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StrixNebulosa posted:You should tweet tor about this, they should be able to hook you up. Ah never mind. I just found the link: https://read.macmillan.com/promo/murderbotshortstorypreordergiveaway/ HC preorders only. I bought it for my Kindle.
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May 6, 2020 04:44
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TheAardvark posted:I'm willing to stand corrected on this. Fahrenheit is a lovely metric, which in contrast to Celsius have no good translation to Kelvin. Using it in sci-fi is just bad. The issue here is really the Anglocentric world we live in which lets conservative countries like US and UK keep their archaic metrics due to a combination of popular culture and institutional inertia. I am almost tempted to write a counter factional story where Napoleon conquered UK and US and forced the implementation of the SI system. Ben Nevis posted:I've read Three Hearts and Three Lions and found it to be pretty decent and not really libertarian or anything. It suffered a little bit from being "basic" but it sort of founded the genre, so of course you'll have seen some of it's tricks before. I thought it was worth reading. If you read a book, enjoy it, then read about the author and discover some political view of the author that you dislikes, then my conclusion would be that the authors views are not really transferred to his writing.
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May 6, 2020 08:22
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Cardiac posted:Fahrenheit is a lovely metric, which in contrast to Celsius have no good translation to Kelvin. (5F - 160)/9 - 273 = K. Really, though, you should be using Rankine in that situation because it's the absolute scale for Fahrenheit. 0°R = -459.67 °F.
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May 6, 2020 09:47
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a foolish pianist posted:Also, that's actually a pretty decent movie. Edge of tomorrow is very good imo, possibly the most video game movie ever made
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May 6, 2020 09:55
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Jedit posted:(5F - 160)/9 - 273 = K. From my MD software suite: "For those who want some proof that physicists are human, the proof is in the idiocy of all the different units which they use for measuring energy." (Richard Feynman)
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May 6, 2020 10:23
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Black Leopard, Red Wolf is 99p in the UK Kindle store at the moment. I've been waiting for it to drop and just picked it up.
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May 6, 2020 10:54
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Xtanstic posted:Ah never mind. I just found the link: https://read.macmillan.com/promo/murderbotshortstorypreordergiveaway/ Tor tweeted that it worked for ebooks too, and my canadian friend got it through a kobo ebook purchase. Try tweeting tor! You deserve this sweet story!
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May 6, 2020 12:31
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Cardiac posted:Fahrenheit is a lovely metric, which in contrast to Celsius have no good translation to Kelvin. Using it in sci-fi is just bad. Fahrenheit is a really good scale for describing weather temperatures in Europe and NA at least, where 0 and 100 are good endpoints for human outdoor temperature experience. Celsius is terrible at that (the typical weather temp range in Celsius is what, about -20 to 40?), but great if only care about phase transitions of water.
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May 6, 2020 14:44
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sebmojo posted:Edge of tomorrow is very good imo, possibly the most video game movie ever made Really the only disappointing thing is that on there are hour-long looped video cuts on Youtube of Emily Blunt's war yoga scene, but not hour-long looped video cuts of Emily Blunt shooting Tom Cruise in the face. thatmyfetish.gif
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May 6, 2020 15:39
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Just want to note that another Tom Cruise movie, Oblivion is the best unofficial movie adaption of the PARANOIA RPG that I've ever encountered. The OUTSIDE, Friend Computer, ludicrous technology, Teela O'Malley, Clones, etc. weight chat: this is what kicked off weight chat discussion quote:I: WINTER STORM
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May 6, 2020 15:41
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KOGAHAZAN!! posted:The Murderbot novel is out and I'm reading it. You fucker. I got to the part where Murderbot finds ART's backup, and poo poo is building up to get real. EDIT: Just got to "Okay, third mom" and I'm going to hate it if this turns into a sci-fi family drama. Some Pinko Commie fucked around with this message at 16:51 on May 6, 2020 |
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May 6, 2020 16:46
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Murderbot's author is doing an AMA on r/fantasy https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/geiwxa/hi_im_martha_wells_and_i_write_the_murderbot/
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May 6, 2020 19:10
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a foolish pianist posted:Fahrenheit is a really good scale for describing weather temperatures in Europe and NA at least, where 0 and 100 are good endpoints for human outdoor temperature experience. Celsius is terrible at that (the typical weather temp range in Celsius is what, about -20 to 40?), but great if only care about phase transitions of water. Okay, so, this is not the first time I have seen this argument, and I have to ask: what in the heck do you need a hundred point scale for perceptual temperature? Like what is knowing that it's 54F outside instead of 55F doing for you? Annual temperature range here is something like 2~24 ish C and frankly I'd be happy with fewer gradations, not more.
