you mean about that last part. There's some sort of tingle I get when I know I'm reading something way beyond my level of comprehension. Makes it sound more believable, cause I'm sure the more you know the less realistic scifi gets
I've heard the prince of nothing trilogy reccomended, are all three worth reading?
Read the book to understand... what are you doing on a literature board if you don't even read book?
I did read it. Your "comment" is as unrelated to it as it can get. How do your issues have anything to do with the book?
Senlin Ascends looks to be an excellent book.
I am reading the second one first for reasons, but at this stage I don't think it's simply a meme.
>I am reading the second one first for reasons
Stopped reading.
I enjoy reading things out of order.
It works because I've read 196 pages of the second one and 40 pages of the first one. Helps to tamp down on my writer's block tb͏h.
Kill yourself.
You're going to have to try harder reddit.
Let's be honest here
How can a fantasy book even compete with anime?
easily
Then read the book again, because it's what happened in book 1, and my "comment" was about if he was going to base book 2 on that.
Actually you are the redshit for memeing the book, fagget.
By writing anime in prose form [see footnote 1].
Footnote 1. Books such as House of Blades, and Sanderson's works.
>sick of sanderson
>read romantic fantasy by female author
>heroine lost her virginity to someone else before the start of the book
But he said compete. Honestly I like anime but can't stand Sanderson.
Anime is made for children but features so much escapism targeted towards adults going through depression
Why don't the huge majority of fantasy writers even attempt good prose? Is fantasy simply attracting authors who are too lazy to learn the craft of writing, come up with interesting ideas, or do any actual research?
How do you know they aren't? It's just the easy to read ones that get popular.
Everyone defines "good prose" differently. What do you think is missing from the prose of current authors?
Alright, what are some well-written fantasy books that aren't popular?
There's no discernible attempt at crafting beautiful, evocative, inventive passages. Fantasy authors seem far to focused on McBadasses slinging spells and showing off their shitty worldbuilding than actually writing something interesting.
Forever War
You might prefer the "New Weird" authors (Meiville, VanderMeer, Harrison although he isn't "new", Hal Duncan") They seem to be consciously writing in response to this and to many other personal problems they have with fantasy
From 2016, I read Written in Fire, Staked, Bands of Mourning, Calamity, Down Station, The Everything Box, Kill Switch, The Fireman, and The City of Mirrors
I though Staked, Bands of Mourning and The Fireman were just horrible. Author-dropping bad, though Sanderson was saved because I read Calamity first and was satisfied with that.
Also very satisfied with City of Mirrors. I liked The Passage a lot, but its sequel didn't impress me as much so it was good to see it rally.
Kill Switch is part of a series of straight-up techno-thrillers with an ex Army ranger battling shadowy bands of villains who would strike the world with plagues, bioengineered zombies, and plagues of bioengineered zombies. If that's your thing, the series is still solid eight books in.
Blindsight rocked
Echopraxia was very good, overshadowed by Blindsight but still solid.
How's Rifters?
The Scar was decent, I'll give the other two guys a try.
The Buried Giant
Can you read The Scar without having read Perdido Street Station? I heard it's better in that it actually has a plot.