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Grimson posted:There were more, actually, they were just like self-published blog stuff The Big Meow? Yeah, it started out in online serialization, then she did some kind of crowdfunding thing to expand it into an actual book. It had a long and troubled history and I still haven't read it -- maybe I should do that this year.
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Aug 24, 2020 16:27
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Captain Monkey posted:Vague rumor is she might write another. But I wouldn't hold my breath or anything. Great books though. It did seem odd that the end of the books say 5/6 are about to come out/being worked on, but were released in 2005. Her blog makes it sound like she writes full time now? I guess in 2005 on the wake of a 2003/2004 schedule it probably seemed more doable. Also just finished the second book and the reveal it builds up to that the guidestars are basically terraforming the world in concert with the inhabitants was great (though the draw of the books is definitely still the more human scale stories than the big picture stuff). E: ok maybe not clear that she writes full time actually, it sounds like she’s had a lot going on! E2: also the third book starts with such a helpful recap. I really wish this was standard for every book (doesn’t even need to be in fiction, could just be an explanatory sparknotes paragraph or two!) tildes fucked around with this message at 04:01 on Aug 25, 2020 |
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Aug 25, 2020 03:44
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Prism Mirror Lens posted:Being into sci-fi back when there were 15 novels a year must have been fun. You could literally read everything being published in the genre. In 1951 most sf was published in magazines, very little of it was published in book form. It's a fun thing to think about, though, as a case study in information overload. Here's Asimov's recollections from his essay "Science Fiction 1938": quote:But in 1938, the last year of our delight, there was no hint of such a thing. Safety Biscuits fucked around with this message at 07:54 on Aug 25, 2020 |
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Aug 25, 2020 07:52
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I get it, but that still kinda screams "Back in my day!" like some old dude yelling at the kids in the library about having too many books to choose from.
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Aug 25, 2020 08:57
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I don't think he's suggesting it's better or anything, more marvelling at the difference. There's a lot more literature and fiction in general these days, of course, but it must have been really fascinating to be there at the beginning of the birth of a genre.
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Aug 25, 2020 11:01
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Recommend me some apocalyptic fiction - not post-apocalyptic, but apocalyptic, i.e. the characters begin in the ordinary world and live (or don't live) through the end of civilisation as we know it. (Either that or survivors down the track have flashbacks; basically I want to see the event.) I'm particularly interested in 1940s-1990s, particularly interested in nuclear war, but I'll take all comers. I've read: All of John Wyndham All of John Christopher Earth Abides Alas, Babylon A Canticle for Leibowitz Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang The Stand Warday The Parable of the Sower The Road The Dog Stars The Last Policeman trilogy And in fact I'm also interested in nuclear war fiction even if that doesn't result in an "apocalypse."
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Aug 25, 2020 11:09
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freebooter posted:Recommend me some apocalyptic fiction - not post-apocalyptic, but apocalyptic, i.e. the characters begin in the ordinary world and live (or don't live) through the end of civilisation as we know it. (Either that or survivors down the track have flashbacks; basically I want to see the event.) I'm particularly interested in 1940s-1990s, particularly interested in nuclear war, but I'll take all comers. It's horror, not SF, but Swan Song by Robert McCammon sets up the characters then goes straight into a nuclear war.
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Aug 25, 2020 11:19
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High-Rise by J.G. Ballard. There aren't any nukes, but you do get a tale about the breakdown of civility.
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Aug 25, 2020 11:55
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Tokamak posted:High-Rise by J.G. Ballard. There aren't any nukes, but you do get a tale about the breakdown of civility. Would Children of Men count, then? It's a slow motion end of the world.
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Aug 25, 2020 12:11
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branedotorg posted:Robert Rankin is another who is somehow still banging them out. Robert Rankin is good though.  I mean, I can't speak to anything after Knees Up Mother Earth, but
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Aug 25, 2020 12:44
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Black Griffon posted:Well nuts. Can I get one person who liked the ending so I can go into it with no bias? I enjoyed the ending, in fact I probably liked Absolution Gap the most of the trilogy for it's weirdness and setting.
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Aug 25, 2020 13:30
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KOGAHAZAN!! posted:Robert Rankin is good though. Robert Rankin's greatest contribution to SF was and remains buying Aunt Beru's Tupperware for Star Wars.
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Aug 25, 2020 13:30
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Adrian Tchaikovsky's newest, The Doors of Eden, is out. It's good. It's also a bit different from his priors, as it's set on Earth in the modern day except when it isn't but plenty weird nonetheless, and biology-centric as usual. No spiders or octopodes but there's trilobites, dinosaurs, dinosaurs riding dinosaurs, and Neanderthals.. Queer representation included, in an organic and story-furthering way. Overall it's fast-paced, at times funny, and not as dark as some of his other books. Tchaikovsky's been getting pretty good lately.