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May 6, 2020 20:47
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If nothing else it's nice having the generality of "It's in the 60s" or "It's in the 70s" instead of "It's between 15 and 20" Kind of the same thing as the "a few inches" vs "10 centimetres" in that it's just nicer for speaking, and has honestly no downsides. There are a million downsides of Imperial measurement, but I've never once in my life asked "why are we still on Fahrenheit?"
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May 6, 2020 20:54
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Sorry for continuing the derails. For content, I finally gave up on Reality Dysfunction. I got to a scene where three hot chicks were all hanging off the main character's dick and realized I don't like reading anything Peter F. Hamilton has to say about women, ever again. Proceeded to start The Last Policeman and read over half of it in a sitting. Somehow much happier even though the world is deeply depressing. 
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May 6, 2020 20:57
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KOGAHAZAN!! posted:
Yah. Where I live, temperatures vary between about -20 and +30 degrees Celsius across most years; gently caress if I can perceive any meaningful difference between for example 14 and 15 degrees. Only time we need high precision measurement Is when checking the kids for fevers, and then we're talking about digital thermometers with one or two decimal places anyway.
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May 6, 2020 20:58
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TheAardvark posted:Sorry for continuing the derails. For content, I finally gave up on Reality Dysfunction. I got to a scene where three hot chicks were all hanging off the main character's dick and realized I don't like reading anything Peter F. Hamilton has to say about women, ever again. I'm 2/3rds through the second book right now and I think you made the right call. It's just a slog right now and if the whole thing ends with "oh, god did it" he can gently caress right off. Might read some of his short stories after this but at least now I know why he's not a more recognizable name. This was my goodreads review of Reality Dysfunction a couple weeks ago: quote:Sort of a strange novel. Very long. The first maybe third of the novel I thought I was reading hard(ish) sci-fi because everything in space was being described in kilometers. The story gets a little bit silly and there is a lot of magic involved. I'll be reading the sequels but I'm not sure how strongly I'd recommend it. It is very white male fantasy.
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May 6, 2020 21:08
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Just finished the new Murderbot book and now I want something else fun to read.
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May 6, 2020 21:34
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How on earth do y'all read so fast? I'm 42 pages into Murderbot 5 and loving it, it's just as charming as ever. I also got a used book haul! - Lavie Tidhar's Central Station, which was described to me as "weird sci-fi slice of life with robots" - Frank Chadwick's How Dark the World Becomes, because Ninurta posted a wonderful Baen owl-alien cover and I need to read that book, so I'm starting with this one - James White's Beginning Operations, which is hospital drama in spaaace - more arriving tomorrow!
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May 6, 2020 21:47
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StrixNebulosa posted:How on earth do y'all read so fast?  quote:- Lavie Tidhar's Central Station, which was described to me as "weird sci-fi slice of life with robots" It's basically a series of interconnected (some more than others) short stories set in and around Tel Aviv, which has become a space port. I really hope Tidhar will one day write a full novel set in that universe.
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May 6, 2020 22:22
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TheAardvark posted:Proceeded to start The Last Policeman and read over half of it in a sitting. Somehow much happier even though the world is deeply depressing. Yes! These are great. I think I actually read the second book in one day (granted, I was lying on a beach for most of it).
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May 7, 2020 00:47
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Murderbot the Novel was great, really nice to have such a big chunk of murderbot at once. I feel like the next book in the universe could switch characters at this point and go deeper on some other part of the world, but idk if it would be as good without murderbot’s very specific POV.
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May 7, 2020 00:53
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I would love to read about the murderbot secunit uprising that is being set up.
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May 7, 2020 03:33
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freebooter posted:Yes! These are great. I think I actually read the second book in one day (granted, I was lying on a beach for most of it). Hell yeah, these definitely feel like beach books. One thing I want to highlight about the series is that the author thought about his main character's gimmicks. He's tall, and he has a "I like this guy" or "I don't like this guy" thing going on. It never comes up unless it feels natural. I feel like every sci-fi author writes up a list of character traits and tries to check them off every chapter. This series' author seems much more interested in the world and the big mysterys.
