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The BAEN website is really annoying
Oct. 15th, 2006 11:58 pmI get BAEN to send me newsletters about new books, and sometimes It's a good thing (see my picking up and enjoying the three extant Temeraire books) but usually it's kind of boring and I cringe from their selections of translated manga like a vampire from sunlight. God, they have such horrible taste!
But, BAEN has published a lot of books I like, including this one I am rereading again. (The War God's Own by David Weber, if you were wondering.) I gathered there was a book before it in the series, and the way it ends left me doubting it wouldn't have a book after, and I was right. But on the BAEN page, you click on a link, and it flashes a page of interesting stuff -- like definitions, or the work MAPS really big, and then switches to a blurb and the back button does nothing at all. Rar!
I did learn some interesting things. Not only is the book before this one still in print, there's a new addition with a related short story stuck in the ass of it, which is cool. And I saw the cover and cringed. And then I saw the cover for the book after this one and cringed harder.
Bahzell is a hradani, which is a fictional race, obviously. He's seven and a half feet tall, and looks much like a giant human, except with fox ears.
Fox ears. With fur. That swivel and flatten and perk and are generally awesome.
Without exception, each cover shows him as a big guy with elf ears. The cover for the newest book is worst of all, really, although it's irksome how you can't tell Brandark from Bahzell on the cover of the one I actually own, except by what they're wearing. I mean, at least the cover scene actually happens (even if it's incidental and boring), but still. There are elves in this setting. (There are also half-elves, who are much more annoying.) Hradani are not an elf stand-in. RAR, I say!
Bah. So. Beyond that, I saw all the listed books in the same series as Saber & Shadow and whimpered a little. Saber & Shadow was the first fantasy novel I actually owned, and it's filled with gore and cursing and rampant sexuality, but when the titular ladies actually get together in the sack, it's a fade to black in a big big way, which I appreciated at the time I got the book. Also, it takes place in the Fifth Millenium of Earth where humanity has fallen pretty far after some interesting cataclysm or other, and it's fun to recognise places and etymologies when I read. So it's possible I might want to read these other books.
BAEN also published most-if-not-all of Mercedes Lackey's urban fantasy books, and there's this really glaring error on the webpage. You see, Misty wrote some novels for the game A Bard's Tale. She also wrote a series of interconnected books about musicians and gypsies (which may well be set in a distant fantasy future of an Earth that had some technology shattering cataclysm - noticing a pattern? - given the ruins of skyscrapers and also the extraterrestrials trying to rebuild their tech) which were catagorized into series Bardic Voices, and Bardic Choices. I have no idea what the difference is, and I've read all the books more than once. Anyway, BAEN seems to be under the impression that these are all the same series.
*headdesk*
On the bright side, there are two books after One Foot In The Grave by Wm. Mark Simmons, which the blurbs would suggest are just as weird as the first one. I may need to get a vampire fix, although there are an awful lot of zombies indicated....
But, BAEN has published a lot of books I like, including this one I am rereading again. (The War God's Own by David Weber, if you were wondering.) I gathered there was a book before it in the series, and the way it ends left me doubting it wouldn't have a book after, and I was right. But on the BAEN page, you click on a link, and it flashes a page of interesting stuff -- like definitions, or the work MAPS really big, and then switches to a blurb and the back button does nothing at all. Rar!
I did learn some interesting things. Not only is the book before this one still in print, there's a new addition with a related short story stuck in the ass of it, which is cool. And I saw the cover and cringed. And then I saw the cover for the book after this one and cringed harder.
Bahzell is a hradani, which is a fictional race, obviously. He's seven and a half feet tall, and looks much like a giant human, except with fox ears.
Fox ears. With fur. That swivel and flatten and perk and are generally awesome.
Without exception, each cover shows him as a big guy with elf ears. The cover for the newest book is worst of all, really, although it's irksome how you can't tell Brandark from Bahzell on the cover of the one I actually own, except by what they're wearing. I mean, at least the cover scene actually happens (even if it's incidental and boring), but still. There are elves in this setting. (There are also half-elves, who are much more annoying.) Hradani are not an elf stand-in. RAR, I say!
Bah. So. Beyond that, I saw all the listed books in the same series as Saber & Shadow and whimpered a little. Saber & Shadow was the first fantasy novel I actually owned, and it's filled with gore and cursing and rampant sexuality, but when the titular ladies actually get together in the sack, it's a fade to black in a big big way, which I appreciated at the time I got the book. Also, it takes place in the Fifth Millenium of Earth where humanity has fallen pretty far after some interesting cataclysm or other, and it's fun to recognise places and etymologies when I read. So it's possible I might want to read these other books.
BAEN also published most-if-not-all of Mercedes Lackey's urban fantasy books, and there's this really glaring error on the webpage. You see, Misty wrote some novels for the game A Bard's Tale. She also wrote a series of interconnected books about musicians and gypsies (which may well be set in a distant fantasy future of an Earth that had some technology shattering cataclysm - noticing a pattern? - given the ruins of skyscrapers and also the extraterrestrials trying to rebuild their tech) which were catagorized into series Bardic Voices, and Bardic Choices. I have no idea what the difference is, and I've read all the books more than once. Anyway, BAEN seems to be under the impression that these are all the same series.
*headdesk*
On the bright side, there are two books after One Foot In The Grave by Wm. Mark Simmons, which the blurbs would suggest are just as weird as the first one. I may need to get a vampire fix, although there are an awful lot of zombies indicated....