TJT
Mr. Poopybutthole
- 40,923
- 102,711
Yeah I won't be reading that online. I'll wait for it to be completed.
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What did you just read?
- Thread starter Fippy Darkpaw
- Start date
Yeah I won't be reading that online. I'll wait for it to be completed.
Arbitrary
Tranny Chaser
- 27,091
- 71,689
I just finished The Terror by Dan Simmons. It was adapted in to a show on AMC. It's about a failed expedition by the British Navy to find the Northwest Passage during the mid 1800s. The book mixes in a bit of the supernatural and while I'd say it's on the long side of things I found it to be very good. It's not quite as detailed (and thus is more accessible) than the Aubrey-Maturin Master and Commander stuff.
Arbitrary
Tranny Chaser
- 27,091
- 71,689
I started the book, got halfway, watched the show, and finished the book and I would agree. The mystical stuff is a substantial portion of the book and stripping it out doesn't do the story any favors.
Lady Silence is way fucking cooler in the book. They botched her super hard.
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Yeah I'd give a thumbs up to that series, fun entertainment in the 'overpowered tough guy beats up the world' genre.
I was kind of amused by the first book in that the main character is played as a tough badass but he's actually the chick from twilight, right down to the hilariously overdramatic responses to relationship setbacks.
TJT
Mr. Poopybutthole
- 40,923
- 102,711
It's more my adversion to episode type reading bullshit. I prefer to read the whole thing. I mostly read on kindle because I read about 30% faster with one due to the elimination of page turning and of course the convenience of carrying kindle in my pocket on the train.
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TJT
Mr. Poopybutthole
- 40,923
- 102,711
BTW Jaxon in this Completionist series is probably one of the best LitRPG characters ever. Singularly focused autistic sperglord who cares for nothing other than perfecting his class. All the while believing he is helping people (which he mostly is) and they just misunderstand his autism. His side quest book is solid gold.
An MMO game where you have nearly infinite amounts of classes, secret classes and combination specialties would be badass btw. Too bad it could only exist in literature or a smulation with an all powerful AI running the thing.
Joe is also a pussy for not taking the mind control class when he found the trainer for it.
An MMO game where you have nearly infinite amounts of classes, secret classes and combination specialties would be badass btw. Too bad it could only exist in literature or a smulation with an all powerful AI running the thing.
Joe is also a pussy for not taking the mind control class when he found the trainer for it.
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TJT
Mr. Poopybutthole
- 40,923
- 102,711
Reading the Strange Death of Europe now. As an American it is interesting to read about how the UK shaped its entire immigration policy outside the purview of the public. They just did it and told people to suck it up while simultaneously forcing any criticism of policy changes of any kind into the realm of, "racism." Which is why it has taken 20+ years for the arguments to rise to the public discourse.
I reckon that the UK census next year is going to be an absolute catastrophe. It's hard to imagine that the UK effectively had 30k+ immigrants every 6 weeks for decades and decades. Despite having a quarter of the overall population of the US and even less landmass.
I reckon that the UK census next year is going to be an absolute catastrophe. It's hard to imagine that the UK effectively had 30k+ immigrants every 6 weeks for decades and decades. Despite having a quarter of the overall population of the US and even less landmass.
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Arbitrary
Tranny Chaser
- 27,091
- 71,689
Finished "Summer of Night" by Dan Simmons. He's the author of The Terror, the book about a failed expedition in to the arctic that became the AMC show. Summer of Night is about a group of kids dealing with a supernatural entity in a small town in Illinois in 1960. There's some very superficial comparisons to be made to Stephen King's IT but it's not at all similar.
I didn't like it. It was pretty long for how little happens with not all that much scary shit happening and then 350 pages in
and I have no fucking idea why.
I didn't like it. It was pretty long for how little happens with not all that much scary shit happening and then 350 pages in
the author kills off the one kid we spent the most time with and that was by far the most developed
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TJT
Mr. Poopybutthole
- 40,923
- 102,711
Read that demon Accord book linked a few pages back. I honestly really disliked the first 1/3 of it.
Buuuuut psycho vampire girlfriend is fucking awesome, hilarious, and utterly terrifying.
