Book Revue Thread

[Bakustra]

this is a thread to review books you've been reading that other people might like reading

throne of the crescent moon is a fantasy novel by saladin ahmed. it is his debut novel.

the only original thing to be found here is the setting- the plot is nothing you haven't seen before, the characters, while not stock, are not hugely original- aboullah is danny glover in lethal weapon, raseed is every awkward teenage guy in fantasy, zamia is a barbarian type with a bit of teenage girl- but originality is overrated. what matters more is execution and the novel is very well-executed. the basic plot may be ordinary, but there is a genuine life here and a real sense of threat from the villains that nevertheless allows them to be defeated.

the setting is marvelous- it is basically early islamic egypt- one of the villains is empowered by what is implied to be the ghost of fantasy-anubis, and the kem (compare egyptian kmt/kemet) are an ancient empire that fell, was ruled by faroes and built pyramids- and the milieu is appropriate. djinn wander the desert and are immensely powerful entities according to the protagonist, magic comes either from god or iblis, verses of the fantasy-qu'ran can be used to repel evil and disintegrate ghuls, and an alchemist character has a knife with built-in knockout gas and pepper spray for self-defense. the ghuls are like the golems in mieville's iron council- manifold in shape, from stone to sand to bone to the terrifying, unkillable skin-ghuls.

the books is "book I of the crescent moon kingdoms" but the story is mostly self-contained, ending with only a couple loose ends that set up a sequel but don't require it. the main character retires at the end of the novel anyhow, so book II will probably be more sequel than part ii of a trilogy. if you can tolerate a straightforward but well-executed fluffy fantasy tale, then you could do worse than to pick this up.

[starku]

Hahaha guys look a cool gif
BUDS BUDS BUDS AM I RIGHT LOL
This one time i was an author who owned guns and you should too wheee

[Aaron]

What the?

[starku]

Don't you encroach on my right to post stupid contentless shit in threads trying to discuss something

[Bakustra]

strak i am willing to lay down my comfort (maybe) to defend that right

[uraniun235]

Riding Rockets is a wonderfully entertaining book about the shenanigans that went on in the NASA astronaut corps in the late 70s and 80s. There's some feel-good hilarity about a massively chauvinist pig eventually learning how to respect human beings, and some righteous anger about the severely dysfunctional management at NASA; this includes both the management of the astronauts themselves, and of safety issues which of course eventually leads to seven dead astronauts. It's great in that it doesn't go with the usual propaganda of astronauts being these virtuous boy scouts, and instead admits to the fact that a lot of them didn't grow up until their 40s, if at all; in a sense the book is as much about how fucked up Mike Mullane's upbringing was as it is about the early Space Shuttle program.

[starku]

OMG ROFFLE

[uraniun235]

these copters are rofled for the epic winnery goon sire

[RyanThunder]

Riding Rockets is a wonderfully entertaining book about the shenanigans that went on in the NASA astronaut corps in the late 70s and 80s. There's some feel-good hilarity about a massively chauvinist pig eventually learning how to respect human beings, and some righteous anger about the severely dysfunctional management at NASA; this includes both the management of the astronauts themselves, and of safety issues which of course eventually leads to seven dead astronauts. It's great in that it doesn't go with the usual propaganda of astronauts being these virtuous boy scouts, and instead admits to the fact that a lot of them didn't grow up until their 40s, if at all; in a sense the book is as much about how fucked up Mike Mullane's upbringing was as it is about the early Space Shuttle program.

How is the propaganda more harmful than helpful though

[uraniun235]

i'm not sure how to respond to that

alls i was getting at was that his portrayal of the astronaut corps made the book very enjoyable to read

[Bakustra]

I just finished Walt and the Promise of Progress City, a book about how Walt Disney's architectural projects intersected with theories of urban planning and design and continue to reverberate today. Fun read, lots of interesting stuff.

Now, on to Foucault's Pendulum!

[Stofsk]

Riding Rockets is a wonderfully entertaining book about the shenanigans that went on in the NASA astronaut corps in the late 70s and 80s. There's some feel-good hilarity about a massively chauvinist pig eventually learning how to respect human beings, and some righteous anger about the severely dysfunctional management at NASA; this includes both the management of the astronauts themselves, and of safety issues which of course eventually leads to seven dead astronauts. It's great in that it doesn't go with the usual propaganda of astronauts being these virtuous boy scouts, and instead admits to the fact that a lot of them didn't grow up until their 40s, if at all; in a sense the book is as much about how fucked up Mike Mullane's upbringing was as it is about the early Space Shuttle program.

I wouldn't mind reading more about this.

[Crazedwraith]

So Books, let me turn this away from things people might like and on to books i am reading.

The Mandalorian Armour An EU book I'd always wanted to read when I was younger. It's about Boba Fett written just before prequels came out and ruined everything gave Boba some history. In this book Boba has no history and is well kind of boring. Everyone talks him up like he's the shit but its most of the way through the book and he done almost nothing. He did assemble a team of bounty hunters which included boba, two other bounty hunters from ESB and one sor of cool original dude. Well guess who dies.

I can't tell if this is worse than the EU I used to read or if its just that I've grown out of Star Wars. lol.

Oh well, next up another book borrowed from a friend On Bassalisk's Station

[Stofsk]

So Books, let me turn this away from things people might like and on to books i am reading.

The Mandalorian Armour An EU book I'd always wanted to read when I was younger. It's about Boba Fett written just before prequels came out and ruined everything gave Boba some history. In this book Boba has no history and is well kind of boring. Everyone talks him up like he's the shit but its most of the way through the book. He did assemble a team of bounty hunters which included boba, two other bounty hunters from ESB and one sor of cool original dude. Well guess who dies.

I can't tell if this is worse than the EU I used to read or if its just that I've grown out of Star Wars. lol.

The last EU book I read was Tim Zahn's 'Choices of One', which I thought was decent. But I don't look at any other author of SW EU than him. I've also grown out of SW too.

Oh well, next up another book borrowed from a friend On Bassalisk's Station

ohdear

[Aaron]

Yeah, don't read past that book in the series.

[Crazedwraith]

oddly, I mentioned to my friend I'd heard the HH series got worse as it went on and she claimed it didn't...

[Phantasee]

It gets better. TM

[Losonti Tokash]

what the fuck phant

[Phantasee]

?

[phongn]

HH sure as hell doesn't get better!