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May 7, 2020 03:51
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edit: wrong thread
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May 7, 2020 04:19
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Finished All The Seth Dickinson Short Stories (or at least all the ones that are freely available online and listed on his website). As is usual with short story collections it was hit and miss, but a lot more hit than miss. Particular standouts: - "Morrigan in Shadow" is, as mentioned earlier, Freespace with the serial numbers filed off and bodes well for the quality of Blue Planet; "Morrigan in Sunglare" is a prequel but doesn't wear its origins quite so blatantly on its sleeve - "Kumara" and "Never Dreaming (In Four Burns)" both brought me to tears - "Testimony Before an Emergency Session of the Naval Cephalapod Command" has been posted ITT before and is still fun as hell - "Sekhmet Hunts the Dying Gnosis: A Computation" was the one outright miss in the set, it did nothing for me - "Economies of Force" is probably the most "I sure hope we aren't looking back at this in 20 years and going 'well, that was prescient'" story of the bunch - "The Traitor Baru Cormorant, Her Field-General, And Their Wounds" I for some reason thought was a new story, rather than the old story that got adapted into the final chapter of Traitor Baru; it's good, but if you've read Traitor you've already read this, and if you haven't it spoils the poo poo out of the book. If I had to pick one as my favourite, it would probably be "Never Dreaming", but there's a lot of competition for that spot. The other seven stories not mentioned here I enjoyed reading but didn't particularly leave a lasting impression on me or have any great emotional impact. And now it's time for MURDERBOT
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May 7, 2020 13:19
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Fart of Presto posted:They are not reading 3 other books at the same time I laughed, thank you. Beginning Operations is another fix-up novel set - James White wrote a bunch of sci-fi medical mysteries and stitched them together. Fortunately he went on to write novels in the series, I hope Tidhar does the same. I just finished reading the introduction of Beginning Operations by Brian Stableford and it was really sweet to read such an admiring tribute for James White. I didn't know he was a pacifist, especially to the point of being a standout in the military sci-fi focused market in the US - all of his stuff reflected his anti-war stances.
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May 7, 2020 14:05
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EDIT: no need to hash this out in this thread
a foolish pianist fucked around with this message at 16:43 on May 7, 2020 |
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May 7, 2020 16:26
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I've got rather mixed feelings on Lavie Tidhar; his books usually have really neat premises but everything I've read of his (Osama, the Bookman trilogy) just fails to live up to the idea. Don't remember ever not being disappointed with a book of his.
anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 17:03 on May 7, 2020 |
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May 7, 2020 16:50
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Groke posted:Yah. Where I live, temperatures vary between about -20 and +30 degrees Celsius across most years; gently caress if I can perceive any meaningful difference between for example 14 and 15 degrees. Only time we need high precision measurement Is when checking the kids for fevers, and then we're talking about digital thermometers with one or two decimal places anyway. Especially given that you also have wind and humidity as factors. The only time I actually care about the decimal of a degree is when running experiments on equipment where +/- 0.5 degrees actually matters. Incidentally I have never seen anything else than Kelvin being used in physical chemistry.
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May 7, 2020 19:04
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 boooooooooooooks A Companion to Wolves: Read this when I was a teenager, loved the wolves, didn't grok the rest. Then I read this review last week and wanted to try it and the sequels. Really interesting stuff in here. Plague Town: zombie nonsense, bought because it was 3$ and sounded fun Hammer's Slammers: got the whole set for around 25$ on ebay and like, cool. This is some of the earliest modern military sci-fi, the editions are handsome, and there's a foreward by Gene Wolfe in the first volume. Hell yeah. Starfishers: I keep optimistically thinking I'll read my Glen Cook omnibuses and then I don't, but like, the covers are so pretty and the concepts so good. Will this be the year I finish either Black Company, Darkwar, or Starfishers? Who knows, but it's fun to keep trying. I have one more booksplosion coming either tomorrow or next week, and then I go back to rest, dormant, reading, waiting until I'm ready to purchase books again.
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May 7, 2020 20:01
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biracial bear for uncut posted:Just finished the new Murderbot book and now I want something else fun to read. I just finished the Penric & Desdemona short stories and they are pretty great and lightweight.
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May 7, 2020 20:51
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So I wound up going back to the Murderbot novellas after Network Effect, because Wells’ writing is so moreish, and I’m having a chuckle at this section in Artificial Condition:quote:Picking up on my reaction, ART said, What does it want? “Clutch its function” is such a great line. KOGAHAZAN!! fucked around with this message at 22:32 on May 7, 2020 |
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May 7, 2020 22:25
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Cardiac posted:Incidentally I have never seen anything else than Kelvin being used in physical chemistry. Nor in physics, when I was at university. Only masochism would drive one to use anything else if any calculations were required.
