I’ve been trying to find a decent xianxia series for a while now. Already found some really good wuxia-level stories like The Breaker, Legend of the Northern Blade and Blood and Steel, but xianxia always seemed to centre around really unlikeable protagonists in a story that made no sense whatsoever.
Enter Will Wight’s Cradle series. The first book was just 89 cents on amazon, and 294 pages, so it thought it worth checking out, especially with the myriad positive reviews I’d come across. I thought I’d read it and see if I wanted to add the rest of the series to my list.
It SUCKED ME IN. I read the first book. Then I read the second book. Then I realised I was screwed. Goodbye all my plans for the week.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not High Literature. And while funny it’s no Pratchett.
What it is, is pure literary cocaine. I couldn’t stop. I had to find out what happened next. Wight grabbed me by the scalp and shoved my face through the …
HarperCollins has released updated sales figures for J.R.R. Tolkien’s books, acquired by Tolkien fansite TheOneRing. These sales figures have been unified in English for the first time because News Corp., which already owns HarperCollins (Tolkien’s British publishers), has also acquired Houghton Mifflin, Tolkien’s American publishers.
The figures indicate that sales of Tolkien’s books have surpassed 600 million. Counting Tolkien’s book sales have been notoriously difficult due to poor accounting, legions of unauthorised overseas editions and even pirate editions of the book being sold in the United States (most famously the Ace Books edition of 1965, which sparked an international outcry and helped catapult Tolkien to greater fame and success in the States), so even this is a conservative figure.
Sales of 600 million would put Tolkien comfortably in the top ten selling authors of fiction of all time, although (contrary to some reports) nowhere near the …
It just seems people haven’t figured out how it would work. So the Bronze Age went from 3100 BC - 300 BC.
The ‘big civilizations’ would be Myceneans, Egypt, the Celts, the Harappan civ, Mesopotamian states, Hittites and Shang or Zhou Dynasty China (My bad, I accidentally referred to that time as ‘warring states’ because I heard some use that term to describe it). The sword shapes from that period look quite interesting enough for use in fantasy, and they aren’t well known aside from the Khopesh.
This is not the only thing I’m describing but the fact most soldiers and people who fought besides the ones considered important or wealthy didn’t really wear much armor at all (Due to how expensive it is) leaves artists or writers to have more freedom in making up what characters can wear without contradicting the history all that much. Also due to how early military technology was, it is likely warriors would rely more on skill, plus secret or …
EDIT: This needs to be said so I don’t get another pissy comment from some butt-hurt child. It’s okay to like this book. I don’t care. People can like what they like, but let people dislike what they dislike. I’m sure my favorite book is on someone’s shit-list and I think that a-okay.
Also, you can read this comment to see how I actually discussed it with my friend. Too many relationship counselors offering their services for free tonight when their generosity is not actually needed. —————————————————————————————
So, I’m going to gripe about it here.
First off, who is this book even for? It reads like it’s written for middle schoolers, but everything revolves around 80’s references that they wouldn’t understand. I feel like I’m too old to for the book yet I’m a 90’s kid (born late 80’s).
Second, let me talk more about the terrible writing. Nothing is implied in this book and the reader discovers nothing. Aunt and aunt’s boyfriend = bad people 🙁Wade = super clever and righteous 😊 …
By the time I had finished Catcher in the Rye, I still didn’t really understand why it’s held as a masterpiece to a lot of people today, since I would describe it as nothing more than some twat faffing around Newyork. If anyone could give me an explanation, that would be nice.
Also, my thoughts on the book are that it was alright. Nothing really special, didn’t really have anything to say, I’m sure it was more controversial when it first came out.
Also also, I’m an aussie, so it might just be an american thing I don’t understand.
Edit: HOLY MOTHER MARY’S KNICKERS! I did not expect for this post to blow up. I would like to start with thanking everyone who commented and liked. I also need everyone to stop commenting, my phone is blowing up.
So as it occurred to me that I couldn’t possibly respond to every comment, I decided to make this edit. I actually wanted to adress the questions yis all had for me.
