I was trying to explain Priory of the Orange tree to a friend and I said Eastern vs Western Dragons and she said like wild American west with dragons? Unfortunately not in that case but what a great idea.
I finished it last week and had some major jade withdrawal! Absolutely loved the characters, but even more the exacting nature of the plot and events.
Nothing was easy. Every action had a consequence. Maintaining that over the course of the book isn’t a simple thing, but Fonda Lee did it masterfully.
I’m excited to see where the series goes!
Who else has checked this out? How’d you like Jade City? And does the rest of the saga hold up?
Hello, /r/Fantasy, and thanks for having me. I’m J. Zachary Pike, author of SPFBO4 winner Orconomics, Son of a Liche, and now—finally—Dragonfired. You can learn more about me at www.jzacharypike.com, or message me on Twitter at @jzacharypike.
With the completion and imminent launch of Dragonfired, the Dark Profit Saga is complete. The Kickstarter for the boxed set of the trilogy launched today. It’s worth checking out, because you get to watch a silly video of me talking about fantasy economics. Also because you can get the first-ever hardcover editions of all three books. And also because you can get the ebook of Dragonfired before it launches anywhere else. Ok, there are lots of great reasons to check it out here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jzacharypike/the-dark-profit-saga
I’ve been writing the story that would become the Dark Profit Saga …
So in the last two months or so I have now read Fionavar Tapestry -> Tigana -> A Song for Arbonne -> The Lions of Al-Rassan. (A total of 6 books)
I will eventually (hopefully by the end of 2023) read all of his 15 published books, but I had to stop and just comment on this.
Every single one of these books has been a pretty drastic improvement on the next.
I didn’t dislike Fionavar by any means. I thought it was nice, honestly. I would recommend it (with caveats). Tigana was a marked improvement, and definitely a book I would recommend, and read again. A Song for Arbonne then really surprised me by being even better than Tigana (especially since Tigana gets so much more hype, generally). It is an underrated gem for sure.
And now, Lions of Al-Rassan was, frankly, one of my favorite books of all-time. Like ever.
I know that
I’m a 300lb fully bearded motorcycle riding manly man. But not when it comes to my book choices. I love the books my wife reads. The problem is they all have a half naked chiseled 6 pack on them and some sexy looking background and text. I can’t read these at work.
It’s not that I care about what people think really. It’s the professionalism as well. I work in a corporate office. I can’t break out 50 shades of gray on my lunch break for when my boss walks by.
The kindle has changed that. Now I can go about my day getting work done. And in between calls dive into some intense unrealistic love story with a fairytale sexual relationship. This device has changed the game for me for sure. Any other men out there with me on this? I can’t be the only one lol.
I am a 35 year old alcoholic that has had lifelong depression and anxiety. I grew up in a household where I was always walking on eggshells for fear of being rejected, or being yelled at. It took me most of my teen years to understand that wasn’t normal. I spent the next decade drinking and doing drugs, escaping my family as much as possible to spend time with friends. I never really knew what home was, and never had an actual understanding of what family actually meant. Nor did I understand what a healthy relationship, romantically or platonically, felt like - despite having many relationships and friendships over the years.
I was 30 when I started working on my mental health. I was 34 when I quit alcohol. I was 35 when I started really introspecting on my life, emotions, my relationships, and my future.
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents is one of the first self-help books I’ve read, after Allen Carr’s Way to Control Alcohol, which saved my life. I was looking for …
So I’ve had Slaughterhouse-5 sitting on my bookshelf for years and finally got around to reading it today. It was a fairly quick read for me, but it’s made me do a lot of thinking.
It’s my first time reading a Kurt Vonnegut book, and I have to say I like his style of writing. It’s very direct and he doesn’t try to fanny around using unnecessary big words. I like the style of wit and humour used as well.
While I’m not sure what to make of the book as a whole (it may require a re-read), I do find the Tralfamadorian philosophy regarding death quite comforting. “When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in bad condition at that particular moment, but that the same person is just fine in plenty of other moments.” I have friends and family members that have passed on, so to imagine that somewhere out there in time they’re still alive and existing, that’s quite a nice idea.
I have been running low on things to read. My whole life when this happens I could just grab something off the list of hugos and it was always a passably good book. But here lately when I sample the latest stuff it is at best tumblr level fan fiction. Now I have nothing against tumblr lever fan fiction. I do however get annoyed when I waste an audible credit on it. So I ask you all around what point did the hugo award winners become like this? Is there a general cutoff date for the quality stuff?
Vernor Vinge has some of my favorite all time aliens - the Tines and the Spiders.
Not only are they wildly creative, but grounded in rational ecology and evolution - including cultural development.
What else can I read to scratch this alien ecology itch?
I do prefer character development and a good narrative - but recommend me anything!
Note: this is a new literary award, it started in 2022.
https://www.tor.com/2023/07/12/ursula-k-le-guin-prize-for-fiction-shortlist-2023/
Post today from his blog:
A recent round of comments reminds me that you’re owed an update on where we are with MACHINE VENDETTA. Unfortunately, for those that are keen to get hold of it, it’s now been pushed back to January 2024. While the UK edition could have been out by the end of this summer (the book itself is done except for final proofreading, which normally happens about 6 weeks ahead of actual printed copies appearing) it was thought better to have it come out at the same time in America as the UK, which does make sense in terms of maximising the impact of reviews, publicity and so on. Since US publishers have tended to need longer lead-times for production and scheduling, that’s unavoidably meant a push back into 2024. No biggie - it’s just an SF book and there should be no shortage of good new material to keep anyone occupied between now and then.
For instance, and just off the top of my head, Naomi Alderman’s THE FUTURE is really good and I …
Still processing it, but i found it to be both utterly fascinating and kind of a letdown by the end, although as I think about it more I think I do like the ending and whole arc.
Obviously the setting is the star of the story and more important than the actual plot, but it seems to me now that that was the entire point. The story seems to hint at some grand mystery behind the nature of the two cities, their history and Breach, and yet ends up being a pretty mundane crime story in the end. It’s a commentary on the way people ‘see what they want to see’ whether in everyday life, on the internet, or even in storytelling.
Borlu’s arc is about this cross-border investigation slowly tearing down the mental barriers he had put up his entire life that allowed him to block out events and people literally right next to him, until as Ashil says at the end, he can no longer ‘unsee’ the other city. In the end, there is no grand conspiracy or supernatural force …