GasBandit
Staff member
I mean Stephen King from about 1990 to about 2010. That's also roughly 7.5 million in 20 years
Edit
Actually no I am wrong, it's hard to see on my phone. Sorry.
He's an even steeper climb than Brandon Sanderson.
"What are you reading?" thread.
- Thread starter HoboNinja
- Start date
Edit
Actually no I am wrong, it's hard to see on my phone. Sorry.
He's an even steeper climb than Brandon Sanderson.
figmentPez
Staff member
"The Dawn of Amber", "Chaos and Amber", "To Rule in Amber" and "Shadows of Amber" by John Betancourt
Not as good as I remember Zelazny's Amber novels were, but I haven't read those in a while (I have reread other Zelazny works, though, and they were roughly as I remembered them, so...)
Betancourt's biggest problem is that he doesn't write people very well, and he's downright terrible at writing women. The female characters in the book fall into three categories: 1. Beautiful relative 2. Beautiful and trying to sleep with the main character 3. Hideous but politically useful. Male characters have more variety, but we're just told they have character traits, for the most part. The characters almost all read the same in dialogue.
Overall: interesting ideas, poor execution.
--
Further back I've read.... Wait, I can't seem to find my ever having posted here about Meghan Ciana Doidge's Adept Universe. So there's 16+ books I've read in the last five years that I've somehow managed to avoid raving about, despite the fact that I loved them. The series has grown better by leaps and bounds as Doidge has gained skill as a writer and fleshed out the world beyond just basic supernatural romance stuff. Cupcakes, Trinkets and other Deadly Magic is the first book in the universe, and it's good, but IMO it's not until the Oracle series spins off with I See Me that the world starts to be something remarkable and step beyond just being solid urban fantasy chick lit. I love all the main characters a bunch, and I'd be hard pressed to choose a favorite protagonist. I'm 4 or more books behind the latest published, but I'm looking forward to catching up, though my To Read list is pretty long.
The books I've read thus far are from three series within the Adept Universe. The Dowser series follows Jade, a half-witch who owns a bakery in Vancouver, after a series of supernatural murders make her life much more complicated and she discovers she's not half-human, and that her full-witch mother lied about who her father was. The Oracle series follows Rochelle, a teenage who just aged-out of the foster system, knows nothing of the magical world, and discovers that the headaches and hallucinations she's suffered from all her life are actually magical visions of the future, the legacy of her mother who died when she was very young. The Reconstructionist follows Wisteria, a witch who specializes in magical reconstructions of past events, and has trouble when her abusive uncle's influence resurfaces in her life. There's also the Amplifier and Misfits series, but I haven't gotten to those yet, though I think I've met the characters; the various series are tied together.
Reading Cupcakes... it would be easy to dismiss it as a Twilight knock-off, complete with vampire and werewolf love interests, but the series has progressed far beyond that. Jade isn't a blank slate, and is actually quite a power fantasy in her own right. She starts as a competent adult, at least by ordinary standards, having a successful business, and while she is overwhelmed by magical forces far beyond her own, she eventually moves from being dragged by the tides of the plot/fate, onto having significant agency in her world.
These books are currently my favorite series.
Not as good as I remember Zelazny's Amber novels were, but I haven't read those in a while (I have reread other Zelazny works, though, and they were roughly as I remembered them, so...)
Betancourt's biggest problem is that he doesn't write people very well, and he's downright terrible at writing women. The female characters in the book fall into three categories: 1. Beautiful relative 2. Beautiful and trying to sleep with the main character 3. Hideous but politically useful. Male characters have more variety, but we're just told they have character traits, for the most part. The characters almost all read the same in dialogue.
Overall: interesting ideas, poor execution.
--
Further back I've read.... Wait, I can't seem to find my ever having posted here about Meghan Ciana Doidge's Adept Universe. So there's 16+ books I've read in the last five years that I've somehow managed to avoid raving about, despite the fact that I loved them. The series has grown better by leaps and bounds as Doidge has gained skill as a writer and fleshed out the world beyond just basic supernatural romance stuff. Cupcakes, Trinkets and other Deadly Magic is the first book in the universe, and it's good, but IMO it's not until the Oracle series spins off with I See Me that the world starts to be something remarkable and step beyond just being solid urban fantasy chick lit. I love all the main characters a bunch, and I'd be hard pressed to choose a favorite protagonist. I'm 4 or more books behind the latest published, but I'm looking forward to catching up, though my To Read list is pretty long.