I DON’T HATE THE BOOK! …
Context - When I was a child, we had an unfinished basement that always had a bunch of old smelling boxes tucked away in the corner. We used to play down there all the time so naturally I ended up looking through most of them. In one was this huge thousand page book with the old cover for the complete and uncut editon (The coolest cover btw). Around this time I had fallen in love with reading and wanted to get my hands on everything. When my I asked my dad if I could read it all he said, “No, its way to scary.” For years I always wondered what was so spooky about it. Eveyone I asked said the same thing and even when I got older I was still never allowed to read it. That is untill I got really bored and decided to read it stuck in my appartment during quarintine.
It really is that spooky - Books have never scared me, but this one did. Usualy when you think of being scared you think of a jump scare of something like that, this was completely different. It is more like a long …
Around the 1950s, the label Soundmark Records put out quite a few records of authors and poets reading their work, including James Baldwin, Robert Frost, Ezra Pound, Sylvia Plath, William Carlos Williams, E.E. Cummings, T.S. Eliot, William Butler Yeats, Langston Hughes and more. The recordings include a mix of excerpts of novels and poetry.
Last year I discovered some albums of 20th century writers reciting their work and eventually I came across these albums. I recently realized that there were a huge volume of these Soundmark recordings, but there doesn’t seem to be anywhere to find them all in one place, so I searched for as many as I could find and compiled them into this playlist. (I’m not sure how many I may be missing, so if you know of any albums I should add, feel free to comment them here or send me a message and I’ll add it!)
I’ve been really enjoying listening to these writers reading their own words, and I find it’s interesting to hear their …
I see a lot of people dismissing older SF books because authors didn’t “predict” technology X or how gadget Y would look like – such as the internet, smartphones, and what role AI would actually play in the workforce. However, I think this is total BS. Good SF isn’t supposed to predict future technologies but to give us insights on the human nature and how we can be affected by things that explore this nature. Outdated technology is just a reflection of how people used to perceive the world back when a book was written, but it’s by no means a reason to dismiss the themes and ideas that the author is trying to convey.
What are this sub’s thoughts on this subject?
I know I’m not the first nor the last to do so, but I cannot recommend the Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy aka the Three Body Problem series enough. I just finished the last book, Death’s End, yesterday and I can’t stop thinking about it. Such a grim, yet beautiful series. It’s going to be absurdly difficult to move on to another book after this. The scope of the plot is literally endless. Go read this series!
I have no idea how this is going to be adapted into a series though. Some things that happen would require MCU level budgets. Very cautiously hopeful
I’m having a hard time finding books to read lately as I have an itch that’s hard to scratch. Favorites in this vein include Gene Wolfe, Gnomon, Pynchon, Dhalgren. I’ve bounced off of Light by M John Harrison a couple of times without getting very far into it. Quantum Thief didn’t do it for me. Southern Reach trilogy was great but doesn’t have that same infinite readability quality to me.
Could Someone please recommend Blindsight to me?
Edit: OMG thanks for all the recs guys!!
Here’s my to read list as of right now:
1. Blindsight
April’s theme was humorous speculative fiction. Even though the nominations post was somewhat later than usual, we have a clear winner in the two days it was up. This is, of course, the spoiler free announcement thread, check back around Thursday 15 April for the spoiler friendly discussion post!
The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut
The Sirens of Titan is an outrageous romp through space, time, and morality. The richest, most depraved man on Earth, Malachi Constant, is offered a chance to take a space journey to distant worlds with a beautiful woman at his side. Of course there’s a catch to the invitation—and a prophetic vision about the purpose of human life that only Vonnegut has the courage to tell.
It is by far the strangest music/concert documentary I’ve ever seen in my life. She is extremely lucky most people have forgotten this exist.
It literally kicks off with her laughing at the fact that her naive hairstylist was drugged and rapped. It also includes:
Mocking an old childhood friend she called up to appear in the doc.
Verbally abuses her manager
Mocks her father for politely saying he felt uncomfortable going to her show if she simulated masturbation on stage, telling him she wouldn’t do it at the show he attended, and then doing it anyway
abusing her closeted background dancer because he didn’t want to come out
Visiting her mother’s grave and rolling around on with the dry eyes in such a facetious way that visibly disgusted the brother who went with her
Attempts to seduce a married Antonio Banderas
Demeans Keven Costner for calling her show “neat”.
Forcing another background dancer(Black) to show his penis in a game of “Truth or Dare” and then mocking it’s …