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occamsnailfile posted:
I would say Machinations of Empire is more of that vein than the Ancillary series is, in that intra-military and intra-government hierarchies and power imbalances are a huge deal in throughout the former whereas in the latter Breq is mostly a free agent doing her own thing
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Jun 11, 2019 04:00
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ToxicFrog posted:Starting in book 2? 3? they visit China, which is actually ruled by dragons, and the question of draconic rights in Britain starts coming up, but then a horrible plague wipes out all the dragons in Britain thus sidelining the entire question and I don't know what happens after that because I stopped reading. It stays a c-plot throughout. The series largely becomes just location-hopping while the Napoleonic war mostly sits on the backburner. Turkey! Africa! The fourth book, Victory of Eagles, gets back to the war with an invasion of England that was interesting. But then off to Australia! Japan! South America (which is also fairly ruled by dragons)! Austria! Russia! For all of the concept of 'the Napoleonic war with dragons' the series spends most of its time not really engaging with it. I have much the same argument with Scott Westerfeld's Leviathans trilogy where dieselpunk meets bio-engineering World War 1 ends up being a lame rear end affair that happens vaguely in the background and ends almost entirely as a footnote.
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Jun 11, 2019 04:12
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hannibal posted:Wait, are you saying you can't read A-M because you associate them too strongly with Weber? I mean, sure, I can see your Napoleonic Wars reason (they do lean pretty heavily into the Age of Sail setting, hope you like sailing jargon) but - please don't let Weber's nonsense keep you from reading some of the best historical fiction ever written. Association with Weber is a tertiary at best annoyance, the A-M series setting [Napoleonic Wars era] + nautical naval fiction in general are way-way-way down on my reading preference list. Thinking about it more, my main dislike with Napoleonic Wars historical fiction is that most of the genre seems to be exclusively long running series about British heroes fighting the French (with the British command structure being just as deadly and possibly worse than the French menace). Ie, the Sharpe series, the HornBlower series, Aubrey–Maturin series, etc: Is there any goddamn French or Italian or Austrian or Russian viewpoint Napoleonic Wars fiction series out there at all? Anything beyond brief mentions in Dumas's work/ Les Miz/etc, or epic one book efforts like War and Peace?
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Jun 11, 2019 06:27
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Well, there's Arthur Conan Doyle's The Exploits and Adventures of Brigadier Gerard, which is a collection of humorous short stories about a French officer. Gerard is a cocky, swaggering rear end in a top hat, a bit like Flashman but nowhere near as much of a coward and creep.
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Jun 11, 2019 06:45
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:Association with Weber is a tertiary at best annoyance, the A-M series setting [Napoleonic Wars era] + nautical naval fiction in general are way-way-way down on my reading preference list. You just found your meal ticket to being a niche historical fiction author. I wouldn't be shocked if there was some, just they are in French/Russian/German/Italian and have never had an English translation.
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Jun 11, 2019 07:26
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:Association with Weber is a tertiary at best annoyance, the A-M series setting [Napoleonic Wars era] + nautical naval fiction in general are way-way-way down on my reading preference list. ##edit https://www.goodreads.com/series/143526-alain-lausard-adventures
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Jun 11, 2019 09:07
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:
B-bu-but. Why would you want to read about the bad guys POV?  
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Jun 11, 2019 09:09
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Django Wexler's The Thousand Names series is basically a fantasy French Revolution and then Napoleonic Wars series if you're interested in that.
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Jun 11, 2019 09:39
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Jack2142 posted:I wouldn't be shocked if there was some, just they are in French/Russian/German/Italian and have never had an English translation. There are, since glorifying your country never gets old. The prevalence of English/US authors in MilSF/history is simply an effect of the impact English have had on the world in popular science. I am pretty tired of WW2, not to mention the American Civil War, which is rather uninteresting from a non-US perspective (come again when you have had more and longer ones).
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Jun 11, 2019 10:11
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Selachian posted:Well, there's Arthur Conan Doyle's The Exploits and Adventures of Brigadier Gerard, which is a collection of humorous short stories about a French officer. Gerard is a cocky, swaggering rear end in a top hat, a bit like Flashman but nowhere near as much of a coward and creep. These are lot of fun. There's a fair bit in them that you'll have seen crop up in later works, but you don't often get pulpy Napoleonic swashbucklers from the perspective of the French so the stories still feel fresh enough.
