If anyone else happened to see the Honor Among Thieves film recently, what did you think of it? Did it make a generally good or bad impression? Did it parody Dungeons & Dragons the table-top game effectively?
TL;DR: “The Song of Achilles” by Madeline Miller is recommended if you aren’t already familiar with the story of the Iliad, and strongly recommendation if you are. It is also hella gay.
Sing, Muse, the tale of Achilles, half-god, born of Thetis sea-nymph and Peleus King. Come forth and tell once more of his youth and tutoring by Chiron, Centaur and teacher of heroes. Tell of the theft of Hellen, the arrogance of Agamemnon, and the woe brought by fire-haired Achilles’ injured pride in the war which won his eternal fame. Sing, Muse, of the death of the greatest of the Greeks at the walls of long-fallen Troy.
I don’t think I should need a spoiler warning for how a retelling of the Iliad goes. As with Titanic, everyone knows; the boat sinks. The city falls. But the journey is the joy of getting there, and in this case, that joy is wonderfully realized. Madeline Miller tells the song of Achilles from the perspective of Patrocolus, with prose that feels …
So I’ve never been too big into the fantasy side of book genres but I was sucked into the hype thanks to Tiktok and read ACOTAR by Sarah J Maas and was completely enthralled. Read all 5 books in 2 weeks.
I need some more suggestions of similar type books. Beautiful world building with of course some steamy romance sections. Not opposed to monster books, bit iffy on alien style fantasy though.
Any suggestions in that kind of things would be great please. Already started the Thrones of Glass series by Sarah J Maas and plan to read the House of Earth and Blood series by her as well as they are released.
Throw me series or author suggestions please and thanks! (:
Whether it was a rage scene or just a cool action scene or just a plan going off perfectly. What made you think “badass”?
Edit2: Oh Reddit, I love you. I’m turning off notifications for the night, but make sure to sort by controversial! :)
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I’ve read Sanderson, Abercrombie, Butcher, Erikson, Martin, Hobb, and Jordan. I’ve either read what’s at the bookstore, or have dismissed it as trash because I know it’s not for me. Why aren’t there any good books left? What am I supposed to do? Do I just re-read now? I should just re-read now, right?
Edit: I know a lot of you stopped reading here, but maybe keep on going ;)
Okay the title and that opening paragraph is clickbait, except it isn’t. I’ve been on Reddit for over a decade now (fuck I’m old), and I see this regularly. Either blatantly (posts with the exact same title as I’ve used) or more just as a frustrated “I have no idea how to find anymore books from what I’ve been reading.” Most book places tend to get a little stuck with what they love, and there tends to be …
Her letter in response to this is spot on: https://www.prettyokmaggie.com/blog/2023/4/11/scholastic-and-a-faustian-bargain
I especially like this part: “They wanted to take this book and repackage it so that it was just a simple love story. Nothing more. Not anything that might offend those book banners in what they called this “politically sensitive” moment. The irony of curating a collection tentatively titled Rising Voices: Amplifying AANHPI Narratives with one hand while demanding that I strangle my own voice with the other was, to me, the perfect encapsulation of what publishing, our dubious white ally, does so often to marginalized creators. They want the credibility of our identities, want to market our biographies. They want to sell our suffering, smoothed down and made palatable to the white readers they prioritize. To assuage white guilt with stories that promise to make them better people, while never threatening them, not even with discomfort. They have …
I went to the library to get something notarized and decided that, after years, I’d finally get an actual library book.
I spent about twenty minutes in the new book section, looking for the right book. I usually read non-fiction, but I really wanted a good fiction story to get my head out of reality.
Finally got the book, The Ice Orphan. Woah!! Sounds super cool!!! Just sat down to read it only to discover that it’s the third book in a series……
Damnit. I just want to get lost in a good story. Ugh… so disappointed y’all.
Interesting update: my library system doesn’t have the first two books in the series, but has 6 copies of the third book 😂
Edit again: hey y’all!
We ALL know what google is ok. So Please, relax and stop lambasting me about not googling a book. It might be wild to hear, but some of us don’t want to live our lives dependent on googling something. Some of us would love the technological advancement of
Putting a number on the spine that’s visible.
