Hello all, and welcome to the 2021 Holiday MegaSale brought to you by Wraithmarked Creative, Mountaindale Press, Aethon Books, Shadow Alley Press, and Portal Books!
If you didn’t know, this year we’ve turned the sale into a charity event to support St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital!
While last year this was only a holiday sale, this year:
AND:
That means every book you buy/pick up for free net’s St. Jude at least $0.05 in donations! If we only do as well as last year, we are likely to raise over $10,000 USD for the Hospital!
For those of …
All the Forsaken conversations from WoT comes to mind for example.
I have always heard that Robin Hobb’s books were great and will play with your emotions. Although, I had other books series that I wanted to read first. Finally, I chose to read this one. I finished reading Assassin’s Apprentice and those reviews ring true.
Some people dislike it because of its “predictive” plot or it being generic. Personally, I didn’t find it to be very predictive and I was always intrigued to learn more about the world, Fitz, the Wit, and the Skill.
Others said that most of the book is slow-paced and everything happens at the end of the book. I do not agree with that. Most of the book is trying to get you to understand what Fitz is going through and to have you empathize with it. Sure, things ramp up at the end, but don’t most books? If I had to compare what they said to a book/series, it would be Brandon Sanderson’s ‘The Stormlight Archive’ series. The plot’s slow throughout much of the book, and then everything happens suddenly at the end; mostly leaving you at …
So I’m reading Discworld for the first time (yes I know, quite late to the party on this), enjoying it so far, but one particular passage stood out to me because it so expertly called out the unfortunate tendency of fantasy authors to overly sexualize female characters using some very clever wit and humor. I thought I’d share it here because it shows that this kind of thing has been prevalent in fantasy (and to be fair, many other kinds of) literature for a long time now.
From The Light Fantastic (I don’t think this counts as a spoiler since it doesn’t give away any of the plot, mods please let me know if I’m wrong):
…this particular hero was a heroine. A redheaded one.
Now, there is a tendency at a point like this to look over one’s shoulder at the cover artist and start going on at length about leather, thighboots and naked blades.
Words like “full,” “round” and even “pert” creep into the narrative, …
Wow. I’ve almost finished 1984 - been reading non-stop ever since Winston was arrested. But I need a break, because I feel completely and utterly ruined.
To be honest, I thought that the majority of the book wasn’t too bad. It even felt kind of comical, with all the “two minutes of hate” and whatnot. And with Winston getting together with Julia, I even felt somewhat optimistic.
But my God, words cannot express the absolute horror I’m feeling right now. The vivid depictions of Winston’s pain, his struggle to maintain a fragile sense of righteousness, his delusional relationship with O’Brien - it’s all just too much. The last time I felt such a strong emotional gutpunch was when I read The Road by Cormac McCarthy.
1984 is an extremely important piece of literature, and I’m so glad I decided to read it.
I love the library, who doesn’t? It’s a wonderful place for people who share the same interests to come together and enjoy wonderful works of fiction, or educational books. My favorite book has got to be the Autobiography of Malcolm X; it’s not the library’s book, I own it. But the library was my go to place to read such a fantastic book. My family can be pretty loud so the library is my safe heaven. But recently, the library got tv sets. Now homeless men(I have nothing against the homeless) come into the library to watch baseball. I’m sorry, but am I wrong to assume that the library should be a place for reading? I mean, I understand people bringing their laptops to do homework, or anything job related, but a tv? That seems a bit much, doesn’t it? Has your library gotten a tv? And what do you think of it? My main worry is that my library adds more non reading things to it.
Edit: Hey, I just want to point that I’m not anti homeless. I only …
When I was a kid, I used to go to the library all the time. After I moved out, I was living on or near college campuses and used the library regularly. After that, I just kind of stopped for some reason.
But this last summer, my basement flooded, like, biblically and I lost most of my book collection and I kind of don’t want to buy books anymore. I’ve lived in a house one block away from my library for going on five years now and I never bothered to get a library card until this happened.
And it turns out the library is still amazing. Any day I feel like it, I can just walk down the block and pick up a book. Plus they have these nifty online library networks now so I can order just about any book I want from a neighboring library just like I’m ordering a book from Amazon and it shows up in two days. I may never buy myself another book ever again.