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Aug 25, 2020 15:03
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Just finished The Tyrant Baru Cormorant and it was simply stunning. Great job, General, and I've already uploaded a review to Amazon.
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Aug 25, 2020 15:18
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What are the good sites for just keeping track of what's coming out in a given month? I used to keep an eye on Tor's New Releases posts, but that appears to have stopped this month.
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Aug 25, 2020 15:54
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Less Fat Luke posted:I enjoyed the ending, in fact I probably liked Absolution Gap the most of the trilogy for it's weirdness and setting. perfect, no one say anything elese about Revelation Space until I'm done with it.
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Aug 25, 2020 16:01
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rmdx posted:dinosaurs riding dinosaurs. Sold, and sold. Also, thanks thread for bringing Tom Holt/K.J. Parker to my attention. John Wellington Wells and Co. books, what a grand concept.
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Aug 25, 2020 16:53
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Space was the revelation the whole time!
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Aug 25, 2020 16:58
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freebooter posted:Recommend me some apocalyptic fiction - not post-apocalyptic, but apocalyptic, i.e. the characters begin in the ordinary world and live (or don't live) through the end of civilisation as we know it. (Either that or survivors down the track have flashbacks; basically I want to see the event.) I'm particularly interested in 1940s-1990s, particularly interested in nuclear war, but I'll take all comers. Holy poo poo you've got to order a paperback copy of FIRE LANCE immediately. It's a technothriller but it's also pure carbon-of-burning-cities black nuclear apocalypse nightmare.
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Aug 25, 2020 17:05
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When the wind blows. The Cold War, especially 80's Britain, was an amazingly bleak period to grow up in.
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Aug 25, 2020 17:15
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That there Greg Bear book with the apocalypse stuff, uhhh, The Forge of God.
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Aug 25, 2020 17:29
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Blindsight/Firefall, good and kinda sorta apocalypse? Steven Baxter’s Flood and Ark are okay, but definitely during the apocalypse.
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Aug 25, 2020 17:38
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Kalman posted:Blindsight/Firefall, good and kinda sorta apocalypse? Watt's Firefall and Rifters books all take place during a slow motion collapse of human civilization so I guess they might work.
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Aug 25, 2020 18:53
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freebooter posted:Recommend me some apocalyptic fiction - not post-apocalyptic, but apocalyptic, i.e. the characters begin in the ordinary world and live (or don't live) through the end of civilisation as we know it. (Either that or survivors down the track have flashbacks; basically I want to see the event.) I'm particularly interested in 1940s-1990s, particularly interested in nuclear war, but I'll take all comers. I was just reading the wiki page for John Brunner's "The Sheep Look Up" the other day and it sounds like something you'd want.
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Aug 25, 2020 20:19
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Thanks for the reccs everyone!General Battuta posted:Holy poo poo you've got to order a paperback copy of FIRE LANCE immediately. It's a technothriller but it's also pure carbon-of-burning-cities black nuclear apocalypse nightmare. If you mean this book by David Mace... https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/882982.Fire_Lance?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=JXeQ4RVeV8&rank=2 ...then that seems like exactly the kind of little-known pulpy 1980s novel I'm looking for! (I think this sudden urge is driven in part by my COVID lockdown reading for the past five months consisting entirely of new books delivered by the local indie, or library e-book loans; I miss the smell of a second-hand bookstore or op shop, and finding obscure gems from 40 years ago).
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Aug 26, 2020 00:06
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Jedit posted:It's horror, not SF, but Swan Song by Robert McCammon sets up the characters then goes straight into a nuclear war. I actually came across this yesterday while perusing best apoc fiction lists, and the blurb made it seem like a knock-off of The Stand so I kept on scrolling, but on closer inspection it seems like it's pretty well regarded and won a bunch of awards. Thanks!
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Aug 26, 2020 00:13
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Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003G4W49C/
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Aug 26, 2020 00:18
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This could easily veer into contemporary horror/thrillers (and I'd take recommendations on that too), but I've listened to the first season of The White Vault (horror podcast set on Svalbard) and I'm watching The Terror (loving marvelous) and I'm wondering if anyone has recommendations for fantasy/sci-fi set in dreadful, arctic conditions. There's something about the mercilessness of it all that makes it so appealing (planning a re-watch of The Thing later on, of course).
