Books (General)

[forest sierra]

Why's this one popping up instead of the calendar

[opaque sundial]

Reading Dune Messiah
||Me: Irulan wants Paul to give her a child, but he doesn't want to because he thinks she'll have him killed as soon as she births an heir.
My wife: Yeah, that makes sense since she doesn't like him.
Me: Yeah, his exact words were, "I'm not giving you a child, and if you get pregnant without me I'll have you garroted."
My wife: ... I think he should be the one garroted
Me: Now you're getting it.||

[solid locust]

Where do you get the money for all these books?

I stopped reading comics because they cost like 15 bucks a piece

[forest sierra]

Idk about them but you can always get books from libraries at no cost

Many other alternatives also exist

[solid locust]

I know that

I just like reading in english and my pace is so abyssmal that it doesnt drain my coffers

[proven token]

Ayyyy locklands

[ivory cypress]

your reading is crazy this year bean

[analog geode]

I’m trying to hit 200 books this year

[analog geode]

He’s quickly become one of my favorite authors

[ivory cypress]

rjb stealthily became one of my faves

[long sorrel]

Yeees

... i need to finish divine cities lol

[ivory cypress]

I think you might hit closer to 300 at this pace

[analog geode]

God I hope so

[true falcon]

What’s the best dark horse series you can give me?

(For both the comic geeks badge and first time reading the publisher)

If you read comics

[minor sleet]

The local library has a great collection of comic books and I’ve lived in a lot of places and have four library cards attatched to my Libby account

Also everyone buys me books as gifts. I’ve asked them to stop but it keep happening

[true falcon]

I wanna go to the library so bad!

Also have you read image comics at the library?

[minor sleet]

No, I usually stick to dc

The last time I read image comics it was an Emily the Strange series

[true falcon]

Ok. Still wanna go to the library also free comic day is tomorrow!

Might get some dark horse tps at the free comic book day sales

[mild lance]

Think the only book I finished this month was Livesuit. I’m in the middle of Hell Bent and Ms Marvel: Remnants of the Past

Comic-wise, I’ve been reading Punisher: One Last Kill by Garth Ennis, Batwoman by Marguerite Bennett, Detective Comics by James Tynion, Daredevil by Ann Nocenti and the Department of Truth by James Tynion

[true falcon]

I only finished like 38 comics but not put them on the graph but instead on comic geeks

[true falcon]

I read 36 issues (online and physical) and read 2 tps (two are from the same compendium just separated)

[finite sonnet]

Fifth Season 16 ||Woah, whoever recomended me this book tysm. This magic system is so interesting. This world is also very unique. I'm still trying to figure out this timeline, these could all three be the same person at different times, unlikely but all three of these women seem to be in different times. Damaya seems to be before the Rogga destroyed the capital, Essun is after, and Syen could be any time honestly. Still this book is amazing. I love the use of three different perspective forms.||

[wraith lynx]

Fifth Season reactions yipee!! XD

[minor sleet]

Six years later???

[low hill]

That feels fast compared to some of the RPGs I've got on my shelves...

[finite sonnet]

FS 17 ||I WAS RIGHT they are the same person. If Dama and Syen are the same person Essun will probably be as well. I wonder who's the "present" one? It can't be Dama I assume her chapters are done past this point. Essun already aluded to being an older Dama with the note of the blanket I think? I assume Essun will be the "present". Also I wonder what the thing that made the hole was.||

[low hill]

Oh no...
https://bsky.app/profile/erinmorgenstern.bsky.social/post/3mkswyxnbok2c

@tight kindle @long sorrel

erin morgenstern (@erinmorgenstern.bsky.social)

Bluesky sneak peek: The Folio Society edition of The Starless Sea, illustrated by the incredible @cristinabencina.bsky.social, launching May 5th 🐝🗝️🗡️🖤 www.foliosociety.com

Bluesky · May 1, 2026, 8:15 PM

[long sorrel]

sigh

You are enjoying the suffering you deliver aren't you?

[low hill]

I am suffering also...

[long sorrel]

I'm pretty sure it's going to be far above what I'm willing to put down for it at present

[low hill]

-# But yes, I'm enjoying everyone else suffer along with me.

[low hill]

It'll be more than I should spend right now, that much I know.
And yet...

[tight kindle]

cries

The depths of my desire are limitless

[long sorrel]

I will revisit this when it comes out I guess....

I wanted to waste no more money between London and Celsius and I've failed so hard already 😭

[cloud socket]

haha, I read the DMG when I was in the chair for a oneshot in 2017, and then I was like, "I should read the player's handbook as well" but as a shelf book/not novel book it got left on the wayside even though I marked it as Currently Reading on goodreads

[tight kindle]

I will not be revisiting it unfortunately because I cannot afford that under any circumstances, but if you buy it you should send me pictures 😭

[long sorrel]

I'm sure Vecna will...

He certainly needs a 20th copy of it

At some point his library will have a whole wall just for Starless Sea

[tight kindle]

I'd be so ok with that in my house

[long sorrel]

Yeah, if i had a house with enough space for that sure

[tight kindle]

I want like a glass display case like the one [The Starless Sea] ||in the Collector's Club|| for all the special editions of the books that deeply impacted me

That would be awesome

[long sorrel]

There are too many

[low hill]

I think it'll be my 5th copy? But I'm not going downstairs to check.

[tight kindle]

I'm trying to decide which books I want to buy next

I now own 1, 3, and 5 of Unwanteds and I would love to finish out that series

But also I would love my own copy of ASASE (that one is going on the this impacted me greatly shelf)

But alllllso
Points at Don't Let the Forest In

Also TJ Klune's newest book is out and I want it

[tight kindle]

Welp
Summer book club book ended up being Count of Monte Cristo

[ivory cypress]

that could be the book for the YEAR

[tight kindle]

Yup 😭

[minor sleet]

The og revenge story!

[tight kindle]

I think maybe I can get in WotM as one of the fall ones though under the banner of dark academia lol

[snow vessel]

I don't like that

[ivory cypress]

i (accidentally, temporarily) dnfed count of monte cristo when i left it too long and then just knew i didn't remember enough to jump back in

[minor sleet]

It really drags at times

Movie adaptions trim the fat in a way that frankly improves the story. But 19th century authors were often serialized, which leads to page count creep

[junior dew]

Blood over bright haven chapter 1 || Strong start! No idea what my gf means by she knew what the twist was by page 3. The only possible twist that I could imagine you have enough information for would perhaps be that the blight was engineered by the dome people to target the chapter 1 POV’s people.

Though that’s a wild stab in the dark guess based on knowing there’s some twist.

Idk why I thought this was some academic fantasy. Maybe it is. But the setting established in chapter 1 is cool. ||

[uncut shoal]

April wrap up. Idk why some are marked as audio

[cloud socket]

I'm trying to convince my book club to do Count of Monte Cristo as our background summer book in addition to our other reads lol

[old flint]

Slow Gods by Clare North is really intriguing. I still don't have any clue where it's going, but I'm going along with it, by golly.

[analog geode]

I read it for book club recently, it was very interesting

I felt like there was a lot more she could have done with it

[old flint]

I'm only a quarter of the way into it. I've always liked the sorts of scifi where hyperspace is unsettlingly weird

[mild lance]

Hell Bent 20 ||damn, so Eitan’s rival is a vampire. Didn’t expect that, curious how that subplot will intersect with society stuff||

[long sorrel]

Yesterday we were talking about Dollmakers on VC with @tight kindle and we discovered there's a novella you get for free if you subscribe to the author's newsletter. I do not quite recall for who would this info be relevant but leaving it out here.

[small bloom]

Prince’s Gambit 17 ||I was ready to post this https://youtu.be/sAXZbfLzJUg and then Jord showed up 😭 ||

[versed agate]

FoB 20 ||Deep Lothark I wonder how many secret rebellions there are||

||it's honestly amazing that Tonner lasted this long||

FoB 20 + CoT ||also, the more I read, the more I realise that this is closer to what the world would look like if the ants won||

[old flint]

Finished Slow Gods, and now I want a sequel. I've also grabbed The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, since I liked Slow Gods so much

[unborn furnace]

Guys

I'm in love with a girl, her name is Sally (actually Sara) and she loves the Reacher series

Are there any good books on that saga? I want to gift her one

[lusty meteor]

is this someone you are dating?

[long sorrel]

She probably already has the books though?

[buoyant whale]

yeah she probably has the books if she likes em that much

[small bloom]

Prince’s Gambit 19 ||Well there it is ||

[unborn furnace]

Not yet

[unborn furnace]

She has only watched the TV Show I think

[junior dew]

Does she like reading?

[lusty meteor]

Are you going to ask her out? Are you friends?

[unborn furnace]

Yes

[forest sierra]

That kind of info is always best kept to yourself

[unborn furnace]

Are this good ones?

[analog geode]

Popular but I really dont like them

[unborn furnace]

Kinda like 50 Shades because of the things I heard about

[analog geode]

not that bad

[buoyant whale]

does she like acotar?

[unborn furnace]

Nope

I was asking bout the books in general

[buoyant whale]

ah

[analog geode]

huh, I wonder why the spanish version has it as acorat

[buoyant whale]

on that case nah, i do not think they are worth the read

[unborn furnace]

Because here we have a singular for male and female (Una/Un)

[buoyant whale]

not buying new at least

[analog geode]

I know

Rosas y espinas is reversed from the english title

but theyre both feminine nouns

[buoyant whale]

just flows better

or it did for whoever did the title anyways

[unborn furnace]

Maybe editorial stuff?

100 times better that Deadpool/Batman

That one is peak comic book

[buoyant whale]

15k, oof

[unborn furnace]

15k Pesos

Not dollars

If that was 15k USD it better contain an original by Dan Mora and the signature of James Gunn and Ben Affleck

[buoyant whale]

i know

used to be so much cheaper

[unborn furnace]

The bad thing about the Book Fair in ARG: There aren't much Sanderson books

Please Sanderson, let Dragonsteel come to Latinoamérica

[true falcon]

FCBD HAUL!

[unborn furnace]

Coooooooool

[wind sinew]

The restaurant at the end of the universe. ||I am unsure if I should feel sad for Marvin, but love his character.||

[snow vessel]

I personally don't like them

[lusty meteor]

i read the most recent abby jimenez book

did not enjoy it at all

very frustrating read

[raw musk]

Diamantine 7: ||OK it's official. Dawn is my favorite character in this universe||

[junior dew]

BoBH 3 || Sourcing sub-spell - “the other realm filled the coil”.

Yeah I think the other realm thing may be sus. ||

BoBH 3 || Pinpointing her mark via coordinates for the sourcing? Alright yeah this has for sure got to be people and creatures outside the dome, right? Surely ||

BoBH 3 || Digging freynan’s character a lot here ||

Bobh 4 || Omg the little girl being like could you sign my school books 🥹 ||

[uncut shoal]

They're sort of a weird twist on a cross between Beauty and the Beast and Tamlin, with smut. So it's up to you if you think you'll like them or not

I thought they were okay but not great

[snow vessel]

First one isn't horrible

(Though it's probably worth noting that though the smut is a big part of how they're seen online, there's very little in the early books)

[junior dew]

BoBH 5 || This magic system is just programming. Why am I back at work ||

[unborn furnace]

Guys

Wheel of time 1 is good?