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Jun 11, 2019 10:30
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I just wanted a happy fluffy book about humans and spiders meeting octopodes. I'm halfway through Children of Ruin now, though, and I was not really prepared for blood music? adventures.
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Jun 11, 2019 12:18
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This thread is literally the only place anyone would remember this: I thought of that random online reviewer who described Baru Cormorant as "social justice Middle-Earth" in the shower this morning and started chuckling, which then led me to remember the other one who said "the book takes place in a parallel universe where women are better at math than men" which had me full-on guffawing.
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Jun 11, 2019 13:48
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Gluten Freeman posted:Django Wexler's The Thousand Names series is basically a fantasy French Revolution and then Napoleonic Wars series if you're interested in that. I'm reading this now, its better than I expected at least through the first two books.
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Jun 11, 2019 15:05
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Fried Sushi posted:I'm reading this now, its better than I expected at least through the first two books.
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Jun 11, 2019 15:14
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Mil-scifi, about the only troop-perspective series I ever got along with was Kloos’ Frontlines books, and I’m still only three books into it. They turn up on the cheap kindle lists pretty regular if you wanted to give them a look-over. I was unfortunate enough to pick up a couple of Ringo’s Posleen paperback books ages back at a 2nd hand market and frankly lmao 
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Jun 11, 2019 16:50
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This might sound like I'm trolling but I'm honestly not: What book or series most feels like it should be scored with a power/symphonic metal soundtrack? I'm looking for something big, epic, and it's okay for it to be a little over the top. I assume, given the lyrical leanings of a lot of power metal, I should be looking at sword & sorcery type stuff, but I've never really dipped my toe into the subgenre. edit: honestly I'd go for anything with sci-fi leanings or straight up sci-fi if it fits, too. MockingQuantum fucked around with this message at 17:07 on Jun 11, 2019 |
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Jun 11, 2019 17:05
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the Silmarillion of course but Blind Guardian got ya covered already. Slough Feg has a kickass heavy metal album about the sci fi RPG Traveller. theres a band called Tygers of Pan Tang named after Elric that's pretty good. Sword n sorcery to me is more grungy, less power metal more black or doom metal. Fafhrd, Conan, Jirel, etc are too grimy for epic power metal. So probably just epic fantasy in the tradition of Lord of the Rings. Wheel of Time, Shannara, Dragonlance, Tad Williams and the like.
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Jun 11, 2019 17:27
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Given Michael Moorcock's association with Hawkwind (including their album The Chronicle of the Black Sword), the Elric books are an obvious choice. The Erekose books (particularly The Eternal Champion and The Silver Warriors) would be pretty good too. Moorcock also "contributed" to two books about the cosmic adventures of Hawkwind in their on-stage personas by Michael Butterworth, The Time of the Hawklords and Queens of Deliria. It's not really clear how much writing Moorcock actually did for these books and how much was just an excuse to slap his name on the cover. They're mostly interesting as curiosities rather than actual books. Selachian fucked around with this message at 17:36 on Jun 11, 2019 |
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Jun 11, 2019 17:34
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anilEhilated posted:Yeah, that's before he started stuffing the books with horribly written romance. Well that sucks but I am getting used to author's writing more books than they have story for, finally got over my need to finish every series or book I start so as soon as I start losing interest I just drop it now.
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Jun 11, 2019 18:03
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MockingQuantum posted:This might sound like I'm trolling but I'm honestly not: What book or series most feels like it should be scored with a power/symphonic metal soundtrack? I'm looking for something big, epic, and it's okay for it to be a little over the top. I assume, given the lyrical leanings of a lot of power metal, I should be looking at sword & sorcery type stuff, but I've never really dipped my toe into the subgenre. Karl Edward Wagner's Kane series. Written in the 1970's mostly, it's basically "What if one of those epic evil sorcerors Conan always fights . . was the protagonist?" the series. Each story is excellent and stacks up well against Robert E. Howard better than most other imitators do. Each story has the same basic plot -- Kane conceives dastardly plan, hatches it, executes, it works, he almost achieves World Domination but ends up scorpion-stabbing himself in the back through an inability to stop being evil for a hot second. Overall they're great and imho better than most of Moorcock's stuff -- much more Howard-esque, more about the raw id unleashed on the page, and a lot less emo. Unfortunately they're largely out of print and difficult to find legal, affordable copies of.