The books I've read thus far are from three series within the Adept Universe. The Dowser series follows Jade, a half-witch who owns a bakery in Vancouver, after a series of supernatural murders make her life much more complicated and she discovers she's not half-human, and that her full-witch mother lied about who her father was. The Oracle series follows Rochelle, a teenage who just aged-out of the foster system, knows nothing of the magical world, and discovers that the headaches and hallucinations she's suffered from all her life are actually magical visions of the future, the legacy of her mother who died when she was very young. The Reconstructionist follows Wisteria, a witch who specializes in magical reconstructions of past events, and has trouble when her abusive uncle's influence resurfaces in her life. There's also the Amplifier and Misfits series, but I haven't gotten to those yet, though I think I've met the characters; the various series are tied together.
Reading Cupcakes... it would be easy to dismiss it as a Twilight knock-off, complete with vampire and werewolf love interests, but the series has progressed far beyond that. Jade isn't a blank slate, and is actually quite a power fantasy in her own right. She starts as a competent adult, at least by ordinary standards, having a successful business, and while she is overwhelmed by magical forces far beyond her own, she eventually moves from being dragged by the tides of the plot/fate, onto having significant agency in her world.
These books are currently my favorite series.
*starts foaming at the mouth to rant about Zelazny and Amber*
...no, it's fine. It's cool. Cool. I know people enjoyed Amber and didn't feel like 10 BOOKS THAT WENT ALMOST NOWHERE AND CONSTANTLY FILLED WITH PLOTHOLES AND UNEXPLAINED THREADS WASTING MY TIME-
...
ok, no, it's cool. I have not read Betancourt's stories. I'm not sure I want to revisit Amber OR ITS GODFORSAKEN RPG anytime soon. But good to know.
My list of books and comics read for 2020. A paltry amount compared to 2019, but depression hit me really hard last year and I found it difficult to find joy or engagement in reading. I'm going to try keeping track of the movies I watch this year, as well; something I always wanted to do, but never got around to it.
Finished Ready Player Two.
I went in completely blind and unspoiled, just re-read the first one before continuing on.
I'm a bit on the fence here. The first one was really neat and combined nostalgia with a nice hero story, some inventive ideas, etc. Nothing incredibly original, but a good blend of genres. RP2....eeeeeh. It really didn't grab me at all for the first 70-80 pages - it was actually pretty clunky in the way it was front loading exposition and world building. There's a couple of years between the two books, and for the set-up of the second book to work there's quite a bit of explaining to do to bridge the gap. I just don't think it was handled incredibly well. Once the quest/easter egg hunt starts up again (I assume this isn't a spoiler), things improve - though I don't think all the challenges are as inventive or surprising or sensible as some in the first book.
The nostalgia in this book also moves forward a bit - much more late '80s early '90s than the first book's early and mid 80's. I'm not saying that's a good or a bad thing, just information.
All in all... I had fun reading it after the first part, and it's a nice enough story, but overall, it definitely doesn't meet the standards of the first book, and I'd be hard pressed to call it great or a classic. I'll happily suggest the first to people who like '80s nerd culture; I can only recommend this to people who really liked the first and I'd warn them ahead of time they might be a bit disappointed.
I went in completely blind and unspoiled, just re-read the first one before continuing on.
I'm a bit on the fence here. The first one was really neat and combined nostalgia with a nice hero story, some inventive ideas, etc. Nothing incredibly original, but a good blend of genres. RP2....eeeeeh. It really didn't grab me at all for the first 70-80 pages - it was actually pretty clunky in the way it was front loading exposition and world building. There's a couple of years between the two books, and for the set-up of the second book to work there's quite a bit of explaining to do to bridge the gap. I just don't think it was handled incredibly well. Once the quest/easter egg hunt starts up again (I assume this isn't a spoiler), things improve - though I don't think all the challenges are as inventive or surprising or sensible as some in the first book.
Obviously, there's a problem going back to the same protagonist - it's much easier to identify with/root for the down-on-his-luck teen from a crappy neighborhood who's a total gaming geek and nerd culture obsessed, fighting The Man and Big Tech to keep the world Safe. A multi-billionaire superstar whining about his first world problems (but refusing to see a therapist, because.... Logic?) isn't as compelling, interesting, or recognizable.
A new piece of hardware is introduced - the ONI - allowing perfect sensory stimulation in the Oasis. Suddenly you feel, hear, smell, etc everything as if it's real. Now, first off, that's just not how technology works. If I invent The Perfect 3D immersive headset tomorrow, that doesn't mean I can suddenly immerse myself into a 1986 Game Boy game and see everything around me. You'd have to reprogram the whole lot. Secondly, it's a cop-out to have this piece of super-advanced years-beyond-what-we-have tech having been developed by Halliday, but really quite an ass-pull to have this being done while Kira was still alive - this means he developed not just 3D goggles but a full almost-instant brain scan and backup device, with 100% fidelity, back in the early '90s. OASIS is more-or-less believable tech (it's WOW-meets-Minecraft-meets-facebook-meets-3D-headset with a small pinch of plot - I can see someone develop something like this in reality, though it probably won't be allowed to become as ubiquitous and definitely not as unified global as the Oasis is), while the ONI catapults it into pure science fantasy. The OASIS seems like something you might see in 2035. The ONI seems like something you might see in 2305.