Because I'm planning to get WOT 1 and Red Rising

[snow vessel]

Yes and it's the start of a series that gets better and better

[unborn furnace]

Ok

Red Rising is kinda like Hunger Games right?

[snow vessel]

Book 1 is. The rest is not really at all

[uncut shoal]

Yeah book 1 only has a little smut, the other two have more. It's not really that extensive, but I wanted to add it so they were aware

[analog geode]

To be clear, this is about acotar

[uncut shoal]

Oh yeah heh

Not Red Rising or WoT. WoT doesn't have smut, it has a few fade to black scenes and some innuendo. I haven't read Red Rising because it's not done yet

[snow vessel]

RR has practically none
-# (I only remember one moment, late in the series and I'm not sure how far it went before fading to black)

[uncut shoal]

Murderbot in 3 days, I can't wait to start my reread soon as I'm done with my current book

[forest sierra]

It's kinda sorta ||an assault|| too

Unless it's worse than I remember

We're talking about ||Lysander's wedding night|| right?

[snow vessel]

Yea

I dont remember it super specifically, you are probably right

[forest sierra]

Yeah it's as explicit as RR gets but it's also very much not supposed to be smut

It however would just be a standard ish R rated scene

And that book has plenty far beyond that in other categories

[light drum]

Oh! I didn't even know we were getting a new one

[ivory cypress]

getting more than one new one

but the first of the new ones .... Platform Decay!

[old flint]

I also devoured The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August. I need to find more Clare North books

[velvet cargo]

I have Platform Decay on preorder and will be getting it just in time for my birthday

[royal carbon]

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August is still one of my favorites of hers. I should reread it again.

*theirs

[unborn furnace]

So... The books I'll be buying: Wheel of Time 1 (in spanish), Red Rising (in spanish), Spawn compendium 1 and 2

[true falcon]

Read sweet tooth in one day yesterday

It was so amazing

Favorite panels from them

[little dock]

She has another coming out later this year

[ivory cypress]

yesssssssssssss more more more more

(january... not now...)

Sapphic romance amidst a tale of palace intrigue from one of fantasy's best—and best-loved—writers.

To secure her beloved grandmother's rescue from a vindictive master, lowly servant Kyuri makes a desperate bargain with the noble Dorven. She must accompany him into the Flower Court at the heart of the imperial palace to search for his missing sister. But the fate of the sister is unclear, and seems to be bound up in a power struggle between ambitious princes.

In order to negotiate these dangerous currents, Kyuri is forced to work with Sulia, the Dowager Empress’s loveliest and most condescending servant. When the investigation leads the two women into deadly palace intrigue and exposes them to the threat of a ravenous fungal ghost plague, they must learn to trust each other in order to survive—and to have a hope of finding a future beyond servitude.

i didn't realize there was a sapphic romance

[minor sleet]

That’s a pretty cover

[ivory cypress]

it's gorgeous... she got such a good artist for these books

the witch roads and the nameless land also had great art, maybe same artist?

[long sorrel]

Looks same style to me

[minor sleet]

Reading a graphic novel Holly Black wrote in the early 2000s. Holly Black also wrote the Spiderwick Chronicles

[buoyant whale]

Sapphic romance
MC has Yuri in their name

https://tenor.com/view/garth-marenghi-garth-marenghi's-darkplace-i-know-writers-who-use-subtext-and-they're-all-cowards-darkplace-gif-10701074649909137514

[velvet umbra]

Nominative determinism truthers remain undefeated 😔

[light drum]

Blindsight ||Huh not really sure if I be with the ending but really liked the book as a whole and thematically the ending g makes sense||

[versed agate]

broken spoiler tag

[mild lance]

I can vouch for Invincible, I've read the first few volumes and it's pretty great

that being said, Tynion is a great writer and Remender is pretty good too

[true falcon]

I’m reading something is killing the children first

[alpine drum]

good series

[minor sleet]

https://www.tumblr.com/luminouslumity/815621144370675712/happy-five-years-to-dracula-daily-and-safe

Welcome to Whatever This Is

Happy five years to Dracula Daily, and safe travels to our dear friend, Jonathan!

-# #dracula #dracula daily #bram stoker #classic literature

Tumblr · May 3, 2026, 7:35 PM

Congrats to Mr Harker on his first business trip which I’m sure will be very safe and normal

[alpine drum]

bram was really ahead of his time deciding to make jonathan a real estate agent because that is the funniest possible job you could give to someone in this situation

[snow vessel]

THATS TODAY?!

[minor sleet]

Yes

https://www.tumblr.com/ibenology/815618412668764160/another-year-another-letter-from-my-good-friend

Help, the brainworms

another year, another letter from my good friend Jonathan Harker and his totally normal reaction to east european cuisine

-# #dracula daily #re dracula #dracula #jonathan harker #we’re so back !!!

Tumblr · May 3, 2026, 6:52 PM

[wind sinew]

What a title

[minor sleet]

Reading a book written in 2018 in which the genderfluid main character is named Khai

I’m even pretty sure this isn’t a deliberate stereotype on the authors part but is a fun coincidence

[true falcon]

It’s about a woman who kills monsters but the adults can’t see them

There’s gonna be a live action movie by blumhouse

[wind sinew]

Adding it to my list

[true falcon]

Also a animated series at the same time

[light drum]

A Deadly Education 1||Hmm im predicting she is going to somehow be involved in the end if the world and use profuse amounts of malia or maybe shes involved with someone who does.||

||I have the sneaking suspension shes going to eat all the mana from the school itself as it seems to be alive and have some mal intent||

[wind sinew]

Restaurant at the end of the universe ||Feel a little disappointed by this book. Not saying I didn't enjoy it, I did, but it felt a little empty. Things happened and they were fun but like... not a lot? Is this meant to be a setup book for the next one? It felt like it.||

On to Son of a Liche

Really excited for this book

[analog geode]

||Yum yum||

Youre gonna love this series

[cunning pivot]

The Dark Profit books are great fun! And the follow up series is about to release. 2 days left on the Kickstarter for the first book.

[wind sinew]

There's a Kickstarter?

[cunning pivot]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jzacharypike/crypt-currency

The new book will be Amazon only for the next year unless you get it in the Kickstarter.

Also can buy hardcover editions of the first three l.

As you can see we go from traditional finance to crypto for the new ones it seems.

[wind sinew]

Say less, pledged for the hardcover

Will avoid Amazon as much as possible

[cunning pivot]

Yeah he basically said he is doing it because it gives greater initial visibility before it goes to wide distribution

[wind sinew]

That sucks, wish he didn't need to

[potent linden]

You know what I wasn't expecting in the Warriors: The Broken Code arc? ||Firestar POV outside of the prologues||

[light drum]

A deadly Education 4||I intuilly was against this tropey ship but kinda do ship them now cause I love with good enemies to lovers that feels justifed||

[light drum]

A deadly education 6 ||i have the sneaking suspicion tge maliphaisers are made by the coverns for some super valuable power. And she is going to end them all to end the practice so people will be safe. Also thr school was made to facilitate this power||

[true falcon]

Bought this thing but I don’t get charged till it ships

[long sorrel]

I have not read in like... 4 days?

This is very unlike me

[versed agate]

I diagnose you with skong

[untold leaf]

I discovered the existence of the "Tommy and Tuppence" stories by Agatha Christie and am possessed by a desire to read them.

[long sorrel]

you're surely wrong

[versed agate]

Fairly shaw I'm not

[unborn furnace]

Yo

Any recomendations on which "Eye of the World" edition should I pick?

Trying to search for this one in Amazon (in Spanish)

[spiral jungle]

that's a pretty nice cover

[wraith lynx]

Royal Assassin 5 ||I know everyone's been saying Regal was a lot younger than the other two but realizing hes close in age with me was like a brick to the face ngl||

[junior dew]

Bobh 10 || Called it ||

BoBH 10 || Unsure when I would have clocked it if not for my gf mentioning the twist was obvious and she clocked it so early ||

[cloud socket]

mild general spoilers for the Tawny Man trilogy (MC and their age) ||but 35 year old Fitz acting like he's an old man made me, a 36 year old shrivel up into dust||

[cunning pivot]

Looks like the concept hails all the way back to Italians being angry about translations of Dante by the French. They even have a phrase for it.

Traduttore, traditore (translator, traitor)

I see lots of folks using language like this pre-2021 but unfortunately nobody seems to actually point back to the original sources.

[ripe tide]

Thanks. I figure that the usual everyone uses the language but nobody cites it is why I was getting confused about where else I was seeing it while the internet was only pointing me at Kuang.

[cunning pivot]

Yeah I am sure there are a few well read articles, textbooks, and treatises on translation, that they have all read, but since most of it is relayed, online at least, in more personal essays they take it for granted that others are familiar with the argument.

A very academic problem.

[unborn furnace]

yes, do you have that cover in the English Version?=

[spiral jungle]

I don't think so

maybe see if anyone in #wheel-of-time knows, but I think I've seen all the english language covers

[wet belfry]

Dante is also the context I have for it though it was an offhand comment from a professor while we were reading Dante

[wind sinew]

Goddamn I wish the US covers were this good

[jovial tide]

It took me an episode or two of the Murderbot show to adjust to Murderbot's voice being different (I listened to the audiobooks). Now going back to an audiobook again it is taking me a second to adjust to Murderbot's voice being different. :p

[knotty dirge]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wraithmarked/hitchhikers

[low hill]

Yeah, I've been watching it, but I cannot justify it at the moment sadly.

Just going to hope that it comes up for general sale afterwards, same as the second Shades of Magic book that's funding at the moment as well.

-# I bought The Starless Sea instead and that was pushing it.

[long sorrel]

Oh crap, how much is that in the end

[low hill]

£70.

https://www.foliosociety.com/uk/the-starless-sea

[long sorrel]

That's cheaper than I expected

Crap

@tight kindle !

[tight kindle]

Who is she again? 😭

[long sorrel]

... who?

you know, the author i subscribed to for the short novel

[tight kindle]

The dollmakers author?

[long sorrel]

Yes

[tight kindle]

Ok the newsletter was in my email too
That looks awesome

[long sorrel]

Hello newsletter friends! Today I'm pleased to announce that I have had not one, but TWO books acquired by Betsy Wollheim at DAW Books!

Both books are part of the Fallen Peaks, a series of standalone fantasy novels set in the same world that began with my debut novel, The Dollmakers. The first of the upcoming books is titled Breeze Felt at Moonrise, and is set to come out spring 2027.

[ivory cypress]

well, time to go pick up murderbot

[knotty dirge]

Urge to knock over a liquor store rises by the day

[true falcon]

It came!

It was just in a box with no wrapping or anything

Amazon

[ivory cypress]

started flipping through platform decay on the walk from my car to the entrance and looked up and there was a Canada goose five feet from me

[oblique zodiac]

I might go to the library today to continue reading for the first time in months!

[snow vessel]

Nice!

[opaque sundial]

Read! It's good for you!