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May 7, 2020 22:28
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StrixNebulosa posted:Starfishers: I keep optimistically thinking I'll read my Glen Cook omnibuses and then I don't, but like, the covers are so pretty and the concepts so good. Will this be the year I finish either Black Company, Darkwar, or Starfishers? Who knows, but it's fun to keep trying. Of the three, Darkwar is probably the easiest to finish; it starts off slow but when it kicks off it really kicks off. I was really excited about Starfishers because I'd read Passage at Arms first, but I found it kind of a slog. Perhaps if I had more familiarity with the source material? Black Company I had a blast with and each individual book is a pretty quick read; there's a lot of books, though. There seems to be some debate on whether it stays good to the end or not. I enjoyed it to the last and thought it had a very satisfying ending, but it's probably worth applying the Dune Rule: if you stop enjoying it, you probably aren't going to start enjoying it again, so stop.
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May 7, 2020 23:51
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Got bored, re-read the Cyphernomicon FAQ out of boredom, and ......it just reemphasized for me how loving terrible Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, @1999 is. [RANT INCOMING]...feel free to skip everything in the heavily, I repeat, heavily spoiler-ized text, I just need to vent. The WW2 sections and characters were insanely stupid, especially if you'd read anything about cryptography or codebreaking or ciphers beforehand. For example, everything about MAGIC circa WW2 and signals and what the Cryptonomicon WW2 characters did was debunked by David Kahn's The Codebreakers: The Story of Secret Writing, which had been around for a while (roughly 30+ years) before Cryptonomicon got published. The "modern" sections of Cryptonomicon were just bad from the lawsuit-stalker-villain to the info-dumps to the mysterious Monk Enoch Root to the Gus Tarballs knockoff character (Jagged Alliance Deadly Games reference) to the Philippines land rush to the lawsuit-stalker-villain showdown to the "Neal Stephenson has no idea how to end this story" abrupt end of sentence non-ending. And to make it all worse, the few bits of technology cleverness inside Cryptonomicon were directly copied from the Cyphernomicon FAQ. For just one example, check out sections 18.10.2, and 18.10.3 and then read the "FBI raid on the data haven server farm" bit in Cryptonomicon. [RANT OVER] Anyway, the Cyphernomicon FAQ holds up decades after being released. Question for modern fantasy and modern urban fantasy fans. High rez scans of the Voynich manuscript have been publicly available since 2004. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript Do any series or stories use the Voynich manuscript as a part of their mythos yet?
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May 7, 2020 23:57
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Revenger by Alistair Reynolds - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LXW2IUQ/ Lilith's Brood (Xenogenesis Trilogy) by Octavia E Butler - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008HALOMI/
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May 8, 2020 00:07
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C.M. Kruger posted:I just finished the Penric & Desdemona short stories and they are pretty great and lightweight. The Penric & Desdemona novellas are some of Bujold's best work. Basically, it's the Chalion setting, a temple sorcerer dies unexpectedly, so her demon goes to the nearest available host - a younger son of a poor local noble. They
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May 8, 2020 00:30
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quantumfoam posted:Got bored, re-read the Cyphernomicon FAQ out of boredom, and ......it just reemphasized for me how loving terrible Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, @1999 is. Simmons has a reference to it in Illium/Olympos, but he's a bad person don't buy his books.
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May 8, 2020 00:32
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ToxicFrog posted:Of the three, Darkwar is probably the easiest to finish; it starts off slow but when it kicks off it really kicks off. Darkwar starts brutally, and whoof. I love its premise but drat if it doesn't start by kicking you directly in the gut. Starfishers: as I understand it, you read it first because Passage At Arms is better and tighter, being focused on submarine warfare in space. Starfishers meanwhile is an interrogation of the norse myths for the first volume, then it does its own weird thing for a while. Black Company: I've read the first one several times and enjoyed it, but I haven't cracked the second yet. I distinctly remember sitting in a hotel cafeteria starting the second one and being confused when it was about angst boy and not the company itself. I'd like to continue it and see what angst boy was actually doing, but at this point I'd have to start over again. Glen Cook is an author I really like and respect, but his stuff is also tough to keep reading due to how bleak it can be, so I've been easily distracted from him. On a different note I've been mixing Murderbot with James White's Beginning Operations and yoooo I love this, I love star trek hospital in space, with weird tech and an aggressively optimistic view. And an openly pacifist main character! I don't think I've EVER seen one of those before!
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May 8, 2020 00:35
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