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Polaron posted:I recently read A Memory Called Empire and loved it. Always fun to read a space opera that has little to no space combat. I'm about halfway through this and it's pretty good. I do think "brilliantine" should be a once-a-book word, though.
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Sep 23, 2020 15:18
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Taintrunner posted:If you want something trashy but enjoyable, I like the Star Carrier series by Ian Douglas. Some decent military themed hard sci-fi where they come up with inventive solutions to ridiculous spacewar problems. Also the ships transform, which is fun. Heritage and Legacy I think were more fun reads than star carrier. My recommendation would be the Commonwealth Saga. It starts with Pandora's Star. It's got some pretty out there tech, and the aliens in it are interesting in ways I haven't seen in other books. The later series in the same universe are also pretty stand out book, and involve the transition between standard economies and a post-scarcity culture and the clash between the two. An oldy but a goodie would be The Gods Themselves by Asimov. It's a pretty wild ride. It's a book of 3 parts with WILDLY different viewpoints of similar events. Edit: Also, if you want trashy sci fi books Dauntless from the Lost Fleet series is good in that realm. A war has been raging for 100 years, and the turnover for navy personel is so fast that they've forgotten how to apply tactics and formations to space battles where time dilation and speed of light communication effects when orders happen. They find a cryo pod of a man who was a victim of the very first battle of the war and he brings "the secret" of orginised battles to the current time with him. CainFortea fucked around with this message at 18:11 on Sep 24, 2020 |
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Sep 24, 2020 18:09
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Lemniscate Blue posted:This sounds interesting. Matt Stover (and also Aaron Allston) wrote some of the only non-terrible Star Wars books (notably the novelization of Episode 3 which is so much better than the movie it's startling) so I'm curious to see what he can do when he's not playing in someone else's sandbox. it's really fun. It's the first in a series that is nearly all bangers (the third is the shortest and least good but the 2nd and 4th are maybe my favorite pulpy scifi books)
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Sep 24, 2020 21:34
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Lemniscate Blue posted:This sounds interesting. Matt Stover (and also Aaron Allston) wrote some of the only non-terrible Star Wars books (notably the novelization of Episode 3 which is so much better than the movie it's startling) so I'm curious to see what he can do when he's not playing in someone else's sandbox. Starfighters of Adumar, too. Zero Jedi, just four New Republic fighter pilots stranded on a strange world full of danger, romance, intrigue and the Star Wars universe's only toilet pun to date. It's explicitly based on The Three Musketeers, down to the locals dueling with what are basically rapiers with contact-activated guns instead of pointy tips.
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Sep 24, 2020 22:59
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have you guys heard of this cool book called dune? my grandfather recommended it to me and it’s really old but still pretty cool
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Sep 25, 2020 10:18
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"The Forever War" - Joe Haldeman. A pretty epic read, of one man's point of view of a war spanning thousands of years, (time dilation, every time they travel to go into battle, years, decades and centuries of time passes on Earth). Haldeman is a Vietnam Vet, and the book is an allegory of his time there and transition back to normal life. A solid read with some WTAF plot twists, that nobody sees coming. I mean nobody...if you saw the major plot twist, go and immediately buy a lottery ticket. Warner Brother's picked up the rights to it in 2016, and are planning a movie adaptation at some point, with Ridley Scott to direct it.....one day. "The Saga of The Seven Suns" - Kevin J Anderson. Great read with a few volumes to tell the complete saga. Human's gently caress up start an intergalactic war by accident (probably art imitating future life), well detailed and fleshed out story with it's own lore, better than Disney's efforts with the Star Wars franchise (Mandalorian excluded).