Sorrento coming back was completely unnecessary. I still don't understand why Halliday - or anyone - would need to use him, specifically, for anything.
Rogue AI is obviously a trope and the horse has been mashed into a pulp by now. I'm not necessarily against the concept, but Anorak doesn't really add a lot of new to this. Leucosia then comes on to somehow "prove" that unaltered IDs are not a problem and won't go rogue like the "altered" Anorak has. There's absolutely nothing to support that idea though - plenty of people are unbalanced by themselves. Once you start thinking about the AI NPCs for more than 5 seconds it all starts to come apart, really.
Some of the interpersonal stuff was expected - I expected Wade and Sam to break up and get back together before I even opened the cover. Nothing really big or surprising on this end.
The end of the book.....Our protagonists are now immortal, impossibly wealthy, completely successful including a happy relationship, etc. I'm not sure how you don't die from boredom at that point, and it's a bit too wish fulfillment-y for my tastes.
Really though, the "immortality through cybernetics", "rogue AI", "living in a simulation", "see life through each other's eyes and instantly learn compassion and love", "asocial outcasts can't cope with social stress from being pushed into the spotlight", etc themes are all treated fairly superficially, and to even bring them into this story, the world had to be rebuilt quite a bit from the first book.
Oh, and, while it was also a problem with the first book, the idea of coding in stuff that somehow NO-ONE can change or update but works perfectly and independently is just NUTS. Any update should and would break half the stuff for the hunt(s), and if there's no simple toggle or tick box to change an NPC's status it should be fairly trivial to disable part of your software - it might break some other things but that's not really an issue with 500 million lives at stake.
The armored mobile immersion bays don't make much sense, either, by the way.
A new piece of hardware is introduced - the ONI - allowing perfect sensory stimulation in the Oasis. Suddenly you feel, hear, smell, etc everything as if it's real. Now, first off, that's just not how technology works. If I invent The Perfect 3D immersive headset tomorrow, that doesn't mean I can suddenly immerse myself into a 1986 Game Boy game and see everything around me. You'd have to reprogram the whole lot. Secondly, it's a cop-out to have this piece of super-advanced years-beyond-what-we-have tech having been developed by Halliday, but really quite an ass-pull to have this being done while Kira was still alive - this means he developed not just 3D goggles but a full almost-instant brain scan and backup device, with 100% fidelity, back in the early '90s. OASIS is more-or-less believable tech (it's WOW-meets-Minecraft-meets-facebook-meets-3D-headset with a small pinch of plot - I can see someone develop something like this in reality, though it probably won't be allowed to become as ubiquitous and definitely not as unified global as the Oasis is), while the ONI catapults it into pure science fantasy. The OASIS seems like something you might see in 2035. The ONI seems like something you might see in 2305.
Sorrento coming back was completely unnecessary. I still don't understand why Halliday - or anyone - would need to use him, specifically, for anything.
Rogue AI is obviously a trope and the horse has been mashed into a pulp by now. I'm not necessarily against the concept, but Anorak doesn't really add a lot of new to this. Leucosia then comes on to somehow "prove" that unaltered IDs are not a problem and won't go rogue like the "altered" Anorak has. There's absolutely nothing to support that idea though - plenty of people are unbalanced by themselves. Once you start thinking about the AI NPCs for more than 5 seconds it all starts to come apart, really.
Some of the interpersonal stuff was expected - I expected Wade and Sam to break up and get back together before I even opened the cover. Nothing really big or surprising on this end.
The end of the book.....Our protagonists are now immortal, impossibly wealthy, completely successful including a happy relationship, etc. I'm not sure how you don't die from boredom at that point, and it's a bit too wish fulfillment-y for my tastes.
Really though, the "immortality through cybernetics", "rogue AI", "living in a simulation", "see life through each other's eyes and instantly learn compassion and love", "asocial outcasts can't cope with social stress from being pushed into the spotlight", etc themes are all treated fairly superficially, and to even bring them into this story, the world had to be rebuilt quite a bit from the first book.
Oh, and, while it was also a problem with the first book, the idea of coding in stuff that somehow NO-ONE can change or update but works perfectly and independently is just NUTS. Any update should and would break half the stuff for the hunt(s), and if there's no simple toggle or tick box to change an NPC's status it should be fairly trivial to disable part of your software - it might break some other things but that's not really an issue with 500 million lives at stake.
