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velk

Trakanon Raider
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Haven't been reading as many books recently, some branching out into other media types :

From webtoon, which is basically regularly updated serial comics:
"The Gamer" - this is pretty entertaining, but I guess you have to get used to the idea it's never going to be finished and just wander on forever. Fun story though, main character is basically a superhero whose power is to make everything around him act like an RPG.

Web serials :
Still reading "Ward", which is basically a sequel to "Worm" - pretty in depth superhero vs supervillain stuff, although with a strong dose of post-apocalyptic world building. ( From the events in Worm - I wouldn't read it without reading Worm first as there are some pretty gargantuan spoilers ). Hasn't matched the highs of Worm yet, but it's entertaining, interesting and well-written.

A Practical Guide to Evil - I really didn't know what to expect with this one, and the first chapter put me off the first time I tried it - it seemed to be heading right into silly cliche territory. I tried it again later though, and it's actually only the first chapter that's like that - it's nothing like the rest of the actual series, being more a teaser intro. The story itself is about a young woman from a conquered country trying to join the military acadmeny of the conquering army so she can gain rank and improve conditions for her fellow countrymen. This plan begins to run off the rails with impressive swiftness and it becomes one of the better demonstrations of how the road to hell is paved with good intentions that I've read.

Mother of Learning - This one was also a pretty big fakeout with start, which appeared to be a somewhat more mature Harry Potter style wizard school story. This goes on for a little bit before an ancient lich shows up with an invading army, destroys said school and murders the main character. After that, things get considerably stranger, and a lot more entertaining.

Books :

"Exit Strategy (Murderbot 4)", Martha Wells - This one wraps up the murderbot series that started with "All Systems Red", with said Murderbot, under fairly flimsy self-justifications, trying to dig up evidence against GrayCris, the mega-corp that tried to murder it's clients in book 1. This has unintended consequences as GrayCris assumes said clients ordered it to do so - after all, bots are tools, they don't do things themselves. I found this one to be fun and a satisfying conclusion to the series.

"The Rise and Fall of DODO", Neil Stephenson/Nicole Galland - You never really know what to expect from Stephenson, and this one caught me by surprise - it's about the death of magic, time travel and quantum physics. Nowhere near as dense as stuff like Cryptonomicon, this was sort of an odd mix of traditional story narrative mixed with emails, meeting notes etc. Pretty fun overall, note sure if it's planned to have sequels, it's certainly open for it but reached a satisfying conclusion for a standalone novel. I have to say storywise, that even if D.O.D.O is a flaming dumpster fire of stupidity, the Fugger bank is probably the most practical organisation I've ever seen in a time travel book.

"The Many Lives of Stephen Leeds", Brandon Sanderson - This is a compilation of what is, presumably, all of the Legion stories. Oddly I haven't seen the third one standalone, just as part of this, but I didn't mind, "Legion" was a great read and it's been a while so I didn't mind reading it again. The third book deals with a timely reappearance by the mysterious Sandra from book 1, just as the mental framework she helped Leeds build is beginning to break down into general insanity. It ends with what seems to be a likely series stopping point.

"Salvation", Peter F Hamilton - Completely new universe, much closer future than the Commonwealth books - starflight and planetary colonization, along with relatively strong but non-sentient AI. It's a weird mix of different storylines that don't converge until the end of the book - a bit like Hyperion ( which, I understand, took that style from the Cantebury Tales ). I mostly like it, other than the future storyline, which I didn't really care for. Will read other ones anyway.

"A Discovery of Witches", Deborah Harkness - This one is notable in that it differed the most from the blurb of any book I can think of. I was expecting some actual research and discoveries, but this is really just a setup for a tedious vampire romance. Will not read others.

"The Colours of Madeleine", Jaclyn Moriaty - Picked this one up from the top 50 list someone posted a few months ago - I'd liked most things on there so decided to try out the ones I hadn't read. I liked this one enough to read the full trilogy - I'm not really sure how to summarize it, it was pretty original. First one is mostly about two teenagers in different worlds that are communicating by passing notes through a crack between the worlds. One world is obviously earth, the other side is considerably stranger.

"Six of Crows", Leigh Bardugo - Another entry from the top 50, this was straight up excellent. Grabbed the sequel, loved that too. Will eagerly read any others that show up. A bit similar to the Lies of Locke Lamora I guess, with a minor crime lord being hired to pull off an outrageous heist from a seemingly impossible secure target.

"The Abyss Surrounds Us", Emily Skrutskie - Another one from the top 50, this one is about a post-apocalyptic world where *vigorous handwaving* it's somehow economically rational to protect shipping with specially trained giant seamonsters. The main character is an apprentice monster trainer that gets kidnapped by pirates on her first solo mission, who then force her to train up their own seamonster. There's a lot wrong with the world building on this one, but it was relatively entertaining. Unusually though, it's one of the few examples of books where the main character does something that annoys me so much I lose interest in following the story.
After getting horny for one of the pirates, the main character flat out murders her rescue mission. I mean, really ?
( I don't normally give a shit if the characters are sympathetic or not, as long as they are interesting )

"Tuesdays at the Castle", Jessica Day George - Another one from the top 50, where, with their parents missing and presumed dead, the royal heirs fight off a hostile coup with the power of childish pranks. This one was pretty good, as far as kids books go, but it's a bit too much kids book for me. Probably would have loved it when I was 10.
 