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Sep 27, 2020 03:42
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JazzPaws posted:"The Saga of The Seven Suns" - Kevin J Anderson. I will counter suggest not reading this series. It’s what happens when a guy who made all his money writing Star Wars EU material gets let loose with a blank canvas. And yes, I read all seven the main series books
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Sep 27, 2020 04:12
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Kevin J Anderson should be in some sort of super prison
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Sep 27, 2020 13:27
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Sir DonkeyPunch posted:I will counter suggest not reading this series. It’s what happens when a guy who made all his money writing Star Wars EU material gets let loose with a blank canvas. And yes, I read all seven the main series books I only read the first couple but I second this. They're so focused on "world building" his derivative personal take on Dune that they're nearly plotless. They don't even benefit from vaguely reminding you of something good you liked. Avoid, avoid, avoid.
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Sep 27, 2020 13:32
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Do you like being depressed? Have I got the novella for you! Gypsy by Carter Sholz. What if, in the near future, our dying hellcivilization of universal surveillance, environmental devastation, and endless war managed to launch a manned interstellar mission?
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Sep 28, 2020 15:56
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Love to read a book with a slur for a name.
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Sep 29, 2020 05:45
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Zartosht posted:The next 2 are actually way better, none of the virtual world stuff and lots of Space Stuff. seconded. i just finished the series. the second 2 are a little more direct in their sci fi. really enjoyed them.
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Sep 29, 2020 19:36
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I don't know if it exactly counts as sci-fi, but the Destroyermen series by Taylor Anderson has two old destroyers from WWII travel to an alternate world where the dinosaurs never died and which is also a dumpng ground for various strains of human history. They fight dinosaurs, Aztec-Spanish cultists, and fascists. Pretty good.
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Sep 30, 2020 07:47
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Mycroft Holmes posted:I don't know if it exactly counts as sci-fi, but the Destroyermen series by Taylor Anderson has two old destroyers from WWII travel to an alternate world where the dinosaurs never died and which is also a dumpng ground for various strains of human history. They fight dinosaurs, Aztec-Spanish cultists, and fascists. Pretty good. So it's like that one episode of Sharpe's Rifles but nautical and set during the Spanish Civil War? 
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Oct 1, 2020 16:15
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Lemniscate Blue posted:Love to read a book with a slur for a name. that's a hard kink to satisfy
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Oct 14, 2020 18:43
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Book recommendations, in order of hardness: Takeshi Kovachs series, Altered Carbon is the big one, but all 3 are really fantastic, especially the third which put a great bow on the series. Incredible characterization, interesting world, amazing plots/characters. A bit much in some places (sex, violence) but really cracking good cyberpunk romp. MaddAddam Margie Atwoods dystopian "spec fic" about the end of the world due to a super virus and one man's absolutely insane connection to it all, start with "Oryx & Crake" and find yourself unable to put the series down until you read all three. Amazing characters, gigantic plot, pathos that will rip your loving heart out. 1Q84, maybe more of a surreal novel than sci-fi, I feel it fits well enough though. Incredible characterizations across the board, and a story that just keeps you turning the pages, it's heart wrenching at times, it's weird, it leaves a bit of a gross taste in your mouth at times with the content, it'll confuse and stupefy you, it's magical, I loved it to pieces. Quantum Thief trilogy, the most successful blend of fantasy and sci-fi I've ever read. the setting, characters, technology, plot points and touchstones feel like sci-fi, but the way they're used, the way the author builds his characters, how the fundamental world concepts are woven together and interacted with feels "fantastical", feels "magical", but with this great hard sci-fi grounding. The second book which draws heavily inspiration from 1001 Arabian Nights in way i would have never thought possible Three Body Trilogy (which is actually the Remembrance Of Earth's Past trilogy), nothing really to say about this that hasn't been said. Incredible stories that are nested and