What is the strangest method for electing rulers that you’ve heard of?
Ok, this show has no business being this good! (I mean this in the best way possible).
Forget that it’s animated (though it’s damn gorgeous), the story is where it’s at. The sheer unpredictability and talents of the voice actors make this a show to watch. You don’t need to know an iota of League of Legends to appreciate this, and did I ever.
If you haven’t watched this yet and call yourself a fan of fantasy, you owe it to yourself to binge watch this.
So, when’s season two coming?
EDIT: Nothing’s wrong with the animation! I worded it poorly as it was more aimed at people who may not give the show a chance because animation isn’t their speed. Let me be clear: the animation is top notch and deserving of every Annie award it earned.
“Heart of the pack was here and he never let us come to harm.”
From the Realm of the Elderlings.
A few days ago, a lovely person reviewed one of my books. I sold 9 copies of it on Amazon pretty much immediately. So some of us all got talking about it on twitter, and reviews, and such. And Janny Wurts said I should post a little thing about it, so I will. Because I think we so often talk about multi-millionaire and very financially secure authors here that I don’t think folks realize what it’s like for struggling indies to trad mid-list authors. So…here’s a little celebration of reviews, how they work, and why you can feed an author today.
Now, first up: indies and small press owners have access to live sale data. Trad mid-list authors do not. So while we can guess with bookscan, and Amazon ebook sale rankings, it’s a little less “live”. Some of us sell better on one platform over another. For example, I have series that never sell on Amazon (Spirit Caller, The Demons We See), but they sell over on Kobo. So when you can see daily sales …
I’ve read all of Tolkien’s works set in Middle-earth, including posthumous books, such as the Silmarillion, the 12 volumes with the History of Middle-earth, Nature of Middle-earth, and the Unfinished Tales. The depth of the world-building is insane, especially given that Tolkien worked on it for 50 years.
I’ve read some other authors whose world-building was huge but it was either an illusion of depth, or breadth. It’s understandable since most modern authors write for a living and they don’t have the luxury to edit for 50 years. Still, do you know any authors who can rival Tolkien in the depth of their world-building? I’d be interested to read them.
There’s been a lot of hype for this book, so I was expecting a more-so-than-normal interesting celebrity memoir, but what I’m reading goes so far and beyond what I expected. The subject matter itself has been talked about to death by now in the news cycle and on Reddit so I won’t go into that too much - you know what you’re getting into here. Instead, I wanna talk about the rest of what her book is about.
Jennette has a distinct writing voice and we learn quickly that she always wanted to be a writer since it was the one part of her life she had any control over, to the point where she wrote whole screenplays just for herself which she shared with her mother (the titular, ahem, well… you all know at this point).
This book has completely changed my perspective not only on iCarly (I don’t know if I could honestly ever watch it again and be able to enjoy it in the same way after this), but child stardom in Hollywood in general. The abuse she went …
I try to expose myself to opposing views because I find it more stimulating.
With that motivation (and after being recommended), I decided to read “Fossil Future; Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas–Not Less” by Alex Epstein.
It had 4.7⁄5 on Amazon, 5⁄5 on Booktopia and 4⁄5 on Goodreads, so I was conned into thinking this was a quality book. A warning to those considering reading this. It’s absolute trash.
Even if I agreed with Alex, it’s incredibly lazy, extremely repetitive, shoddy is too generous a word to call the arguments presented, and worst of all extremely, extremely, extremely boring.
Background on the author: Alex Epstein is an unintelligent and lazy grifter. He’s created a for-profit think tank to shill fossil fuels. He has a degree in philosophy, which like most philosophers he uses to construct entire arguments with logical constructs. That’s fine for esoteric things like the meaning of life but not …
This might be incredibly obvious and seen as the perfect formula for the perfect book across genres and literature.
I feel as though many books are generally divided into either plot-focused or character-focused books and both have their own pros and cons as well as critics and die-hard fans.
JKR managed to convey such character growth in many of her characters alongside the trio as well as established a real, consistent plot that kept readers across many preferences entertained and intrigued.
Just a shower thought I had this morning.
