What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it...

[slikmar]

22 hours ago, Hermit said:

I finished them too. I didn't enjoy them as much as you did; and the Riyria books in my mind are great where as these are more 'good' but  Legends of the First Empire had it's moments. And some stuff worth stealing for games ... such as a really detailed Afterlife, for example

Having read Riyria first, I agree is fantastic and better, and they colored my thinking of LFE. I think the one thing I kept feeling during the series was that it was a history and all these people were already dead 3000 years (shorter I guess for Nephron), so maybe wasn't quite as invested in as I would have been had the people dieing been Hadrian or Royce (or some of the others).

[death tribble]

Terms of Enlistment by Marko Kloos

 

This is about a man joining the military in the future to avoid a life of permanent poverty. It follows him through basic training and to his posting to an Earth based army unit. He had wanted to leave the planet so he is not best pleased. However he begins to fit in until a firefight causes him to be transferred into the Navy instead and he runs into one of his old class mates and danger on another planet. It was an enjoyable read and leaves the way open for more.

[Matt the Bruins]

Phantoms by Dean Koontz. It's a really interesting premise (as seen in the film adaptation), but Koontz' writing style is so reminiscent of leveled readers I encounter in early childhood publishing that I was breaking out in laughter every time a chapter ended with an exclamatory one-sentence paragraph. If you want to introduce your kids in elementary school to horror, it will be much more readable to them than most books that aren't in the children's library.

[Hermit]

Orconomics: A Satire by J. Zachary Pike

 

I was looking for a light hearted book with some funny mixed with my fantasy when I picked this up. What I got was some really excellent writing and brilliant characters against a backdrop that is more like "Wall Street" in charge rather than typical feudal kings (Though it has some of those too). Adventurers go out and slay monsters (Shadowkin), but "Plunder Rights" are claimed even before they're slain. The percentages the Adventurers get can actually be very small but every adventurer dreams of making it big anyway. And, of course, this being a satire, you can pretty easily see what this was inspired by. But it's so well done and goes beyond that. Lots of fantasy touches on elements of prejudice, this one ask 'who profits from it?'. It touches on fallen heroes trying to pick themselves back up again, and trying to decide how much society gets to define their roles. Can you still be a hero if the rules of the society you live in say otherwise? What could be just satire is actually excellent world building. 

 

But my chief love of any book is the characters. And damn it, the rag tag bunch of fallen idols, self harming legends, arrogant and insecure mages, and folks just wanting somewhere to BELONG just weaseled their way into my heart one by one. They're flawed, but realistically so, and they all try to get better with mixed results. Our main protagonist is a Dwarf Berserker who has one good deed for a monster turn him back to becoming a hero again. We've one wizard who lacks control so is sneered at despite her power and resents a system stacked against her, and other wizard who has honed his skill to a fine art but one soon learns that maybe compensating for a lack of it for much of his youth. A thief who has decided to become a Bard even if he's terrible at it because of temptation. An Elf Ranger who is a legend still but on the outs due to Addiction.  A faithful servant of a  Church who wants very badly to be special. Your classic silent bad ass who is laconic not because of choice but trauma. That's not even counting the goblin and troll who I don't want to give too many spoilers for. They're not all likable, but their flaws are realistic, and empathy inducing. By the middle of the book you want all of them to be the better thems that they're striving to be.

 

At least I did.

 

And yes, it's funny. There's humor laced liberally through out the novel, touches of physical comedy, gallows humor, word play and other touches of situations going sideways. I laughed quite a few times.

And yes, it has lots of Adventure

“Not all who wander are lost; some are on quests.”

 

The story does not have a fairy tale ending, but then it's the first in a planned series currently with two books. I intend to get the second eventually.

 

I'd give it 5 out of 5 

 

 

 

 

[sinanju]

I'm currently reading Hero (Girl in the Box # 31), by Robert J. Crane. I'm re-reading the whole series, at least until June 2nd, when book # 50 is released on Amazon. It's superhero fiction--of a sort. With rare exceptions, most metahumans don't wear costumes of any sort, and a lot of them (the younger ones, anyhow) regularly use guns. In fact, when the series starts, although metahumans have always been around, almost nobody knows that they exist. That doesn't last, and eventually their existence is public knowledge, and dealing with meta criminals (now that they're not restrained even slightly by the necessity to stay out of the public eye) is a big part of the ongoing story.

 

The main protagonist is Sienna Nealon, an 18 year-old shut-in when the series starts. She's never left her house since she was five years old. Her mother educates her, and trains her in combat every day, and when she deems it necessary, punishes her by locking her in a steel box (the titular box of the series title) for hours or days. She wakes up one day when she hears strangers breaking into the house, where she's remained alone for several days after her mother went to work and didn't come back. That rude awakening is only the start, as she discovers the wider world, and the world of metahumans, and tries to figure out her place in it (and what happened to her mother). She finds herself thrust into frequent conflicts, and all that training--plus firearms training by her new allies--comes in handy.

