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Topics - guessingo

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Books / Epic Fantasy Best Sellers
« on: July 18, 2011, 03:53:32 PM »
I am referring to non-urban epic fantasy where the author creates a new world. Out of curiosity can anyone help me name some of the top fantasy bestsellers of the last few years. I am just curious. I think Dance with Dragons is the 3rd Epic fantasy go number 1 in the last year (Towers of Midnight, Wise Mans Fear, Dance with Dragons)

Way of Kings was #7
Terry Brooks had one in the top 20, not sure if it made top 10.
Jim Butcher had one out that was high, but I am not sure if its his epic or urban fantasy.

any others? you can go back farther than that. Not sure if the new Tolkein Books go that high anymore.

This doesn't make the book better. just curious about it.

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Movies and TV / game of thrones series
« on: April 18, 2011, 03:06:37 PM »
So what did people think? It has been 10 years since I read the first 3 books, so I am not 100% sure if the first episode followed the books real closely. I think it did. I thought it was pretty good. Martins books take time to draw you in. They don't have a really exciting opening sequence that draws you right in. So hopefully HBO will get fans to stick with it long enough to get sucked in.

The girl they chose for the older Stark daughter does NOT look 13 at all. She is like 17-18 and looks it. It would probably be difficult to find a girl that young to play that kind of role (I can't remember if it is Sansa or Arya its been so long since I read the books I have them mixed up).

I thought the dothraki fight sequences at the wedding were typical TV dance fighting and was not impressed. It was obvious they were fake fighting.

In general I liked it. However, I do not know if I would be enamored with it if I was not a fantasy/sci-fi fan.

3
Books / Peter Orullian's first book
« on: April 05, 2011, 02:13:46 PM »
Has anyone read the arc to his first book? I first heard of him when I saw an excellent interview he did with Brandon Sanderson. He asked alot of non-standard questions. Brandon seemed to get asked alot of the same questions over and over again and this guy asked new and interesting questions.

I also checked out his website. I am curious what people think of his book. I think it is out next week.

http://www.orullian.com/


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Books / why do editors and agents hate prologues
« on: March 08, 2011, 04:46:03 PM »
I have been reading quite a few writer, editor, and agent blogs lately. It seems like alot of agents hate prologues. The prologue to the Eye of the World sets up the whole series. It draws you and makes you want to read the entire book.

I am not really sure how a prologue is necessary all that different than a first chapter. You just call it a prologue so it stands out as setup material. Is it just that alot of people write them poorly?

5
Books / wise mans fear sold out at Barnes and Noble
« on: March 06, 2011, 05:22:42 AM »
Went to the Barnes and Noble near my house in Northern Virginia. It is sold out. Wow. I have never heard of that happening with a bestseller new release.


6
Books / board changes...
« on: February 22, 2011, 03:03:48 PM »
might be a good idea to limit people to 1 new thread every 5 minutes and not let people create a new thread for a few days on a new account after all this spam.

if spam happens once, it will happen again. might be more common as Dan, Howard, and Brandon become more well known.

7
Books / post apocalyptic Sci-Fi
« on: February 01, 2011, 04:59:12 PM »
Been playing fallout alot. This has put me in the mood for post-apocalyptic sci-fi of some sort.


I have read:
The Stand by Stephen King
The Road by Cormac McCarthy (he doesn't consider this sci-fi... it also won a pulitzer. really terrific book)
Lamentation series by Ken Scholes is post apocalyptic fantasy (these are pretty good)
Know about Terry Brooks post apocalyptic stuff, but I am not interested.
A Canticle for Leibowitz (I think this was basically the first one. This is a real classic).
Safehold books by David Webber (great idea, mediocre writing)
Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson (can be argued as post apocalyptic)

Prefer books more current than some 1950s ones like Earth Abides. I am open to a wide variety of books.

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Books / 2 ebooks cost more than hardcover books on amazon
« on: October 06, 2010, 07:47:01 PM »
I thought this was interesting. I don't have an ereader. Not sure if anyone else will find it interesting, but I figured I would post it just in case.

If the demand for ebooks increases, it does make economic sense to charge more for them than hardcover books.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/05/business/media/05follett.html?src=me&ref=business


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Books / dark fantasy
« on: October 04, 2010, 09:44:38 PM »
I just finished The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie. This was great. I really like how he did not pull back on the violence. The second to the last chapter called "The Bloody Nine" is the kind of fight seen I have been waiting for. I get frustrated with fantasy novels that try to gloss over how bad things are and pull back. This book makes me wish Rand Al'Thor would torture forsaken.

I have read George RR Martins books. Any other dark fantasy recommendation? I mean dark in a Martin/Abercrombie sense, not fatalistic in a Michael Moorcock sense.  Please let me know if you know of any dark sci-fi also.

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Books / Fantasy/Sci-Fi book review sites
« on: September 28, 2010, 04:28:38 PM »
I know about Elistist book reviews. Does anyone know of any other good ones that you really like?

11
Books / anyone use audible.com?
« on: September 28, 2010, 12:35:42 PM »
They say that most books cost 1 book credit. What types of books cost more than 1 credit? I am concerned they may spin this, so the best selling new releases are the small number of books that cost more than 1 book credit.

12
Movies and TV / sci-fi/fantasy web series
« on: September 21, 2010, 01:32:10 PM »
I know about The Guide, Legend of Neil, and Doctor Horrible. Any other sci-fi/fantasy web series. Here is a list of web series on wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Web_television_series

13
Brandon Sanderson / Brandons next Alcatraz book
« on: September 17, 2010, 12:39:14 PM »
When did Brandon have time to work on this? Just curious how he schedules this stuff. My understanding is that Way of Kings is in large part based on work he did before he was published. However, I think the Alcatraz books are all new ideas. Just curious how he had the time to work on this. Do these books take less time to write than Wheel of Time or his other fantasy books? I believe he wrote that he works 14 hour days. Even doing that, how does he get this book in too?

Also, does Brandon go on a book tour for the Alcatraz books also?

15
Writing Group / story ideas
« on: September 08, 2010, 04:16:35 PM »
I thought about doing some writing as a hobby. One idea I have had is to combine a fantasy world with magic with technology. I don't want them to be mutual exclusive. It seems that most books that do this have magic fading away when technology starts advancing. I would want the world to have 2 tracks. Magic has been around for a long time and is advanced, but the world is starting to industrialized (more than the Robert Jordan world).

One tenant would be that people who use magic have it easy so they don't have to innovate and come up with better ways to do this. People without technology need to come up with better ways to do things. This is similiar to the north and south at the time of the civil war. The south had free slave labor so they did not look for new ways to farm or industrialize, but the north did not have any slaves so labor was more expensive. There was incentive to innovate.

I don't really have a plot idea for this, just a general idea. It is the kind of world I have wanted to see in fantasy, but I have not found it.

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