Might have to read the rest of the series... Or at least the second book
Buuuuut psycho vampire girlfriend is fucking awesome, hilarious, and utterly terrifying.
Might have to read the rest of the series... Or at least the second book
Lasch
Trakanon Raider
- 1,512
- 717
The Wolf and the Watchman by Niklas Natt och Dag.
A depressing, but well written book that is a mystery involving a sherlock holmes type character in sweden around 1793. I wouldn't recommend this to everyone due to the dark, twisted content. But, I did enjoy the story, even if some of the scenes are Saw level mutilation and abuse.
A depressing, but well written book that is a mystery involving a sherlock holmes type character in sweden around 1793. I wouldn't recommend this to everyone due to the dark, twisted content. But, I did enjoy the story, even if some of the scenes are Saw level mutilation and abuse.
- 7,891
- 7,704
I've been listening to this
www.audible.com
It honestly reminds of a mix between Starship Troopers and Major Payne. It's nothing great, but it's quite enjoyable.
Livres audio et plus | Votre premier livre est gratuit! | Audible.ca
Avec Audible, écoutez une incroyable sélection de livres audio, de baladodiffusions originales, et plus! Obtenez votre premier livre gratuitement.
It honestly reminds of a mix between Starship Troopers and Major Payne. It's nothing great, but it's quite enjoyable.
TJT
Mr. Poopybutthole
- 40,923
- 102,711
Been reading the Demon Accords and the Expeditionary Force books linked around here earlier. Both of them have a lot of books so that's good but here are my complaints.
1.) Demon Accords. Chris is too absurdly strong. I like the hand off to the kids who are way weaker than him and all but god damn. You have a literal walking Nuclear Bomb and his absurdly powerful Vampire girlfriend. None of their threats are convincing. You have a reverse plot armor situation where Chris has to get caught by something he's been proven to overcome but doesn't for some dumb reason just do advance the plot.
The overall world is very interesting though so I read them all.
2.) Expeditionary Force. Having a Magic Box with all your solutions is tiring after 5 books. The Magic box is a good character and all but it being surprised so often is just weird. Humans come up with absurd plan that requires magic to fill in the very obvious gaps and sure as shit the funny asshole magic box can do it. Every time. This is the weakness of the series even though it is certainly enjoyable for my weekly reading on the train.
1.) Demon Accords. Chris is too absurdly strong. I like the hand off to the kids who are way weaker than him and all but god damn. You have a literal walking Nuclear Bomb and his absurdly powerful Vampire girlfriend. None of their threats are convincing. You have a reverse plot armor situation where Chris has to get caught by something he's been proven to overcome but doesn't for some dumb reason just do advance the plot.
The overall world is very interesting though so I read them all.
2.) Expeditionary Force. Having a Magic Box with all your solutions is tiring after 5 books. The Magic box is a good character and all but it being surprised so often is just weird. Humans come up with absurd plan that requires magic to fill in the very obvious gaps and sure as shit the funny asshole magic box can do it. Every time. This is the weakness of the series even though it is certainly enjoyable for my weekly reading on the train.
- 7,891
- 7,704
I think I might be partial because it's narrated by RC Bray and a wonderful listening experience. I will agree that there is a lot of same same, especially in the middle books though. The last book I feel is better, and the spinoff series is good.
Edit: I probably shouldn't say last, I believe there are more coming. Most recent probably better term
sleevedraw
Revolver Ocelot
- 1,782
- 5,998
If y'all like Demon Accords, then you'll probably like Damned and Cursed as well. It's pretty similar, but less emo and the main character isn't as absurdly strong as Chris. I pick up both series as they come out.
khorum
Murder Apologist
- 24,338
- 81,363
Just picked up Neal Stephenson's latest book Fall; Or Dodge in Hell it's a sequel to Reamde, which was about the nexus between MMORPG's, Russian Ransomware and Islamic terrorism.
Just started it but it seems to be about post-humanism and the Singularity in addition to all that stuff.
Just started it but it seems to be about post-humanism and the Singularity in addition to all that stuff.
