The book discussion thread

[Kaamos_Llama]

Nearly finished Jason Schreiers Press Reset. Really interesting to here the stories of developers from different parts of the industry from smaller scale indies like The Molasses Flood to figures like Ken Levine and people who worked with him at Irrational. I also recommend Blood Sweat and Pixels of his if anyone is interested in how the game industry works from the inside according to people on the ground.

Hes got a new book out very soon on the Story of Blizzard from the early days until now which Im looking forward to picking up.

 

[Johnway]

Another book finished, this time Fabius Bile: Clonelord by josh Reynolds.

We continue from where the first book ended. Years (centuries?) and all is not well on Fabius bile's ship, the surviving chaos marines of the 12th millennial have decided to stage an insurrection after the novelty of being saved having warn off. Although swiftly resolved with the least amount of bloodshed, the issues never let up as more enemies from his past come out of the wood work. Eidolon forces Fabius bile to return back to the planet called Harmony and offers Fabius a task of retrieving some precious (untainted) gene seed. With such a great prize on the line, Fabius agrees to the task knowing full well that its practically certain that he's going to get stabbed in the back once the job is done. But that's the least of his problems, the Gilded cage offering of restoring the Emperor's children legion to its former glory looms once more for Fabius bile and the circumstances have changed, becoming more enticing....


Another good book, this one is quite an eventful story with a lot of things happening all throughout the story with plenty of cameos from famous people i won't spoil who or what, but its great to see him. Well worth a read.

Roll on the third book.

 

[BeardyHat]

Nearly finished Jason Schreiers Press Reset. Really interesting to here the stories of developers from different parts of the industry from smaller scale indies like The Molasses Flood to figures like Ken Levine and people who worked with him at Irrational. I also recommend Blood Sweat and Pixels of his if anyone is interested in how the game industry works from the inside according to people on the ground.

Hes got a new book out very soon on the Story of Blizzard from the early days until now which Im looking forward to picking up.

I somehow have Press Reset already purchased on my Kindle, but I don't recall ever buying it. I thought about reading it, having just finished Play Nice about Blizzard, but I'm not sure if I'm a huge fan of Schreier's writing style. But maybe I'm just grating a little bit against non-fiction right now, tough to say.

That said, Play Nice was an interesting read, but I feel it's purely documentary in nature and doesn't feel like it has a whole lot to say otherwise. But again, I might just be being harsh on it, as I loved Masters of Doom, which isn't much different, aside from it taking more liberties with its characters.

Another book finished, this time Fabius Bile: Clonelord by josh Reynolds.

We continue from where the first book ended. Years (centuries?) and all is not well on Fabius bile's ship, the surviving chaos marines of the 12th millennial have decided to stage an insurrection after the novelty of being saved having warn off. Although swiftly resolved with the least amount of bloodshed, the issues never let up as more enemies from his past come out of the wood work. Eidolon forces Fabius bile to return back to the planet called Harmony and offers Fabius a task of retrieving some precious (untainted) gene seed. With such a great prize on the line, Fabius agrees to the task knowing full well that its practically certain that he's going to get stabbed in the back once the job is done. But that's the least of his problems, the Gilded cage offering of restoring the Emperor's children legion to its former glory looms once more for Fabius bile and the circumstances have changed, becoming more enticing....


Another good book, this one is quite an eventful story with a lot of things happening all throughout the story with plenty of cameos from famous people i won't spoil who or what, but its great to see him. Well worth a read.

Roll on the third book.

I need to pick-up the second Twice Dead King book. I finished the first about two years ago now and been meaning to begin the second, just haven't. Also should probably pick-up Brutal Kunnin' again, but books from an Orks perspective are always a little bit silly, so I need to see if I can get over that.

At any rate, after finishing Play Nice, I think I might read the next book in the Annhilation series by Jeff VanderMeer. I felt pretty indifferent about Annihilation after finishing it, but I was thinking about it last night and to its credit, I did finish it, which certainly isn't a thing you can say about books I'm bored by, so maybe the second book will be of interest?

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I somehow have Press Reset already purchased on my Kindle, but I don't recall ever buying it. I thought about reading it, having just finished Play Nice about Blizzard, but I'm not sure if I'm a huge fan of Schreier's writing style. But maybe I'm just grating a little bit against non-fiction right now, tough to say.

That said, Play Nice was an interesting read, but I feel it's purely documentary in nature and doesn't feel like it has a whole lot to say otherwise. But again, I might just be being harsh on it, as I loved Masters of Doom, which isn't much different, aside from it taking more liberties with its characters.