[potent linden]

oh, I finished What Stalks the Deep last night, very good!

[long sorrel]

Nice

[oblique zodiac]

🤔

time to change that

My next book on my list is "A Dwarf Launches a Little Ball" by Cho Se-Hui. It is a very popular book in korea and it is highly recommended for children and teens

It's suddenly very hard to start reading now that I lost my momentum

[snow vessel]

I actually really want Denis to make a children of dune movie

I'm like 80% through and I'm really enjoying it

[forest sierra]

Anything but Bond honestly

[snow vessel]

Bond?

Oh, right

I get why he wants to do something else but i actually really am enjoying Children and the trilogy it forms

It'll be a shame imo to not see it adapted for the movie series

[untold leaf]

I'm reading/listening to the first "Tommy and Tuppence" book by Agatha Christie and I must say it's quite interesting. Wish I'd heard of this series sooner.

[ancient bay]

AND THAT ENDS REZERO ARC 7! IT'S SO PEAK! I'M GONNA GO PASS OUT NOW!

[dire gate]

I've never actually read any agatha christie books. what are T&T books like?

-# also random aside but the names "tommy and tuppence" just make me think of the Tintin detectives with their almost-identical names

anyway

I was just thinking about the rise of litrpg as a subgenre online and it's a bit of an odd duck. it's so easy to list the problems, and yet at the same time, I find it hard to discount wholesale because sometimes an author in that genre writes something that's actually really fun to read

in particular I was reminded of a series called Edge Cases and how it sort of watson-izes IRL rules lawyering into the magic system. like, one of the main characters has a foundational ability which is just [really minor spoilers] ||"injure yourself, but if you would fail to block an attack, no you don't."|| and I just loved it so much because rules-as-written being the foundation of the magic means the imagination and the scene-creation can just run wild with powers like that

[opaque sundial]

I can fully understand him wanting to duck out after making a solid trilogy, but yeah I would have loved to see him do Children of Dune. That's my favorite one of the books, and I think he could capture the weirder parts of the story in a way that doesn't feel out of place. He's really good at building up to moments so they feel earned

[old bone]

I mean he has made the movies good by kinda removing a lot of elements and focusing only on the thematic core

so I doubt he could handle the weird stuff

[opaque sundial]

Are you saying you think the adaptation of Children of Dune ||is going to skip the scene where Paul and Chani possess Leto II and Ghanima and try to make out?||

[snow vessel]

Eh, I'm willing to wait and see

Dune movie 2 ||Jessica spent a whole movie scheming with her unborn child||

I don't think he's gone as weird as some of the dune moments so far but I don't think he's unwilling to

[old bone]

|| and it kinda toned down the weird elements a lot still. Books were like 20x weirder already ||

||plus mentats were completely removed ||

[opaque sundial]

||To be fair, in the book she was scheming with her just-born daughter who was already able to speak like a full grown adult. I think the choice to leave out showing a talking baby was for the best||

[snow vessel]

||not completely, they're in one scene :p||

[old bone]

bro...

please...

[snow vessel]

You said completely!!

:p

[old bone]

||that one scene in movie 1 when emperor's missive arrives doesn't count...||

dune movie 1

[opaque sundial]

Dune Movies ||Mentats are present, just not really addressed. Saying they were removed is like saying Guild Navigators were removed. They were reduced to set dressing, but not removed||

[snow vessel]

I think generally Denis has gone for toning down a lot of the scifantasy and philosophical talk for the sake of more... hands-on-y stuff and more physical incarnations of themes

[snow vessel]

Dune movies ||they are part of the world but not really part of the story||

[old bone]

yeah

but even for the former you could argue against it

||with how less prevalent they seem to be ||

[snow vessel]

I mean

They canonically exist

[old bone]

|| just having stuff like conversation between feyd rautha and baron at book 1 about baron being almost as capable as a mentat himself would have made it feel more in there ||

while not just expository

[snow vessel]

Dunes ||you can argue that they aren't a significant part of the world but they are part of it||

[old bone]

in the end, it works for the benefit of the adaptation and makes really good movies

but I think it just woudl show he couldn't have done weird stuff well

[snow vessel]

I think it shows that that's not necessarily the thing that's most interesting to him

[opaque sundial]

||Even in the books mentats are important, but they don't really become plot relevant until Messiah with Hayt being a mentat||

[snow vessel]

IMO [dune] ||the one mentat moment isn't bad, it's not like he handled it poorly. It just wasn't something he chose to focus on||

||willingness ≠ ability imo||

[hollow hedge]

as long as the third movie does well enough a Children of Dune movie is likely to be made, I think, they'll try to get Dennis to do it but they'll find another director if they need to

[snow vessel]

I would like to see denis' take on it

But I respect if he doesn't wanna do it

[opaque sundial]

The titular children have already been cast, so there's no way they don't continue with Children of Dune

[old bone]

not directly correlation but could be indirect causation

which I am just assuming

but like it feels a valid assumption since he is planning to stop when it gets actuallly weird.

[opaque sundial]

Messiah ||The twins are just born at the end of the book, so there's no reason to cast actors to play them if the studio isn't intending to continue onto the next installment||

[opaque sundial]

I kinda hope Guillermo del Toro picks up Children and God Emporer. I think he could do a good job with the weirder bits and visualizing everything

[old bone]

ye

[hollow hedge]

I think Children and God Emperor are both valid stopping points

[opaque sundial]

What I truly want is for Warner Brothers to do what Amazon did and remake the audiobooks. Get Rebecca Furguson or Josh Brolin to narrate or something

I think there's a lot of emotion in the books that Simon Vance just doesn't do a good job capturing. Plus the first one is strange with parts being a full-cast recording and other parts being just Simon

[junior bridge]

Anyone here read “The Chronicles of Amber”?

[low hill]

I've read Nine Princes in Amber.

I have 2-5 on the shelf.

[junior bridge]

They are pretty good

I was actually quite surprised that they evaded me for so long

They are somewhat old but totally a good read

[wraith lynx]

Royal Assassin 9 ||Patience: idk about you Fitz but that Regal guy might be up to no good...

Fitz: huh, you dont say 🥴||

||Please patience never ever change||

[brazen pilot]

||how do you feel about the wolf||

[wraith lynx]

||So like. When they talked about the wit and when he bonded with dogs as a kid, I was like "oh dear, I will have feelings if he binds himself to a wolf" and now here we are 🥴||

[brazen pilot]

||you've made it to like 70% of the reason we all told you to read these books||

[wide hearth]

I tried reading Chronicles of Amber last year, but essentially DNFed The Guns of Avalon.

[cloud socket]

Farseer all ||Nighteyes is the best character imo, and the most sensible||

[wide hearth]

Zelazny was one of the first authors I read and enjoyed, so I'm not sure why it didn't land for me. Could have just been bad timing.

[tight kindle]

I actually opened a book today for the first time in a week and a half or so and I just immediately felt better 😭
After more than a week without reading I genuinely start falling apart at the seams

[true falcon]

Read two issues or chapters of hellboy omnibus 1

[true falcon]

I like the art in it

[long sorrel]

We are made of books and whimsy, and crimes

[ivory cypress]

just looked at one of Martha Wells' post-Platform Decay interviews and ahhhhhhhh she's working on the third Witch King book right now!!!!!!!

[ivory cypress]

no more books can fit on my Martha Wells shelf now, Platform Decay squeezed in, but no more...

[long sorrel]

Need a new Martha Wells shelf is what I'm hearing

[ivory cypress]

i guess so! she will need to keep writing for many more years to fill it out completely 😌

what a dream

maybe they'll bring her wizard hunters books to physical again.... i would love that. but more likely than not, i'll need to buy them online secondhand for a premium

[wind sinew]

You need a bigger shelf

Preferably one that spans the entire length of your room

[ivory cypress]

haha

i guess also i better get on finishing this library book, since i'm about a third through but it's due in 3 more days

[snow vessel]

Children of dune done 👍

Next up: Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis

[tight kindle]

Me: doesn't read for a week and a half
Also me: reads three books in a single day

[old flint]

I'm never not be a bit annoyed at how Network Effect is slightly taller than the other ones. Also, I really want some Raksura hardbacks to exist.

[untold leaf]

Well, I've never read Agatha Christie either; I'm only on the first of the Tommy and Tuppence books, which are apparently much less known than her more popular character stories like that of Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple. So far, I'm really liking this first T&T book. It's a mystery like so many of her novels, but rather than a murder mystery whodunnit, it's more about a pair of adventurers getting caught up in international espionage. The first book takes place just post-WWI.

[mild lance]

The Secret Adversary, right? I like that one, never read any more of the Tommy and Tuppence books though

[untold leaf]

Yeah, that's the one!

Apparently, Agatha Christie aged up the characters with herself rather than write them the same age each book. When she wrote the last one in her elderly years, T&T were elderly grandparents still going on adventures. That concept is another reason I was interested in the rest, and I already want to read the rest of the series even though I'm not even halfway through the first book.

[uncut shoal]

I've read the entire series. I really liked it though the lore in the later books gets quite mixed up

[snow vessel]

Children of dune all ||I liked this book, more than I remember liking Dune but less than i liked Dune Messiah. It leans more into the character conflicts and politics and weird scifi stuff (highly) of the series like Messiah did, but I think it's overall a less tight narrative than Messiah or Dune. There's a lot of things that feel like we spent more time on than necessary imo, and some things that we could've spent more time on (alia, ghanima, and stilgar, for example, getting less screentime than Duncan and gurney and farad'n, all of whom feel less important to the narrative to me). The peak of the book was leto getting the sandtrout stillsuit, i really liked that. I like going further into the scifi weirdness with abomination and preborn and sandworms. It just feels a little less carefully crafted. I liked the ending, though I believe there's a timeskip before GEOD and I would've liked to see more of the early period of leto ii's rule||

[quaint tendon]

A short reread before parade of horribles next week

[snow vessel]

Agh

Starting PLATROA, but after this... I want to pick up God Emperor of Dune asap, but I've gotta read starless sea for book club, and I promised myself I'd reread Harrow the ninth before GEOD

Lol that's a problem for me in two weeks or so

[snow vessel]

I'm so tempted to spend all of tmrw reading

[oblique zodiac]

why would one ever need anything else when they have books to read?

my current book is a bit different

it has several different parts with different povs

[opaque sundial]

Children of Dune
||Leto II: How am I supposed to decide what to do? If I open myself up to the path my father could not follow I could end up like his sister: Abomination. If I don't, it could mean the end of everything. Though I can already see hints of this journey, the thing I might have to become in order to ensure humanity can survive into the future. How do I choose between letting my people die and becoming the thing that must oppress them?
Farad'n: If I become emporer I won't have free time anymore. This really fricken sucks.||

[ivory cypress]

saaame and same

[opaque sundial]

I loved Children, it's my favorite of the books. I think it's because by the time Children comes around we've been with all of the main characters for a while and seen where their journies have taken them. It's a lot of fun to watch these people who once worked together now be on different sides of a conflict

[velvet umbra]

I hate when this happens

Im unfortunately very OCD and always want all the spines is a series to be consistent

[ivory cypress]

I have to pretend not to notice

but this is also one of the main reasons I haven't bought more books in the expanse after the third

they switched title and author on 4 :/

[tight kindle]

My solution: organize by color so that none of the books in a series are near each other anyway 😌
I have two Stormlight mass market paperbacks (1 and 2), RoW is a big paperback, and Oathbringer and WaT are both hardcover which bothers me immensely when I'm organizing by author but doesn't bother me at all when it's by color

[low hill]

I've just made my peace with books being different. It took a while, but I got there.