Empress of Forever – Max Gladstone
An unconventional tech billionaire, feeling the government closing in, goes on the run and embarks on a desperate plan to insert a trojan into large amounts of internet traffic that will create the largest botnet the world has ever seen, and the botnet nodes will run an experimental general purpose strong AI. Moments from success, the plan suffers from some, uh, unexpected difficulties ;p
This was fantastic, and is my favorite of books read recently. Despite the initial near future setting, it has a pretty wide scope, most of which is closest to Space Opera, although very much on the ‘sufficiently advanced technology’ end of the scale. It’s not connected in any way with Gladstone’s Craft series and is very different in tone and style – I think this was a good change, as the more recent Craft books, while good, were getting a bit worn in the idea front.
I was a bit annoyed at first that it was obvious to everyone except the main character what was going on, but looking back on it I decided that was actually pretty consistent with her character – overwhelming hubris, pathologically inability to admit defeat and the endless power of denial is pretty much her thing ;p
This Is How You Lose the Time War – Max Gladstone
Novella of competing far future civilizations, one based on bioscience, the other on cybernetics, trying to change history so that only they exist and the opponent ceases to exist. Told from the point of view of the top operative from the cyborg side ( Agent Red ) and her counterpart on the bioscience side ( Agent Blue ).
The synopsis really seemed like my kind of thing, but I found this one disappointing, especially after having read Empress of Forever. The flowery language and the letter back and forth style really didn’t work for me.
The Survival of Molly Southborne – Tade Thompson
It’s hard to think of what to say about this one without giving spoilers for the previous book ( The Murders of Molly Southborne ). You absolutely wouldn’t want to read it unless you’ve read the first one anyway ( I recommended it previously when I read it ). This one I thought was not as good as the first, but still worked pretty well, especially with the growing evidence that a large part of the nightmare scenario of the first book was effectively a self-fulling prophecy and may have been completely unnecessary.
Viridian Gate Online Series ( 1-4 ) – James A Hunter
Most of the surviving population of the Earth uploads to a popular MMO to avoid being killed when a giant meteor makes the Earth’s surface unlivable. Follows the exploits of ‘Grim’ Jack, one of the refugees that gets to take advantage of a drug-lord’s private pay-to-win goodies thanks to a previous relationship with one of the MMOs staff members.
This one is pretty standard litrpg stuff, but is well-written and edited, flows well and is pretty entertaining. I didn’t like it as much as The Land, but will probably keep reading.
I was a bit perplexed at the primary plot though – the great rebellion appears to be because the owner and administrator of the MMO thinks that he’s in charge – which, if nothing else, is obviously literally true. I can’t really follow the line of thinking here – it’s like some guy picks you up out of the water during a flood and you immediately begin plotting a mutiny because ‘fuck that guy, just because it’s his boat it doesn’t mean he’s in charge’. They also brush off the realisation that they are effectively no-different from the NPCs pretty quickly – I’m not looking for a deep philosophical treatise or anything, but that realisation should have triggered at least some self-reflection about what they are doing.
Fall – Neal Stephenson
This, like much of Stephenson’s stuff, is hard to categorise. It’s a few intertwining and somewhat related stories, spanning from near to far future and other manufactured realities. My reaction to the various story threads was radically different though. I actually bounced off this one a few times because it starts with Dodge’s story, which is just a long run of rambling blather basically. This doesn’t actually improve at any point through the book. On the other hand, I found that Corvallis and Sophia’s stories were much more interesting. Overall I liked the book, although I didn’t enjoy a lot of it. It has a lot of food for thought I suppose.
Walking to Aldebaran – Adrian Tchaikovsky
Novella about the crew of a spaceship sent to investigate an alien artefact that appears to contain stable wormholes to different star systems. When investigating, they find that the artefact has a suspiciously conveniently human-sized tunnels with breathable atmosphere and that tech doesn’t last very long inside them. They, somewhat questionably ( it was a looong trip to get here, they can’t just leave right ? ;p ), decide to explore on foot. Things do not go well.
The guy is in this story is pretty much the definition of unreliable narrator, and it took me a long time to pick up on the various sneaky hints of what was going on. This was good fun overall, if pretty dark.