Having it printed …
Over the years, the cliche “Handmaid’s Tale…1984…A Brave New World…” always get mentioned for their prophetic take on a future world. I’ve never heard Butler mentioned in these conversations, but her parable books, pulses in the 90s, were discussing a future with right wing, Christo-fascism taking hold in America after the election of a presidential candidate claiming that he’s trying to “Make America Great Again.” City towns owned by corporations, poor people voting for strong men because of the lack of education anda feeling of desperation. Government/police that have given up even acting like they aren’t just there to help corporations.etc. Through the two books, she paints a horrifyingly familiar picture of US society (familiar, not exact. I’m aware that society has not completely broken down in the US), exhibiting a clear understanding of the direction the US was heading and she did so pre-9⁄11. The writing is beautiful. The story is captivating. Basically, I’m blown away …
When I first read A Fire Upon The Deep I was enthralled by all the ideas Vernor Vinge was throwing at me and I loved those characters dearly. I was so hungry for more and as a result, while I enjoyed Deepness as I was reading it the first time, I was disappointed by its lack of continuity, its highly “localized” world-building (wanted more Zones and Powers stuff!) or really much of anything to do with AFUTD, outside a few references and one key element that still felt very tangential. As a result, it lessened my appreciation for the book at the time.
Recently, I decided I wanted to revisit those works and I reread AFUTD and just finished Deepness. Having read the (unfortunately much lesser) Children of the Sky by now and having my sequel needs met (although c’mon with that cliffhanger!) I was able to take Deepness on its own terms this go-around.
Man. What a book. I do think it exceeds AFUTD. I didn’t feel that way the first time but its superiority is clear to me now (and I still …
I love Alastair Reynolds Revelation Space novels: space operas that come complete with mind-boggling concepts, galaxy-spanning adventures, bizarre aliens, space politics, love stories, and eons-old mysteries. Most space operas are about a future that despite having its ups, downs, and various inequities, is mainly Bright & Shiny, full of possibility. Reynolds vision in Revelation Space is that the universe is a cold, scary place, full of dead things and barely-understood terrors. (I also love the Expanse for that reason).
Could anyone give me some recommendations for new books in line with this: dark/horror vibes, big portion of mystery and space opera? :)
Someone made an observation - on another post I published - regarding how overlooked Jack Vance is nowadays. I think it’s sadly true; and being one of my favourite authors, I thought it could be interesting to rally here some of his devotees and perhaps suggest some of his books to people who doesn’t know him.
Jack Vance’s forte is his dialogs (extremely witty) and a brilliant imagination, making his stories perfect for those who look for a sense of wonder, of exotism: to see different human or alien cultures feel really unique, colorful. His genre of choice would be Space Opera mainly, with some incursions into kinda-hard sci-fi and fantasy.
To me, his best work is “The Dying Earth” series, particularly the first book. A cult classic, set on an earth on the end of times, an incredibly far future, when the sun is slowly dying and magic is coming back. Only is not necessarily magic, but perhaps an early example of Clarke’s law (Or does Vance precede …
As much as I love science fiction stories about human space exploration and first contact, I’d really love to switch it up and read about the other perspective. I find the idea of aliens and their own unique civilizations fascinating, especially ones with little to no human interaction.
We
Seek
Stories, knowledge of the ones who came before us. Or after us. It matters not to These-Of-We.
Knowledge of those distinct from These-Of-We, or even All-Of-We, yet share so many wonderful qualities with us. We wish to share this playground, this universe, this adventure, with others who share our unique physiology and psychology.
But where are they? Where are our collective siblings? Help us find them.
And in return
We’ll all go on an adventure
Embassytown was my first read of Mieville. I loved it. Everything from the prose, to the abstract world building, to the supremely interesting concept of Language - I just loved it all.
Then I read the city and the city. Also really enjoyed it, but it felt a tad more traditional and not quite as weird.
Now I’m reading Perdido St Station (no spoilers please) and it’s fairly enjoyable I guess but hasn’t blown me away and I’m starting to get impatient for it to pick up the pace. Also, where TCATC was maybe not quite weird enough, this is possibly on the side of too weird.
He doesn’t have the widest bibliography, but what do y’all think is his best? Is it Embassytown or something else?
So you know - This data is meant to be cheeky and random, if you’ve read my other dumb data posts, you know that I enjoy digging into random data and writing many words about the results.
Vin Diesel loves sleeveless shirts. He wore sleeveless shirts while bouncing, and if you check out his 1995 New York Toy Fair clips, or his 1995 short film Multi-Facial, you’ll see that long before he was rocking TWO sleeveless shirts at the same time in F9, he was all about the sleeveless life.
While watching F9 for another research assignment, I started wondering whether the amount of sleeveless shirts, or screen time in which Diesel wears a sleeveless shirt affect the overall quality of the movie. Thus, I went through all of his live-action films where he appears on screen (sorry Groot), pulled the minutes of sleeveless screen time, counted the shirts, and broke down the data to see if there is an optimal amount of sleeveless t-shirt wearing that Vin should adopt. Having done this before with …