I own too many books to dwell on it

[opaque sundial]

I love having chaotic looking bookshelves

Sure having books in a series that are the same size is nice, but I don't know, there's something about a bookshelf populated with whatever edition my local used bookstore had in stock that makes it feel cozier to me

[tight kindle]

Yeah used bookstores have a much cozier vibe than new ones imo

glances sadly at the used bookstore in the next town over that I can't go to because I don't have a car and don't want to ride eight miles there and another eight miles back

[opaque sundial]

Easiest solution is to open your own used book store

[tight kindle]

The way I would do that so fast if it were economically feasible at this point

[sharp steeple]

They did that with Ranger's Apprentice back in the day and I remember it pissing me off even back then.

[sharp steeple]

I need my shelf to be either like, completely chaotic or completely consistent. Being somewhere in between jimmies my jammies.

[analog geode]

Rip 😔

[light drum]

A Deadly Education All ||Hype Hype Hype very excited. My prediction is she os going to destroy all other covern and use her golden book to make a new open one||

[junior bridge]

im only on book 1 right now and loving it

[potent linden]

I'm luckily not particularly bothered by book covers/sizes being inconsistent, unless I have all but one or two of something, sometimes

[snow vessel]

I think it does a really good job building off the first two and the ideas/characters established there while going in a new direction

CoD ||like I think a lot of leto's arc hits harder because of Paul's, alia's corruption hits harder because we knew her, the fremen arc works because we saw them before the greenification||

[forest sierra]

Met Joe today

[junior dew]

I finished Blood over Bright Haven. Solid book. Definitely not anywhere near Sword of Kaigen but still definitely a good book. Had its strengths and weaknesses but I enjoyed it.

For the first time in a while I’m kinda like huh what do I want to read next

I have plenty I could read

Was going to do Parable of the Sower next but hmm idk. Started Obelisk Gate reread on the way to PT but idk if that’s what I’m feeling right now either

I could do WoT book 1… 🤔

Idk what I’m actually in the mood for

I think I might be looking for something more fun/light/easily digestible rather than something that is going to bend me over emotionally like I know Parable of the Sower would do

Palette cleanser read 🤔

[ivory cypress]

I finished the incandescent

I really DO prefer the flavour of magic school when it's from the pov of a teacher

it's very unique

[long sorrel]

Night Circus! 👀

[junior dew]

Funny you say that. Is the vibe pretty different than Starless Sea? Can’t be my next read because I’d have to unsuspend the hold but it could be soon in theory if I wanted to prioritize it

[junior dew]

How did that read? Good palette cleanser by chance? I had considered maybe picking that up

[rugged tartan]

An Animal Farm rerelease with the movie's poster as the cover is maybe one of the worst examples of movie tie-in book covers ever

[junior dew]

I’ve somehow never read the book

Wolf worm hold comes up in 3 weeks

[long sorrel]

Hmmm, this is hard to answer, does it feel like you're being carried around through the clouds? Yes. Is it the same vibe? -ish, very dreamy, otherwise it's as unique as Starless Sea

Which means, not like Starless Sea

[junior dew]

Starless Sea I enjoyed but I don’t think it fits the easily digestible palette cleanser bill which is why I asked

Might do incandescent

[ivory cypress]

I did think so

like it's not without its tension, but it's standalone, complete, just a nice read

and it went quick! the kind of prose that you just fly through

[junior dew]

Sounds good. Just bought it. Been hearing good stuff about it. Thanks!

As the rest of the books I have on audible waiting to be read glare at me

[light drum]

I was going to recommend a trilogy I started but then i rembered trilogies have the habit of Increasing the stakes to the p8int it might not be a pallet cleanser

[junior dew]

I don’t know that that’s the issue. I think it’s more so vibe

A nice short standalone read I think just fits the bill for now. Something that isn’t going to make me upset at humanity

So we’ll see how incandescent goes

And then I’ll do some more books that break me in half 🙃

[light drum]

Elder Race maybe

[junior dew]

I did that one earlier this year. Good rec for sure

If I need more palette cleanser stuff after the incandescent I may do another Tchaikovsky

I do really want to get to Parable of the Sower this month though. But I want to be in the right headspace for it

[light drum]

I mean it is a sando book but Tress is pretty lighthearted

[junior dew]

Yeah I’ve read it a few times. One of my favorites of his for sure

Appreciate you trying to rec stuff. I found my next read for now at least

Will report back if I bounce off of it or if I’m looking for anything else afterwards

May try WoT book 1 after this if I’m not quite feeling Parable of the Sower or Parade of Horribles yet

It’s just so long lol

Been enjoying this period doing some shorter reads haha

I may also try to read Bury our Bones or Katabasis soon-ish perhaps

[light drum]

I also recommend The Scholomance Trilogy but I have only rewd one book so we'll see lol

[junior dew]

I read the trilogy last month. Definitely a great rec

[light drum]

Ooh Parade officially releases on the 12th I've waited months to talk about it!

[junior dew]

Yeah idk when I’m going to pick it up and read it

Book 7 I was kinda meh on

[light drum]

I honestly dint remeber anything from book 7 which goes to tell

[junior dew]

Just borrowed Honey and Spice by Bolu Babalola on Libby as well so maybe I’ll squeeze that in after the incandescent

[junior dew]

Lol yeah that’s fair

I really enjoyed the series and then I think perhaps I just had too much of it in too short of a period

So I don’t mind waiting a bit on that one

[light drum]

Cradle also kinda has a simular Hypeslop/Aurafarming that DCC has
I dont like those terms but dont know what else to call it

[junior dew]

Yeah Cradle was very fun. Read that last year. I was debating tonight whether to finally jump on that Pilot series or whatever from him since that’d fit the palette cleanser vibe well I think. But I am trying to wait for the full series to be out as well

[light drum]

Pilot has also been on my TBR for a while but it keeps growing 😭

[junior dew]

Yeah I feel that lol

Maybe I could also jump on one of the completed RJB series one of these days soon too

Also still very curious about Goblin Emperor

One of these days

Oh hmm Goblin Emperor or Witness for the Dead first?

Audible is displaying series data strangely there

[ivory cypress]

witness for the dead is the follow-up sequel

[junior dew]

Gotcha alright, thanks. Going to just grab it on Audible now so maybe I’ll just throw it on at some point after I finish a book

[ivory cypress]

yayyy

[junior dew]

1 minute into the incandescent and I can already say yeah this is a vibe

And now that I’ve chosen a book I can finally get to cooking and stuff lol

[ivory cypress]

yayyyy

[long sorrel]

Yeees

[ivory cypress]

also the goblin emperor is quite possibly my favourite book of all time (can't speak for the audiobook since I don't do those) so if you don't like it please don't tell me 😭

[velvet umbra]

Nah I could never do this, the aesthetics are not worth losing the satisfaction of seeing the completed series together

I also have WaT hardcover and the rest paperback but at least they’re stylistically consistent

I have a couple other series that are Ike that, but if it’s just one book in hardcover it looks alright imo cause it feels intentional

[junior dew]

Duly noted. Still not sure when I’ll get to it but may swing it in the next month or two

[long sorrel]

you can tell me in DMs if you don't like it though you'll be severely judged

[ivory cypress]

jdkfjdkas

you are allowed to post in PUBLIC, i'm just being a geek about TGE :P

[long sorrel]

But he'll be severely judged!

Such a good book damn

It lives rent free on my head

[junior dew]

Time shall tell

[ivory cypress]

🙏

[little dock]

Yes! Incandescent was a vibe! I loved it!

[uncut shoal]

Murderbot 8/Platform Decay ||Poor Murderbot's emotion checks. I'm really not sure if they're doing them any good. Actually, I don't think they know either||

[forest sierra]

Aight I'll drop the bait

Joe Abercrombie

[wind sinew]

Damn you

I'm jealous

[low hill]

Maybe very mild spoilers on a couple of interior images.

[junior dew]

Incandescent is fantastic so far

[wind sinew]

So has Son of a Liche

Book 4 of the dark profit series is out as an epub for those who backed the Kickstarter btw

[wind sinew]

Read like 160 pages of Son of a Liche today, and I'm still reading

When I say this book has me hooked...

[light drum]

The Last Graduate 9 + WoT minor ||L and Orion feel very much like an Aes Sedai and Warder||

[analog geode]

Are you listening to it?

[light drum]

Yes

[analog geode]

Lmao

[analog geode]

||Her name is Galadri(El)||

[light drum]

The curse of audiobooks

[minor sleet]

Someobe online tried to tell me Slade Wilson originated as a Green Arrow villain but his Teen Titans version was basically a new character. So I sent them a screenshot of his Wikipedia page, which said the character debuted in New Teen Titans #2 (1980) created by Wolfman and Pérez. And they still kept arguing with me about this for an extra half hour

Comic book fans are never beating the “don’t actually read comics” allegations

[analog geode]

I joined a Star Wars Legends discord server and I’m getting so much use out of this image. Similar vibes

[minor sleet]

Oh that’s it exactly

Except guess what both the Slade Wilson (Prime Earth 1984-2011) and Slade Wilson (New Earth 2011-present) dc comics wiki page list as his debut?

[analog geode]

Spiderman

[minor sleet]

Nope! New Teen Titans #2 by Wolfman and Pérez. So they’re not even a wiki skimmer. I’m pretty sure they’re getting this off the CW’s Arrowverse, because I can’t think of any of place where Slade regularly interacts with Green Arrow

Hmm ok so he did try to kill Oliver Queen in one arc in 2006-2007 but the story is so unimportant it’s not on his Wikipedia page and is only on his dc comics page

[wind sinew]

I need to start reading these books

[analog geode]

Join us in #1364954784737792102 we just started our read through of the New Jedi Order series

[wind sinew]

I will when I actually start reading. Just decided I didn't want to read the canon series, what's the other one called again?

[analog geode]

What do you mean?

This isn’t canon

[wind sinew]

The legends timeline

That's the word

Just found out yesterday there's a canon timeline that aligns with the Disney stuff, and the legends timeline

[zinc flicker]

Yeah we just started about what is equivalent to the Sequels era and character wise

[wind sinew]

Which timeline is that? Or is it in both?

[zinc flicker]

It’s in Legends

[wind sinew]

I have heir to the empire in my shopping cart, just waiting on finishing some of my tbr books before buying

[zinc flicker]

We started our Legends read along around 9 months ago with HTTE

[wind sinew]

Reddit told me that was the best place to start

[zinc flicker]

Yeah HTTE is widely considered the best starting place.

