The Book Thread

[Warboss Squee]

I've also bypassed the Sacketts, although they show up in some of his other books as well. Passin' Through   is a good one. The titles tend to blend together for me. I'll have to look at the back covers to remember which novel is which. Hondo is another good one I remember, especially the desert survival methods he talks about.

Maybe someday I'll get to the Sacketts, but right now I prefer the standalone books.

Radigan and Flint are must reads, imo.

[Dumarest]

Radigan and Flint are must reads, imo.

Is Flint the one with the cancer-stricken gunfighter?

[Warboss Squee]

Is Flint the one with the cancer-stricken gunfighter?

Yep.

[Dumarest]

Yep.

I get all the titles jumbled, there are so many of them. I'll have to look at my shelf and read the descriptions on the back cover in order to straighten them out and write more.

[Schwartzwald]

When one thinks of good books it is understandable if books based on video games don't come to mind.

There's usually a few exceptions to each rule, however. "Crysis legion" is one.

Crysis legion is an adaptation of crysis 2 and follows the game fairly well but not slavishly. It's written by Peter Watts, a biology scientist and hard SF author from Canada. This book has a lot of hard science in it, plus well written characters.

It works on several levels..

It works as a sf novel. It works as an action novel. It works as a military novel. It even works as a "superhero" novel given that the main character, from who most of the story is told by, is a standard issue marine who is sent to new York city as something is beginning to happen. His mission to rescue a scientist is derailed by an attack by mysterious forces that leave him mortally wounded.

Rescued by a mysterious soldier who talks like a marine he is implanted into an ultra advanced combat armor that is far beyond human teschology and tasked with saving humanity from an alien species that regards humanity as a weed on a planet they coinsider to be theirs.

The protagonist begins to realize the longer he wears the suit the more superhuman he becomes, and the less human he becomes, and that he may never be able to go back.

[Voros]

Peter Watts wrote a video game novel? Crazy. Hopefully they don't prevent him from continuing his own work, some good authors have disappeared down the licensed property book blackhole.

[Schwartzwald]

No chance of that. Watts only did crysis 2. I spoke to him a d said I wished he'd done an adaptation of crysis 3 and he said he would if they'd asked him to but they didn't. Meanwhile you should get crysis legion, it's pretty excellent.

[Voros]

Interesting sounding. A Crysis novel holds zero interest to me but if Watts wrote it that's a different story.

[Schwartzwald]

Interesting sounding. A Crysis novel holds zero interest to me but if Watts wrote it that's a different story.

If you can find it you'll like it. It was a pretty intelligent story with Watts taking a few liberties with the storyline and speculating on some of the weak points. Also the main character was developed in depth, as was the effects merging with the nanosuit had on him. Also some science was thrown in for good measure.

[kosmos1214]

So I'm About 1/3rd of my way though my current book as my last book review was my 1st long form book review is there any criticism that you guys can give to help me try improve my next review?

Well I'm here to kick in A book review for Walking the tree by Kaaron Warren Published by angry robot press originally in 2010.

Now I'm not fully sure how else to say this but to put it lightly this book sucks. If I had to describe whats wrong with this book in A short sentence I'd say wasted potential.
It want you to be enamored with all the cultures of the tree that it never actually shows us.
Instead we get foot notes like the kind you my have in A unfinished draft. It talks about how they sing but not what they sing. the way the dance but not how they dance or why.
Amazed by the ecological diversity that isn't show cased enough to be interesting and in most cases isn't that amazing to begin with.

Let me expound on this A bit more here's the description from the back of the book.

Botanica is an island, but almost all of the island is taken up by the Tree.

Little knowing how they came to be here, small communities live around the coast line. The Tree provides them shelter, kindling, medicine – and a place of legends, for there are ghosts within the trees who snatch children and the dying.

Lillah has come of age and is now ready to leave her community and walk the tree for five years, learning all Botanica has to teach her. Before setting off, Lillah is asked by the dying mother of a young boy to take him with her. In a country where a plague killed half the population, Morace will otherwise be killed in case he has the same disease. But can Lillah keep the boy's secret, or will she have to resort to breaking the oldest taboo on Botanica?



Now I know what you are thinking this sounds like A cool idea but calm your enthusiasm all most all of that is ether irreverent or essentially nonexistent in the book it self.

