I am now reading this book on treehouses that I found at my local library. I have found that it is actually quite perfect for figuring out what elven homes likely look like campaign setting.
More Leiber, Melville and Doyle, but this time Professor Challenger instead of Sherlock Holmes.
Can I exploit this thread for advice?
I'm really desperate in finding some book I might like, so recommend me some books, if you may, knowing the following:
1) I love The Lord of the Rings (and related books), but I don't like just anything only because it has Elves and swords and Dragons in it, especially if it's obvious that it tries desperately to live in the shadow of Tolkien's works, be it in how the world is set, or the adventure, or whatever. An example from what could be a long list: Shannara. I've read the first book and it was terrible; it was the first book to make me feel asleep, and I'm one who had read avidly even things like The Pillars of the Earth, that is one of the most boring and awful books I've ever read. I've been told that afterwards Shannara changes drastically, but it takes other routes that I don't like at all.
2) I like things with a beginning, a course, and an end. I don't like things that go on forever, maybe with new main characters now and then, just because the author needs to exploit the brand (looking at Shannara again).
3) I love dark and alien things, and lovecraftian things in a medieval setting (in opposition to Lovecraft's effective setting of the XIX century).
4) I love otherworldly things. Devils, Angels, (dark and distant) Gods, Saints, spiritual dimensions and divine spheres, powerful undead (not just those damn boring Zombies), spirits, and such. Possibly with very few or none references or ties to christianity or other real life religions. A good example of this, now that I think of it, is the Legacy of Kain videogame series (where, on a side note, archaic and dignified language was used superbly).
5) I don't like in the slightest things like the uber-acclaimed A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones. Particularly in aspects like:
- the cast of characters; if I had to nuke that world, there would be probably less than a dozen people that I'd put to safety, and of those I don't know how many would be from the cast, because they're almost all flat-out selfish with nothing else added, except, in some cases, evil;
- the fact that it's more focused on court trifles leading to big and stupid conflicts rather than anything above petty people's whims;
- the fact that it doesn't give away the ideas of neither fantastic, epic or legendary to me;
- the fact that it's unnecessarily dirty (in every sense) on both narrated events and language itself, a thing I feel like is done only to please the average boy to whom those things look kewl, further maiming any possible sense of fantastic and such.
6) I loved the old Lone Wolf books (putting aside the gamebook aspect). I loved the setting and everything, and this is a half exception to #2 above, since, while being a long series (25+ books, but take note that it'd take about five of those if not more to make an actual average book), their scope was clear from the beginning. It's not like the story would have gone on forever with a new issue each week like a Superman comic. It's true that after book 20 the main character changed, but... not prolonging this text wall, let's just say I allow it, depending on the circumstances.
7) I don't like settings with too many things in them. Or at least that allow too many of them to flow into the narrated story. I mean... I haven't read any of the Pathfinder novels, so I don't know how they go under this aspect, but look at all D&D games, movies and books (although in this istance I'm only aware of R.A.Salvatore and no one else writing D&D books before Pathfinder kicked in, so my judgements on D&D books are limited): they all suffer from the "D&D has 1000 k creatures in them, and they're all so cool, so we should show every single one of them" syndrome, pouring each single thing in the cauldron, which makes for a very bad mixture and an unedible soup devoid of any sense of wonder. Whereas taking only some elements and focusing on them can be much, much better. Just because there are those 1000 k things in the world, they don't need to be all in the same story.
This is also a thing I strongly perceive in The Witcher series (and together with this, also a too heavy and not well-fleshed Tolkien influence); I haven't read it, but what I hear, see and read about it makes me not like it at all.
8) I don't like that supernatural things (like flat-out spellcasting) are explained too much. Many books strive to explain their magic systems and the nature of their worlds, stripping all those elements of wonder, or maybe even to make magic all too mundane. An example? Brent Weeks' magic in The Night Angel trilogy, but about this point there could really be a thousand examples. At times, in bookstores, I take a random fantasy book I've never heard of, read an excerpt, review or whatever, and find explanations of how your toe must move to spark the fireball and blah, blah... I roll my eyes and put the book back.
9) I like good people (and entities). And I like when they kick the ass of evil ones so hard. But of course, evil must be really evil, not just some idiot who wants gold and land and spends his days in his throne room and executes "incompetent" minions for fun, just waiting for heroes to topple him.
10) I don't like guns and technologic stuff in my fantasy. I may like hyper-technology if its presence and influence is somewhat limited in the story, and if it's basically presented as magic, only hinting at the fact that it may be technology, and only for the reader, not for the characters.