Black Chamber – S.M. Stirling
Alt-history with Teddy Roosevelt taking over for the duration of world war 1. Follows the exploits of a female spy trying to discover the secrets of the German weapons program. This was entertaining, good action, interesting setting. Marred a bit by the author being a little overeager to show off just how much research he did, which is occasionally detrimental to the story. I had some trouble with suspension of disbelief on the superweapon though, the US military just wishes they had something even 1/10th that effective even now.
Awaken Online [1-4] – Travis Bagwell
Litrpg with the game being just a game, people carry on their normal lives etc while not logged in. This makes a little bit weird from a story perspective – while the ingame story is interesting, the out of game story could be uncharitably but accurately summarised as ‘bullied teen drops out of school to play video games, uses exploits to kill defenceless npcs to prove what a toughguy he is.’ This kind of carries on through the series, where the in-game story is good but the out of game story is all kinds of outlandish nonsense ( the agonisingly cliched awkward teen misunderstanding romance story was particularly painful ). I still liked it enough to read the series though, so there’s that.
I am sceptical that the author has much MMO experience – any game with the pathetically feeble mechanisms for controlling antisocial player behavior that this one has, would be a smoking wasteland within the first week.
Also, as a random observation – that your boss even *has* a secret underground bunker with living quarters for his staff in it, should be a sign that you need to seek alternative employment immediately. You don’t even need to hear his pitch.
The Forever Girl – Rebecca Hamilton
Urban fantasy about witches and not-vampires™. Exceeded my limit for gushing about how amazing and sexy the brooding love interest is within the first 60 pages. I had to go back and check why this was on my to-read list – I think I mixed it up with another book with a similar title.
The Lamb will Slaughter the Lion
Woman investigates the suicide of her brother and finds a gang of homeless people that are being terrorised by a murderous spirit. I found this one kind of boring and didn’t finish.
Aurora Rising – Amie Kaufman/Jay Kristoff
Space force cadet rescues teenage girl from a colony ship that’s been lost in hyperspace for decades, losing his chance at recruiting his dream team to command, and ending up with a band of misfits. ( You know, just once I’d like to see said band of misfits be people who were picked last because they were genuinely incompetent and not because of racism or poor personalities or whatever – this is not the case here ). Things become more complicated when the rescued girl’s story seems to be inconsistent in some basic facts ( like where the colony ship was going ) and she begins to draw an alarming amount of high level government interest. This being a YA story, the crew of misfits immediately embark on a harebrained rescue mission with secretive complicit support from instructors.
Although this was from the same authors as Illuminae, it’s not related at all, and follows a more traditional narrative style. It’s also a much lighter tone – more Star Wars or Firefly than Alien.
This was good fun overall, a bit like Sanderson’s Skyward in tone, but not as good a book. I will most likely read the rest of the series when it comes out.
Salvage Trouble – J S Moring
This was an unusual setting – it’s basically futuristic spaceflight tech, but they are using literal magic with wizards etc for the FTL flight. It follows the semi-legitimate adventures of a salvage vessel and it’s crew after they pick up a nun and the child she’s escorting as passengers, despite their rather sketchy background and story.
This was entertaining – kind of Firefly like I guess, with the general space adventures type stuff. Will probably read more in future.
Ritualist/Regicide – Dakota Krout
Another litrpg offering here – a disabled veteran agrees to a proposition to be the first human consciousness uploaded to a game. This one was surprisingly believable as an actual game, both in how the mechanics work and how they break under unforeseen circumstances. The main character, as someone else here pointed out, is a total sperglord of a type very familiar to those who play a lot of MMOs. The books have an undercurrent of humour ( for example the main character gets an achievement for being the first to actually read the terms and conditions ) but mostly they are just good fun. Even with conflict and drama, you just get the feeling the character and author are really enjoying themselves, even when he's shouting in frustration at things going wrong. I liked these a lot and will read any other ones that come out. A middle-finger salute to the author for the book 2 pun though, that was spectacularly awful even by pun standards.