We have a pinned reading order of some key books in #1364954784737792102

[wet belfry]

"I watched Arrow before I watched Teen Titans, ergo, this is the order these things were created"

[wind sinew]

I think I'll be using this a lot lol

[winter fern]

I think Project Hail Mary might be the best sci-fi book I've read (well, listened to, but still) in a very long time. The only one I've read fairly recently that rivals it is Children of Time

[wind sinew]

It's certainly one of the greats

[snow vessel]

I've ended up on the folio society website

These look so nice

I'm so tempted to make poor financial decisions

[wind sinew]

You shouldn't be posting about this when I'm in the channel. I will 100% encourage you to make poor financial decisions

[low hill]

They're only poor decisions if you need the money for something else. nods sagely

[wind sinew]

You never do

(Unless you do, but those don't count)

[buoyant sedge]

Children of Time is very good

[snow vessel]

Unfortunately I really do

I do not have spare money right now

[forest sierra]

Larping is an art

[minor sleet]

My D&D group let our friend who is both an English teacher and 95% of the way to having a PhD in comparative literature assign us a book and shockingly, it’s really good

[true falcon]

That’s nice

[minor sleet]

Omeros by Derek Walcott got the author his Nobel Prize and he deserved it

[minor sleet]

It’s great to have friends with amazing taste in novels! And who want to share it with you!

[true falcon]

I wish I can read novels good to have the same taste

[minor sleet]

You can do it! I believe in the power of all people to discover and enjoy good books!

[true falcon]

Maybe I should restart mistborn or smth

[minor sleet]

Clever wordplay. Verb contrasting with a noun that has the same or similar pronunciation but a different meaning

Oh postmodernism how I love your forthrightness as a genre

[true falcon]

Got 5 comics into my reading goal on Goodreads

[proper silo]

Started reading a new book and got jumpscared by a side character that has the exact same name and surname as a love interest in another book I read a while back

Read on and discovered that the new guy is as much of a dumb clown as the old guy

Now I'm wondering if it's a coincidence

[rose meteor]

read pushing ice by alastair reynolds. i have a bunch of small complaints that add up to: the book didn't make me feel anything.

the big central drama between the two main characters felt fake, and there's something wrong with the way the characters talk as a whole; it's like they always somehow end an important conversation on a dramatic cliche, like they're trying to sound tough. maybe moviebait? the sci-fi ideas are decent but the book didn't make me care about them.

the actual title, 'pushing ice', is a phrase that's reiterated throughout the book, but i felt that pushing actual ice was never really relevant - just forced in because the author wanted there to be a reiterated phrase. but if that was forced, how do i describe the mentions of the gay side character being gay? hammered in like pitons? like, christ.

prose not spectacular either. overall, instead of this book, i'd recommend reading any of: seveneves, children of time, a fire upon the deep, project hail mary, time to orbit unknown, kitty cat kill sat, or watership down

[somber timber]

So I’m like 80 pages into the new Fonda Lee book and loving it

[ivory cypress]

is that the last contract of isako or something

[somber timber]

Yes, it came out on the fifth! I remember seeing the blurb and being like “okay sounds interesting and I trust the author” but she does such a good job of just making the world feel alive and real

[ivory cypress]

oh love that

it's on my tbr

I'll see if ol' faithful (Libby) can get it for me

[untold leaf]

My hold for the Andy Weir book "Artemis" is at the ready, but first I need to finish the first Tommy and Tuppence book, "The Secret Adversary".

[true falcon]

I wish I can finish a book but idk if I can read 500 pages in a month due to me being busy

[untold leaf]

The T&T book is really good. It's got me spinning through twists and turns. I felt so sure I'd guessed a significant reveal way ahead of time only to realize I'd gotten things wrong. I love it when a story can dupe me like that, especially when I thought I saw through the dupe.

Having it in audiobook format really speeds things along for me.

[wind sinew]

Oof, that sucks. Jobs should come with book breaks fr fr

[true falcon]

I don’t have a job but I have farm stuff

[wind sinew]

Ahhhhhhhhh

[true falcon]

And chores

[wind sinew]

Yeah, that'll do it

[true falcon]

Also sometimes babysitting

[wind sinew]

Oof

[true falcon]

And the only books I finish fast are comics

[wind sinew]

Hey, you're still getting some reading done

Better than no reading

[true falcon]

Comics count as real books in the medium

[wind sinew]

They do imo

[true falcon]

Especially the hardcovers and tpbs

[wind sinew]

Comic book hardcovers?

Those exist?

[true falcon]

Yeah like deluxe editions

With all the sketchbook arts

[wind sinew]

Oh yeah, I've seen that on Folio Society

[true falcon]

Also omnibuses that are hardcovers

[opaque sundial]

I think if I got a Nobel prize I simply would not have enough ambition left to get a PhD

[minor sleet]

My friend =/= Derek Walcott, author of Omeros

[opaque sundial]

Oh my b

[true falcon]

I’ve been hearing about about folio society

[low hill]

Yes, yeees.

[wind sinew]

I got planet of the apes off them

Good book

Good special edition

[true falcon]

Pricy

[wind sinew]

Yuh

[long sorrel]

Yes

I wish I had never learnt they exist

[wind sinew]

My only real special edition (so far)

[wind sinew]

😂

Wraithmarked is also good with special editions

[wraith lynx]

glances at the wraithmarked IC books mhmmmmm~

[long sorrel]

They don't have the type of design I find appealing for special editions I feel

so that one's not tempting at all

[wraith lynx]

Its not tempting for me because im still. Waiting. On. The. Statue. 😭

[wind sinew]

I'm getting their sword of kaigen deluxe edition

Oh and Dracula

[long sorrel]

I've 2 fun editions of Dracula already and I'm stopping there

well, the second hasn't arrived yet...

[junior dew]

Yesssss @ Sword of Kaigen

Just made it out of Barnes and nobles successfully without any new books

[wind sinew]

How?

[somber timber]

Last contact of Isako 27 || yeah book good. Expected that, excited to see how it all happened||

[junior dew]

I went in looking for a Woobles kit for my mom for Mother’s Day tomorrow. Didn’t find any so I browsed books a bit but nothing really caught my eye all that much. Added a couple to my TBR though

[wind sinew]

And you didn't buy those?

How?

[long sorrel]

I changed my gym schedule to be at 2pm and now all the book stores I pass by on my way back are closed when I'm out, this is a huge win

I certainly don't buy books where I'm "mildly curious, will dump into tbr"

[junior dew]

Lol they weren’t hyper compelling. Just kinda ehh sure I’ll add to the TBR.

I also tend to not read physical books as much and I haven’t gotten to the last few I’ve bought yet.

I also have Libby and audible as options

[wind sinew]

My biggest one is that I don't live near a single bookstore. Not a single one. But on the other hand, when I do make it to a bookstore, it feels like a waste coming out without buying even a single book.

[true falcon]

I live like 20 mins away from mine but I’ve never been there

[junior dew]

Physical book TBR at home currently consists of city of brass, house of leaves, left hand of darkness, one dark window, two twisted crowns, people we meet at vacation, and a verity reread

[wind sinew]

Yeah, I'm like 35 to 40 minutes away from the closest Barnes and noble

[junior dew]

Ahh yeah that makes a difference for sure

[wind sinew]

And there's no indie bookstores where I am at

[true falcon]

I mean local bookshop

[junior dew]

Mine is like 10-15 minutes away and we have an indie bookstore too near us around 10-15 minutes away as well

[wind sinew]

Don't have those around here

[true falcon]

The Barnes and nobles I go to is half an hour away or 30 mins

[wind sinew]

The Barnes& Noble is the closest one

[junior dew]

These were the four I added to my TBR at B&N. Tbh I didn’t even read the blurbs. Just went based on names and covers today 😅

[wind sinew]

The right way to do things

[junior dew]

Perhaps!

[long sorrel]

Agnes Agnes Agnes!

[somber timber]

Wow just ignoring one of my fav books and the book I’m currently reading. This is a personal attack

[long sorrel]

I don't know if this will be your type of thing though

[true falcon]

Been searching stuff in the library before I go and they got two volumes of umbrella academy in the physical library

[junior dew]

I added the Fonda Lee book to my TBR!

But I was highlighting the additions that were the result of being at B&N

[junior dew]

Time will tell! My next read after incandescent will likely be the book that wouldn’t burn

Since my gf just finished it and recommended it. Been in my TBR a long time

[long sorrel]

funny names to read in sequence

[somber timber]

Good good

[junior dew]

Yeah I added the completed RJB series recently because I saw some positive stuff said about them recently on here. Been putting off tainted cup still until closer to the release of book 3

[analog geode]

The Foundryside trilogy of his is also amazing

[junior dew]

Yeah I just went ahead and added each of his other series the other day so that should be in there

[long sorrel]

I REALLY should finish Divine Cities

Maybe that's what I'll read next after my current read

[minor sleet]

More Omeros. It never occurred to me I could rhyme these two words

[somber timber]

Positive RJB talk in this channel… why I never!

[ivory cypress]

i'll read foundryside oneeee dayyyyy

[analog geode]

Is that day today?

[ivory cypress]

nope

i STILL have to finish labyrinth's heart, i've been languishing, and i have death of the author out from the library

and shroud will be following shortly after that

gotta get my hugo finalists read before voting

[spring turtle]

The audiobook for Foundryside is on sale on Libro.fm right now btw

[ivory cypress]

oh cool

i am not an audiobook person myself tho, alas

foundryside literally is on my shelf rn

where it's been for years

[minor sleet]

https://www.tumblr.com/girljeremystrong/746045930287087616/booty-shorts-that-say-ask-me-about-the-book-im

it's about old friends

booty shorts that say ASK ME ABOUT THE BOOK I'M READING on the ass

Tumblr · Mar 26, 2024, 8:27 PM

[tall hinge]

Anyone read the Alvin Maker books by Orson Scott Card? I can almost picture colonial America in the cosmere and keep wanting appendix at the end of the book tabling the types of magic.

[worldly carbon]

Worldbuilding spoilers for dune ||It's kinda crazy that the "empire of the known universe" in dune is a like 100 light year wide bubble around earth||

[analog geode]

I have, they’re ok

[velvet umbra]

I mean dudes back in like 5000 BC were calling themselves emperor of the known universe when they controlled like the west bank of the Euphrates lol

[worldly carbon]

I've always wondered if that fact was actually true

[velvet umbra]

I mean im sure they weren't using that exact language but the general vibe is accurate

[wind sinew]

Son of a Liche was great. 4.25 stars

Gonna stay on operation bounce house now

[glass mesa]

@light sierra, I finished the first book of Mage Errant. It was great

[true falcon]

I’m glad that I chose to go for library on Tuesday because I can read before buying stuff

[light sierra]

yep! that ones a short one so that makes sense that you could finish it that fast

it's like 78k words I think

[uncut shoal]

I have. They started out decent but really fell off the wagon at the end. Also has a few rather unpleasant tropes and OSC is not a good person

[junior dew]

I am adoring The Incandescent

[ivory cypress]

👀

i'm so delighted

[somber timber]

Finished the last contract of isako good book

All || it’s a bit of an odd book. I love the world. Feels very alive. Book was a bit predictable but like it still hit its emotional beats. But that might be some personal stuff on my end contributing. Idk it’s a book where I both liked it a lot but also wish there was a bit more. Half the book being a flashback worked but was also a bit weird structurally. Would recommend but also a bit idk frustrated because I just wish there was a little more there ||

Liked it would recommend. 8/10

It’s weird because I feel like I do after I watch a movie rather than how I normally feel after finishing a book.