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Aug 26, 2020 00:42
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Random Acts of Senseless violence is about a twelve-year-old girl's life during the self-destruction of America. Society crumbles and she notices about as much of it as you'd expect a kid her age to notice. It's all written from her perspective and sometimes she's a little poo poo, but overall I got very attached to her and I liked the prose. e: Oh there's always On The Beach if you're more in a mood for slow miserable existential nightmare apocalypse but I feel like that might not be quite the thing HopperUK fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Aug 26, 2020 |
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Aug 26, 2020 00:49
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A Proper Uppercut posted:That there Greg Bear book with the apocalypse stuff, uhhh, The Forge of God. Note that this book is extremely American. It could pass as the novelization of a Harrison Ford movie.
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Aug 26, 2020 02:47
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Urcher posted:Note that this book is extremely American. It could pass as the novelization of a Harrison Ford movie. It is? The president is an idiot, the military is helpless, nothing can be done. That’s not very American.
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Aug 26, 2020 05:52
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Eh, it can be. As long as there's a PLUCKY EVERYMAN who can DO THINGS THAT THE GOVERNMENT CAN'T OR WON'T, and does what's NEEDED TO BE DONE while also being somewhat TIRED OF THIS poo poo, it's an american/Harry Ford movie.
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Aug 26, 2020 06:34
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General Battuta posted:It is? The president is an idiot, the military is helpless, nothing can be done. That’s not very American. Maybe it's just me. There are scenes in the white house and on air force one. The parts set in Australia were clearly not run past an Australian before publishing (or they were and the Australian decided it would be funnier this way). It describes a global event but never mentions any part of it that doesn't directly effect an American. It isn't American propaganda, but it is definitely trying to tell a global story but only telling an American story.
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Aug 26, 2020 06:39
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Well, I mean, when aliens invade and go to take over the world, it's normally IN America. NYC usually. The rest of you guys will fall like dominoes in this house of cards we call Earth.
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Aug 26, 2020 06:54
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Aug 26, 2020 06:54
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Urcher posted:It isn't American propaganda, but it is definitely trying to tell a global story but only telling an American story. I think that's a fair criticism although it's sort of a no-win situation for the author - do you write what you know and exclude most of the world or do you try to write other countries and risk being superficial or even offensive? The Australia stuff felt inauthentic to me and I'm not even Australian. Seeing this post made me think about other novels about the world as a whole facing the threat of extinction, and the first two examples I could think of fell into the exact same trap. Seveneves also has the end of the world told almost exclusively through the eyes of American leaders and scientists (apart from one token Middle Eastern character who was literally Malala Yousafzai but naive and passive) - I actually think this case was worse than Forge of God as (spoiler for overall plot structure) the Americans succeed in surviving the apocalypse and society in the far future is consciously based on 21st-Century America. The Three Body Problem on the other hand was fascinating to me, a reader used to British and American perspectives, because it was a nominally global novel in which all the major players happen to be Chinese, and anyone who wasn't Chinese was a broad stereotype. My favourite was the Japanese woman who turns out to be a devious sociopath who melodramatically commits seppuku when her plan is foiled. But as Battuta said the overall outlook of Forge of God is almost aggressively opposed to Hollywood optimism - hope is impossible, established authorities and plucky individuals are equally useless and the aliens specifically take advantage of America's unconscious apocalyptic fantasies to paralyse the country further.
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Aug 26, 2020 14:16
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Grimson posted:What are the good sites for just keeping track of what's coming out in a given month? I used to keep an eye on Tor's New Releases posts, but that appears to have stopped this month. Locus has a "forthcoming books" page that's usually pretty good.
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Aug 26, 2020 14:29
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Gato posted:The Three Body Problem on the other hand was fascinating to me, a reader used to British and American perspectives, because it was a nominally global novel in which all the major players happen to be Chinese, and anyone who wasn't Chinese was a broad stereotype. My favourite was the Japanese woman who turns out to be a devious sociopath who melodramatically commits seppuku when her plan is foiled. (I really dislike how that character was handled, don't get me started)
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Aug 26, 2020 15:19
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Black Griffon posted:perfect, no one say anything elese about Revelation Space until I'm done with it. LOL feel free to PM when you're done!
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Aug 26, 2020 15:23
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freebooter posted:Recommend me some apocalyptic fiction - not post-apocalyptic, but apocalyptic, i.e. the characters begin in the ordinary world and live (or don't live) through the end of civilisation as we know it." If I'm understanding correctly, Lucifer's Hammer by Niven and some of Egan's work (Distress and Permutation City, maybe?) for slow and abstract values of apocalypse
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Aug 26, 2020 16:24
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