I will say though, that the framing background is some bizarre fanfic level craziness – Elon Musk causes the Deepwater Horizons oil spill while drilling for alien artifacts ? What ? I don’t even…
An unconventional tech billionaire, feeling the government closing in, goes on the run and embarks on a desperate plan to insert a trojan into large amounts of internet traffic that will create the largest botnet the world has ever seen, and the botnet nodes will run an experimental general purpose strong AI. Moments from success, the plan suffers from some, uh, unexpected difficulties ;p
This was fantastic, and is my favorite of books read recently. Despite the initial near future setting, it has a pretty wide scope, most of which is closest to Space Opera, although very much on the ‘sufficiently advanced technology’ end of the scale. It’s not connected in any way with Gladstone’s Craft series and is very different in tone and style – I think this was a good change, as the more recent Craft books, while good, were getting a bit worn in the idea front.
I was a bit annoyed at first that it was obvious to everyone except the main character what was going on, but looking back on it I decided that was actually pretty consistent with her character – overwhelming hubris, pathologically inability to admit defeat and the endless power of denial is pretty much her thing ;p
This Is How You Lose the Time War – Max Gladstone
Novella of competing far future civilizations, one based on bioscience, the other on cybernetics, trying to change history so that only they exist and the opponent ceases to exist. Told from the point of view of the top operative from the cyborg side ( Agent Red ) and her counterpart on the bioscience side ( Agent Blue ).
The synopsis really seemed like my kind of thing, but I found this one disappointing, especially after having read Empress of Forever. The flowery language and the letter back and forth style really didn’t work for me.
The Survival of Molly Southborne – Tade Thompson
It’s hard to think of what to say about this one without giving spoilers for the previous book ( The Murders of Molly Southborne ). You absolutely wouldn’t want to read it unless you’ve read the first one anyway ( I recommended it previously when I read it ). This one I thought was not as good as the first, but still worked pretty well, especially with the growing evidence that a large part of the nightmare scenario of the first book was effectively a self-fulling prophecy and may have been completely unnecessary.
Viridian Gate Online Series ( 1-4 ) – James A Hunter
Most of the surviving population of the Earth uploads to a popular MMO to avoid being killed when a giant meteor makes the Earth’s surface unlivable. Follows the exploits of ‘Grim’ Jack, one of the refugees that gets to take advantage of a drug-lord’s private pay-to-win goodies thanks to a previous relationship with one of the MMOs staff members.
This one is pretty standard litrpg stuff, but is well-written and edited, flows well and is pretty entertaining. I didn’t like it as much as The Land, but will probably keep reading.
I was a bit perplexed at the primary plot though – the great rebellion appears to be because the owner and administrator of the MMO thinks that he’s in charge – which, if nothing else, is obviously literally true. I can’t really follow the line of thinking here – it’s like some guy picks you up out of the water during a flood and you immediately begin plotting a mutiny because ‘fuck that guy, just because it’s his boat it doesn’t mean he’s in charge’. They also brush off the realisation that they are effectively no-different from the NPCs pretty quickly – I’m not looking for a deep philosophical treatise or anything, but that realisation should have triggered at least some self-reflection about what they are doing.
Fall – Neal Stephenson
This, like much of Stephenson’s stuff, is hard to categorise. It’s a few intertwining and somewhat related stories, spanning from near to far future and other manufactured realities. My reaction to the various story threads was radically different though. I actually bounced off this one a few times because it starts with Dodge’s story, which is just a long run of rambling blather basically. This doesn’t actually improve at any point through the book. On the other hand, I found that Corvallis and Sophia’s stories were much more interesting. Overall I liked the book, although I didn’t enjoy a lot of it. It has a lot of food for thought I suppose.
Walking to Aldebaran – Adrian Tchaikovsky
Novella about the crew of a spaceship sent to investigate an alien artefact that appears to contain stable wormholes to different star systems. When investigating, they find that the artefact has a suspiciously conveniently human-sized tunnels with breathable atmosphere and that tech doesn’t last very long inside them. They, somewhat questionably ( it was a looong trip to get here, they can’t just leave right ? ;p ), decide to explore on foot. Things do not go well.
The guy is in this story is pretty much the definition of unreliable narrator, and it took me a long time to pick up on the various sneaky hints of what was going on. This was good fun overall, if pretty dark.