Took me somewhere. Made me feel something. And it’s just kinda kicking around in my head

Mercy of Gods 1 || these nerds really named the planet that lol||

[ivory cypress]

hmm?

[somber timber]

Maybe I’ve watched shogun too many times but they called the planet ||Anjin with an extra I ||

[ivory cypress]

ahhh, i don't know the reference

[somber timber]

Mercy of gods part one all || interesting to start the book by telling us everything is gonna go terribly and then just have that lingering over everything. ||

[wide hearth]

Assassin's Apprentice 15 ||At this point it has been strongly implied that Burrich has defenses against both the Wit and the Skill, which seems odd for a humble stablemaster. Is this explained, and have I missed the explanation or any hints as to why? If I had to guess, based on how he defends being repelled (assuming that's Wit-based), he may even have the Wit, whereas I don't think it makes sense that he's s Skilluser (but maybe Chivalry taught him some defenses??)||

[long sorrel]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1194838543747530872/1433821203054858403/ezgif-55f98130818863.gif

[somber timber]

Mercy of gods 10 || not asking for an answer just putting thoughts down . So the swarm murdered the other and took its body (guessing) in order to not get got. They knew what was coming so they’re probs not the other species on the planet mentioned but it’s a possibility. Maybe the thing the big lobsters are fighting? ||

[long sorrel]

Feeed meeeee

[somber timber]

|| oh hey it called it the enemy in its pov lol. (I had forgotten it existed because this is some very interrupted reading today)||

[somber timber]

Mercy of gods 10 || well they’re gonna try to break out… on a ship… in space (probably) … where they’ve been for a month… what could go wrong!||

[opaque sundial]

Reading Lord of the Rings right now, and the Council of Elrond is so relatable.
||- Elrond asked Bilbo to relay his story of how he came to find the ring, Bilbo asked that they revisit at another time ("let's schedule a follow up to discuss that")

• Elrond said we don't need to do that just to keep it brief ("we're coming up on the end of the zoom call")
• Then after the council was over Bilbo remarked that it was very informative and Gandalf told him that everything that they discussed in the meeting had been discussed previously ("this could have been an email")||

[rugged tartan]

Do note that the spoiler rules don't have a statute of limitations, spoilers are spoilers no matter how old or famous or influential the story is

[opaque sundial]

I'll tag it, but I left it open because there aren't spoilers in the message, not because of the age of the story

[true falcon]

Reorganized my bookshelf until I get more space

13 books are my brothers

[long sorrel]

That's the description of a scene, which is spoilers

[potent linden]

yesterday I played a card game based on the Folk of the Air books called Enemies and Lovers, and I understand why you always have fanart of the characters to pull out and show people now, there's a lot on there! very pretty cards, I loved the backs of them, and fun game. (my friends tell me it's usually a lot shorter than it was the time we played and it was the longest game of it they'd ever been in XD)

[long sorrel]

The art we post is from that game, well, a lot of it lol

[potent linden]

the style is recognizable lol

[somber timber]

Mercy of gods 13 || I wasn’t expecting Passover to exist in this world lol ||

Same || also random description of how David (I’m not fighting autocorrect on character names in this one lol) perceives time and space differently depending on if he’s been there. Idk if it’s something, never read their books so I don’t have a feel for it but they spent a lot of time on the asynchronous space stuff ||

[wind sinew]

Operation bounce house is a decent start so far

[long sorrel]

||They do like to make some stuff feel hard sci fi, I think, though the concepts in this one aren't like the Expanse, and I've not read anything else||

[somber timber]

|| lol yeah it was really strange reading them describing DNA things and proteins early on and me being like what the hell is a quasi crystal did I miss some development about the RNA soup? Like this is what I have my degree in am I that washed already? And nah they just made that up for their world ||

[true falcon]

What’s y’all’s first library experience?

[rugged tartan]

I was too young to remember, but my first library memory was my family all rising our bikes to the local library, and getting swept up in the book I was readimg that I didn't notice they had left to find other things to do. I was debating whether to go home on my own or keep reading when I saw my parents headed my way

[somber timber]

Mercy of gods 15 || so we know the swarm was in the room when Camp had the panic attack. We know it’s not Camp or Jess explicitly, or Tanner or David because they were in the lab. Meaning it’s either Rick, Else, Irina, or Sy. Else would be a strange choice as she’s the most fleshed out of them so far. Sy would be a logical choice because she dipped. But Rick is from the same place as the other scientist who got got. Irina idk could be it too||

[true falcon]

I saw a video about a stupid thing about people using sobrief (an ai reading app) to fake reading

[somber timber]

Mercy of gods 16 || well… it’s probably not Irina because she got exploded by a monkey bomb ||

[potent linden]

what does that even mean? like to fake records of reading on the app? how do you fake reading XD

[true falcon]

Apparently it’s ai summaries (that aren’t even approved by the publishers and authors) and people think they “read” the 6 books

[somber timber]

I mean you could just look at Wikipedia summaries

[analog geode]

Literally just sparknotes

[somber timber]

Like Amazon has an annoying AI summary feature now for a lot of stuff

[true falcon]

Like they think they read the whole book in 10 minutes

[ivory cypress]

I did make it from 0 to 20% of death of the author in one sitting last night. I think given what I knew about it, I was expecting it to be a thicker and heavier read, but it's flowing very quickly and easily

20%, maybe 21% ||I do have the dread over what I worry is going to happen to this woman zelu I am rooting for. a title named that would probably have a literal death of the author I'm sure, and I'm pre upset about it||

[true falcon]

https://youtu.be/1BC8XWB-9Ks?si=siGYzKG5sEIxjIIn

[mild lance]

Hell Bent 26 ||well that chapter was insane. It was neat seeing Turner and Tripp’s backstories.||

||Babbit Rabbit showed up in both Alex and Turner’s flashbacks but not the others. Not sure if that means anything||

[mild lance]

Hell Bent 27 || “She saluted Anselm with both middle fingers.” You go girl!||

[versed agate]

(not watched the video) reminds me of the belief some people have that watching a 20 minute YT video essay is the same as studying & learning a topic

[true falcon]

That can be true

[versed agate]

... that depends wildly on what the subject in question is, and what level of understanding you're looking for

[true falcon]

Like idk literacy

[versed agate]

~~I feel like a video essay about how to read books is going to teach you less than actually reading books ~~

[somber timber]

Looking at you jimmy you dolt

(Jimmy is Mr beast)

[versed agate]

upps, you caught me

[rugged tartan]

I should rewatch that video...

[versed agate]

more seriously, discussing a book with other people will do leagues more for your literacy skills than listening to someone lecture you about how to Do Literacy Good (which is not to say that there's no value in the lecture, just that it is not a sufficient learning tool)

[rugged tartan]

I should not rewatch the companion video that dismantles Beast Games season 2 more directly because that was legitimately upsetting

[ivory cypress]

oh? why'd you find it so?

[versed agate]

-# at what point do we take this to #1364952992515620895 ?

-# or #you-people if we want to get really vitriolic

[rugged tartan]

The game where they locked three people in a room and forced them to pick one to self eliminate, its just such a vile and skin-crawling concept, especially the specific anecdote about the woman who got forced to self-eliminate because of the two brothers she got roomed with who flatly refused to cooperate

[somber timber]

Both is good

[ivory cypress]

OH... yeah i was going to be puzzled about being upset, but i did actually skip that section for that reason

[rugged tartan]

(I am, personally, finished, if no one else has anyjhthing to add)

[somber timber]

Hiring your idiot friends and then sexually harassing a bunch of employees is bad

[somber timber]

18 || OH COME ON REALLY?!? ||

Same || well I was right about her getting killed in a way!||

|| well that explains the zombies. ||

[ivory cypress]

watching your live blogging with great interest

[somber timber]

Mercy of gods 19 || alright tanner take it down like 20 notches. Yeah jess dipping to get her meds was such a travesty. If she hadn’t you’d have a second dead team member ||

|| yes finally David you should be pushing to beat those night crawlers (or whatever they’re called) collective assess. ||

[long sorrel]

Ahahaha

[somber timber]

You knew the whole time!

[long sorrel]

Of course

[somber timber]

Lied to my face !

(Thank you)

[long sorrel]

Yes

[ivory cypress]

:D

hahahaaaaaaa

[somber timber]

Mercy of god 20 || jess rage!||

[royal carbon]

Wonder if I can finish Tusk Love tomorrow. Did not do any reading this weekend.

[junior dew]

Oh how is that one?

[somber timber]

Mercy of gods 23 || “Jessyn knew the medicine was starting to work when her fantasies changed from suicide to murder.”

Jess is such a vibe ||

[junior dew]

Good prose is good

Also I really hope to finish The Incandescent tomorrow

That book is definitely up there amongst my favorites of the year

[ivory cypress]

i'm so glad you like it!

[royal carbon]

Tusk Love is pretty good so far but it is spicy.

Probably on the mild side but I don't really read those sort of books so hard to say.

[somber timber]

Mercy of gods 24 || Swarm no! Bad swarm you just exposed yourself ||

[tired dragon]

Finished the Arcane Ascension books that are out currently.

I found them quite enjoyable

[light drum]

The Last Graduate end ||What thr hell Orion ||

[analog geode]

||Orion is such a dumbass||

[light drum]

||There's was no [Redacted] need, they would have died and they coukd have left together||

More thoughts in yp

[somber timber]

Mercy of gods 31 || ah some good old fashioned revolutionary in fighting. A tale as old as time ||

[somber timber]

Mercy of gods end of part 5.|| one part left done for the night.

Okay so swarm maybe gonna sacrifice else for Jess’s brother? Swarm robots? Swarm bugs? Who can say?

Interesting place to end with solving the turtle problem.

Concept wise I think this book is interesting in that it takes humans and puts them into a competitive environment as a way to explore humanity. Whether I buy their arguments is another matter.
It’s a strange book in that so much of it was set up that it feels like not a lot as happened but also a lot has happened. We’re so in the dark. The rebellion feels very foolish. I don’t have a feel for what is happening here. We’ve been almost staring down a microscope. Such a narrow field of view. I feel as if this book could be heading for an almost everybody dies ending but I doubt it. ||

[snow vessel]

Mog pt5 ||lots of similar thoughts to mine at the time||

[tight kindle]

Reading Lessons in Chemistry and it's quite good

Also, the adaptation is extremely faithful

[light drum]

Wait its based off a book? I gotta read it

[true falcon]

I like how there’s librarian beef with James Patterson

[junior smelt]

https://klipy.com/gifs/mog-mogged-11--k01KRBSJTBDY7REZHFGZ05EMDE2

whenever I see the word MoG in this channel

[opaque sundial]

Oh?