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Ukerric

Bearded Ape
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Been meandering into various indy gamelit / dungeon core / wuxia novels; Nothing particularly notable.

Next books in the pile: The latest Honor Harrington book (pure Weber, no collaboration, yay!), and The Dreaming Stars from Tim Pratt.

I've read the The Wrong Stars, book 1 of the series, a while ago. Didn't mention here, but it's good. Basically, salvage ship finds a wreck of an old sublight ship. Survivor wakes up, yelling about alien first contact, and everyone's laughing "yea, we all know about them". Turns out it's not the same aliens. It's all about alien racial PTSD, conspiracies, and of course we have to save the Universe, because Evil is waking up (hence the Dreaming in the book 2 title, I presume).

In the non-fiction bit, I do recommend Meeting with Remarkable Manuscripts, by one of the best scholars in the field. The original working title was "Interview with a Manuscript", and it's all about the love for medieval books. You'd expect most of them being Gospels/Bibles, but he's picked a large range of books to enjoy discovering.
 

TJT

Mr. Poopybutthole
<Gold Donor>
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I read The Wrong Stars last night. I really like the Liars aliens and the overall setting. The sequel book fell off hard. Series is a space opera a la Expanse sure. But it ran into the same problem in one book that the Expanse took 7 books to get to.

The big bad aliens (The Axiom) in The Wrong Stars have an interesting weakness in that they were a vestigial empire relying on past greatness and trying to find some way to keep on going. Over millions of years they were slowly going extinct their society was decadent, decayed and dying. All of this took thousands and thousands of years.

So humanity comes in and we're going to kick ass apparently against aliens with technology we don't even comprehend. Uh huh. This is made worse with the examples of just automated defenses the Axiom use that busted a planet to dust for almost nothing.
 
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Brahma

Obi-Bro Kenobi-X
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Finished book 5 of King's Dark Tidings...Series is a good read. I do recommend.


Started The Elven book one. Great story half way thru. Great pace also.

 

TJT

Mr. Poopybutthole
<Gold Donor>
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Read the Labyrinth Index. While I do love the Laundry files I do not get Stross sometimes.

You have competing antagonistic entities called the Sleeper and the Lord of Sleep being two totally different entities. Yet they are part of the same organization and somehow hate each other.

Why couldn't you use some different fucking names?
 

Ukerric

Bearded Ape
<Silver Donator>
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Read the Labyrinth Index. While I do love the Laundry files I do not get Stross sometimes.
Still waiting for that one. Orbit ebooks half a 50-50% chance of being screwy on my reader, so I always pick dead-tree editions, and for some reason, the paper version's availability is delayed by 3 weeks...
 

Superhiro

Silver Knight of the Realm
439
43
Finished book 5 of King's Dark Tidings...Series is a good read. I do recommend.

I read the first two and gave up. The writing is total shit, and the entire plot is so contrived. It feels like a shitty knock off of the Prince of Nothing books.
 
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Brahma

Obi-Bro Kenobi-X
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I read the first two and gave up. The writing is total shit, and the entire plot is so contrived. It feels like a shitty knock off of the Prince of Nothing books.

Man that is harsh...Did you kill his dog too?

I never read The Prince of Nothing...will give those a shot.
 

Randin

Trakanon Raider
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Finally picked up Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson. I feel like just about everyone here knows Sanderson at this point, so there's probably not much that needs saying. And if you haven't read Sanderson, what's wrong with you? Hop on it. Shit's good.

Prior to that, I read Africa: The Biography of a Continent by John Reader. As you might expect, it's more of a broad overview than a detailed history, but considering that my knowledge of sub-Saharan African history, outside of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, was basically zero, I found it a useful read.
 

zippitydoda

Bronze Knight of the Realm
135
12
1.jpg

American Kingpin: Hunting down the creator of The Silk Road
 

Campbell1oo4

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
1,930
6,136
Nevernight by Jay Kristoff.

A Y/A novel that takes place in a fantasy world which somewhat resembles the Roman Empire after it was Christianized. The "Rome" of the setting has been built among the bones of a dead god. They wage war with flaming blades and steam-powered war walkers. Those are all the good parts.

The plot, though, focuses on a girl named Mia. Spoilers ahead. Mia is the daughter of a major noble house. After her father tries to launch a coup and bring back the dynasty of a king, he is executed. Mia barely escapes with her life and becomes the ward of a man who owns a knick-knack shop. After a few years, the man sends Mia to a far off land to become an assassin. This is where the plot kicks into high gear; turns out this book is just Harry Potter, if Harry Potter was a teenage girl who wanted to be an assassin instead of a wizard. All of the applicants of the assassin school are kids. There are cliches and rumors and fuckin'.

I would not recommend it.
 