All this said, of course I'm open to exceptions and to trying things I wouldn't normally like, if one assures me I can get over them.
And if you survived the wall of text with still enough good will, please, let me know if you have some book in mind.
Yes, I'm a difficult person to please, but bear with me.
Can I exploit this thread for advice?
I'm really desperate in finding some book I might like, so recommend me some books, if you may, knowing the following:3) I love dark and alien things, and lovecraftian things in a medieval setting (in opposition to Lovecraft's effective setting of the XIX century).
Have a go at a bit of Clark Ashton Smith
asked for some advice
Have you read Jacqueline Carey's duology The Sundering (split into Banewreaker and Godslayer) which is basically Lord of the Rings told as a tragedy.
Hum. The mental indigestion I got from reading Nesta Webster was bad enough (or when somebody lent me William Cooper's 'Behold A Pale Horse'... Or when I made the mistake of reading the Protocols... Or the SCUM manifesto...
I can't read anything from SCUM without cracking up. I know she meant it seriously, regardless of her later defenses, but it's literally what I would expect from a parody. Also I keep getting images of the episode of Venture Bros. that had a character quoting from it in a Scooby-Doo parody.
Other news: Got to the start of real fighting in Bleeding Kansas. I was previously under the impression that John Brown was responding to the start, rather than initiating things himself. Turns out prior to him one had mostly isolated incidences of violence against people, if a bit more against property, and only a few murders. Very revolutionary vanguard of him. Writing about it all will be challenging as well as fun.
If I'm honest, I don't get too worked up over people murdering slaveowners. But random dudes who voted for the proslavery ticket? Sure, they're evil but I don't know that they're massacre material. Then again, Brown is the same guy who went into Kansas and came out with slaves he personally freed and escorted all the way to Canada. He freed more slaves in one raid (I think eleven.) than the entire white antislavery movement had in twenty years. Right now I think he's a sane, heroic terrorist but that's going to take quite a bit of writing at. Complicated dude.
Hum. The mental indigestion I got from reading Nesta Webster was bad enough (or when somebody lent me William Cooper's 'Behold A Pale Horse'... Or when I made the mistake of reading the Protocols... Or the SCUM manifesto...I can't read anything from SCUM without cracking up. I know she meant it seriously, regardless of her later defenses, but it's literally what I would expect from a parody. Also I keep getting images of the episode of Venture Bros. that had a character quoting from it in a Scooby-Doo parody.
Other news: Got to the start of real fighting in Bleeding Kansas. I was previously under the impression that John Brown was responding to the start, rather than initiating things himself. Turns out prior to him one had mostly isolated incidences of violence against people, if a bit more against property, and only a few murders. Very revolutionary vanguard of him. Writing about it all will be challenging as well as fun.
If I'm honest, I don't get too worked up over people murdering slaveowners. But random dudes who voted for the proslavery ticket? Sure, they're evil but I don't know that they're massacre material. Then again, Brown is the same guy who went into Kansas and came out with slaves he personally freed and escorted all the way to Canada. He freed more slaves in one raid (I think eleven.) than the entire white antislavery movement had in twenty years. Right now I think he's a sane, heroic terrorist but that's going to take quite a bit of writing at. Complicated dude.
Never bought that the SCUM manifesto was a parody or a joke myself, unless shooting Andy Warhol was part of the humor...
On another note, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, I look forward to reading what you learn.
'Raven 2: A Time of Ghosts'. A cheesy S&S revenge tale, with the heroine indulging herself with both genders and going into battle nude except for a pair of leather garters, if the cover is anything to go by. I liked it, no doubt for all the wrong reasons.
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I am wrapping up Moby Dick. I didn't just read it straight through, but have set it aside occasionally to read some other things as well. I was not expecting so much overt homoeroticism. I think Ishmael is the most foppish seaman in the whale fleet.
Earlier this week I reread Animal Farm. It made me think of Anklebiter. Vive la Snowball!
Astral Wanderer: Have you read Zelazney's Amber books? They start out modern but become fantastic. The first, Nine Princes in Amber has some dated real groovy, daddy-o language but the writing is excellent, characters engaging, and the plot ultimately Byzantine enough for anyone.
I finished The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and finally started The Turn of the Screw, only to find that I have already read Screw. I'm rereading it because it was rather confusing and I don't recall the ending.
Not sure what to read next.
