|
freebooter posted:But I got the strong impression it's set with Clinton winning because he simply couldn't be hosed rewriting it, and The Peripheral was the most enjoyable thing he'd written in ages, so hopefully it's good. It is sci-fi, who cares if it has anything to do with reality. As was pointed out here before, trying to write near future sci-fi based on current events have been harder than usual due to the volatility. I guess it should be somewhat similar to what sci-fi writers experienced from 1989 and onwards. The peripheral was good so I already have preordered The Agency. In other news, the final Powder mage book by McClellan was a fun read. I kinda like the mix of gunpowder, magic and ancient gods. Although his books are kinda repetitive in their storyline in terms of setup.
|
# ? Jan 12, 2020 13:20 |
|
|
# ? Jun 1, 2024 04:37 |
|
PST posted:With regard to the Attack Heliocopter short story in Clarksworld, the last few days have seen a lot of trans twitter and sf editors/writers side-eying it a lot. That's extremely concerning. One of the commenters in the first thread mentions that they found that the author's birthdate is 1988 and that's even more, uh....
|
# ? Jan 12, 2020 13:37 |
|
PST posted:(Also Mike Resnick died, and the pearl clutchers are all in a tizzy as people revisit his awfulness and bigotry) Mike Resnick was friends with gay musician Janis Ian for over 25 years and assembled a Who's Who of SF writers to write an anthology of stories inspired by her music. I heard about his death from her, on the day. Janis takes no poo poo from bigots and does not tolerate them in her life. So I'm going to need more detail from you on that.
|
# ? Jan 12, 2020 14:10 |
Edit: Removed paranoid bullshit.
SimonChris fucked around with this message at 10:31 on Jan 17, 2020 |
|
# ? Jan 12, 2020 14:15 |
|
SimonChris posted:If the birthdate was part of a larger bio, I wouldn't think too much about it, but this definitely seems odd. In a vacuum, it wouldn't be weird. In the context of writing a story that is titled after the most famous transphobic meme and the text of the story is riddled with TERF beliefs.... Clarksworld really should say something.
|
# ? Jan 12, 2020 14:21 |
PST posted:With regard to the Attack Heliocopter short story in Clarksworld, the last few days have seen a lot of trans twitter and sf editors/writers side-eying it a lot. Yeah, that's exactly what's going on with that. Besides it's mega-dumb and unoriginal, science fiction has had "what if person became vehicle" stories going back like eighty years: 1941 – Solar Plexus by James Blish. 1961 – The Ship Who Sang, by Anne McCaffrey. The brainship was popularized in this short story about the brainship Helva. However, McCaffrey cited as her inspiration an earlier story. She says, I remember reading a story about a woman searching for her son's brain, it had been used for an autopilot on an ore ship and she wanted to find it and give it surcease. And I thought what if severely disabled people were given a chance to become starships? So that's how The Ship Who Sang was born. — Anne McCaffrey, Anne McCaffrey: Heirs to Pern, Locus Magazine [1] 1965 – "Becalmed in Hell", by Larry Niven. This short story was about Eric, an injured man who became a brainship, and his mobile partner Howie. Eric could not take off from the hazardous surface of Venus because he "felt" something wrong with his "wings". Howie had to find a solution before they both died.[2]
|
|
# ? Jan 12, 2020 14:45 |
|
Also "The Lady who Sailed the Soul" by Cordwainer Smith. And one by James Tiptree, Jr., I think.StrixNebulosa posted:In a vacuum, it wouldn't be weird. In the context of writing a story that is titled after the most famous transphobic meme and the text of the story is riddled with TERF beliefs.... It's pretty weird in itself. Even Thomas Pynchon's biography is longer than that.
|
# ? Jan 12, 2020 15:13 |
|
There's also the PKD story Mr Spaceship.
|
# ? Jan 12, 2020 15:19 |
|
PST posted:With regard to the Attack Heliocopter short story in Clarksworld, the last few days have seen a lot of trans twitter and sf editors/writers side-eying it a lot. I was going to try and form my own opinion by reading it, but it starts off being such dull milfic that I ended up just closing the tab about a week later, most of it unread.
