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Kalman posted:The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August (Catherine Webb) - not strictly time travel, but person living the same time period repeatedly. I liked this book quite a bit, but I wouldn't really call it light. Lighter than Doomsday Book though!
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Jul 29, 2020 15:22
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Thom and the Heads posted:I'm finishing Blood Meridian and would like some...lighter fare. Light and time travel is pretty much To Say Nothing of the Dog. Less light, but not real heavy might be All Our Wrong Todays. Not light: The Gone World. Light but not very good (but written by a local librarian I know) - Time and Tenacity by Hannah Vale. I thought I read more time travel stuff, but it's all escaping me.
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Jul 29, 2020 15:22
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No. No more dancing! posted:I liked this book quite a bit, but I wouldn't really call it light. Lighter than Doomsday Book though! I mean, he’s coming off Blood Meridian, *anything* is going to feel light.
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Jul 29, 2020 15:25
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No. No more dancing! posted:I liked this book quite a bit, but I wouldn't really call it light. Lighter than Doomsday Book though! I left it off my list for the same reason. Also nixed Shining Girls and How to Live Safely in a Science Fiction Universe. And Doomsday Book, natch. You know, not really time travel by The Oracle Year might be an option.
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Jul 29, 2020 15:31
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Thanks folks! To Say Nothing of the Dog and The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August are next up. I'm a sucker for "Groundhog Day" stories.
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Jul 29, 2020 15:38
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Thom and the Heads posted:I'm finishing Blood Meridian and would like some...lighter fare. The Time Wars series by Simon Hawke. They're a series of books set in an alternate future where peace in our time was achieved by fighting all the wars in the past. The alternate history comes in through the premise that various classic novels such as Ivanhoe and The Prisoner of Zenda were actually renditions of true events.
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Jul 29, 2020 15:43
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Thom and the Heads posted:I'm finishing Blood Meridian and would like some...lighter fare. "All of an Instant", Richard Garfinkle.
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Jul 29, 2020 18:03
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Thom and the Heads posted:I'm finishing Blood Meridian and would like some...lighter fare. Kate Atkinson's Life after Life-- A serial lives story like Harry August but imo better in just about any way. (As an aside, if you like serial lives stories, check out House/Powers of X, the X-men relaunch event series from Marvel.) Octavia Butler's Kindred-- Time travel as a symbol for the chains of history, a black woman from the 70s is drawn back in time to save her white slave owner ancestor in 19th century Maryland. Not fun, but one of the best and most meaningful time travel novels there is. David Gerrold's The Man Who Folded Himself-- Basically every time travel paradox and motif rolled into one rollicking story with some exploration of sexuality thrown in. Jack Finney's Time and Again-- Time travel through intense nostalgia for a previous age. Samuel Delany's Empire Star-- more a time loop than time travel. Also often packaged along with Babel 17, which isn't time travel, but is an interesting novel about language. Heidi Heilig's The Girl From Everywhere-- YA time travel novel about the relationship between history and identity and a love letter to Hawaii. William Gibson's The Peripheral-- A return to form for Gibson with time travel as an allegory for borders and exploitation.
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Jul 29, 2020 20:45
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PeterWeller posted:William Gibson's The Peripheral-- A return to form for Gibson with time travel as an allegory for borders and exploitation. Return from what exactly 
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Jul 29, 2020 21:15
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Middlegame by Seanan McGuire - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HF2ZK75/ Revenger by Alistair Reynolds - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LXW2IUQ/
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Jul 29, 2020 23:53
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Started Doomsday Book. Not really a spoiler (flavor about a historical event in the book's past) but I had to post this: "I'm not used to having my civil liberties taken away like this. In America, nobody would dream of telling you where you can or can't go." And over thirty million Americans died during the Pandemic as a result of that sort of thinking, he thought. From 1992. also the pandemic seems to have taken place in the late 2010s/early 20s LOL
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Jul 30, 2020 01:48
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Kalman posted:The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August (Catherine Webb) - not strictly time travel, but person living the same time period repeatedly. A lesser known similar book is Ken Grimwood's Replay, in which an ad executive in his 40s has a heart attack and wakes up again in his teenage body, lives out his life super rich because of his knowledge of gambling and stocks, then has a heart attack and this time wakes up a few years later than the last "replay" - and for every jump his "new" lifespan gets increasingly shorter. Really good, enjoyable potboiler that takes the stories in directions I didn't expect it to go.
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Jul 30, 2020 01:55
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General Battuta posted:Return from what exactly From not writing science fiction, of course. 
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Jul 30, 2020 03:46
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Thom and the Heads posted:I'm finishing Blood Meridian and would like some...lighter fare. how about timeline wars by John Barnes? Nowhere near as controversial as some of his others, pulpy portal / multidimensional / time travel series https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/313028.The_Time_Line_Wars
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Jul 30, 2020 05:11
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Thom and the Heads posted:I'm finishing Blood Meridian and would like some...lighter fare. I recently finished Jodi Taylor's Time Police, which is side-novel to her very long Chronicles of St. Mary's series. It's self-contained and a decent introduction to that universe told from the perspective of 3 new recruits. I have only read the first two of her main St. Mary's series but there are a lot of digs at how much they (St. Mary's) gently caress up the timeline.
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Jul 30, 2020 05:25
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Freeze Frame Revolution - good. Axiom's End - awful. Gideon the Ninth - disappointing.
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Jul 30, 2020 15:13
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TheAardvark posted:Started Doomsday Book. Not really a spoiler (flavor about a historical event in the book's past) but I had to post this: I forgot all this. I need to go back and reread it.
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Jul 30, 2020 16:35
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Milkfred E. Moore posted:Axiom's End - awful. Hmmm, disappointing.