arrayed into each other in this really beautifully intricate way, always building until the amazing conclusion. Don't skip these. Seriously. You know the first time you heard a Petrucci solo and you went "what the gently caress am i hearing!?" these books each have a sequence like that but for "what the gently caress am i reading?!?" Blindsight & Echopraxia- Goon favorites, read both! Some of the most engrossing examinations of the fundamental nature of what it means to be alive that I've ever read. Enthralling and terrifying concepts everywhere! Bonus Round! Rapid Fire Greg Egan Recs! These are the HARDEST OF THE HARD NERDS! Quarantine - beings in the universe build an impenetrable black cloud around the Earth after it's realized that a unique quality in the perception of a human being on earth collapses quantum wave functions across dimensions/planes of reality, a rather vast sea of possibilities with entire eco systems inside of them. Diaspora - Starts with the short story "orphanogenesis" which is a beautiful speculation about how a virtual being may gain sentience through robust learning algorithms, from there you whip out into an end of the universe adventure! Permutation City - WHAT IF THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE WAS CREATED VIA MATHEMATICAL PATTERNS THAT EXIST IN A GIANT CLOUD OF ENERGY AND ONCE A PATTERN IS ESTABLISHED, IT EXISTS FOREVER BECAUSE REALITY IS HOLOGRAPHIC; TONS OF DATA WOVEN INTO THE ILLUSION OF MATTER, WHAT IF YOU COULD CREATE YOUR OWN UNIVERSE IN THE CLOUD?  Schild's Ladder - HOPE YOU LIKE MATH BITCH LMAO
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Oct 20, 2020 06:01
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Mycroft Holmes posted:I don't know if it exactly counts as sci-fi, but the Destroyermen series by Taylor Anderson has two old destroyers from WWII travel to an alternate world where the dinosaurs never died and which is also a dumpng ground for various strains of human history. They fight dinosaurs, Aztec-Spanish cultists, and fascists. Pretty good. It's a better 4x space opera than most space operas, apart from not being in space. Teching up, base building, exploring weird poo poo, diplomacy, pitched battles with lots of explosions. Also the author manages to not come across as fash or overly death-happy (despite all the carnage); he pretty much takes down the Hard Men Making Hard Choices trope.
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Oct 20, 2020 09:41
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Starting with some older stuff. I often recommend The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein to people who want some older Science Fiction that isn't Asimov. Its the story of a Lunar revolt against an increasingly authoritarian and backwards earth. Almost incidentally it also tells an uncommon story about the emergence of truly conscious AI where humans aren't immediately supplanted. I thought it was fairly witty, the main characters were all easy to sympathize with, and it didn't drag on too long. Also its notably its "early" Heinlein... from before he started deciding he'd spend half of every book pontificating about how everyone should be free from sexual taboos. Published more recently I really enjoyed The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin... Oddly enough it is also kind of the story about a rebellion on a moon. Actually its a look at how an Anarchist society -- isolated from statists and more or less left to their own devices -- would actually function as seen through the eyes of the brilliant Physicist known only as Shevek. The world shown in The Dispossessed is bleak, but it is easy to believe the characters happy. Shevek at least seems to go back and forth on happiness, but he's an odd duck in the society. Its an odd read and I'd be lying if I didn't say that there are a few sections that were profoundly uncomfortable, but I was extremely pleased with the ending. Its also part of a larger group of interconnected works by Le Guin known as the Hanish Series. I've read most of them at this point and I think The Dispossessed is one of the better ones. Most recently I really enjoyed Gideon the Ninth by Tasmyn Muir. It has precious little to do with rebellions or moons, but the best review I've read of it called it a "freaky science-fantasy-horror-romance mash-up." Honestly, that probably sounds like its a bit much, but it is at times both profoundly creepy and sidesplittingly hilarious -- often in the span of two or three pages. Its a fantastically creative look at how necromancy meshes with space travel. Fully half the protagonists are necromancers... and necromancers are historically not the kind of people who become protagonists. Also, if you end up really liking it, as everyone I've recommended it to has thus far, the second book in the trilogy released just a couple months ago. Also reiterating the recommendations earlier in the thread for IQ84 (though I'd recommend anyone not familiar with Murakami to read one of his shorter works before diving into his magnum opus to see if you like his style), A Memory Called Empire, and The Three Body Trilogy. They're all super solid.