 

This is a violent, often bloody series. Lots of characters die. Heroes, villains, bystanders. Sometimes in large numbers. Sienna (and other characters, but mostly Sienna) really gets put through the wringer physically, mentally and emotionally. She has major triumphs--and crushing defeats, and while each book stands alone, they're also all part of ongoing multi-book plot arcs. It's a very pulp-style series

 

I would say more, but most of what I could tell you would be spoilers--it's a fifty book series so far, so there's a lot of backstory and background info that was only revealed gradually. I bought the first book a couple of years ago, when I was trying out various superhero series on Kindle Unlimited. I liked it, so I bought the next one, and the next one. And eventually caught up, and now I have to wait for each new book to be published. Fortunately, the author is a MACHINE. He publishes four of these a year...in addition to several other series he also writes (or collaborates on).

[death tribble]

Katabasis The Foreworld saga by Joseph Brasset, Cooper Moo, Mark Teppo and Angus Trim

This follows on from the Mongoliad. The knights are on their way home as the Mongols gather to elect a new Khan. Two however are on the trail of the knights for the death of the Khan and a woman travelling with them, One of them has run off with a staff and his friends are pursuing him. You also have the Livonian Knights and the Teutonic Order looking to take over Russia. In their way stands Alexander Nevsky and Baba Yaga. If you liked the Mongoliad, you'll like this as you follow the surviving characters.

[Sociotard]

"Legends and Lattes" by Travis Baldree

 

In which an adventure-hardened orc tires of slaying monsters and looting treasures, and decides to settle down and found a coffee house.

 

Very fun. If you want a cozy, slice of life with low stakes, but you still want high fantasy tropes, this one is for you.

[Old Man]

The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty.  An Arabian-Nights-flavored high fantasy with djinn, magic, mortals, intrigue, and love triangles.  I give it an uneven 8/10--slow in places, brilliant in others.  Points are docked because of the difficulty in following the magic system; there's magic the characters know and the reader doesn't, and there's magic the characters don't know and the reader still doesn't.  Still, it's a really good character driven story.

 

First of a series, I haven't read the other books.

[Old Man]

The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson.  Why am I posting this ten days after I finished the last book?  Because I was twelve pages in when I realized: Uh-oh, this is one of those books.  The kind that have to be finished immediately.  So I did.  Short on magic, long on intrigue, shifting loyalties, unconventional relationships, and economics.  Brilliantly plotted in striking, precise prose that flips effortlessly between past and present tense (a trick I never got the hang of).  A somewhat less dark, much more tightly written Game of Thrones that has an actual ending.  10/10 unless you hated Game of Thrones, then 7/10.

[DShomshak]

The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman. First of a series. A jolly romp about acqyiring rare books for an interdimensional library. Alternate histories, faeries, a Great Detective, steampunk London, vampires, dragons, and more fun. Not a serious bone in it, unless you count the suggestions of poisonous office politics among senior librarians, which suggests to me that Ms. Cogman once worked in the Tacoma Library System. (As my sister did for many years and I did... briefly.) The style is arch to just the right degree, in that way Brits do so well.

 

Possibly of interest to some readers that Ms. Cogman once wrote a fair bit of material for the Exalted RPG and ported a fair bit into the series. Her Fae, as creatures of primal Chaos, are ported directly from Exalted (OK by me since it's a view of Fae she had a large role in creating in the first place). I shall see if her version of dragons intersects with Exalted as well. Could be: In Exalted, dragons are powerful elemental spirits, and at one point a dragon wields elemental power.

 

We game writers are all frustrated novelists. It's nice to see that one of our crew made the transition so well.

 

Dean Shomshak

[tombrown803]

Very good series Dean, recommend the rest of the series

[death tribble]

Siege Perilous by E.D. De Birmingham

This is the last book in the Foreworld saga. Ocyrhoe (and do not ask me how to pronounce it) ends up with the remnants of the Cathar heresy in France. The knights Percival and Raphael are sent by Emperor Frederick to find the grail which Ocyrhoe ay have. But the new Pope who is her enemy and the Livonian Order who hate the knights are also after it. It ties up the series but is not as good as its predecessors.

[DShomshak]

The Masked City and The Burning Page by Genevieve Cogman, continuing the series begun in The Invisible Library. Also good and a lot of fun. I will try to continue reading the series, even though my library doesn't have them in large print.