|
# ? Jan 12, 2020 17:31 |
https://twitter.com/mcclure111/status/1215724926251876352
|
|
# ? Jan 12, 2020 19:19 |
|
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001ODEQCU/ Fool Moon by Jim Butcher - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001BPYD2O/ The City and the City by China Miéville - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001NLKYQ0/ The Bone Ships by RJ Barker - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MPW3GMX Matter (Culture book 7) by Iain M Banks - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000VMHI98
|
# ? Jan 12, 2020 19:46 |
|
Do NOT read Fool Moon by Butcher it's so bad in an infuriating way and I regret reading it
|
# ? Jan 12, 2020 20:07 |
|
To whoever in this thread recommend Michele west’s house wars - the author recommends that, after reading the first three books of this ~eight book series, you should rea a different ~seven book series (e: six - sun sword) of hers before continuing house wars. That seems insane. Is that accurate?Doorknob Slobber posted:So I read Luminous Dead based on this thread gushing about it some months ago and I don't get why. It was kind of neat, I liked it, but the ending and they fell in love happily ever after felt kind of contrived and there were certain plot threads that were just completely left hanging like, were the bodies preserved in tunneler piss or what? and what actually happened to Elias?. Hieronymous Alloy posted:Yeah, that's exactly what's going on with that. gvibes fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Jan 12, 2020 |
# ? Jan 12, 2020 20:09 |
|
Yeah, even people who like the Dresden Files think Fool Moon isn't worth reading. It's really bad.
|
# ? Jan 12, 2020 20:11 |
|
gvibes posted:To whoever in this thread recommend Michele west’s house wars - the author recommends that, after reading the first three books of this ~eight book series, you should rea a different ~seven book series of hers before continuing house wars. That seems insane. Is that accurate? This is nuts. I have a hard enough time keeping track of novellas and shorts for my reading order, never mind an entirely different series.
|
# ? Jan 12, 2020 20:13 |
|
StrixNebulosa posted:Do NOT read Fool Moon by Butcher it's so bad in an infuriating way and I regret reading it
|
# ? Jan 12, 2020 20:13 |
|
gvibes posted:To whoever in this thread recommend Michele west’s house wars - the author recommends that, after reading the first three books of this ~eight book series, you should rea a different ~seven book series of hers before continuing house wars. That seems insane. Is that accurate? Chronologically speaking, Hunter's Oath is first, then the first three books of the House Wars series, then Hunter's Death tells of the whole Jewel/Terafin thing alongside its own story, and then that all leads into the Sun Sword saga (six books), which leads back to the House Wars series books 4-8. Yes, it's insane. You can see the exact chronology on her wikipedia page.
|
# ? Jan 12, 2020 20:17 |
|
gvibes posted:Is it worse than furies of Calderon? Is such a thing even possible ? Haven't read that one, but Fool Moon features our protagonist swearing to a police officer that he won't lie to her, then he lies to her immediately, gets caught lying, promises not to do it again, and keeps lying. Meanwhile there are 20 different types of werewolves running around, and it's all stupid and sexist and ugh
|
# ? Jan 12, 2020 20:19 |
|
It's his worst book by a very wide margin
|
# ? Jan 12, 2020 20:24 |
gvibes posted:Is it worse than furies of Calderon? Is such a thing even possible ? Measure of how the society has moved on, I suppose.
|
|
# ? Jan 12, 2020 20:46 |
|
Moomins are either science fiction or fantasy or both and are also good and cool books.
|
# ? Jan 12, 2020 20:59 |
|
90s Cringe Rock posted:Moomins are either science fiction or fantasy or both and are also good and cool books. Indeed! Tove Jansson was a treasure.
|
# ? Jan 12, 2020 21:42 |
|
The only thing that Fool Moon really does is introduce werewolves, a few side characters, and gives an explanation as to why a lot of cops really dislike Dresden since there was a werewolf attack on a police station. Now that you know that, you don't need to suffer through reading it. Loves me some DF but holy poo poo that book is just not good.
|
# ? Jan 12, 2020 22:38 |
|
I'm in the mood for something light and fun. I think during the holidays someone mentioned that the reason this thread adores Murderbot is that it's basically Competence-Porn ala The Martian. Well drat if that didn't make me in the mood for some Competence-Porn. Doesn't have to be too deep. I remember enjoying the first 5 books of Tanya Huff's Confederation Series. Any recs? Also maybe a spaceship (or spacefleet) long flight survival type book rec? Something like "humanity is on a long voyage on an Ark type spaceship and must survive"? Something fun and cozy ala Becky Chambers instead of grimdark seriousness ala Battlestar Galactica preferably.