Zapatta

Krugman's Fax Machine
<Gold Donor>
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View attachment 183490

American Kingpin: Hunting down the creator of The Silk Road

Any good? I followed a lot of the Ross Ulbretch stuff as it was happening, it seemed to me guilty or not he got railroaded by fed judges? The cyber feds who were tracking him down stole a fuck ton of bit coin that was never recovered last I knew and is probably worth millions now.

Mind doing a quick 4 sentence review?
 

Superhiro

Silver Knight of the Realm
439
43
Man that is harsh...Did you kill his dog too?

I never read The Prince of Nothing...will give those a shot.
haha dude, the list of things wrong with his writing is endless. One of the things that drove me insane is how he shifts point of view every paragraph to explain each characters thoughts with little to no indication of the shift!

It's something that's really been getting on my nerves lately though. Amazon is fucking bloated with self-published authors, and we have shit like this getting 1k+ reviews at 4+ stars. The reviews seem positive, so you start reading it to realize that this shit would never get past an editor, let alone picked up by an agent or publisher. How the fuck is it getting so many good reviews? Who the fuck are the mouth-breathers reading and highly reviewing this shit.

I thought we were going through a new fantasy renaissance 10 years ago with people like Rothfuss, Abercrombie, Bakker, Erikson, Lynch, and Sanderson. Today, all we've got left is Sanderson pumping out mediocrity while the rest have fallen or disappeared, and Amazon is full of Sanderson wannabees.
 
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Brahma

Obi-Bro Kenobi-X
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LOL. There is a reason they are independent man. I don't expect much, but get surprises enough that it makes me keep reading new authors.

And OMFG the thought shifts between characters I swore was just me! But I did get used to it based upon personalities of the characters most times so I know when the switch happens. But that's a lot of these independents.
 

Aamry

Blackwing Lair Raider
2,219
1,862
I've been going hard on LitRPG style novels on KindleUnlimited.

The "Divine Dungeon" series by Dakota Krout. It's a "dungeon core" style of book. Was well written, reminiscent of the "Cradle" series by Will Wright, which I would also highly recommend.

Now I'm reading through "Viridian Gate Onlines" series by James Hunter.

Basically, I find an author I like, read all of their books, and move on, doubling back if they have new releases. Expect minor editorial mistakes.
 

zippitydoda

Bronze Knight of the Realm
135
12
Any good? I followed a lot of the Ross Ulbretch stuff as it was happening, it seemed to me guilty or not he got railroaded by fed judges? The cyber feds who were tracking him down stole a fuck ton of bit coin that was never recovered last I knew and is probably worth millions now.

Mind doing a quick 4 sentence review?

Ross failed at every thing he tried to do, but persisted on following his dream of changing the legalities and availability of illegal drugs. Working alone over the course of a year he developed and coded The Silk Road. It took law enforcement a number of years to begin to wrap their heads around how it all worked. Small cracks formed in the operation when a middleman was tracked down by a diligent DEA agent gathering suspicious mailings he confiscated. The hunt for the mastermind behind the Dread Pirate Roberts persona was a long one as greed and convenience allowed for some agents to begin to bribe the site, raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars in bitcoins. While Ross skips coffee house to coffee house maintaining the site, the Feds close in on him by tracking his Internet connection by commandeering a trusted user account tied closely to The Silk Road. It was a non-stop cat and mouse game as Ross, as The Dread Pirate Roberts, slowly comes to light.

A great read for sure. I could not put it down.
 
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zippitydoda

Bronze Knight of the Realm
135
12
A true story about Lin, an escaped convict with a false passport who flees maximum security prison in Australia for the teeming streets of Bombay where he can disappear. This is the best book I have ever read.

2.jpg
 

Zapatta

Krugman's Fax Machine
<Gold Donor>
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Ross failed at every thing he tried to do, but persisted on following his dream of changing the legalities and availability of illegal drugs. Working alone over the course of a year he developed and coded The Silk Road. It took law enforcement a number of years to begin to wrap their heads around how it all worked. Small cracks formed in the operation when a middleman was tracked down by a diligent DEA agent gathering suspicious mailings he confiscated. The hunt for the mastermind behind the Dread Pirate Roberts persona was a long one as greed and convenience allowed for some agents to begin to bribe the site, raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars in bitcoins. While Ross skips coffee house to coffee house maintaining the site, the Feds close in on him by tracking his Internet connection by commandeering a trusted user account tied closely to The Silk Road. It was a non-stop cat and mouse game as Ross, as The Dread Pirate Roberts, slowly comes to light.

A great read for sure. I could not put it down.

Hmm sounds like it was written from the LEO POV, doesnt match the stories he made in his defense or that of some of the docs about it.
 

zippitydoda

Bronze Knight of the Realm
135
12
The Feds basically classified him as a threat to national security and a source of destroying the fabric of American society because of his ultra-liberal rants he posted on the site.
 

Zapatta

Krugman's Fax Machine
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His claim during trial was he was one of several admins of the site, which is probably true because he didnt know fuck all about coding / web building. He was in it for the political / libertarian economic philosophy, and was not the DPR account user who the feds entrapped with murder for hire. AFAIK the only 'proof' was he logged into the shared admin account.