[true falcon]

Like funny videos about them beefing with author because of the 200 books since the 70’s

And still “writing”

[somber timber]

Mercy of gods 33 || hmmmmmm confirmation that I was right about else being shedded. Jess is not gonna like faux bro. Swarm might still be cooked or might internally be cooked for going against a host so strongly. Figuring out how to feed the turtle seems a bit ominous given what the lobster said but David didn’t hear. Not looking great ||

[long sorrel]

No no, everything's looking great and fine 😌

[opaque sundial]

"We keep books, and you write too many books. We cannot keep them all."

[true falcon]

Also I’m excited because tomorrow is my first time at the library

[somber timber]

@long sorrel so am I supposed to read this novella before book 2?

[long sorrel]

YES

Livesuit

[hollow hedge]

I know they said there's another novella coming this winter, after book 2, I wonder if they'll do a third novella and a print collection

[long sorrel]

yeah idk about a 3rd

guess we'll see

[wet belfry]

They do love a print collection

[somber timber]

So mercy of gods part 6 all || basically ended where I thought it would. I think David is in a pretty perilous spot with the other humans. He basically got everybody they love killed in some form or another. Oh and his girlfriend… swarmfriend? Doesn’t understand that she’s not alive anymore to him and that’s gonna be a whole mess. And swarm wants to sacrifice another one of the humans. Creating easier food supply for your enemies is uh… not ideal. ||

[hollow hedge]

I suppose if they don't, the alternatives for print are just a small limited print run book (like that King Lopen nonsense) or binding them into special editions of the books

[somber timber]

Mercy of gods all || good book, the did a lot of set up for the series in an interesting way. Ended where act one should. Still a bunch of unresolved mystery because of the very narrow scope. Interesting characters. Like that they’re making imperfect decisions (which means lots of swords hanging above everybody’s heads)||

[somber timber]

Mercy of gods all very cursed || was talking about how swarm was cooked if David found another love interest and then realized I hadn’t considered that swarm would be short sighted enough to shed the brother but uh… taking over the mind of everybody who your not boyfriend is interested in is a possibility and an incredibly cursed one at that. ||

|| Every time he breaks up with somebody she sheds them and it’s just 20 exes in swarm’s head||

[long sorrel]

I guided JM towards these thoughts, 😌 and I'm proud (they're all fully his mind you, I just facilitated)

[true falcon]

Would ya’ll rather read cookbooks or self help books?

[analog geode]

Both sound torturous tbh

[alpine drum]

Cookbooks, they have recipes which I use

[somber timber]

Cookbooks

You can get cookbooks that actually teach you things and are well written

[long sorrel]

cookbooks are fun

I won't read one just for fun

but I'll skim many and get ideas from them

[true falcon]

People are saying cookbooks aren’t fun

[long sorrel]

people say many things

"people are saying [...]" is a completely empty sentence with no meaning

[true falcon]

Ok

[raw musk]

Cookbook hands down

Specifically this one

[long sorrel]

Dungeon Meshi, really

[buoyant sedge]

what the hell is this series?

[junior smelt]

That depends on the kind of cookbooks they are referring to and they kind of they seem to expect from it.

[raw musk]

Oh the mantaur? That's actually pretty tame all things considered

The series is Dungeon Crawler Carl, and book 8 drops tomorrow

[long sorrel]

I think it just depends on whether you're interested in cookbooks or not
I personally would find self help books 💤 But they're useful and/or helpful to some. Both are popular

[hollow hedge]

honestly I find I don't really think about Carl's appearance too much while reading or listening to that series

[long sorrel]

If you have 0 interest, they're gonna be boring

[hollow hedge]

cookbooks could at least be appetizing or something

[mild lance]

An important thing to note is that cookbooks are not designed to be read from cover-to-cover

The intended way to use them is to open up a recipe and make it

[long sorrel]

Well you can check them out to see what they offer right, you go through the whole book, you just don't read all the details, at least that's what I do

I am not one to cook following recipes much either way

[unique turret]

Salt Fat Acid Heat and some other cookbooks often have a section that you 100% should read through like a normal book, though

[mild lance]

Anyway my point is that saying cookbooks are boring to read is a bit weird because that’s not the point of them. It would be like saying the dictionary is boring

[somber timber]

The food lab is legit a textbook and teaches so much

[unique turret]

Yeah, that was the other one I was thinking of

[long sorrel]

I wish I had the time to delve deeper into cooking 😭

[somber timber]

Like it literally has a section on making a sous vide out of a cooler because all you need to do is maintain temp

[unique turret]

I also really like Jacques Pepin’s Complete Techniques

[somber timber]

Adds to list

Like contemporary cook books are often memoirs, travel books, and textbooks all in one

[long sorrel]

Yeah, I personally don't like those

I just want the recipes

OH the last cookbook I got (which was a gift) was utter trash

[wet belfry]

But does it connect to my wifi and send me a text every time I need to add water

[long sorrel]

Like the recipes seem made up. It's a geek book so each recipe is like, based on some or another nerdy thing, which is fun, but the actual ingredients/proportions are just ... I'd say someone facesmashed the keyboard or did it with AI but it's too old for that I think

[unique turret]

I find the textbook-like cookbooks much more useful long term than the recipe ones

They teach you how to cook and improvise

[long sorrel]

If your selfhelp book does that you should run, more than if your cookbook does it though

[long sorrel]

I already know how to do this, so I just want set instructions for stuff I'm unfamiliar with, personally

[unique turret]

At this point most “recipes” I use are just an idea on what I’d like to make lol

[long sorrel]

Same, well I've never really been one to follow recipes besides for baking

[unique turret]

I made an amazing shrimp and orzo dish the other day that I really need to write down.

I did use a ton of chicken stock and white wine

[somber timber]

To be fair I’m very selective with what cookbooks I buy.

Like I’m not buying random celeb cookbooks

[long sorrel]

Lol, yeah, screw that

[unique turret]

Sometimes we’ll go to a used book/thrift store and buy random cheap cookbooks and choose a recipe or two for date night

[long sorrel]

Fun

[unique turret]

But yeah, my cook books are pretty much whatever Kenji Lopez-Alt, Jacques Pepin, Julia Child, and Samin Nosrat write lol

[somber timber]

Yeah same lol

[long sorrel]

I have an eclectic collection of books going from cookbooks my grandparents had, my parents and then me

Which include multiple nationalities traditional and less traditional food, vegetarian, vegan, etc.

[somber timber]

Samin has whole list of cookbooks at the back of SFAH too of various good ones

It’s kinda like book reccs find people who know their stuff and listen to them

that’s how I do it

[proper silo]

Finished the first volume of a new book (Ballad of Sword and Wine), and while it is great, good gods, I don't think I've ever read a book that demanded I take notes the way this does.

There's like fifty characters, and some of them have two or even three names, and they're all scheming and playing politics for various factions, except some of them are just pretending to be playing for "their" factions while in reality belonging to other factions and by the halfway point, I felt a dire need to pull out a corkboard and some string.

And then by the end of the volume ||half of them are dead and the book introduces ten more characters with two or three names and titles and allegiances and schemes ||

[velvet umbra]

there are some fun ones but like, I'm just not spending 25 dollars on it or whatever when I can find the recipes online these days

[proper silo]

I feel overwhelmed, it's great

[potent linden]

the only cookbooks I own are dessert ones lol

[proper silo]

Oh, are we talking cookbooks 🤔 I think I only own one

It's like a hundred recipes for chocolate desserts, and only chocolate desserts

[raw musk]

How are there 100 recipes for chocolate dessert?

[wet belfry]

No, the sous vide the cookbook taught me to make

[proper silo]

A lot of the book are various "X cake with chocolate" recipes

[raw musk]

Ah. Makes sense

Or rather, makes cents

[somber timber]

It doesn’t but it’s like hundreds of dollars less and doesn’t need to update the software at inconvenient times

[junior smelt]

While I don't think I would find Self help books a snooze fest. I can definitely reading them while enjoying them.

I would rather pick a function book if I had a choice.

Self help also depends on how good the quality of the book is. You kinda also have to read it in a certain flow.

Meanwhile cookbooks you can just pick the relevant information you want at that very moment and then leave it.

[junior smelt]

Yup

[junior smelt]

Yeah it has a very different format

[ivory cypress]

oh the Hugo's voter packet is out!!!

yesssssssss

tbh the cost of a voting membership feels extremely reasonable when i think about in terms of buying everything written there in a bundle on epub for $50

or however much it was this year

[long sorrel]

Yeah, I have aproximately 0 tolerance for self help books. Which, I'm sure there are some good ones out there, they're just not for me.

[somber timber]

That’s because you haven’t mastered inner calm. For 99.99 this book will teach you how to master your true self call now!

[long sorrel]

I am in fact a very calm person

Though not right now

[vital ibex]

Children of Ruin past 3-1 ||Though this is about the previous part, its so like, funny but also bonkers and sad that the Octopi going into a frenzied fit to try and convince each other of their argument by grappling with each other has evolved into needing to make a big decision and having a space battle over it with several octopi perishing in their spaceships, its hard to see how a society with this sort of system can survive||

[true falcon]

Massive gift from a family friend and we got the og hunger games book

[cloud socket]

I'm a weirdo who reads cookbooks cover to cover but then never makes anything from them (I really should, one of these days...)

Anyway I came to post that I'm back on my Riordanverse read (not going to tag the tag because I think I was the last one going for a bit)- started The Sun and the Star. I figure I should do the two Nico books before starting the Senior Year ones... anyway, I like the page printing here for chapter 4 ||where it suddenly gets gray and cloudy as Nico is dreaming.||

Looks like chapter 16 might also have similar?

[long sorrel]

I guess that's meant to be Italian, it is, I think, the same word as catalan, and it made me do a triple take

Now I see there's italian above but, I use the word ||"escolta" with my mom quite often even though I don't speak catalan generally||.

[long sorrel]

Saint of Bright Doors 15 ||“Good boy,” Mother-of-Glory rasps, and Fetter wants to cry from his loathing of the warm feeling that fills his chest, rising like bubbling black water, submerging the tumult inside of him as if none of it mattered. “That’s my boy.” maybe he should stab her a little after all||

[vital ibex]

Children of Ruin past 3 all ||How absolutely horrifying ||

||How am I supposed to sleep after that ||

[junior dew]

Is this what I think it is? 👀

[junior dew]

|| Please expound. I must know if it’s what I think it is. I don’t remember what was in what parts of the book ||

[true falcon]

Also got a free Neil gaiman book about a graveyard

[vital ibex]

Children of Ruin past 3 all ||The downfall of the Nod humans, first contact with We 🙂 ||

||Ending with the Octopi exploding a spaceship with giant mirrors ||

[junior dew]

|| Yesssssssssssssssss. It’s so peak ||

[vital ibex]

Im definitely glad that this one is less dry than the first book

Children of Time was absolutely fascinating but not written in a way that was my favorite

[junior dew]

Huh I really loved it but I am an even bigger fan of Children of Ruin for reasons you are discovering

[proven token]

Finished Perdido Street Station a while ago but haven't had time to post my thoughts

10/10, great book, glad I read more Mieville after Kraken. Probably the best urban fantasy I've read since... ever? It's a toss up between Perdido Street Station and Foundryside, and while I like the latter more as a book, I think that Station is better as a work of urban fantasy specifically.