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7) I don't like settings with too many things in them. Or at least that allow too many of them to flow into the narrated story. I mean... I haven't read any of the Pathfinder novels, so I don't know how they go under this aspect, but look at all D&D games, movies and books (although in this istance I'm only aware of R.A.Salvatore and no one else writing D&D books before Pathfinder kicked in, so my judgements on D&D books are limited): they all suffer from the "D&D has 1000 k creatures in them, and they're all so cool, so we should show every single one of them" syndrome, pouring each single thing in the cauldron, which makes for a very bad mixture and an unedible soup devoid of any sense of wonder. Whereas taking only some elements and focusing on them can be much, much better. Just because there are those 1000 k things in the world, they don't need to be all in the same story.
This is also a thing I strongly perceive in The Witcher series (and together with this, also a too heavy and not well-fleshed Tolkien influence); I haven't read it, but what I hear, see and read about it makes me not like it at all.
Don't judge all D&D books by R. A. Salvatore. Once again, I feel compelled to mention my favorite D&D trilogy, the Dragonlance Chronicles ("Dragons of Autumn Twilight", "Dragons of Winter Night", and "Dragons of Spring Dawning"). Some people like the setting because most of the monsters have a reason to be there. Not everything is "poured in" (although others criticize the setting for the same reason).
Now, Dragonlance sort of violates one of your other criteria...
2) I like things with a beginning, a course, and an end. I don't like things that go on forever, maybe with new main characters now and then, just because the author needs to exploit the brand (looking at Shannara again).
It's obvious that TSR / WotC had to keep exploiting that brand. But you can simply quit when you feel it's time. The Dragonlance Chronicles trilogy comes to an ending, so you could stop there. If you feel up to going on, you could try the Dragonlance Legends trilogy, which also comes to an ending. You can pick and choose which ideas and periods about which you want to read, and ignore the rest.
(But maybe you'll find that argument unconvincing. After all, the same could be said of the Shannara series. You could read "Sword of Shanarra" and stop there. You could read the first three books and stop there. You could read just the "Heritage of Shanarra" quartet.)
I am wrapping up Moby Dick. I didn't just read it straight through, but have set it aside occasionally to read some other things as well. I was not expecting so much overt homoeroticism. I think Ishmael is the most foppish seaman in the whale fleet.
Sometimes two men sharing bed while looking for sperm is just two men sharing a bed looking for sperm.
I finished The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and finally started The Turn of the Screw
"Okay, I'm very sorry, my sexual problem, okay, my sexual problem, huh?"
"[Stutters] I never read that. That was- that was Henry James, right, novel? Sequel to Turn of the Screw?"
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Not just looking for sperm, but doing it in the heads of massive phalluses.
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Obvious place to look...
I'm reading Smuggling Under Sail in the Red Sea, by Henri de Montfried. Penthouse called it 'A romantic and inspiring saga of daring and excitement'.
Also bought War in Teythr by Victor Milan for a quid. Might or might not be worth it.
Hee hee!
My recreational reading suffered a bit this past week as I had to prepare our branch's "lead-off" (mini-lecture) on The New Jim Crow. I didn't think I did that good of a job, but then I read the very detailed minutes Mr. Comrade sent out and I was like, "huh, I guess I did do a good job."
The New Jim Crow- Doodlebug
War on drugs:
-More black menin jail today then in slavery in 1850
*or vote in 1870
-2.3 million in prison
*Bigger then any city in the US other then NYC
-4th and 5th amendment shredded in the 80's (especially for drugs)
-Plea bargaining leads to being excluded from many things : aid, voting, etc
-Law and order fascist propaganda
-The rebirth of caste
-White?!
*English, French, Spanish
*White indentured servants
-1689 Bacon's rebellion results in the creation of white to divide uniting toilers
-Post civil war reconstruction
*republicans occupier of south
-Populous movement
*Poor black and white share croppers
*no more slavery? We still need cotton!
*Vagrancy laws, black code
*White supremacy used to break the movement along race lines
-Civil rights
*Mid 60s segregationists used "law and order" speak
* I'm not racist I', pro law!
-Ronald Reagan
*war on drugs 2 years before crack
*states rights= racist appeal
*color blind racism
-Clinton even worse welfare reform
-Black workers 3x more likely to be in unions
-Voters rights attacks
-Slavery and jim crow controlled labor. New Jim Crow doesn't have production for black workers and warehouses then controls them.
-The prison cell is exchanged for the paycheck
-The immunization of racial bias
*Mclesky vs kemp
After the big climate change rally in New York this weekend, which I won't be attending but the rest of my branch will, we're going to do a reading circle on Comrade Reed's Ten Days That Shook the World where I will have the (un?)enviable task of teaching a gaggle of American high school students about the Bolshevik Revolution.
