https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/dragonsteel/words-of-radiance-leatherbound?ref=launch
The Words of Radiance leatherbound will come in a beautiful two volume set, the first of which is signed. These books are bound in the same genuine leather as The Way of Kings leatherbound. The Words of Radiance leatherbound also includes a cloth-covered slipcase with the Stormlight Archive® symbol in a striking red foil and lush red interior lining.
Each volume begins with an 8-page gallery of full-color artwork, including cover illustrations from around the world, commissioned pieces, and top-notch fan art. Also included are front and end papers by Michael Whelan and Howard Lyon, chapter arches by Jian Guo, and incredible pieces capturing some of the most epic (and hilarious) moments from this beloved story. Your imagination will be captured by the works of artists such as Isaac Stewart, Ashley Coad, Magali Villeneuve, Dan Dos Santos, Marie Seeberger, Steve …
This is spurred by the recent post where the OP lambasted the Percy Jackson series for being too “childish”, but that’s far from the only example of this happening lol.
I think looking at a book and determining if it is for you or if you can enjoy it is pretty much a required skill before attempting it, and if you’re way outside the range of its demographic I don’t think you’re really valid in posting a scathing review. Well, I guess you can; but I don’t know why anyone would listen to it or care.
This is true for any other form of media (obviously the Paw Patrol movie and the Godfather Part II are massively different and intended for different crowds; a review seeing the Godfather called out for not being child-friendly or dragging Paw Patrol for not being dark and gritty would be bonkers), but reading seems to be in this weird space where someone decides that just because they’ve enjoyed a book or series that means they enjoy READING as a whole and all books from then on are equal …
Does anyone else hate when authors try to write song lyrics out in their novels?
I find this totally distracting. Always takes me completely out of whatever I’m reading. They’ll put full length songs in there and then I have to try to read through it and decipher if it has some meaning or they just felt like channeling their inner musician? They’ll try to explain how the song is supposed to sound. Some authors do this multiple times per novel or series. I don’t get it. Big pet peeve. Just wanted to rant on it. Common trope I run across in fantasy novels.
My friend encouraged me read Julia Fox’s memoire because it is “wild.” I see a lot of other people talking about this book as a collection of crazy tales but it’s actually a confessional of a horriblely mistreated girl.
I’m only three chapters in and I don’t think I can finish it. Julia is emotionally and physically abused by her parents and she starts having sexual encounters with older men (early 20s and older) at age 11. It seems like almost every man she runs into from age 11 on sexualizes her or abused her.
I’ve yet to get to the chapters where she is a legal adult but all of these stories are just too depressing. I feel like people are sensationalizing her life experience as “wow look at all the crazy things she’s done” when it’s actually an abused girl with anxious attachment trying to survive and it’s awful.
Edit: I miss used the word “sexual encounters” above. I always thought it meant …
The story takes place in the 90s US, with a woman president, legal cannabis, no mention of Reagan or the AIDS epidemic, friendly relations with the USSR, and relatively tame religious fundamentalists.
And then you look at actual US history, and there’s so much lost potential.
I only recently got into Philip K Dick. I was surprised that his stories are so funny. I don’t feel like any of that comes through in his movie adaptations.
Blade Runner is an almost humorless movie, but Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is a riot.
Like the electric sheep is not a metaphor in the book. It’s an actual pet robot sheep that Deckard has and he hates it because it’s not a real animal. Every time he comes across an animal, he whips out his animal catalogue and checks the price, moaning about he’ll never be able to afford it.
Just the way he describes tech usually paints a very funny picture in my mind. It’s absurd, but the characters all treat it so seriously that he makes it relatable and I can’t help but laugh.
Most of the stories I’ve read far have been like this and I love it.
What’s the best sf book you’ve read? it can be a standalone book or part of a series that you believe is the pinnacle of sci-fi writing and why? for me my absolute favourite sci-fi book is Horus rising, the book that brought me back into reading and the whole Warhammer universe
It seems like opening Dune, reading “The Bene Gesserit are searching for the Kwisatz Haderach to control Arrakis’s melange, this is done with a Gom jabbar” and saying “oh fuck this” is a rite of passage for many sci-fi readers. What other sci-fi stories have you encountered that completely slammed you over the head with in-universe jargon and did you continue reading it? (I switched to the Dune audio book and found it much easier to follow than pure text)
For the last few years, I’ve been going back and re-reading sci-fi books that I loved long ago, to see what I think of them decades later.
One series that held up very well is Julian May’s Pliocene Exile series, comprising The Many-Colored Land, The Golden Torc, The Nonborn King, and The Adversary. It’s a time-travel sci-fi series, where misfits from future Earth, circa 2110 A.D., travel back to the Earth of six million years before, which is unexpectedly occupied by two warring alien races, who are uncannily reminiscent of the elves and dwarves of human legend. I won’t spoil it for you, but May tells a huge story over these four books, stuffed with inventive and original ideas.
How can I call this series “overlooked” when the first book won a Locus award back in 1981, and all four of them have hundreds of Amazon …