What did you just read?
- Thread starter Fippy Darkpaw
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Guest, it's time once again for the massively important and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!
Go here and give us your nominations!Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Give us your worst ones!
TJT
Mr. Poopybutthole
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I must have missed it but two more books of the STYX Humanhive series made it into English. The first two are awesome. The premise is completely and utterly batshit but somehow it works.
Think if you took Mad Max, Zombie Plague, X-Men Mutants, Fallout style Super Mutants, apocalyptic wasteland, and extra-dimensional invaders and put all of that shit in a blender.
Think if you took Mad Max, Zombie Plague, X-Men Mutants, Fallout style Super Mutants, apocalyptic wasteland, and extra-dimensional invaders and put all of that shit in a blender.
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Ritley
Bronze Baron of the Realm
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The name change from book 2 to book 3 really fucked with me. I’m sure it is a translation problem, but still. Changing the name of the MC between books with no real rationale is odd.
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Ukerric
Bearded Ape
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I'm sure the cat also got changed. I would have remembered if it was named Unicorn.
Void
BAU BAU
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Which one should I read first? Or are they separate enough that it doesn't really matter?
Ukerric
Bearded Ape
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They're completely different takes on the same rough setting. STYX is the realistic version, Respawn the gamified one. Different places, plot, different characters (although they're all russian, ofc), etc, but it's the same patchwork of regularly respawning real world places, with the natives turning into zombies, etc. So whichever.
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Void
BAU BAU
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It appears I read the first STYX book a couple years ago. I gave it a 3/5 on Goodreads. No memory of it, but I'm sure once I get into it again it will come back. That being said, I think I'll jump into Respawn first due to there being more books available right now.
TJT
Mr. Poopybutthole
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I lived in Florida for some time. Florida is full of really interesting history. One of those interesting bits is the Highwaymen. A loose affiliation of black artists in the Florida who took to painting landscapes around the state without any formal education in painting whatsoever. While the majority of the Highwaymen stuck around the coasts of Florida so they could paint the ocean and sell more easily to tourists and whatnot Robert Butler here was a reclusive country type who loved the Everglades. Drove around painting things he liked and selling them while hunting.
As most of Central Florida has been developed by now he inadvertently catalogued a Florida biome that doesn't exist as much anymore.
Robert Butler is a pretty cool guy. As he got more popular he eventually ran into the DEI types and they kept pestering him about "HOW DID YOU DO THIS IN JIM CROW SOUTH?" Being an uneducated country boy he had no idea what that was. Straight told them he never experienced Civil Rights racism so if it happened, whatever. No further comment thanks. Also came up with the Highwaymen name for the art show circle. When told it was a synonym for highway robbers and has been for centuries still said no we're using it. I drive around in my car and sell paintings. What better word would there be?
Short read, but worth your time.
As most of Central Florida has been developed by now he inadvertently catalogued a Florida biome that doesn't exist as much anymore.
Robert Butler is a pretty cool guy. As he got more popular he eventually ran into the DEI types and they kept pestering him about "HOW DID YOU DO THIS IN JIM CROW SOUTH?" Being an uneducated country boy he had no idea what that was. Straight told them he never experienced Civil Rights racism so if it happened, whatever. No further comment thanks. Also came up with the Highwaymen name for the art show circle. When told it was a synonym for highway robbers and has been for centuries still said no we're using it. I drive around in my car and sell paintings. What better word would there be?
Short read, but worth your time.
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Cad
scientia potentia est
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I read the Children of Time/Children of Ruin/Children of Memory series by Adrian Tchaikovsky. The first one was great, the second one was fine and the third one was skippable.
If I could do it again I'd stop at the first book and pretend the others didn't exist.
If I could do it again I'd stop at the first book and pretend the others didn't exist.
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TJT
Mr. Poopybutthole
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A book about an Indian who lived during the Raj period and after. Later emigrated to the UK and died in London. Very excellent read as he mostly describes how he grew to know and interact with Westerners and the stunning differences between early 20th century India vs the 20th century United Kingdom. The author was the highest Brahmin cast and effectively royalty in the Calcutta region. But he lived in a "palace" that had mud floors that had to be shaped daily to "look clean." As an example.
After Independence this author and his book(s) were shitcanned as he described British India in a positive light rather than the anti-colonialist narrative that we know today. Really anything written prior to 1960 is through a completely different perspective on the world than the one we grew up with. After Independence he was considered a subversive by India and shunned by all Indians of note. Even in the UK.
After Independence this author and his book(s) were shitcanned as he described British India in a positive light rather than the anti-colonialist narrative that we know today. Really anything written prior to 1960 is through a completely different perspective on the world than the one we grew up with. After Independence he was considered a subversive by India and shunned by all Indians of note. Even in the UK.
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Arbitrary
Tranny Chaser
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Yes, that Andrew Yang.
In the not too distant future a reporter at the New York Times learns of a plot among senior military officials to take control of the government. A popular third party candidate is likely to disrupt the upcoming presidential election such that no candidate will be able to get the 270 electoral votes to be declared the winner. Political violence and disorder are rising as the election approaches so a plan is hatched by top generals to back the Republican candidate as they'll win a contingent election. There will be a veneer of legitimacy but it will be the military running the show. We spend some time with the reporter, the third party candidate's campaign and a political hatchet man working for the GOP. The authors are lefties so there are some predictions made that are kinda eyeroll and their solutions even more so (we need to decriminalize all drugs and institute UBI) but as a political thriller it's not bad. The biggest strike against it is that it has the basic Democrats are inept/Republicans are evil worldview. The lefty characters themselves feeling that way is one thing but it's also woven through the events of the story.
