Post by Progress on Apr 7, 2016 13:26:35 GMT -5
Here we go, this thread pushes us over the edge and into true nerd territory.
I was staring at my bookshelf this morning and got sick of seeing the same names over and over again; George R.R Martin, Drew Karpyshyn, Joe Schreiber, Terry Pratchet, H.P Lovecraft. Other than a few names attached to one or two books those are the main authors that make up my collection, I have more of their books than anyone else's. So in an effort to broaden my horizons I began searching for books that I might be interested in and ran into a problem. Books aren't really marketed very well. The covers are bland, information is scarce and reviews are unreliable, especially when most of the best sellers of any given store have a big fat picture of a guys abs on the front, or a shield, or a mask. I found one that just had a pebble on the cover and white background. It just doesn't help. Most of an authors success comes from word of mouth and that's what I want from this thread and if you want the same thing then welcome aboard. I trust you guys more than I trust the masses of middle aged housewives.
Throw your author/book/comic recommendations into the pot and let others pick them out to have a look for themselves. I'll throw in a few to start with.
100 Bullets.
It's a comic book with an interesting premise. Take a person with a grudge and give them a handgun, now give them one hundred bullets that are utterly untraceable and once found will halt any and all investigation into the crime, then give them all the information they need to carry out their vengeance. Then watch what happens. The first few issues are completely stand alone, so there's no need to worry about getting all of the issues to know the full story, but if you do read more then the story grows broader and broader the further in you go until every issue is a continuation of the last. There are, interestingly, 100 issues of this comic.
Mogworld.
A hilarious book by Ben Croshaw. There's not a lot I can say without revealing the plot points but the main draw of the book, for me, was it's Monty Python-like humor. The premise of the plot is that the main character, a failing student of a mage college dies during a raid and, decades later, is brought back to life only to find that now nobody can die. Despite this he makes it his unlife's mission to find a way to kill himself again. It's heavily influenced by the Discworld novels and, as I said, the comedy is almost on point to the standards of Monty Python. Very early on in the book a necromancer revives a bunch of corpses and commands them to serve him, after a brief round table discussion the shambling masses turn to him and ask him about wages and job benefits. The whole book is a parody on fantasy and video game tropes.
Drew Karpyshyn.
If you're into Star Wars, Mass Effect or Dungeons and Dragons, then this guy is the author for you. He wrote the script for The Knights of the Old Republic games as well as the first two Mass Effect games, all of his best work seems to come in threes. The Mass Effect novels, the Star Wars: Darth Bane novels (Some of the best Star Wars books out there) as well as his own original trilogy the Chaos Born novels. His strength is definitely in sci-fi though, his fantasy books don't seem as enjoyable. He's excellent at writing things from the antagonists point of view, which is why most of his star wars novels focus on the Sith and the cruel plots they cook up to best each other. Would you get anything out of his work if you weren't into the source material though? I'd say yes, since everybody here is a writer. It's a good opportunity to study how the mind of a crazed villain works and pick up a few pointers on how the bad guy justifies his actions beyond the cliched "because he thinks he's doing the right thing." A lot of his characterization for villains has gone into Erasmus in that regard.
I was staring at my bookshelf this morning and got sick of seeing the same names over and over again; George R.R Martin, Drew Karpyshyn, Joe Schreiber, Terry Pratchet, H.P Lovecraft. Other than a few names attached to one or two books those are the main authors that make up my collection, I have more of their books than anyone else's. So in an effort to broaden my horizons I began searching for books that I might be interested in and ran into a problem. Books aren't really marketed very well. The covers are bland, information is scarce and reviews are unreliable, especially when most of the best sellers of any given store have a big fat picture of a guys abs on the front, or a shield, or a mask. I found one that just had a pebble on the cover and white background. It just doesn't help. Most of an authors success comes from word of mouth and that's what I want from this thread and if you want the same thing then welcome aboard. I trust you guys more than I trust the masses of middle aged housewives.
Throw your author/book/comic recommendations into the pot and let others pick them out to have a look for themselves. I'll throw in a few to start with.
100 Bullets.
It's a comic book with an interesting premise. Take a person with a grudge and give them a handgun, now give them one hundred bullets that are utterly untraceable and once found will halt any and all investigation into the crime, then give them all the information they need to carry out their vengeance. Then watch what happens. The first few issues are completely stand alone, so there's no need to worry about getting all of the issues to know the full story, but if you do read more then the story grows broader and broader the further in you go until every issue is a continuation of the last. There are, interestingly, 100 issues of this comic.
Mogworld.
A hilarious book by Ben Croshaw. There's not a lot I can say without revealing the plot points but the main draw of the book, for me, was it's Monty Python-like humor. The premise of the plot is that the main character, a failing student of a mage college dies during a raid and, decades later, is brought back to life only to find that now nobody can die. Despite this he makes it his unlife's mission to find a way to kill himself again. It's heavily influenced by the Discworld novels and, as I said, the comedy is almost on point to the standards of Monty Python. Very early on in the book a necromancer revives a bunch of corpses and commands them to serve him, after a brief round table discussion the shambling masses turn to him and ask him about wages and job benefits. The whole book is a parody on fantasy and video game tropes.
Drew Karpyshyn.
If you're into Star Wars, Mass Effect or Dungeons and Dragons, then this guy is the author for you. He wrote the script for The Knights of the Old Republic games as well as the first two Mass Effect games, all of his best work seems to come in threes. The Mass Effect novels, the Star Wars: Darth Bane novels (Some of the best Star Wars books out there) as well as his own original trilogy the Chaos Born novels. His strength is definitely in sci-fi though, his fantasy books don't seem as enjoyable. He's excellent at writing things from the antagonists point of view, which is why most of his star wars novels focus on the Sith and the cruel plots they cook up to best each other. Would you get anything out of his work if you weren't into the source material though? I'd say yes, since everybody here is a writer. It's a good opportunity to study how the mind of a crazed villain works and pick up a few pointers on how the bad guy justifies his actions beyond the cliched "because he thinks he's doing the right thing." A lot of his characterization for villains has gone into Erasmus in that regard.