The Science Fiction & Fantasy Books Thread
- Thread starter JD
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There's one book that's become one of my favourites in recent years. It's not a book that's part of a series, which is something that's starting to become harder to find, but what it is is quite an original take on the dystopian genre. It's The Book of M by Peng Shepherd. It's post-apocalyptic fiction blending magical elements. Rather than the trope of zombies, it starts with people losing their shadows, which then leads them to lose their memories, which in turn leads them to gain mysterious powers. It's dystopian fiction with heart, and it's absolutely beautiful. I so wish more people would know about it.
Just started my next Dresden Files book, Ghost Story. This is one of my absolute favorite book series, and I'm very curious to see exactly how where things go after the way Changes ended.
I have a little bit of an idea from reading the blurbs for the next books, but I don't know the details.
I have a little bit of an idea from reading the blurbs for the next books, but I don't know the details.
Space Wars: Worlds and Weapons was of that sort. Nobody ever did that them with fantasy or horror though...Barlow’s Inferno did get a sequel
I have Space Wars: World and Weapons. Got it for Xmas in 1979 and never got rid of it. It's beat up, as you'd expect. It is one of my favorites of that type of book.
Ah, I thought there seemed to be a big gap between Skin Game and Peace Talks.
I forgot until I started Ghost Story just how many big status quo changes were made in Changes.
I forgot until I started Ghost Story just how many big status quo changes were made in Changes.
I remembered Dresden getting shot, but forgot about him giving up his daughter, killing Susan, and having his apartment destroyed.
The last scifi book I read was Axiom's End by Lindsay Ellis. It's about a first contact with an alien species that believes that any contact between intelligent species results in the eradication of the less advanced one. One of these aliens initiates contact with a human in order to rescue some others of it's kind. It focuses a lot on how difficult it is to communicate between species both physically and conceptionally. The aliens have three forms of communication, one is similar to speaking, telepathy, and a form that conveys emotion (the closest humans can understand is how music is able to convey emotion). I really enjoyed it, it had the feeling of a 80s/90s scifi film like Starman.
R.F. Kuang, the author of the Poppy War trilogy, just announced her next book, Babel, and it sounds fascinating.
Cover copy:
1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation — also known as Babel.
Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.
Babel is the world’s center of translation and, more importantly, of silver-working: the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation through enchanted silver bars, to magical effect. Silver-working has made the British Empire unparalleled in power, and Babel’s research in foreign languages serves the Empire’s quest to colonize everything it encounters.
Oxford, the city of dreaming spires, is a fairytale for Robin; a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge serves power, and for Robin, a Chinese boy raised in Britain, serving Babel inevitably means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to sabotaging the silver-working that supports imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide: Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence? What is he willing to sacrifice to bring Babel down?
I haven't read the Poppy War books, but I have heard a lot good things about them.
Cover copy:
1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation — also known as Babel.
Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.
Babel is the world’s center of translation and, more importantly, of silver-working: the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation through enchanted silver bars, to magical effect. Silver-working has made the British Empire unparalleled in power, and Babel’s research in foreign languages serves the Empire’s quest to colonize everything it encounters.
Oxford, the city of dreaming spires, is a fairytale for Robin; a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge serves power, and for Robin, a Chinese boy raised in Britain, serving Babel inevitably means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to sabotaging the silver-working that supports imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide: Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence? What is he willing to sacrifice to bring Babel down?
I haven't read the Poppy War books, but I have heard a lot good things about them.
I finished up Ghost Story, The Dredsden Files novel I've been reading.
Has anybody here read the Desert Cursed, Murderbot Diaries, and/or Shades of Magic series? I'm thinking about starting them soon, and I was just curious if anybody around here has any thoughts on them.
It was really good, the stuff with Dresden trying to function as a ghost was pretty good, and the big conflict with Corpsetaker was exciting, with some cool action scenes. It was also interesting seeing the different ways Dresden's death effected his friends and family. The twist at the end with Uriel and then the very end with Mab were both pretty surprising. Definitely curious to see where Cold Days takes things now that Dresden is Mab's Winter Knight, and how everyone else is going to react to him being alive again and his new role.