It's not too long and is an easy read. The insight in to some of the political machinery and running of a campaign was interesting and none of the characters were a chore to be around. We'll call it a C+.
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TJT
Mr. Poopybutthole
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Interesting read on the Austin/Central Texas area from ~1850-1960 or so in regards to how "hillbillies" as we would refer to them actually lived. For someone who lives in the Austin area its cool to see the backstory for what are today neighborhoods and greenbelt hiking trails. Here they were called Cedar Choppers or Coal Burners because they cut cedar to sell as fence posts (tons of these can still be seen in the area just driving around) or made charcoal. Both of these jobs were considered derisive and looked down upon.
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TJT
Mr. Poopybutthole
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Allan Moore does well here but its full of even more of his innate pretentiousness as he gets older. It's a feast of London and UK history and in amazing detail. But if you're not a UK native who is interested in these things you find yourself having to look up tons of interesting sayings and ancient slang as Moore absolutely loves to use anachronistic British idioms. Even if they are 19th century accurate they are harder to digest if you're American as you never had a Nan who would have spoken that way.
This is like Grimdark Narnia in a way but the story is reminiscent of Neverwhere (which I also love). Moore hates CK Lewis for various reasons and hates the fantastical element of Narnia without human grittiness. So his Narnia is psychotic but interesting. Plot is basic but good enough. Dude gets thrust into The Great When to return an artifact that should not exist in our realm.
If you haven't go and read From Hell. It's really his best work in terms of historical accuracies and history combined with supernatural flair.
Arbitrary
Tranny Chaser
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Book 13 of The Laundry Files. This is a series about a secret government organization (The Laundry) in Great Britain that deals with the supernatural. The first book is often described as a kind of Cthulu meets Dilbert which is fair but I feel overstates the comedy. As the series go on we are with our initial protagonist less and less with later books having other main characters. All in all I like these quite a lot.
Then the author bailed on the main story to do a trilogy within the same setting but with entirely different characters. I got halfway through the first of them and quit. The friend who got me in to this series said they got better but weren't great. This book is the first one in years that is actually about The Laundry and a character I recognize. I've been waiting for it a while.
It's a novella with a couple short stories tacked on so it appears to be most of a book. The main story is alright and not much else. One short story is fine, one is bad and a lengthy afterword finishes out the padding. Before this I think during the printing of the side-trilogy Stross put out a book called Escape From Yokai Land that had the main character from the earlier books. I was really excited to see the story move forward. I had questions. It was, at best, a long short story that was set between two previous books thus answered zero questions. The story was like a C-.
The first 9 books in this series were excellent with book 9 being my favorite. I want very much to see what happens next with a few of the characters and it's been like six years to get a novella that also doesn't advance the story forward. It's one more book series I'm basically in limbo with but I think it'll actually finish out.
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Ukerric
Bearded Ape
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Stross was good, but his writing has taken a downturn recently. Like you, I couldn't find myself excited about the later parts of the Laundry, his sequel to Merchant Princes was slow (and you realize quickly that the MC looks like a checklist of woke points) and the ending was filled with a completly stupid, unwarranted exposition which destroyed whatever mystery remained while making sure you knew everyone was doomed, regardless of how well they did.
I was mildly interested in the book given the potential nature, and completely, utterly forgot it just came out.
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Intrinsic
Person of Whiteness
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Have been through the first 4.5 Pendergast novels on audiobook and am pretty hooked. They aren’t amazing or anything but remind me of when I binged a whole bunch of Chandler / Marlowe novels. Characters are interesting, plots are a neat “mythic” and not just straightforward cereal killers or mysteries. Will probably keep going through them as I’m traveling back-and-forth across States for work. I know there’s like 20 so will keep me busy. Narrators have been fine although the change to Brick in book 4 was somewhat jarring given how they each attempt to do Pendergast’s accent.
Also just finished Dragonbone Chair. This series was the Fantasy subscription for The Broken Binding the last 4 months (To Green Angel Tower was split in 2 books), and I figure I may as well give it a shot and see if I keep the books or try to sell. It wasn’t bad. Been a while since I read more standard fantasy that isn’t Malazan or 40k and it felt familiar in a good way. Looking forward to Book 2 and seeing where things go.
Also just finished Dragonbone Chair. This series was the Fantasy subscription for The Broken Binding the last 4 months (To Green Angel Tower was split in 2 books), and I figure I may as well give it a shot and see if I keep the books or try to sell. It wasn’t bad. Been a while since I read more standard fantasy that isn’t Malazan or 40k and it felt familiar in a good way. Looking forward to Book 2 and seeing where things go.
Void
BAU BAU
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Saw that I posted this a few months ago and it triggered me. Maybe I mentioned it in the litrpg thread, or I erased it from my mind and never said anything. The first book of Respawn was perhaps one of the worst things I ever read. So much so that I didn't even care to reread the first book in the other series that I gave a 3/5 to the first time around. I can accept translation issues and differences in the way people of different languages communicate in ways that might sound weird to us, but it was just fucking bad. I've read plenty from foreign authors that were weird but still tolerable. This was not the same. I will never purposely read something by this author ever again.