Edit: words
I am not Christian and I normally don’t go for books written by Bishops and their likes, but Desmond Tutu was an extraordinary man who worked tirelessly towards peace, tolerance and understanding.
As a important force in the end of Apartheid he was Chairman of the “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” that sought to work through past wrongs and find a new way forward in South Africa and wrote a book about his experiences there.
The book of Forgiving
touched me deeply and gave me a new understanding of South Africa Apartheid, Racism and Forgiveness.
The Book of Joy by Desmond Tutu together with the Dalai Lama
is another extraordinary book of him, I want to recommend. It shows a very relatable conversation by two great spiritual leaders about Happiness.
Here is the key tweet. It says:
Y’all are awfully kind to entertain my tower-tunnel jokes SEVEN YEARS after publication of Area X. All I can say is: because I love you, there will be… Absolution in the next 2-3 years.
The entire tweet chain is definitely worth reading, it provides some interesting insight and responses on different elements of the trilogy from Jeff himself.
So what does everyone think? What is the next step for the series? What monstrously weird and bizarre descriptions are we going to get? What questions do you have that remain in the series?
I had an absolutely fantastic year for reading. Read way more books than the past few years, discovered lots of new authors and had a great many more favorites than previous years. I figured I would make a ranking of some of the best books I’ve read this year. I ended up with this top 10:
The Sign of the Dragon by Mary Soon Lee (300 poems tell an epic fantasy about a king)
Dawn by Octavia Butler (very alien aliens + colonialism + racism + abusive relationships)
Lord Valentine’s Castle by Robert Silverberg (a guy walks around some world for like 500 pages it’s great)
Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny (buddhist gods walk upon the earth and have some battles)
The Eye of the Heron by Ursula K. Le Guin (pacifism GOOD???)
Driftwood by Marie Brennan (very imaginative story, somewhat neglected compared to her Lady Trent series)
The Bear by Andrew Krivak (post-apocalyptic fable of a dad and his daughter)
Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky (fantasy from one POV, sci-fi from the …
I can’t believe I didn’t even know this book existed. I used to follow Mieville closely. Kraken is fun as hell, and while I found Perdido street station to be depressing The City in the City is one of the most profound books I’ve ever read.
Did Embassytown get a lot of praise? I no longer trust Amazon/Audible reviews. Is it worth jumping into?
I am looking for the Science Fiction with either the darkest story, or the darkest implications. Something that instills dread or a feeling of being unsettled.
Thanks all.
William Gibson and Neal Stephenson blow my mind by tying a bunch of real, obscure details into a story that could be taking place in the near now.
I love little details they’ve added to their overall stories, like Inuit boats, Japanese denim, or mmorpg economics, that actually exist but are obscure and flesh out the present enough to make it feel new and occasionally alien.
What authors surprise you with details that already exist? What Speculative Fiction should I read to be surprised by the present? What might I have missed? Cyberpunk not required. Cheers!
I typically prefer hard scifi, but am in the mood for something lighter and more fun. I tried reading Long way to a Small, Angry Planet but wound up not finishing it. On paper, it had everything I love- AI, living on a spaceship, and so on, but I found that I didn’t care for the characters or what they were doing.
Does anyone have any recommendations for fun space opera?
I’ve been thinking about this for a few days. I’m wondering how many sequels that pick up right after the conclusion of the first movie.
A couple examples I can think of off the top of my head is:
Karate Kid II. Starts in the parking lot right at the end of the tournament in the first Karate Kid
Halloween II is a continuation of the events at the end of Halloween I when Michael Meyers disappears.
Are there any others that I am forgetting?
I’d heard about it for fucking years but just never watched it. It was that movie on my list that I just always seemed to jump around. I said fuck it and checked it out last night. I was fucking blown away. The atmosphere created by the dialogue is unlike any movie I’ve ever seen. In particular, the gas station scene. I mean, fucking shit man.
For the first few words in the gas station, I’m gonna be honest, I didn’t think he was going to kill him. Then, like a flick of the switch, the tone shifts. I mean, for Chrissake, he asked how much for the peanuts and gas, and the second the guy starts making small talk back, he zones the fuck in on him.
Watching it again, Anton looks out the window ONCE when he says, “And the gas.” and then never breaks eye contact with the old man again. As soon as the old man called the coin, and Anton says, “Well done.” I realized I had been holding my breath. I can say, at this point in my life, I …