To explain in more detail I need to get A bit in the how the chapters are split up.
The 1st chapter is 117 pages long well written and pretty interesting and give the full set up from the back of the book. the 2nd chapter is about 55ish pages if I remember right and the 3rd is about 40. every chapter after that is about half the size of the 3rd chapter the smallest is 17 and the biggest is 25 pages in A book that something like 500 pages.
Now that might sound pretty normal but remember the 5 year journey? Whats not on the back of the book is that in each village they then stay for 28 days and then we have travel time some time over 100 days travel between locals.
This turns in to an even bigger problem at the end of the book where in A single chapter do to plot reasons the main character ends up traveling an extra 3 years for A total of 8 that is obviously intended to seem magical and wonder us but ends up being boring and flat.

Now I expect you are starting to see the problem there's simply not enough time to do anything let alone anything interesting.

Social political jockeying to hide the fact the kids sick? Nope. Discussions about what to do ? Nope.
That lack of detail slowly but surely mounts up and the book suffers.
There are several characters that should obviously be major characters but never have any screen time or diolog to be such in one case the one girl Ruth has only 3 or 4 lines of dialog in the whole book.
If the entire book was written like the 1st chapter it would atleast be interesting. It would also be A 2500 page epic but I'd take that over what this book is hands down.

The book even seems to be aware of this and for the majority of the book makes no mention of how he's doing. Not en-till the resolution of the book which is built A grand reveal that you have frankly likely guessed if you where paying attention.
Then we have the whole lack of A culture. It starts out interesting Being An island they worry A lot about not having kids with any one you are to closely related to (that's why they send girls of as teachers). Or like how she gets A bit of slack in being let go off to check on how her bothers wife's birth is coming ( less 50s there's A bunch of men standing out side and then they all pile in to see the new born baby and more Big red ones birth in A tank but much more graphic). But this like so meany other things gets irritating and tiring as the book go's on because it's used as A stand in for an actual culture. All we really get are how they make there bowls and dishes The occasional local belief and the same creation story that's slightly different from location to location but unlike real creation myths is to samey to be considered creative or interesting.

Then we have the plot or lack of plot would be A better phrase and the occasional random political shoehorning that is pretty much the author 2 second long political self masturbation, and the complete lack at A sense of the passage of time.
Which is rather important in A book about A multi year journey.None of which is helped by the fact that despite being explicitly told how well the school system works no one remembers enough about there schooling to know basic things that every one should know about some of the stops considering every one go's on these journeys.
You know little things like the village that at the greeting party that night will grab one of the teachers and break her legs so she has to stay. Or the village where abuse Isn't condemned it's condoned. You know little things people would kind of remember and worn people about.


All of this is on top of the fact that the book ends up being about pretty much nothing in the end of it all.
The great journey? No we would have to see it. The vastly different cultures of the tree? Again no we would have to see it. Female empowerment or strength? No again Morace pretty much has to drag her to the grand reveal. How nothing stays the same?   No because the book would need to actually show the passage of time and the fact that the world does change around us.

Now I know what you are thinking damn he's being hard on this book and to be honest I am but for reason I wanted to like this book and I can see what it wanted to be.
The author has some talent but in all honesty I think they kicked this book out the door rather then finish it and do to that fact if I'm being honest I will think twice before I pick up another book by them.

As such I cannot recommend this book in any way not even to mine for gaming material what little is here would all be to easy to ether come up with on your own or get from other sources.

If you feel some desperate need to read this book read the first 3 chapter and the last 5 skip all the in between and if you pay more then A dollar you are being robbed blind.

[Voros]

I appreciate the detail but prefer my reviews to be a bit less plot summary. Give me the gist of the plot and then tell me what you think of the book. In a 'proper' review brief excerpts of the writing as an example of the style and quality of the prose is a good idea I think.

[kosmos1214]

I appreciate the detail but prefer my reviews to be a bit less plot summary. Give me the gist of the plot and then tell me what you think of the book. In a 'proper' review brief excerpts of the writing as an example of the style and quality of the prose is a good idea I think.

Under normal circumstances I Probably would not have gone so in depth on the plot of the book but given that the plot or lack of it as I mentioned in my review. As to excerpts I'm not adverse to the idea but I doubt I will as I don't have the book or movie in question in hand when I write up my stuff I do to from memory.