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Jun 11, 2019 18:03
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NoneMoreNegative posted:Mil-scifi, about the only troop-perspective series I ever got along with was Kloos’ Frontlines books, and I’m still only three books into it. They turn up on the cheap kindle lists pretty regular if you wanted to give them a look-over. You need to read Harry Harrison's Bill the Galactic Hero ASAP...just the first book though, not any of the sequels (each Bill series sequel book parodied a different fantasy, milscifi, tv and movie series). Long before Kloos wrote his Frontline books, Harry Harrison's Bill the Galactic Hero @1965 hit many of the same notes. The first Bill the Galactic Hero book is one of the most perfect enlisted-troop perspective "bootcamp + military training, nobody in power (especially officers + senior NCOs) gives a gently caress about the enlisted ranks, gently caress the military-industrial complex, gently caress forever-wars" anti-war MilSciFi book I've ever come across. My undying appreciation of the first Bill book [irony] was in no way enhanced by stumbling across it with the most "gently caress everything*" book-cover in a used bookstore in Amsterdam, Netherlands the week after my contract with the marines ended[/irony]. *aka the Penguin paperback reprint book-cover quantumfoam fucked around with this message at 18:09 on Jun 11, 2019 |
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Jun 11, 2019 18:04
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Karl Edward Wagner's Kane series. You can buy all of them on Kindle.
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Jun 11, 2019 18:12
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Karl Edward Wagner's Kane series. Written in the 1970's mostly, it's basically "What if one of those epic evil sorcerors Conan always fights . . was the protagonist?" the series. I'll see what I can do-- I'm finding the same problem with the Elric books, honestly. There are some collections out there that aren't too badly priced, and I've got the first book in the classic 1977 weirdly pale pastel art, but it's bizarre to see that same book going for minimum $20 on Amazon. fake edit: well nevermind, I would rather get the books on Kindle anyway, so Wagner won't be a problem. I wish the Elric books were easier to find on Kindle...
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Jun 11, 2019 18:14
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pseudanonymous posted:It's also an organization that exists mostly to explore and do science poo poo. If you combined Nasa and the Navy, then swapped their budgets, you get Star Fleet. I always liked how this makes force projection an exercise in sciencing the poo poo out of the objective.
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Jun 11, 2019 18:17
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Karl Edward Wagner's Kane series. Written in the 1970's mostly, it's basically "What if one of those epic evil sorcerors Conan always fights . . was the protagonist?" the series. I recently started the Kane books and they are fantastic if you enjoy that style. But holy man does he love his exclamation marks in the first book. It's all very, I dunno, earnest, in a way his later horror stuff very much is not. I'm not sure yet (having not read the rest of the series) if that's because of his development as a writer, or because he felt free to just go wild with Kane in a way he rightfully denied himself for his more subtle horror work.
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Jun 11, 2019 18:25
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Ornamented Death posted:You can buy all of them on Kindle. Oh wow that's new (and great). Five or ten years ago it was either piracy or shell out $100 for a collectible.
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Jun 11, 2019 18:29
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anilEhilated posted:Yeah, that's before he started stuffing the books with horribly written romance. I think this was the first time(and only) I was actively hoping at every moment starting somewhere in the 3rd book that the author would fridge a character, jesus christ, if they ever got better let me know because I liked those books at some point.
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Jun 11, 2019 18:31
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occamsnailfile posted:Starfleet is absolutely a space military, just pretty well-run (except when plot demands it not be) and that treats its personnel with respect and care, down to the lowest ensign. In other words, complete science fiction. About half of the first Ninefox book is military SF stuff about capturing a space fortress, the rest of the series is more space opera themed. Another example I can think of is the Spiral Wars series, it's technically milSF since almost every character is part of the crew of a space battleship, but they mutinied after the war ended and have mostly spent more time running from their government, investigating ancient ruins, and dealing with alien politics in a more typical space opera plot. I feel it strikes a good balance between action and adventure though I am somewhat biased towards the series. MockingQuantum posted:This might sound like I'm trolling but I'm honestly not: What book or series most feels like it should be scored with a power/symphonic metal soundtrack? I'm looking for something big, epic, and it's okay for it to be a little over the top. I assume, given the lyrical leanings of a lot of power metal, I should be looking at sword & sorcery type stuff, but I've never really dipped my toe into the subgenre. David Gemmell's Legend felt pretty 80s power metal when I read it. Patrick Rothfus would totally be some symphonic metal group that's way too full of themselves, Nightwish or something. 
