What are the most badass old men you’ve seen in fantasy books?
Edit: Immortals don’t count. The point of being a badass old man is that you’re past your prime yet your skill and experience still makes you dangerous despite your weaker body. Immortals don’t get weaker with age.
P.S. Please don’t suggest any manga or anime. That’s a whole different topic.
I’m a lifelong reader and lover of bookstores. When I’m out with my wife and she’s shopping at a seemingly endless stream of clothing stores, I find the nearest bookstore I can – which isn’t always easy – and lose myself in the stacks. I also buy a lot of books, a dozen since July on Amazon alone. So I have a pretty keen sensitivity when it comes to relative pricing.
I’d like to buy more books from brick and mortars, but the business model for physical bookstores just isn’t feasible anymore. They rarely have what I’m looking for in stock, and when they do it’s often more than double the price I can find for the same book online. The store can often order the book for me, but their delivery times are often longer than it takes me to get a book delivered to my own house, which is at times under 24 hours – with free shipping.
I love bookstores and will be sad to see them go. I’ll miss them when they’re gone. …
Currently reading Small Gods and one of the paragraphs I love so far is:
“Humans! They lived in a world where the grass continued to be green and the sun rose every day and flowers regularly turned into fruit, and what impressed them? Weeping statues. And wine made out of water! A mere quantum-mechanistic tunnel effect, that’d happen anyway if you were prepared to wait zillions of years. As if the turning of sunlight into wine, by means of vines and grapes and time and enzymes, wasn’t a thousand times more impressive and happened all the time …”
I just love it because it showcases how the ordinary cycles of ordinary things are just as miraculous as the “miracles” found in religious books. Even more miraculous, as they actually exist, and most miracles can be found in nature. Even the way sunlight works is absolutely fascinating and vital to our existence. Also it’s just amazing how humans are able to decipher mother nature as well through philosophizing …
For me, it’s Heathcliff, and pretty much the entire concept of ‘Wuthering Heights’.
People, including tv shows, misinterpret WH as this astounding romance novel between two lovers who can never be together, and idolise Heathcliff as a protagonist when actually, he’s the antagonist, who commits heinous acts of manipulative revenge, causing suffering to all those he comes across. Yes, a big part of WH’s plot is Catherine staying it would “degrade” her to marry Heathcliff and the consequences that befall; but the main focus of the novel is about a man who feels he has been wronged (including by being rejected by the woman he loves) and uses that as motivation to destroy the lives of those he hates, including his own family.
Are there any characters that you think are misread as being good, when are actually bad?
Or do you even have an entire book that you think is misinterpreted?
I’m on the spectrum and had high hopes for this book. This book pigeon holed women on the spectrum (it uses Asperger’s as kind of a catch all term, which I don’t mind) and attempts to deflect criticism by using words like “Maybe” instead of actually approaching the subject in the nuanced multi faceted way it deserves.
There’s a short section in the beginning giving advice to a prospective partner of an aspergirl (the short hand the book uses) and it’s extremely infantilizing.
Stating that the prospective partner must tell the aspergirl when and where they’re going (which sounds like common decency for a first or even third date).
To check the weather and inform the aspergirl of it.
And to make sure to pick a restaurant that doesn’t have a lot of choices, saying a Chinese restaurant with a lot of choices is a bad idea for an aspergirl.
Lots of women on the spectrum manage with the weather and choices at a restaurant just fine. …
Was gifted a Kindle and I am very very thankful. I’m enjoying it, but I realize it’s so much easier to buy books and they’re not necessarily cheaper on Kindle, which surprises me because there is no ink or paper.
Also I’ve noticed it is much easier to buy books because every book is available at all times, opposed to having to run to the library and hope they have certain books in there Netwerk, or find a bookstore that has particular book
For those Kindle owners, do you feel like you spend more money on books then before, don’t understand why they are just as expensive as paperback and also feel like you don’t really own them because they are digital? It’s not like you can lend it to a friend for free.
I know there are many benefits, but I am starting to wonder..
It won both the Hugo and the Nebula in 2010, and will really stick with you and make you think!
Here’s the setup - it’s a dystopian world, set 200 years in the future:
The vast majority of the world’s fossil fuels have been expended, leading to a climate and economic catastrophe. In the aftermath, calories from food become the world’s most important energy source, not only for human consumption, but also to power industry and technology. A few mega-corporations produce almost all the world’s food, and have become the most powerful entities on earth, thriving by genetically engineering new foods, while also trying to destroy the competition by biohacking diseases to attack other sources of nutrition they don’t control.
The novel is set in a future version of Bangkok. Thailand is one of the few countries that has maintained its sovereignty from the calorie companies, but it has it’s own troubles, and is plagued by corruption, rent-seeking, and …
Mine, in no particular order, would be:
And a close contender would be Hothead by Simon Ings.
I tore through 600 pages in 4 days. When it was over, I put down the book with tears in my eyes and hugged it. What an exciting, beautiful, mind-expanding work of art. When my wife and I have a child, I can’t wait to read this to them.
So i finished The Expanse books a while ago. I’ve never really been interested in space battles before but I really like how the ones in this series were written.
My favorite one would be >!The Rocinante vs The Pella!< in book 6. Everything from the tactics used, the stakes and the aftermath were so entertaining that I reread it several times before moving on.
I’m not very well versed in the Space Opera genre so I’m hoping to get some good recommendations for more stuff like that from this post.
Announcement - http://approachingpavonis.blogspot.com/2022/08/read-for-pixels-reddit-ama-and.html
Not sure why it’s happening on /r/fantasy, perhaps because it’s a very large sub. /shrug
Author of *Rite of Passag*e, a wonderful Nebula Award-winning science fiction novel.
I think the critic rating was abysmally wrong. Imo this movie is a masterpiece. I think Spielberg hated it because it hits too close to home - sometimes as artists we make things that we don’t understand or embrace until much later, where unintended meaning slips through.
His biggest complaint and his thoughts on changing it - adding green screen/mocap - are wild to read about when to me the overt set reinforces the hallucination/dream framing of the entire movie. Hook with green screen would be terrible.
Edit: wow, I did not realise how divisive this movie would be. I think it’s really fascinating how much we either love or hate it.
Edit2: RT - https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hook
Edit 3: QVC Hook, https://i.imgur.com/q0o36X5.jpg
Edit 4: why is this post so popular? It’s weird. Is there a hook reboot in the pipeline?