Has anybody here read the Desert Cursed, Murderbot Diaries, and/or Shades of Magic series? I'm thinking about starting them soon, and I was just curious if anybody around here has any thoughts on them.
Ghost Story actually killed The Dresden Files for me. I hated it so much that I gave up part way through. I then did read the summary online and read the next two books (up to Skin Game, which was the last one out at the time), but I had gone from really enjoying the series to pretty much seeing it as having read too many books to give up at that point. I didn't even know that Peace Talks had finally come out, but since its been about four years since I last read a Dresden Files book (Skin Game), I think I've thoroughly moved on from the series.
I think if he had planned it out as, say, a 10 book series he could have had something great, but it felt like it all kind of went off the rails and he just kept writing them because it was his most successful book series.
I think if he had planned it out as, say, a 10 book series he could have had something great, but it felt like it all kind of went off the rails and he just kept writing them because it was his most successful book series.
That's the way detective series work though; installments continue indefinitely as long as the writer keeps writing.
How the hell are we even the same species?
I've been enjoying the later books, a lot more than the earlier ones. I love all of the characters he's added along the way, and I like that's he's gone more in depth on things like the White Council and Fae as it's gone along.
James S.A. Corey announced yesterday that they have delivered the manuscript for the final The Expanse novel, Leviathan Falls, to their publisher.
I love the show, but still haven't read beyond the first half of the first book yet. I started it back when the show started, but at the time I was reading to many books and that was one I set aside, and I never went back. I definitely plan to though, The Expanse is pretty high on my list once I get through some of the series I'm working on.
I love the show, but still haven't read beyond the first half of the first book yet. I started it back when the show started, but at the time I was reading to many books and that was one I set aside, and I never went back. I definitely plan to though, The Expanse is pretty high on my list once I get through some of the series I'm working on.
I liked the earlier ones a lot more pre his dying. I mean, they always had flaws (Jim Butcher is a perv and doesn't have the greatest attitudes towards women, at least based off his writings in these books) but the actual stories were good. Starting with Ghost Story it just got overly convoluted and just screwed up a lot of stuff that used to be good, like the world building and character dynamics.
I actually liked the first Expanse book. I got it for $1 at a second hand book sale and liked it, even though I had hated the show when I'd tried it a while before reading the book. I loved that the book didn't have the stupid politicians as real characters unlike the show, and I didn't have to deal with having to hear shitty accents or that terrible fake language (stuff like that is always better in text for me). Also, while I loathe "hard sci fi" and wish it didn't exist, the book was written well enough to keep my attention despite lame things like no faster then light travel or alien planets.
Then the second book came along and
gruesomely murdered a child in a really fucking disgusting way literally right in the beginning, it was seriously fucked up and put me in a bad mood for awhile
and I realized the series was all just grimdark shit and instantly dropped it. A good beginning that just leads to another shitty edgelord book series. I'm tired of every damn modern scifi/fantasy book being dark, violent and depressing, and I know its fucking Game of Thrones fault, even though The Expanse didn't copy that series in any direct way, except tonally starting with book 2 (and the only new SciFi/fantasy books that don't fit this are the mountains of horrible YA shit clogging the shelves, which are an entirely different type of terrible).
Its gotten to the point where authors and publishers assume only 14 years who love romance or edgey assholes want to read Sci Fi/Fantasy, they never publish anything for any other audience (at least for books for general audiences, I'm not talking about kids books).
Have you read the Wayfarers series? From what I've heard those are pretty light.
You should try the Dagger & Coin series by Daniel Abraham (the one half of the Expanse duo). I had bought the first book of The Expanse on my Kindle years back and didn't even realize it had come with Book 1 of Dagger & Coin, and I didn't care much for The Expanse, but absolutely loved Dagger & Coin, and what I liked about it was its focus on world economy during warfare, and I found it more interesting than the average fantasy. More focus on character development, and more of a focus on the politics and economics than battles and magic.
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