[Spike]

So I just started reading some fiction again, and why not bump this thread up?

So, way back in yon '80's I read a series of good space-opera novels, beginning for me with Agent of Change. Apparently these have become a 'thing' now that we have internets and the authors of this series have picked it up again in response to the fans.

Dear.

Lord.


Anyway: I just read Crystal Dragon/Crystal Soldier, a single book divided into two for 'reasons', and all of a sudden all the flaws I missed when I was younger kept leapign in my face trying to claw my eyes out.  

The sad thing? They orginally wrote it back in their hey-day (86 or so) and didn't try to publish it because they didn't feel old and wise enough to do it justice, meaning they sat on it for twenty fucking years to polish and improve it.

One thing that occurs to me is that ALL of these books are lacking in a narrative structure. If I were in a generous mood I'd say that they are loosely based on the picaresque style. But I'm not feeling generous, so I'll say instead that they sort of meander to a close with the plot hanging out for the ride. They're thinly disguised romances, I suppose, but they can't even follow the usual romance narrative arc either.

In this particular case there is one glaring problem: They/it should never have been written to begin with.

I shall explain.

The 'Liaden Universe' stories largely focus on a space setting with a group of near-human space elves (know as the Liadens), especially Clan Korval, and their inevitable falling in love with some human woman who has mary sue levels of hidden depths and problems (look. Agent of Change was actually REALLY GOOD, ok? And at least one of the other books in the four or so I read followed those two characters, so got a lot of leeway for a: good characters and b: they'd already shot the meet and greet romance wad, so they had to actually focus a bit more on the story.)

Anyway: Clan Korval has a foundational myth involving the origins of their psychic tree, Jelaza Calzone, their founder (Cantra yos'Phelium), the smuggler captain who brought 'refugees' from somewhere else to found the Liaden Homeworld... and who gave her name to the Liad money (the Cantra), and so forth.  Its actually a neat bit of world building in otherwise slim books.

So Crystal Soldier/Crystal Dragon?

Yeah. That's the story of Cantra yos'Phelium and her lover (Jela) who has a psychic tree, and their psuedo-picaresque romp around the galaxy before Jela dies, Cantra takes a whole bunch of refugees out of their dying universe into... um... our?... universe, making the Liadens alt-universe humans in our universe.


But, you know, its not told like a foundational myth, its told like the mostly boring mostly aimless adventures of a couple of mary-sues and pretty much pulls an ides of march on that cool bit of world building from the previously published books.  


And, just to add insult to injury? the whole goddamn thing is written in some of the world stilted fake-formal space elf english crossed with a shitty take on Whedon-esque  dialog, which gets super annoying after a couple of chapters.

[kosmos1214]

And, just to add insult to injury? the whole goddamn thing is written in some of the world stilted fake-formal space elf english crossed with a shitty take on Whedon-esque  dialog, which gets super annoying after a couple of chapters.

Would you mind expounding on this for those of us who lack the point reference please?

[Spike]

Would you mind expounding on this for those of us who lack the point reference please?

Ugh. Well...  I guess I can't do worse than to just give you a line from the book.

"How," he said gently, "if you wer to know that even now it is whispered that soldiers are being bidden to forsake the emptiness of this arm for the comfort of the center? You, however, can still indulge your soldier's soul. You can be here, at the edge of decisive action, where matters of importance to all humankind will be determined. You may be a hero to Dulsey and all her..."

Jela shook his head, cutting off the Uncle in a way that likely wasn't too polite.

"This is a waystop for us, "  he said; "a balancing of accounts with someone who risked her life for us. I've been a hero, and found it far more troubling than you might think. I'll continue travelling with Pilot Cantra, and we'll all part safely."

Now, in isolation that might not be too bad. A touch formal and wordy, but it could just be circumstances... but the whole damn book is written like that. Pilot Cantra? That's the other main character (Jela being the first, I guess)...  that's right, the two main characters... who eventually admit they are (OF COURSE!!!) in love with each other, tend to refer to one another by formal titles.  Most, if not all, of the time.

It doesn't really get the Joss Whedon style in-talk I mentioned, but there is a limit to how much re-reading I'm gonna do.