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Jun 11, 2019 18:36
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C.M. Kruger posted:About half of the first Ninefox book is military SF stuff about capturing a space fortress, the rest of the series is more space opera themed. I really wanted to like Legend, and it had its moments, but it didn't really do it for me overall. I'm not sure why, usually I'm all-in when it comes to cheesy last-stand hero fantasy kind of stuff.
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Jun 11, 2019 18:47
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C.M. Kruger posted:
Now I'm wondering what Lies of Locke Lamora would be as a musical. Some sort of baroque gothic prog?
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Jun 11, 2019 19:11
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Kesper North posted:I always liked how this makes force projection an exercise in sciencing the poo poo out of the objective. Right down to their institutional tunnel vision where they spend precious minutes looking up details of some obsolete Bird of Prey's plasma coil so they can do science instead of just shooting it. "The phasers never solve the problem, we always have to come up with some kind of  "
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Jun 11, 2019 19:19
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Now I'm wondering what Lies of Locke Lamora would be as a musical. Some sort of baroque gothic prog? Savatage immediately jumps to mind.
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Jun 11, 2019 19:40
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Amon Amarth has anything Viking inspired nailed down. Also LotR have inspired too many metal bands. There is Amon amarth, Corinth Ungol and five other I can’t remember now. Turns out metal fans are massive sci-fi/fantasy nerds.
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Jun 11, 2019 19:45
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MockingQuantum posted:I'll see what I can do-- I'm finding the same problem with the Elric books, honestly. There are some collections out there that aren't too badly priced, and I've got the first book in the classic 1977 weirdly pale pastel art, but it's bizarre to see that same book going for minimum $20 on Amazon. The Elric stories, and most of Moorcocks other sf/fantasy works, were recently collected and re-released by Gollancz. Kindle editions should be available. Here is what they look like.
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Jun 11, 2019 19:46
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MockingQuantum posted:This might sound like I'm trolling but I'm honestly not: What book or series most feels like it should be scored with a power/symphonic metal soundtrack? lord of light!!! amber is pretty metal too, but Lord of Light is prob the most metal zelazny
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Jun 11, 2019 19:58
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IYKK posted:The Elric stories, and most of Moorcocks other sf/fantasy works, were recently collected and re-released by Gollancz. Kindle editions should be available. Here is what they look like. It looks like the kindle editions aren't available in the US, at least. I'm finding the paperbacks (which are sanely priced) but no ebooks.
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Jun 11, 2019 19:58
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Deptfordx posted:B-bu-but. Why would you want to read about the bad guys POV? ...you might want to look up the battle of Austerlitz...
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Jun 11, 2019 21:29
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Cardiac posted:Amon Amarth has anything Viking inspired nailed down. Hah, those bands just took their names and maybe a few song ideas here and there from Tolkien. Summoning on the other hand have devoted pretty much their whole twenty-plus-year discography to Middle Earth and nothing but Middle Earth. (And then there's Caladan Brood which is all about the Malazan Books of the Fallen.) And The Lord Weird Slough Feg released a whole concept album based on the old Traveller RPG. If that's not a perfect singularity of nerddom I don't know what is.
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Jun 11, 2019 21:43
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MockingQuantum posted:It looks like the kindle editions aren't available in the US, at least. I'm finding the paperbacks (which are sanely priced) but no ebooks. I forgot about regional restrictions, sorry. I can see them from Europe. I got some of the non Elric-paperbacks from the series, and except for the cover art being confined to a small circle there is nothing to complain about.
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Jun 11, 2019 22:04
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I feel the Malazan series might work quite well with that sort of thing. Or maybe prog-rock.
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Jun 11, 2019 22:08
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