Vive le Galt!
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Neuromancer.
Dang this stuff is trippy. Something about either the book, or the plot, or the setting makes my head spin.
Fun read though. The two sequels are on deck next.
I liked the rastas in space.
[bubble bubble bubble]
Yeah those guys are pretty cool.
Molly's my favorite character of the bunch though, no real surprise there.
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Another obstacle to more reading.
I hope the books will forgive me while I nerdgasm and try not to be too creepy where Eric Foner might see.
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Astral Wanderer: Have you read2) I like things with a beginning, a course, and an end. I don't like things that go on forever, maybe with new main characters now and then, just because the author needs to exploit the brand (looking at Shannara again). Zelazney's Amber books? They start out modern but become fantastic. The first, Nine Princes in Amber has some dated real groovy, daddy-o language but the writing is excellent, characters engaging, and the plot ultimately Byzantine enough for anyone.I'll always second an Amber recommendation.
For something slightly different, I'll recommend Elizabeth Bear*'s Eternal Sky series. It's her attempt at "fat fantasy with maps" and the main twist on the setting is that it's based on Mongolian and other eastern cultures rather than the standard European pseudo-medieval stuff. The story itself is complete in 3 books, though there are two others, unrelated but in the same world and a possibility of more to come.
** spoiler omitted **
Can you convince me to read Amber? my local bookstore is selling an omnibus of all 10 books for ~30$, AND it's in a sale where you buy two books and the cheaper among them gets an 80% discount. However, I'm not the biggest fan of epic fantasy.
Really, I'm looking for an excuse to buy and try Amber...
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Can you convince me to read Amber?
Personally, I would never buy an entire series - nor even an omnibus printing an entire series - all at once, without a chance to sample it. I would start with just the first book, and get the remaining books 1 or 2 at a time, as I wanted them. But if you want me to sell you the Amber series, let me try. The premise of the series is utterly absurd - finding flaws in the logic of it is quite easy - but it's cool.
Imagine that there are infinite universes, and our own universe is only one of them.
Right now, you're thinking "Big deal! There are plenty of fantasy stories with that premise!" Bear with me.
Imagine that "closer" universes are only slightly different from ours, but universes "further away" are stranger, and the REALLY "remote" universes are utterly bizarre, or even maddening. Every possible universe that could in theory exist DOES exist somewhere.
Imagine that one of those universes is the REAL world, of which all the rest - including our own universe containing the Earth - are imperfect copies, or "shadows" projected from it. From that real world come certain people with great powers, including the princes and princesses of Amber.
Here comes the crux of it. Imagine that YOU are a prince of Amber. You're staying for the time being on some shadow world such as Earth, and you decide to leave that world. You take a walk (or ride a car or horse, or use some other means of transportation). As you do, you look intently at some details of your surroundings and imagine them being different in some way. And in response to your imagining, those details DO change. From your point of view, it's like you're changing the universe, but actually, you're traveling from one universe to another. You're shifting shadows. You continue doing this, changing more and more details, until you're in a very different, "distant" world.
That, in my opinion, is the coolest part of the series. While I'm at it, I'll add the second coolest part.
Now imagine taking out of your pocket a set of tarot cards, and looking at the trumps, with realistic drawings of real people. One of the drawings is of you. The others are of other princes and princesses of Amber. You take out one of the trumps, stare at the picture and concentrate. The picture comes to life and talks to you. You now know you're talking to the real person the picture represents, as you would talk on a video phone. You say "I want to join you, in whatever shadow you're in. Could you pull me over?" Then both of you concentrate, and the person in the picture reaches out his hand, which actually comes out of the picture and grabs your own hand. Then the hand pulls you into the picture frame, and the next thing you know, you're in another place, possibly in a whole other world.
How's that?
Daaaaaaaaaang. I think I'm sold. (I'm a sucker for alternate realities and weird magic, what can I say...)
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I really like the characters in the original series -- Corwin, Bleys & Fiona, Random, and Benedict are all long-time favorites.
I liked Luke and Mandor OK in the second series, but Merlin is a Mary Sue whore. And, overall, the second pentalogy is nowhere near as cool as the first one; I'd avoid it except that there's some really cool Chaos stuff in there.
Yeah, the first series is better than the second, and you'd be hard-pressed to find someone with the opposite opinion.
I'd avoid it except that there's some really cool Chaos stuff in there.