[somber timber]

Livesuit page 1 || “An enemy alien was going to look like a tree or a vulva or a bird” hmmmm one of these is not like the others ||

[proven token]

Now for spoilers [Perdido Street Station vague]: ||I loved the worldbuilding. Everything felt so vivd -- I don't think there was a single part of the book where New Crobuzon wasn't worth reading about for the sake of reading. The worldbuilding kept developing well into the end of the book, which was nice to see, as many works drop the ball as soon as the plot gets going. I'm normally irritated when worldbuilding deliberately goes fuzzy around the edges -- it always feels like it's for the sake of cheap twists later down the line -- but in Station, it always felt like the stuff left unsaid was left unsaid because the city was bigger than the book could hold (it helped that there were no contradictions, everything felt organic rather than forced, and that all of the twists relied on the firmer parts of the world). That is a great feeling.||
||Plotwise, I enjoyed the book a ton, but I'll leave that for a part of this post that isn't tagged vague.||
||The characters were fun, and although they were definitely the weakest part of the book, they still universally had solid writing. Issac and Lin are both good as PoV characters, and show different areas of the city (WORLDBUILDING!) while developing the plot and themes, and the supporting cast is also quite fun. The character development worked very well for me.||

[somber timber]

Livesuit page 3 or something || “It had the sinuousness of a snake but carried by a dozen bone-like legs. ”
Oh so this is from the perspective of humans from a different planet ain’t it ||

[proven token]

Okay, time to get a bit more spoilery [Perdido Street Station ALL] ||omg I loved the Slake-Moths. Genuinely the scariest horror monsters I've read, and I once read a boxed set of all of H. P. Lovecraft's writings because it was 50% off at a bookstore in Seattle (true story). They have scary abilities, are social creatures (which the book plays to great effect), and feel concrete without ever letting you feel secure around them. The design is also absolutely terrifying and caused me to actually lose sleep even before they get fully revealed. The book's pacing was a little slow, but a page never felt wasted. In terms of critiques, I really only have two: I would have liked the flight plotline to get a little more developed post-Moth, and I was really annoyed when Lin got fridged. Like, c'mon. "We want to focus on the main plot, so rather than having plotlines converge like we've been ominously foreshadowing, we're just gonna have the female lead be captured and implied dead, not showing up in any capacity for the next 300ish pages, so the main character can feel sad" is so totally beneath the rest of the book.
Other than that, I liked the story, and enjoyed the ending (the revelation about Yag's crime felt out of the blue, which annoyed me, but it was foreshadowed enough and also important enough for the tone for me to let it slide. Could have happened earlier and been more plot-relevant though).||

I'll definitely check out more of the Bas-Lag books soon!

[somber timber]

Livesuit 8 || -# please stop writing about end of life care in my fantasy/sci fi books ||

Livesuit 12 || ah yes this series really does remind me of old man’s war ||

Livesuit 18 || hmmmmm yeah this is about what I expected ||

[light drum]

The Golden Enclaves 6 ||YURI YURI YURI YURI ngl i really hope they stick together cause it a much better ship and partner than Orion||

[somber timber]

Livesuit 20 and MoG all || so did the humans put a colony on planet and abandon it as bait so they could get swarm in position||

|| there’s all this talk about time being meaningless so like… what’s 3.5k years ||

24 || this explains a lot of chapter 13 or 14 whatever it was lol||

||lol I don’t believe for a second they come back. Oh yeah the time dilation means you never see your friends when the tour is up… sure ||

[somber timber]

33 || Africa mentioned lol that means the Passover reference from book 1 was real||

[snow vessel]

Wait does the novella have 30+ chapters??

[somber timber]

Pages

There are no chapters on my copy

So I’m just saying page numbers

[snow vessel]

Ahh

[royal carbon]

Hmm, I no longer have to travel for work tomorrow. That was going to be my excuse to visit the bookstore.

[ivory cypress]

oooh, Death of the Author keeps inching up in my rankings of the best novel finalists

[somber timber]

Livesuit all || hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm WHO COULD’VE SEEN THAT COMING. They can’t go home, shocker. Also yeah that Mina message was def sneaking it past the censors. Too on the nose. As a novella on it’s own I think this was like 7/10. Functional but nothing really outstanding, feels like old man’s war series did this whole idea a lot more in depth. I don’t think soldier goes to war and realizes how much it sucks the life out of the survivors is particularly novel. Most interesting part was tied to the fact that it’s clearly the enemy of the lobsters. And it lets that be known on page 3. You had mentions of them creating spies in prisoners. Hell we don’t even know when things happen. Why did he know that system at the end? How do you even fight a war where time doesn’t mean anything and you can’t measure who is winning? If they can create synthetic life in book 1 now why don’t they put them in the suits. Are they the suits. But olive or whatever that shade change mentioned at the end was? Like is that a step towards skin tones?

But also yeah that tech is was makes swarm is my guess. Interesting. It’s certainly a choice to make humans the enemy. Because well I’m already rooting for the humans almost subconsciously. Like yes the live suits have a certain horror element but like idk it’s hard to see humans as the bad guys. Also makes the obscurity that the main cast operate in a bit suffocating now that we know what’s out there. Also just a very MCU choice to bury very important info in a novella (or maybe it’s not that important because the scope of the main series is narrower but like the epigraphs in book one made it seem like David gonna do some exploding of things. ||

[mild lance]

||I’m assuming that this is set some time before MoG, but I haven’t read FoB yet so maybe there’s more info there. ||

[sleek jungle]

starting There is no Antimemetics Division 👀

[sleek jungle]

Livesuit and Old Man's War all ||Livesuits as a tool of war are significantly more terrifying than either green human variety, though. The "Blackness. Blackness. Blackness." scene gives me chills when I think about it hard enough||

[cloud socket]

I am also doing The Mercy of Gods as my audiobook but that means I really only listen when driving- actually going to attempt a tandem read with my physical copy buuut I'm only in chapter 3. ||Definitely nails the feel of academia, but in space though||

[analog geode]

its great!

[sleek jungle]

TinAMD 1 ||Two near-immediate thoughts. 1. Immediate Control vibes. (I know SCP came first, but I never engaged with it.) 2. Middle-aged protagonist gets an immediate from me||

[sleek jungle]

tinamd 2 ||a cave filled with a gazillion cubic tonnes of living, breathing lung tissue sure sets the mood||

[small bloom]

Oh I just started it recently too!

[versed agate]

||idk if the book makes it clear, but Antimemetics did start life as an SCP tale, so the vibes are correct. Turns out publishing rights something written on a collaborative platform are complicated though||

[uncut shoal]

I wish there were more middle aged+ women protagonists that didn't involve them being divorced (generally from an abusive husband)

[wind sinew]

Anyone gonna read the new DCC book releasing today?

[light drum]

Author talks about it here
https://www.reddit.com/r/sciencefiction/s/6pejXXJZEH

[sleek jungle]

I cheated and got Matt's Patreon version a month ago. I got the audio version too, though, so I will be listening/rereading after a while
The book is very good!

[wind sinew]

I'm very excited

Getting my copy today, signed and numbered

[sleek jungle]

tinamd 2 ||"the entry you are now reading is created and maintained by u7175, because it is only visible to the victims of u7175" ||

[small bloom]

TINAMD part 2 chapter 2 nsf IThrewDucks ||Well does forgetting your husband exists count ||

[light drum]

TINAMD should be TINAD bith cause it looks better and antimemetics is a single word

[vital ibex]

The Devils part 4 ||Well theres still quite a bit of book left, definitely feels like something is up with Severa and she probably is a soul shifted empress eudoxia judging by that conversation with Balathazar||

[sleek jungle]

TINAD 2 ||I wonder if Gage was the one who ate Lee's other three languages, or if he lost them during previous assignments ||
also || I would be so so dead in a situation like that. Deadedy dead dead. The deadest ||

[uncut shoal]

I spent way too long thinking about this and deciding on "Nah"

[hollow hedge]

DCC-POH ||for whatever reason I wanted to read the 11th floor before the 10th, and did that as soon as the book dropped. Now I’ve seen the destination and it’s time for the journey||

[vital ibex]

The Devils p4 ||And maybe Michels body has the last cousins soul||

[ivory cypress]

yeah that's the scene that elevates Livesuit to much higher rating, strength of that alone 🤩

[sleek jungle]

TINAD theories/thoughts before 3 || Ko's comment, which I haven't clicked on, sort of made me question what there is to comment on, spoiler-wise, regarding the age of the characters. Quinn could be younger or older, or Quinn could be inhuman. The first chapter said she's married with no kids, so I don't think she's divorced. Maybe she married a meme, idk ||
||Quinn's "pet" is interesting, though. It could just be a parasite, but maybe its relationship with the division is more symbiotic? As in, it eats harmful ideas out of Quinn's and her colleagues'/employees' heads. ||

• a bit of Control ||What little I heard of SCP over the years gave me an impression that it generally leans in a weird direction, but... When looked at from a more biological perspective, one must assume that there are anti-memes that consume/feed on evil/antagonistic/dangerous memes. Not even necessarily as a preferred food source, but as a way to keep others from eating all humans and emptying the noosphere. Like we kill the pests to protect our crops, only to harvest them later. Kind of sort of like the Board and Polaris(?) from Control||
  ||Lastly, given the subject and the genre, I assume there were some "memes" aimed at the reader right in the first chapters. Quinn's convo with her boss was a good way to encourage the reader to keep an eye open for things that don't fit. But I'm terrible at being observant, especially when it comes to little details, so I'll probably just go on and let the book surprise me||

[junior dew]

🍿

I wish I had read Antimemetics another time. Was a very fun read and I think I would have gotten even more out of it if it wasn’t during that weird reading funk a few months back

[somber timber]

|| I was thinking much more about the ghost brigades than the standard green soldiers || old man’s war

[sleek jungle]

||weren't they a subtype of regular green soldiers? ||

[somber timber]

Old man’s war series all || kinda in that the bodies were people who died before enlisting, but they didn’t have old people’s brains in them. relied heavily on the computer in their head and communicated through that and had a everybody in the squad constantly talking to each other through it ||

But Old man’s war series general || they still lie to the humans on earth about everything and that’s very much the vibe I got from the jump about the livesuit||

[little dock]

Parade of Horribles first interlude (prologue thing) ||Holy storms, Donut at her best is terrifying||

[oblique zodiac]

what is dcc?

[hollow hedge]

dungeon crawler carl

they released their 8th book today, parade of horribles

[oblique zodiac]

hmmm

I just searched it and idk if its my thing

but an english book would be refreshing

[hollow hedge]

you do need a certain level of cheese tolerance, but it's fun, the audio performance is incredible, and the story itself does develop in an interesting way

[oblique zodiac]

thanks

I'm trying to start reading again, but I am having trouble

Korean books are so hard for me

😔

I just had a thought of reading red rising or

a fantasy series

to get the momentum

Ooo

Maybe I should reread wheel of time

[opaque sundial]

Ahh yes, Wheel of Time. A quick jaunt back into english prose, that series is