Fair enough, havent noticed the writing style bothering me, but I'm listening to the audiobook versions so that might have something to do with it. Finished Play Nice as well.

I guess theyre mostly meant to be documentaries. Theres a section at the end of Press Reset where he talks about various ways the industry could potentially avoid crunch and protect developers better in general and the up and down sides of those. Not sure what the moral or message of the Blizzard story could be though? Just a lot of interesting stories from a company that kind of grew up with the industry and the reasons why they ended up where they did.

I was also kind of neutral on Annihilation, I picked up the next in the series but havent read it. Have very little memory of what actually happened in the first book, aside from broad strokes so should probably read that again beforehand.

 

[BeardyHat]

Fair enough, havent noticed the writing style bothering me, but I'm listening to the audiobook versions so that might have something to do with it. Finished Play Nice as well.

I guess theyre mostly meant to be documentaries. Theres a section at the end of Press Reset where he talks about various ways the industry could potentially avoid crunch and protect developers better in general and the up and down sides of those. Not sure what the moral or message of the Blizzard story could be though? Just a lot of interesting stories from a company that kind of grew up with the industry and the reasons why they ended up where they did.

I was also kind of neutral on Annihilation, I picked up the next in the series but havent read it. Have very little memory of what actually happened in the first book, aside from broad strokes so should probably read that again beforehand.

Yeah, I'm just being weird about it, I think. Trying to suss out my feelings, as I mostly felt kind of neutral or indifferent towards Play Nice, which I think is the only Schrier book I've read.

Thinking back on Annihilation, some of the stuff that bothered me about it were the male author writing women characters. Not that it can't be done, but there's just some weird **** in there that gives me the Heebie Jeebies, like the main character describing feeling her husband "inside of her." The way it's written is just off putting and I've never known any woman who thinks those things; even posed the question to my wife and she gave me a weird look

 

[Johnway]

I need to pick-up the second Twice Dead King book. I finished the first about two years ago now and been meaning to begin the second, just haven't. Also should probably pick-up Brutal Kunnin' again, but books from an Orks perspective are always a little bit silly, so I need to see if I can get over that.

not quite on my backlog of books, but i have seen them, just not being interested to dip my toes into them. I believe Brutal Kunnin is a more humorous take on WH40K universe from an orks perspective. etc.


For necron stories, i really do recommend infinite and dvide by robert rath as it does give the 2 necrons some decent personalities and its feel like 2 geriatrics just hating on each other. Funny thing is that they had been enemies in life and all throughout robot life.



I am of course reading the final book of the fabius bile series, after that i hope to read something away from the WH40k universe. I have been reading some comics but honestly, not much to say about them.

 

[BeardyHat]

A couple of days ago, in the library I have in my front yard I found quite a few Star Trek books. I've actually been meaning to pick one up for a little while and see if they're any good, so it was quite serendipitous.

So I've been reading Star Trek - The Next Generation: Here There Be Dragons. I've only read about 4 chapters so far, but I have to say I'm enjoying it and it feels so far like the author has captured the characters quite well.

I feel a little silly reading a TV show based book from 30 years ago, but it's some nice fluff and I've been wanting to get back to my TNG watch for a little while here and this is filling that void.

 

[Johnway]

Another few books finished, lets start with Great naval battles of the 20th century by Jean-Yves Delitte. its a volume of storeis detailing 3 battles: TsuShima, Jutland, Midway. Honestly i was incredibly disappointed by this. Yes, the art work is nice, but the story and battles themselves are woefully undercooked with very little information to events that took place during these battles. if you want a book that has more story and/or history to them, try The battle or Berezina (granted, they span over 3 volumes).


But for the main event, i finished Fabius Bile: Manflayer by josh Reynolds .The 3rd and final book of the fabius bile series. Continuing after events in the second book, after the schism that took place, Fabius bile has made a visit to the Dark Elder Home corramuagh to study their knowledge of flesh craft in the hopes of curing himself and developing a superior human species. But Fabius being Fabius has royally pissed off his Dark Elder hosts and now they're out for blood.

As Fabius Bile losses mount and a disasterous counter attack results in even greater losses and much internal infighting, Fabius has little choice but to make a final stand against the Dark Elder, he goes on pilgrimage to rally his forces and cash in every favor for the final battle knowing that it would not be enough to weather the onslaught. The center cannot hold and nothing will be the same ever again.

A cracking finale for our anti-hero. Well written and goes into much detail into the man himself and a bit of lore as to why/how he refuses to die even if you try to kill him. in Many ways he does come off as a sympathetic character, but as others have noted, he may think he is doing humanity a great favour, but in truth all he has created are monsters.