Go on, yeeesssss....
Go on, yeeesssss....
Like, when they get too far from the "real" world, the shadows all sort of start to blend together in a mess. The things that live there are shapeshifters, and their "castles" might be stitched-together pieces of two dozen different universes -- if you descend clockwise down the spiral stairs, you might wind up at the beach, but counter-clockwise puts you on a mountaintop instead.
.... daaaaaang. I want that for inspiration alone...
Everyone is embittered, cynical and manipulative.
Zelazny specialized in Elizabethan and Jacobean drama for his master's degree, so that's sort of to be expected...
Another obstacle to more reading.
I hope the books will forgive me while I nerdgasm and try not to be too creepy where Eric Foner might see.
I'm not sure what it means, but coolio.
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Lord of Light is a masterpiece.
I'm very fond of Isle of the Dead as well, and Doorways in the Sand.
Right now I'm reading "The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories ". Not as quick a reading as most other stuff I devour. Which is no bad thing.
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The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth is an excellent Zelazny short story collection, including the lovely A Rose for Ecclesiastes.
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The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth is an excellent Zelazny short story collection, including the lovely A Rose for Ecclesiastes.
And "This Moment of the Storm," which is sort of the prototype for Isle of the Dead.
"Divine Madness," also in that collection, is one of my very favorites.|
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Can you convince me to read Amber?Personally, I would never buy an entire series - nor even an omnibus printing an entire series - all at once, without a chance to sample it. I would start with just the first book, and get the remaining books 1 or 2 at a time, as I wanted them. But if you want me to sell you the Amber series, let me try. The premise of the series is utterly absurd - finding flaws in the logic of it is quite easy - but it's cool.
Imagine that there are infinite universes, and our own universe is only one of them.
Right now, you're thinking "Big deal! There are plenty of fantasy stories with that premise!" Bear with me.
Imagine that "closer" universes are only slightly different from ours, but universes "further away" are stranger, and the REALLY "remote" universes are utterly bizarre, or even maddening. Every possible universe that could in theory exist DOES exist somewhere.
Imagine that one of those universes is the REAL world, of which all the rest - including our own universe containing the Earth - are imperfect copies, or "shadows" projected from it. From that real world come certain people with great powers, including the princes and princesses of Amber.
Here comes the crux of it. Imagine that YOU are a prince of Amber. You're staying for the time being on some shadow world such as Earth, and you decide to leave that world. You take a walk (or ride a car or horse, or use some other means of transportation). As you do, you look intently at some details of your surroundings and imagine them being different in some way. And in response to your imagining, those details DO change. From your point of view, it's like you're changing the universe, but actually, you're traveling from one universe to another. You're shifting shadows. You continue doing this, changing more and more details, until you're in a very different, "distant" world.
That, in my opinion, is the coolest part of the series. While I'm at it, I'll add the second coolest part.
Now...
You sold me on it :D
It seems that the notion I had that Amber is epic fantasy (farmboy becomes king by defeating a Bad Guy) was false. I wonder where it came from...
Anyway, what you described sounds cool. The onmnibus thing is mostly because this is just a really good deal - all ten books for what I would normally pay for only two books.
So I understand the first five books are better than the last five books. Does it make sense to only read the first five?
So I understand the first five books are better than the last five books. Does it make sense to only read the first five?
If you're anything like me, even knowing that going in, you'll devour the second five as soon as you're done with the first series. And if you think of them as a totally separate, unrelated series, you can ignore most of the discontinuities.
Here is the present list of my reading (well, the Conan writing at least). Been a while since I read any of the good ol' Hyborian stuff.
also thank god for free stuff like wow is this nice wikisource you are the best
The first set is an absolute gem; the second is workmanlike and has its own charms. As much as I like Merlin, he does not live up to his romantic father.
Just started Abaddon's Gate, the third in the Expanse series. Liked the first two a lot so hopefully this will be as good (or better).
Thing about Zelazny is that he's clinically unable to make a decent ending for his stories. I forgive him that because the trip there is so much fun. Also, it is always a good thing to remember who is telling the story. Seconded that the first five books outshine the second five. The absolute cream of the crop for me was #2, the Guns of Avalon.
Thing about Zelazny is that he's clinically unable to make a decent ending for his stories.
What was wrong with "The Courts of Chaos" as an ending?
Neuromancer.
Dang this stuff is trippy. Something about either the book, or the plot, or the setting makes my head spin.
Fun read though. The two sequels are on deck next.
That book has been recommended to me on more than one occasion.
