The main character happens to be a massive, muscular guy who not only wins shooting competitions and is an expert in martial arts, but is also a brilliant accountant. He is attempting to woo the 25 year old sexy, amazing with firearms, badass boss in the company by demanding she have dinner with him as part of his hiring. Her boyfriend is of course a fake masculine guy that is well educated.
What the fuck is this shit, and why did I have to wait so long for it to become available at the library?
Title might sound weird, but roll with me. On paper, Dresden Files is right up my street. I’ve been trying to get into urban fantasy (it’s been hard) and I love the whole detective wizard shtick. This series usually tops the list for urban fantasy recommendations so I gave it a shot.
I got to book 3, which is apparently where it “gets good” and have decided to quit. Among some other minor problems (which weren’t deal breakers), I hate Harry Dresden. I hate being in this dudes head, and I wish I could see the world through somebody else’s eyes. I wish I could read about some of these side characters in somebody else’s story, and not through the POV of a walking tipped fedora.
Are there any other books which have the same “vibe” as Dresden Files? The whole “fantasy creatures in modern world” slash mystery aspect is the biggest draw for me, so any series that accomplished the same goal without the eye rolling descriptions …
I think most people are familiar with the trope. Kelsier and Vin, Geralt and Ciri, the T-800 and John Connor, etc.
I’m looking for good fantasy novels with the dynamic of a gruff badass adopting a kid and forming a parental bond with them.
Preferably something not too dark and with some sort of happy ending.
Important to note is that I want both parent and child to be fully realized characters, so no Mandalorian situation, where one of them is literally a toddler that cannot communicate meaningfully.
That relationship should also be a focus of the story, so please don’t recommend, like, 7 book series where that dynamic is seen by book 6 or something.
Thank you in advance.
I’m at my mid twenties, surfing YouTube, a clip of Matilda randomly showed up. It made me realize something, ended up crying and laughing at the same time.
I read Matilda when I was 11 as a part of an assignment project my English teacher gave me. I was the child with single parents, in our country single mothers and their family is still treated with discrimination. My school was no different. I had teachers and parents heavily prejudiced against me and my mom. It also didn’t help that my mother had mental, economic issues, which made her a terrible mother.
Our English teacher was in her mid twenties, and she was stern, everyone used to be scared of her. That summer we all got different books to write assignment on. I think I was the only one given Matilda by her, even though it was a little advanced for 11-year-old’s 2nd language assignment. I remember crying and having all kinds of emotions, I was relating so much with Matilda. I was also parenting myself, …
I’ve been seeing this a lot lately in book reviews. I just finished reading The Rum Diary by H.S. Thompson and quite a few reviews dismiss the book as being too sexist as a result of Thompson’s outdated views on women. Breakfast at Tiffanys is another good example, where reviewers will berate the book for being racist as Holly Golightly casually uses the “n” word to describe a black man she clearly doesn’t respect (if I recall correctly, it’s been a few years since I read the book).
The men in The Rum Diary are not really meant to be models of healthy lifestyles or character. They are all pretty terrible people. You aren’t necessarily supposed to like them. Same with Holly Golightly. She is initially presented as aloof and a free spirit, but you’re supposed to slowly realize she’s broken and a victim of her own self-centered selfishness. Just something I’ve seen a lot, with plenty of other books. Am I wrong in feeling …
Hello all - just had a little story that was too embarrassing to share with people in my life but felt like telling the whole world honestly. I’ve been trying to get into reading but have had massive beginner intimidation and was thus afraid of heading to the library to pick up some books so I’ve always stuck to online. However, yesterday was when I decided to beat my anxiety and just check out some books there. Now granted, I used the self-checkout machine and only got one book but small steps! I’m at least really proud of me just going in there in the first place- and the librarians were super nice when I asked about the location of a book.
UPDATE: Thank you so much for all the support. I honestly didn’t know what to expect when typing this up haha but this has made my day. I’ve been trying to respond to everyone but to answer some general questions I picked up “The Comfort of Monsters” by Willa C. Richards.