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Jul 30, 2020 17:38
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A Memory Called Empire (Teixcalaan #1) by Arkady Martine - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07C7BCB88/
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Jul 31, 2020 00:17
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pradmer posted:A Memory Called Empire (Teixcalaan #1) by Arkady Martine How is this one? The name keeps coming up, but I don't recall much discussion about it.
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Jul 31, 2020 04:31
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Xotl posted:How is this one? The name keeps coming up, but I don't recall much discussion about it. Sort of political thriller in space based on client state relationships in Byzantium. With vaguely mezo American names. I liked it but not as much happens as you think will.
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Jul 31, 2020 04:42
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E: agree with the above! It's a mix of investigation, some politics, and some sitting around with some cool world building (it's set in the capital of a space empire, with a very built out culture etc). It kind of reminded me of the later Imperial Radch books (although not quite as well-executed imo). It is slow-moving, and I know some people have bounced off it on account of that. I really liked it though, and I think it's worth getting for 2 bucks if the basic concept grabs you.
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Jul 31, 2020 04:44
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I read it and liked it and would read a sequel. Its a bit slow paced and I griped about that itt a fair bit.
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Jul 31, 2020 04:46
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Xotl posted:How is this one? The name keeps coming up, but I don't recall much discussion about it. It was grown in a lab to get a Hugo nomination and did so successfully. It's got a couple of interesting ideas, one or two really good scenes, exactly one good twist, a load of tedious filler and a protagonist who really spends a lot of time not doing stuff. If "queer, anti-imperialist, people of colour in space," is sufficient to get you to read a book, check it out. Otherwise give it a pass.
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Jul 31, 2020 05:01
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I liked it a lot more than the Radch books past the first. "Here are a couple historical things that most people don't know set in the spacefuture to make them more relatable to modern audiences, your main character is a diplomat who couldn't punch her way out of a paper bag, so she's going to sit around and drink tea and think about things" is a lot more palatable to me than "Here is a huge high concept about immortality and self and gender, the main character is the physical embodiment of a warship and a killbot, but instead of doing something interesting with either of those we're just going to sit around and drink tea and think about things".
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Jul 31, 2020 06:16
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pradmer posted:A Memory Called Empire (Teixcalaan #1) by Arkady Martine - $2.99 It’s good and definitely worth reading. It is politics not space lasers all the time, but it’s an interesting story and setting.
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Jul 31, 2020 06:41
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It did a good job of capturing the messy conflicting emotions around living next to an empire--they're super cool, you watch all their tv, but you really don't want them to conquer your home--and just being in a foreign land more generally. But I'm an easy mark, and I'll admit I totally cheered when she finally got to write a poem.
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Jul 31, 2020 07:16
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Ceebees posted:I liked it a lot more than the Radch books past the first. "Here are a couple historical things that most people don't know set in the spacefuture to make them more relatable to modern audiences, your main character is a diplomat who couldn't punch her way out of a paper bag, so she's going to sit around and drink tea and think about things" is a lot more palatable to me than "Here is a huge high concept about immortality and self and gender, the main character is the physical embodiment of a warship and a killbot, but instead of doing something interesting with either of those we're just going to sit around and drink tea and think about things". EDIT: Oh, I thought this applied to the Ancillary books, sorry.
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Jul 31, 2020 07:22
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Milkfred E. Moore posted:Freeze Frame Revolution - good. I liked Axiom's End alright. Nothing incredible, but it's fine.
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Jul 31, 2020 15:53
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I'm having trouble sticking with Raft because of the prose/characters. It's.. not very good. Does Baxter's writing get better quickly or is he just not for me? The world and situation are pretty fascinating but man can not live on ideas alone.
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Jul 31, 2020 16:21
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I think Raft is generally a lot rougher than his later work, but he doesn't ever get really good at the prose and character thing.
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Jul 31, 2020 16:45
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I read the Xeelee Sequence (first 4 xeelee books) and I absolutely hated it. It was a struggle to finish (I know I don't have to finish a book but it was more out of spite). If you don't like, I suggest stopping. The prose does not change and those big ideas do not pay off either.
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Jul 31, 2020 16:47
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Nondescript Van posted:I read the Xeelee Sequence (first 4 xeelee books) and I absolutely hated it. It was a struggle to finish (I know I don't have to finish a book but it was more out of spite).
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Jul 31, 2020 18:23
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Sounds like my mid-lap swap to Doomsday Book was a good call. It's very charming. Also drat, Connie Willis has 4 best novel Hugo's? I'll have to read more of her.
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Jul 31, 2020 18:31
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DACK FAYDEN posted:Did you read Vacuum Diagrams? Because that's the only one of Baxter's works I'd actively recommend (it's a short story collection, spanning time and all set in the Xeelee universe) and if you already read the bad books you might as well get the good one done. I think I would have liked Vacuum Diagrams better if they didn't have the framing story that keep contorting to try and justify the why of each story. As it is I stopped at the one in the living plant tree universe?
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Jul 31, 2020 18:47
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TheAardvark posted:Sounds like my mid-lap swap to Doomsday Book was a good call. It's very charming. I really liked her Passage, which I found genuinely chilling in parts.
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Jul 31, 2020 18:57
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The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FJZDJ8Y/ The Iron Dragon's Daughter by Michael Swanwick - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01E6HYNGE/ Lot of Discworld books by Terry Pratchett - $4.99 each https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07TYGGG76/
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Jul 31, 2020 23:36
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Hugo Awards livestream is about to start, if you're interested. https://watch.thefantasy.network/the-2020-hugo-awards-livestream/
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Jul 31, 2020 23:56
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oh god grrm is the host also he just said that saudi arabia and china are bidding for WorldCon hosting rights lol
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Aug 1, 2020 00:10
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TheAardvark posted:oh god grrm is the host He's got quite a sense of fashion.
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