 

Continuing what I said before about the Exalted-style Fae in the series, these books continue developing the idea of Fae as living stories, or at least gaining their power by acting out story roles. In Masked City, Aunt Isra and the Rider show that those roles don't need to be the self-centered protagonism of Fae such as the libertine Silver and the domineering Lord Guantes. Aunt Isra presents herself as a teacher and storyteller -- but her true role is exposition, giving other characters the information they need to continue their own stories... including, apparently unwittingly, the actual protagonist Irene -- and us, the readers. While the Rider seems uninvolved until the very end, but the story still can't happen without him to move everyone else where they want to go.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Christopher R Taylor]

Not finished yet, but I found a collection of Gardner Fox's Niall of the Far Travels stories.  These are pulp fantasy stories printed in Dragon Magazine for most of its early run, and they're basically a Conan type that has a wicked goddess backing him up and helping him fight stuff well above his weight class.  They're not the best literature but they're a lot of fun and bring back some nice Dragon Mag memories.

[Pariah]

I can't remember the last time I read a book in one day. But I did just that yesterday. The book was The Blue Tower by J. B. Simmons.

 

A young boy finds himself in a subterranean pool with no idea where he is, or even who he is. Befriended by a young girl named Kiyo and under the instruction of a mysterious old man named Abram and an equally mysterious woman named Sarai, he begins the journey to discover who he is (or was), and learns to control the wind along the way. 

 

The book is an easy read. First person narrative, relatable characters, good character development, and a few surprises along the way. Simmons kind of telegraphs the ending (especially if you looked to see what the title of the second book is) but knowing how it's going to turn out doesn't really detract from how Cipher, our main character, gets there. 

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

I started Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire in the airport. Still a long way to go, but I really like it so far. Will review when I finish. 

[mattingly]

Finally got around to Hail Mary, from Andy Weir. 

Not quite as good as The Martian, but still quite good.

The audiobook really enhanced the experience.

 

[slikmar]

14 hours ago, Logan.1179 said:

I started Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire in the airport. Still a long way to go, but I really like it so far. Will review when I finish. 

I pretty much enjoy everything she writes and have very much enjoyed the Wayward Children series.

[Pariah]

Last night I finished reading Going Bovine by Libba Bray. It's the story of Cameron Smith, a teenaged outcast/underachiever/music nerd/occasional stoner in a small Texas college town. He starts experiencing hallucinations and loss of body control, leading to his getting fired from his dead-end fast food job. His parents take him to the city for medical testing, where they learn that he has Creutzfeldt-Jakob Syndrome, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy or mad cow disease. He is committed to the hospital for observation and an experimental treatment.

 

In the hospital, he has a vision wherein a punk rock angel named Dulcie warns him of the coming end of the universe. She tells him that a scientist named Dr. X accidentally opened a portal to other dimensions, which let in dark energy that has thrown our reality out of balance and threatens everything. She says that Dr. X can save his life, as well as reality. She tells him to go find Dr. X—who may be at or near Disney World, where Cameron almost drowned as a child—before it's too late. 

 

Cameron escapes the hospital with the help of a teenage little person nicknamed Gonzo, and the two boys begin the quest from Texas to Florida. Along the way they meet a legendary jazz musician, fight fire giants and the Wizard of Reckoning, befriend a yard gnome who is actually Balder the Brave, almost join and then escape a bowling cult, buy a lemon Cadillac, run afoul of a militant snow globe company, and become reality TV stars and wanted fugitives.

 

The book is a crazy ride pretty much from beginning to end. The storytelling is solid, and the main characters are relatable if flawed. I don't know if I'll read it again, but I enjoyed it.

[Hermit]

A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher, is a young adult novel I took a listen to. I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. Easy read with some pithy word play and tongue in cheek narration, about a 14 year old girl who is a wizard! She can work wonders.. with bread. Yeah, that's the limit of her magic and she's okay with that.  It's when she gets up early to light up the ovens at her Aunt's bakery and finds a corpse when her story begins. There's an assassin killing wizards in the city. Wizard much more potent than her! Of course, there's a reason for it all and she , with help from a young thief, finds out. One thing I like is she's not saving the world, just a city... and she is fully aware she's the wrong person for that, thanks! Indeed, the book actually address how utterly screwed up things must be, and how many mistakes by adults had to be made, for her to be in this situation. Mona (our baking wizard) isn't a chosen one, she's one girl stepping up (largely out of necessity) who never should have had to. Seems pretty self contained. I don't know if it will get a sequel but she is warned that heroism is habit forming.

[DShomshak]

18 hours ago, Hermit said:

A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher, is a young adult novel I took a listen to. I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. Easy read with some pithy word play and tongue in cheek narration, about a 14 year old girl who is a wizard! She can work wonders.. with bread. Yeah, that's the limit of her magic and she's okay with that.  It's when she gets up early to light up the ovens at her Aunt's bakery and finds a corpse when her story begins. There's an assassin killing wizards in the city. Wizard much more potent than her! Of course, there's a reason for it all and she , with help from a young thief, finds out. One thing I like is she's not saving the world, just a city... and she is fully aware she's the wrong person for that, thanks! Indeed, the book actually address how utterly screwed up things must be, and how many mistakes by adults had to be made, for her to be in this situation. Mona (our baking wizard) isn't a chosen one, she's one girl stepping up (largely out of necessity) who never should have had to. Seems pretty self contained. I don't know if it will get a sequel but she is warned that heroism is habit forming.