Just finished Noor by Nnedi Okorafor and while I like the story fine enough, the way the she tries to explain the technology in this near future Africa is risible and breaks immersion. It also contributes nothing to the overall story.
Why cant we just say X exists because African inventors are great and people all over the world use it? Why spend a whole chapter explaining in detail how a specific invetor came up with this technology and then just butcher every single aspect of the explanation.
I hold a PhD in electrical engineering, particularly focused on solar and wind energies. The way the author describes the solar technologies in this book is the equivalent of someone asking “How much gas did you put in the car today?” and you answering “the car was blue this morning”. Just completely nonsensical.
Definitely one of my favorite sci-fi books of the last ten years! Such an incredible debut novel from Ann Leckie. Here’s the setup:
Breq used to be the Justice of Toren - a huge, complex AI that inhabited a colossal starship and all of its thousands of ancillaries in the service of the Radch, the largest of the human empires.
Ancillaries are human bodies that were captured in previous Radchaai annexations – those who resist the takeover are killed and their bodies frozen and stored, ready to be activated and controlled by Radchaai AI in future annexations. The ancillaries are terrifying soldiers – each one is protected by almost impenetrable armor, and the AI never miss a shot.
The book follows two parallel timelines – one as Breq, now reduced to a single ancillary body, closes in on the end of her quest for revenge, and the other set twenty years in the past and covering the events leading up to her betrayal.
There are so many things about this book I love, but I’ll try to pick …
Basically I want a setting that feels like a small town, but in space. I’m currently reading The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers and really enjoying it. But due to being set on a spaceship, it feels like a road trip story. Which is awesome, but it makes me want to read slice of life stories in other settings, and the one that comes to mind is whatever the equivalent of a “small town” would be in space. Stories set in small towns or colony outposts on distant planets are welcome, but ideally it would be actually out in space somewhere, not just on a planet that doesn’t happen to be named Earth.
Edit: I think I should say something about why I bothered to write this. I believe that critical reviews are important. They help prospective readers find what they’re looking for and improve the health of the genre. I do not believe that media that’s “just for fun” gets a free pass. Quite the opposite, I think we have to be mindful of the stories we casually repeat and consume.
At times, I write at length about books I love. Sometimes, I participate in conversations about books that I thought were just okay. In this case, I read a book that was incredibly popular and well-reviewed by many. I thought it was important to write a review specifically because it was counter to many of the opinions I read.
If you enjoy this book, great. Enjoy what you enjoy. Likewise, I’m going to dislike what I dislike, and I’m going to back it up with arguments. Please, take issue with any of my arguments specifically. I would much prefer to debate the substance of …
I have often read, here and elsewhere, that Dune can be difficult to get into for new readers because of Frank Herbert’s unusual prose. I have read Dune a number of times and I still struggle to understand what is meant by that statement. To me, his prose seems pretty…. well, normal, at least as far as prose goes. What did other people think when they read Dune for the first time?
I found this list on Goodreads, in which any members can submit and vote on their top 100 SF novels.
I’m not associated with it or anything, but thought it would be fun to bring it to the attention of anyone who might want to vote for their favorites.
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/72370._r_PrintSF_Recommends_Science_Fiction_Novels?page=1
just saw fantastic beasts the secrets of dumbledore and it was terrible. Not only was the story and writing bad but the movies have nothing to do with Newt Scamander and his book. it’s basically the story of dumbledore and Grindelwald. how could jk rowling fuck it up so bad. fantastic beasts could have even be a tv series about Newt, his passion for magical creatures and his adventures studying and documenting them to write his book. but no instead we get the same shit as the original franchise just replace harry with newt and voldemort with Grindelwald. i’m so upset i had to get this rant off my chest lol.
“Casted” is not a word.
While we’re at it, actors play roles. Not rolls.
This is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. People understand what you’re saying, so nobody bothers to correct these mistakes. Overall, we’re more interested in the point you’re making than in the one or two words you got wrong while making it. But it seems to me that maybe someone should tell you you’re using the wrong words. Or words that aren’t even words.
So there you have it. Do with this information what you will.