|
# ? Jan 12, 2020 23:13 |
|
Xtanstic posted:I'm in the mood for something light and fun. I think during the holidays someone mentioned that the reason this thread adores Murderbot is that it's basically Competence-Porn ala The Martian. Well drat if that didn't make me in the mood for some Competence-Porn. Doesn't have to be too deep. I remember enjoying the first 5 books of Tanya Huff's Confederation Series. Any recs? Try the Bobiverse books.
|
# ? Jan 12, 2020 23:38 |
|
Megazver posted:Try the Bobiverse books. Alas I already listened to the audiobooks. The first one had a super interesting premise but I didn't care about the monkeys in the later two books and the author completely side-stepped any interesting ideas related to Bob.
|
# ? Jan 12, 2020 23:39 |
|
Jedit posted:Mike Resnick was friends with gay musician Janis Ian for over 25 years and assembled a Who's Who of SF writers to write an anthology of stories inspired by her music. I heard about his death from her, on the day. Janis takes no poo poo from bigots and does not tolerate them in her life. So I'm going to need more detail from you on that. https://slate.com/human-interest/20...e-go-again.html https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jun/12/science-fiction-sexism-sfwa https://www.flickfilosopher.com/2013/06/on-the-hidebound-misogyny-of-some-science-fiction-fans-and-pros.html https://katsudon.net/?p=1845 https://twitter.com/jaymgates/status/1216313806919368704 PST fucked around with this message at 01:26 on Jan 13, 2020 |
# ? Jan 13, 2020 01:18 |
|
pmchem posted:I love Gibson, he may be my favorite sci-fi author up there with Banks, but each of his major trilogies projected less further into the future. His current series continues that trend. He’s an incredible writer, but maybe it’s time to expect the next generation to step up in writing near/mid term sci-fi? Following up on this, Gibson gives a great interview in The Guardian where he says this: “Since Pattern Recognition I’ve been writing novels of the recent past. They’ve tended to be published in the year after they actually take place. After the publication of All Tomorrow’s Parties [1999] I had a feeling that my game was sagging a bit. Not that there’s anything particularly wrong with that book – but I felt that I was losing a sense of how weird the real world around me was. Because I was busy writing novels and whatever, and I’d sort of glance out of the window at the day’s reality and I’d go: ‘Whoah! That was really strange.’ Then I’d look back down at my page and realise that that was stranger than my page, and I began to feel … uneasy.” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/11/william-gibson-i-was-losing-a-sense-of-how-weird-the-real-world-was
|
# ? Jan 13, 2020 01:39 |
|
StrixNebulosa posted:Do NOT read Fool Moon by Butcher it's so bad in an infuriating way and I regret reading it Do Read Matter and The City and the City.
|
# ? Jan 13, 2020 02:43 |
|
Shout outs to one of my favorite posters, General Battuta, who’s having a very rough time of it. Please get well, we care about you.
|
# ? Jan 13, 2020 04:41 |
|
pseudorandom name posted:Shout outs to one of my favorite posters, General Battuta, who’s having a very rough time of it. Please get well, we care about you. Take care, General B. Hope things look up soon.
|
# ? Jan 13, 2020 04:48 |
cptn_dr posted:Take care, General B. Hope things look up soon.
|
|
# ? Jan 13, 2020 04:50 |
|
cptn_dr posted:Take care, General B. Hope things look up soon.
|
# ? Jan 13, 2020 05:03 |
|
cptn_dr posted:Take care, General B. Hope things look up soon.
|
# ? Jan 13, 2020 05:06 |
|
cptn_dr posted:Take care, General B. Hope things look up soon.
|
# ? Jan 13, 2020 05:48 |
|
ToxicFrog posted:gently caress me I also forgot to mention Rosemary Kirstein's Steerswoman series I know it was a few pages ago, but I decided to give the first Steerswoman book a try after reading your description, and the series is ridiculously good. I don't know how I haven't heard anything about them until now, but I'd definitely recommend them. I binge read all 4 of them and I eagerly await book 5 in 20 or 30 years.
|
# ? Jan 13, 2020 06:19 |
|
cptn_dr posted:Take care, General B. Hope things look up soon.
|
# ? Jan 13, 2020 06:43 |
|
Get well soon General B.
|
# ? Jan 13, 2020 06:44 |
|
The Take care, General B. Hope things look up soon Baru Cormorant
|
# ? Jan 13, 2020 07:43 |
|
|
# ? Jun 1, 2024 04:37 |
|
pseudorandom name posted:Shout outs to one of my favorite posters, General Battuta, who’s having a very rough time of it. Please get well, we care about you.
|
# ? Jan 13, 2020 08:46 |