The armored mobile immersion bays don't make much sense, either, by the way.
The nostalgia in this book also moves forward a bit - much more late '80s early '90s than the first book's early and mid 80's. I'm not saying that's a good or a bad thing, just information.
All in all... I had fun reading it after the first part, and it's a nice enough story, but overall, it definitely doesn't meet the standards of the first book, and I'd be hard pressed to call it great or a classic. I'll happily suggest the first to people who like '80s nerd culture; I can only recommend this to people who really liked the first and I'd warn them ahead of time they might be a bit disappointed.
So, I know there are a few Dresden Files fans around here. I've been thinking about picking the series up, or at least giving them a try.
Is it necessary/a good idea/important to start with the first book and just make my way forward, or are there other/better/alternative starting points? Just asking because a series of over a dozen books can sometimes have the "the first few are clunky but it gets much better after #4" effect going on.
Is it necessary/a good idea/important to start with the first book and just make my way forward, or are there other/better/alternative starting points? Just asking because a series of over a dozen books can sometimes have the "the first few are clunky but it gets much better after #4" effect going on.
Book 6 is really the point I feel it goes from a good series to a really really good series. On the other hand book 3 has the first appearance of Michael Carpenter (who is awesome) & has Bianca's party (which sets up a lot of Chekov's Guns - not all of which have fired yet). Personally, I'd recommend reading them all, but if not a recap of the first 2, read 3, recap of 4 & 5, then read everything from 6 onwards.
Actually, I'd like to change my advice to @Bubble181 re Dresden Files. Listen to the first 5 as audiobooks. No, they're not quite as good as the later books but James Marsters awesome narration elevates them. Then read from book 6 onwards as I originally recommended. And once you've done that don't be afraid to go back and listen to the audiobook versions of the books you read.
Seriously, this is the only series where I wholeheartedly recommend both reading & listening to, because both the writing & narration are that damn good.
Seriously, this is the only series where I wholeheartedly recommend both reading & listening to, because both the writing & narration are that damn good.
Yeah, anything to avoid working on ASoIaF, we know.
Only slightly serious: Elden Ring has a plot?
GasBandit
Staff member
Sanderson: Oops, I accidentally wrote 5 more books than I was supposed to over the last 2 years because the pandemic relieved me of having to attend cons 100+ days a year. And I'd like to keep doing that sort of thing, so here's a kickstarter.
I, too, would like to continue not being around the great, unwashed masses.
It’s over 7 million pledged and will probably pass 8 before evening gets here.
Yup, at $10/e-book that's a lot of pages for cheap! If they're even remotely readable, it's a decent price.
I’ll admit I backed it. I’ve generally enjoyed his work.
GasBandit
Staff member
I regret not reading his wrap up of the Wheel of Time series, but it came out too long after the last Jordan book and by then I'd forgotten literally all important information that wasn't in the drinking game I invented to play while reading it ("Nynaeve tugs her braid" take a drink. "Egwene sniffed" take a drink. "I wish (other male ta'veren) was here, he knows how to talk to women" take a drink etc). And I wasn't about to slog through those paid-by-the-word, 7-pages-of-tedious-minutae middle books again for love OR money.
Sadly, I haven't read any of Sanderson's works. He says only one of the novels is stand-alone, and the rest is in his big cosmos he's putting all the works in. It makes me hesitant to back anything, since I don't want to have to go back and buy and read a bunch of stuff just to catch up.
Wow, 12.2 million and climbing as of 9pm Central time.
Dave
Staff member
The way Sanderson writes, yes everything is together in the Cosmere. But as of right now it's nothing more than something he's talked about. None of the books reference anything in any of the other series at all. So reading a Sanderson series in no way means you have to read any of the others.
Dude is my favorite author right now. Anything he writes I'll read and probably enjoy. His ending books of the WoT series are probably the best reading after around book 4 where Robert Jordan lost his way bigtime.
You're doing yourself a disservice not reading him.
How have you not died of alcohol poisoning?
i have a few of his books on Audible from free credits. Just haven't gotten around to it. Because of me getting back into WoT due to the TV show, I'm currently listening to those. It'll be a while before I get around to the Sanderson stuff.
Hahahahahaha
Yeah no.
Stormlight Archive is RIDDLED with Cosmere. There are literally characters from other books all over it. The later Mistborn books are the same, but the only overt Cosmere reference is in one bonus book.
That said, only Stormlight Archive seems to need the Cosmere knowledge so far.
As of the last book, I don't personally think that's the case, and I can pretty much guarantee that it's probably going to escalate from here on out.
Stormlight Archive is 100% going to be the series where the Cosmere collides.