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Oct 21, 2020 00:41
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Last week I blasted through reading John Scalzi's Old Man's War trilogy for the first time, I was utterly enthralled and read the first two books in three days. Premise is that when people get old on Earth they join the army defending 'the colonial union', with no idea what this will entail other than living longer. To say more would spoil it. They have a similar vibe to the Forever War series mentioned upthread (Scalzi does list them as an influence in his afterword) but with a little bit more humour. Prior to this I was reading Dan Simmons' Hyperion/Endymion series which was utterly batshit. The first book has an interesting structure where it feels like 6 short stories within a 'why we seemingly random people have been sent on this journey telling how we got here' framework but gradually the links begin to appear. The later novels follow a more traditional narrative structure but expand massively on the concepts introduced in the first book (time travel, artificial intelligence, immortality, Keats). Without giving too much away one of my favourite little concepts comes in the later books where superfast space travel has been solved in an... unorthodox manner
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Oct 27, 2020 22:54
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To continue the John Scalzi promotion, I enjoyed Redshirts quite a bit. If you enjoy (or maybe just mock) Star Trek, it's a fun lark.
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Oct 28, 2020 00:22
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I liked Redshirts up until they get to the "real" world, where I thought it just kind of fell apart.
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Oct 28, 2020 00:30
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I strongly second the recommendation of Gideon The Ninth, and also recommend Harrow The Ninth with the caveat that the entire loving thing is a huge Unreliable Narrator Mindfuck to the point where you don't know what's happening, Harrow doesn't know what is happening, it's not clear what's real and what's fantasy, and it all comes together at the end in a  kind of way.I also really like SevenEves, and would personally love anyone's recommendations for afrofuturist fiction as I find myself really starting to hate cyberpunk as a genre. A girl can only handle so much.
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Feb 4, 2021 21:41
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smarxist posted:Quantum Thief trilogy, the most successful blend of fantasy and sci-fi I've ever read. the setting, characters, technology, plot points and touchstones feel like sci-fi, but the way they're used, the way the author builds his characters, how the fundamental world concepts are woven together and interacted with feels "fantastical", feels "magical", but with this great hard sci-fi grounding. The second book which draws heavily inspiration from 1001 Arabian Nights in way i would have never thought possible Hannu Rajaniemi is p cool, agreedo I'm reading Light by M. John Harrison and it's pretty good but also weird as gently caress.
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Feb 7, 2021 20:08
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I've been mainlining big books series for a long time, starting pre-covid, and I kinda think once I wrap up the Dune series I need to read a barrage of one-offs. Any recommendations for one-offs from BIPOC and/or women authors? It's been kinda weird reading old white guy horny writing.
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Feb 8, 2021 04:22
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There's The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie. It is set in a fantasy world with gods but the gods have to follow actual science to do things. The book follows two plotlines, one the story of a god that is manifest as a large stone and its history of being worshipped by primitive peoples and the other is the story of a kingdom ruled by the Raven god but there has been some issues with the succession of the next human leader of the kingdom.
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Feb 8, 2021 04:56
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frogge posted:I've been mainlining big books series for a long time, starting pre-covid, and I kinda think once I wrap up the Dune series I need to read a barrage of one-offs. The short story "Emergency Skin" by NK Jemisin is one of the best pieces of fiction I've read in a while. And I'll reiterate my love for Anna Kavan's Ice, which apparently the movie "i'm thinking of ending things" is at least somewhat based on, and her short story anthology I Am Lazarus may be my favorite fiction in general. Temporary by Hilary Leichter is just plain fun and that's pretty recent. I feel like it's pretty easy to recommend most of Neon Yang's work, of the stuff I've read Waiting on a Bright Moon is a good one-off, but the tensorate series is quite good and they're pretty short, like the combined length of the whole thing is a slightly long novel.
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Feb 8, 2021 05:15
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Awesome! Thanks for the suggestions. Next time I venture out for groceries/shopping I'll hit up the bookstore and look for them.
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Feb 9, 2021 23:40
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Has anyone read the Dead Space books? I absolutely love the story and horror in the game series and curious on people's thoughts of the books. I have not read any yet.
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Feb 10, 2021 06:30
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