Black Chamber – S.M. Stirling
Alt-history with Teddy Roosevelt taking over for the duration of world war 1. Follows the exploits of a female spy trying to discover the secrets of the German weapons program. This was entertaining, good action, interesting setting. Marred a bit by the author being a little overeager to show off just how much research he did, which is occasionally detrimental to the story. I had some trouble with suspension of disbelief on the superweapon though, the US military just wishes they had something even 1/10th that effective even now.
Awaken Online [1-4] – Travis Bagwell
Litrpg with the game being just a game, people carry on their normal lives etc while not logged in. This makes a little bit weird from a story perspective – while the ingame story is interesting, the out of game story could be uncharitably but accurately summarised as ‘bullied teen drops out of school to play video games, uses exploits to kill defenceless npcs to prove what a toughguy he is.’ This kind of carries on through the series, where the in-game story is good but the out of game story is all kinds of outlandish nonsense ( the agonisingly cliched awkward teen misunderstanding romance story was particularly painful ). I still liked it enough to read the series though, so there’s that.
I am sceptical that the author has much MMO experience – any game with the pathetically feeble mechanisms for controlling antisocial player behavior that this one has, would be a smoking wasteland within the first week.
Also, as a random observation – that your boss even *has* a secret underground bunker with living quarters for his staff in it, should be a sign that you need to seek alternative employment immediately. You don’t even need to hear his pitch.
The Forever Girl – Rebecca Hamilton
Urban fantasy about witches and not-vampires™. Exceeded my limit for gushing about how amazing and sexy the brooding love interest is within the first 60 pages. I had to go back and check why this was on my to-read list – I think I mixed it up with another book with a similar title.
The Lamb will Slaughter the Lion
Woman investigates the suicide of her brother and finds a gang of homeless people that are being terrorised by a murderous spirit. I found this one kind of boring and didn’t finish.
Aurora Rising – Amie Kaufman/Jay Kristoff
Space force cadet rescues teenage girl from a colony ship that’s been lost in hyperspace for decades, losing his chance at recruiting his dream team to command, and ending up with a band of misfits. ( You know, just once I’d like to see said band of misfits be people who were picked last because they were genuinely incompetent and not because of racism or poor personalities or whatever – this is not the case here ). Things become more complicated when the rescued girl’s story seems to be inconsistent in some basic facts ( like where the colony ship was going ) and she begins to draw an alarming amount of high level government interest. This being a YA story, the crew of misfits immediately embark on a harebrained rescue mission with secretive complicit support from instructors.
Although this was from the same authors as Illuminae, it’s not related at all, and follows a more traditional narrative style. It’s also a much lighter tone – more Star Wars or Firefly than Alien.
This was good fun overall, a bit like Sanderson’s Skyward in tone, but not as good a book. I will most likely read the rest of the series when it comes out.
Salvage Trouble – J S Moring
This was an unusual setting – it’s basically futuristic spaceflight tech, but they are using literal magic with wizards etc for the FTL flight. It follows the semi-legitimate adventures of a salvage vessel and it’s crew after they pick up a nun and the child she’s escorting as passengers, despite their rather sketchy background and story.
This was entertaining – kind of Firefly like I guess, with the general space adventures type stuff. Will probably read more in future.
Ritualist/Regicide – Dakota Krout
Another litrpg offering here – a disabled veteran agrees to a proposition to be the first human consciousness uploaded to a game. This one was surprisingly believable as an actual game, both in how the mechanics work and how they break under unforeseen circumstances. The main character, as someone else here pointed out, is a total sperglord of a type very familiar to those who play a lot of MMOs. The books have an undercurrent of humour ( for example the main character gets an achievement for being the first to actually read the terms and conditions ) but mostly they are just good fun. Even with conflict and drama, you just get the feeling the character and author are really enjoying themselves, even when he's shouting in frustration at things going wrong. I liked these a lot and will read any other ones that come out. A middle-finger salute to the author for the book 2 pun though, that was spectacularly awful even by pun standards.
I will say though, that the framing background is some bizarre fanfic level craziness – Elon Musk causes the Deepwater Horizons oil spill while drilling for alien artifacts ? What ? I don’t even…
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