Reading through the recent thread of the worst books, I was suprised to see “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck” by Mark Manson. I’m a 23 year old guy, and read the book while at the beach. I found it to be very eye opening. I was feeling very lost and confused, and found a lot of very helpful and relatable advice that I never learned from my parents or from school. Seemed to me like a guy wrote a book about his lessons from his life, and I found a lot of value in that.
I notice a lot of the criticisms of the book don’t even make sense. People are acting like the book is about not giving a fuck about ANYTHING, when there’s a whole part of the book giving examples of what you should give a fuck about. I’m just kind of confused why it’s hated. Is it because all the advice in the book is super obvious once you’ve lived to 30-40? Again, as a 23 year old who hasn’t read many books, I really really enjoyed it, found a lot of value in it, and it made me want to continue reading new books. …
Everyone’s got that one genre that they just can’t click with, no matter what. Whether it’s the stories, the authors or the culture surrounding the genre, you just have no interest whatsoever. What’s yours?
I’m happy to go first - I can’t stand Historical Fiction. The idea of taking real historical characters to tell your fictional stories about feels like bad fan fiction.
I recently read the Mothman Prophecies by John Keel and I have to by far, it’s the worst book I’ve ever read. Mothman is barely in it and most of the time it’s disorganized, utterly insane ramblings about UFOS and other supernatural phenomena and it goes into un needed detail about UFO contactees and it was so bad, it was good in some parts. It was like getting absolutely plastered by drinking the worst beer possible but still secretly enjoying it. Anyway, I was curious to know, what’s the worst book you’ve ever read?
I haven’t quite finished the book yet, I’ve only a couple pages to go, but bear with me.
Listen, I’m not big on cosmic horror. It never seemed to affect me too bad.
The premise of “imagine if your whole existence doesn’t matter” never impacted me in the least. I’m Brazilian, born and raised, and from the cradle I always suspected that was the case. The movies didn’t took place where I lived or featured people that looked like me and those around me; the telenovelas only ever portrayed the richer parts of the country, or the parts so miserable that I barely knew if they existed. My parents are great, and they raised me well, but they never really tried to tell me I was special in any way. In fact, I was raised on the opposite: you’re not special, and by that I mean, “you are not better than anyone else, everyone has value as a human being”. I was raised Catholic, so “do unto others as you would have done unto …
Today, Eric Flint died at the age of 75. This was confirmed by Baen Books via social media.
He wrote the 1632 series of time travel alternate history, revolutionizing that genre, as well as several other works, many with collaborators. He will be missed.
There is a gofundme for his memorial service costs. I have already chipped in some.
That is to say, it is superb. Perhaps the comparison isn’t perfect, but like Chiang’s stories this is a beautiful, almost flawless take on a sci fi concept that goes beyond intriguing speculation to be something wonderful and full of heart. I’m surprised I don’t see this comparison more, as these are both writers using sci fi toward very humanist ends, and doing so with impressive, literary style (and incidentally both writers of Asian descent from English speaking countries (Chiang is an American whose parents immigrated from China; Ishiguro is British having immigrated from Japan when very young)).
Some sci fi readers might find it too tame. So maybe the style of this book won’t be for everyone here—it is about a near-human robot girl designed to be a companion for young young teenagers; and about how humans perceive and regard each other and how that defines us—but gosh, if you want to read some near future sci fi that is not just intriguing and compelling as a vision of the …
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Hugh Howey’s SPSFC is a yearly contest focused on shining a great big laser beam on works of self-pubbed science fiction. It’s based on the successful format of Mark Lawrence’s SPFBO but with few changes. Last Friday, the first edition of SPSFC ended, and seven finalists received all scores.
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Iron Truth (Primaterra # 1) by S.A. Tholin won the Ray Gun. I’ve started the book today, and it looks promising :)
Here’s the table presenting the final scores for seven finalists. There’s a difference but not a huge one:
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Anyway, if …
I just finished the Poor Man’s Fight trilogy by Elliot Kay and I thought it was a well realized universe that discussed overreach of corporations in the context of military fiction.
I don’t necessarily care for the military fiction aspect but I would love recommendations in the same vein as mentioned in the title.
Thanks!