Sounds good. And speaking of one bit you brought up... I am so tired of "Chosen Ones." I prefer my heroes to be fighting the good fight because somebody has to, not because it's their Destiny.

 

I crystallized this view several years ago while watching the Shannara TV series that aired (only one season AFAIK) on MTV. Okay, not a fan of The Sword of Shannara and never felt any reason to read the sequels, but somebody was trying to do Fantasy on TV so I watched it. And I got really irritated by Alanon the druid telling the young hero that it's his Destiny to fight the demon horde and save the world, because he's descended from the last great hero and so is the only person who can activate the power of the Elfstones, yadda yadda yadda.

 

Especially when the material was there for a different approach. Untested Young Hero doesn't want to save the world; he wants to be a doctor, because his mother suffered so much in her final illness. I think the line should have been: "You're probably not the only descendant of Shannara. If I tried, I could probably find a dozen others. But you responded to suffering and grief by wanting to help others. That's special. Other people could use the magic pebbles. You're the one who should use them."

 

Dean Shomshak

[Hermit]

6 hours ago, DShomshak said:

Sounds good. And speaking of one bit you brought up... I am so tired of "Chosen Ones." I prefer my heroes to be fighting the good fight because somebody has to, not because it's their Destiny.

 

I crystallized this view several years ago while watching the Shannara TV series that aired (only one season AFAIK) on MTV. Okay, not a fan of The Sword of Shannara and never felt any reason to read the sequels, but somebody was trying to do Fantasy on TV so I watched it. And I got really irritated by Alanon the druid telling the young hero that it's his Destiny to fight the demon horde and save the world, because he's descended from the last great hero and so is the only person who can activate the power of the Elfstones, yadda yadda yadda.

 

Especially when the material was there for a different approach. Untested Young Hero doesn't want to save the world; he wants to be a doctor, because his mother suffered so much in her final illness. I think the line should have been: "You're probably not the only descendant of Shannara. If I tried, I could probably find a dozen others. But you responded to suffering and grief by wanting to help others. That's special. Other people could use the magic pebbles. You're the one who should use them."

 

Dean Shomshak

 

Out of the Shannara series, The Elf stones was actually my favorite book. Still a 'get that Tolkein money' vibe but enjoyable The TV adaptation was such a wince for me, and I'm a guy who likes parts of Rings of Power (Which should tell some of you what a heathen I can be about purity). I cut the book a lot of slack as at the time it came out, the chosen one seemed to not have lost it's freshness but again I can be a soft touch. But that excuse doesn't fly as well now adays yeah. Overdone and more than that, it oddly takes away agency from our would be hero and can make him or her less heroic. Others might disagree.

 

Which is hypocritical of me I know as my NANOWRIMO this month is about commoners being gathered to study magic in a land where it was previously aristocrats only, and in fact, the youth are conscripted as war is coming and magic is needed. So their agency is pretty minimal too.

 

 

 

A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking  surprised me as a YA novel that took a moment to not just take a poke at the trope of chosen ones, lots of folks take some pokes, but to do it in a way that was entirely sensible and in character. I understand the urge to kill a sacred cow, or mock the emporer with no clothes, but when you have it make sense in story for a character as part of her development? All the better. Mona actually gets ANGRY at the adults who are supposed to be running things. She doesn't become a jerk about it, and does what needs to be done , but her ire is justified.

 

In fairness, I do like some Chosen One stuff to this day, but it's more a 'despite the' use and almost never because.

[csyphrett]

You're doing the Nano too, Hermit?

CES 

[Hermit]

8 hours ago, csyphrett said:

You're doing the Nano too, Hermit?

CES 

 

Yup. I hit my 50000 yesterday after doing things to English grammar and spelling that are probably linguistic war crimes. It was a record on speed as normally I cut it much closer. Story is not two thirds done, perhaps not even half. I hope to finish it, clean it up etc.

I might go into more details but for that I think I'd dust off the old NANOWRIMO thread

 

 

[csyphrett]

2 hours ago, Hermit said:

 

Yup. I hit my 50000 yesterday after doing things to English grammar and spelling that are probably linguistic war crimes. It was a record on speed as normally I cut it much closer. Story is not two thirds done, perhaps not even half. I hope to finish it, clean it up etc.

I might go into more details but for that I think I'd dust off the old NANOWRIMO thread

 

 

Everybody is writing faster than me.

CES