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I picked up the new David Wong, which is a sequel to Futuristic Violence, and I think it counts as sci fi. Good and enjoyable if you like his style, but I found it a little brutal to read. The subject matter and social commentary is so real it gets a little depressing.
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Oct 25, 2020 16:43
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Boody posted:For anyone in the UK Orconomics is available to read for free as part of Amazon's Prime Reading. Ooh thanks for the tip.
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Oct 25, 2020 17:13
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The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E Harrow - $3.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07M77XW56/ How Long 'til Black Future Month by NK Jemisin - $3.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FSLQXY8/
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Oct 25, 2020 18:17
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I read Iraq+100 a collection of short stories by Iraqi authors all set a hundred years after the US invasion and it was quite good. I think only one of the writers is actually a sci-fi author so it's also a bunch of people writing outside their normal area so it has a wide breadth of style and contents.
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Oct 25, 2020 19:04
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The 1988 SFL Archives readthrough continues to deliver weirdness and WTF moments. Chuq Von Rospach's recommendation for a YA novel, which I am just going to quote wholesale, goes places: === The third book is Gerrold's, and it's LOTS of fun. Imagine a YA book with cussing, cannibalism, orgies, rape, torture, etc. etc. etc. Better, that stuff is all written in so that kids probably will never see it -- and it's one of the most fun books I've ever read from Gerrold. Probably a little too intense for some kids, frankly, but for adults, I'd call this the sleeper of the year (good, but generally overlooked). It's a Walker & Company hardback, by the way, ISBN 0-8027-6688-9 (data from otherrealms #19). Chuq Von Rospach chuq@sun.COM === -Karma struck the 1988 BOSKONE 25 convention after insane amounts of drama in 1987. -Richard Kadrey's 1st novel gets mentioned. This was decades before Kadrey switched to the much-easier fantasy genre. -1988 SFLer's are tired of all the alternative history mil-fiction stories that present Nazi's & Nazi leaders in the "miunderstood good guys" roles. -A SFLer wants to fact-check the validity of David Drake's HAMMERS SLAMMERS stories (the Iridium as protective armor holds up, not so much the tactics, plots or writing of the Hammers Slammers stories though).
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Oct 25, 2020 23:04
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quantumfoam posted:Chuq Von Rospach's recommendation for a YA novel, which I am just going to quote wholesale, goes places: On Gerrold's own website the blurb includes "In the tradition of Douglas Adams and Piers Anthony,...."
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Oct 26, 2020 00:08
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Like I said, the SFL Archives continues to deliver weirdness and WTF moments. There is plenty of other WTF stuff from 1987 & 1988 SFL Archives that I'm not going to bother mentioning here, other than Ted Nelson. Ted "Internet" Nelson. Things I thought would come up in the SFL Archives readthrough have not. Like Atari or Nintendo or Sega or Super Mario Bros for example. No mention of personal computers of any kind excluding WARGAMES 1983 or the really weird 1988 Richard Lupoff interview that really and I mean really went places. Absolutely nobody has expressed fond memories of Scooby-Doo or most of the animated shows Hanna-Barbera produced, instead preferring Sid & Marty Krofft shows or really ancient 1950's/1960''s childrens programming re-runs. And most shocking of all, have only encountered 3 real troll posters in 9 years of SFL Archives posts. quantumfoam fucked around with this message at 02:46 on Oct 26, 2020 |
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Oct 26, 2020 02:41
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The newest Penric & Desdemona novella (Masquerade in Lodi) by Lois McMaster Bujold is out. This one is an interquel, set between (I think) the 3rd and 4th stories, and it's as delightful as the rest. Bujold is never less than good and usually excellent, and these stories are extremely good examples of "cozy fantasy" written by a grandmaster of the genre. If you like Murderbot, Becky Chambers or The Goblin Emperor but haven't yet read these then you're missing out.
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Oct 26, 2020 18:01
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The Boy on the Bridge by MR Carey - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LL8BX9Q/ Is this as good as The Girl with All the Gifts?
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Oct 26, 2020 18:23
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pradmer posted:The Boy on the Bridge by MR Carey - $2.99 It's the same. I enjoyed it.
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Oct 26, 2020 18:37
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really? I thought it was garbage - I thought the characters were paper thin and bad-YA-novel level cliché, and since the setting was a retread of the first one, there wasnt any sense of mystery to keep things interesting
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Oct 26, 2020 19:26
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rmdx posted:Bujold is never less than good and usually excellent, and these stories are extremely good examples of "cozy fantasy" written by a grandmaster of the genre. If you like Murderbot, Becky Chambers or The Goblin Emperor but haven't yet read these then you're missing out.
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Oct 26, 2020 19:46
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anilEhilated posted:How heavy are they on romance? The later ones (chronologically) have some romantic elements. Not clichey or structured like a romance-genre story would be, though.
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Oct 26, 2020 23:13
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Looks like Tor just announced a sequel/preorders for a sequel to Prosper's Demon called Inside Man. https://publishing.tor.com/insideman-kjparker/9781250786159/ I'm already planning to pick it up since I enjoyed Prosper's Demon, but it's the only K.J. Parker I've read so far. Is anything else he's written in the same vein/would also be worth checking out of I liked PD? (I know he's got a big back catalog, but I'm not that familiar with it and wouldn't know where to start.)
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Oct 26, 2020 23:43
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DurianGray posted:Looks like Tor just announced a sequel/preorders for a sequel to Prosper's Demon called Inside Man. Are you looking for stuff with similar content or writing style? I don't know offhand if he has anything that's similar "subgenre" as Prosper's Demon, but Parker's writing style is pretty consistent, in my experience. I haven't read a ton of his stuff, but Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City (which IIRC is the reason of the current thread title) and The Folding Knife are both very good.
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Oct 27, 2020 00:22
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MockingQuantum posted:Are you looking for stuff with similar content or writing style? I don't know offhand if he has anything that's similar "subgenre" as Prosper's Demon, but Parker's writing style is pretty consistent, in my experience. I haven't read a ton of his stuff, but Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City (which IIRC is the reason of the current thread title) and The Folding Knife are both very good. I think a big part of it for me was the worldbuilding around the demon(s) and especially the politicking and long-term planning/plotting stuff that lead to the conclusion. I also liked the writing style though, so if his stuff is generally pretty consistent I might take a look at Sixteen Ways and Folding Knife (I'm pretty sure I've seen those specific titles mentioned before too as being good ones.) Thanks for the response!
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Oct 27, 2020 00:42
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The only Parker I've read are Sixteen Ways and the first half of How to Rule an Empire and Get Away With It, but his writing style is pretty consistent between those two, for what it's worth. Empire in particular feels like a bit like Pratchett writing the more serious Watch books, but with the cynicism turned way, way up. This is definitely a person who should be writing about making deals with devils and I'm looking forward to getting to Prosper's Demon, especially if it ever comes out on audio.
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Oct 27, 2020 01:40
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TheAardvark posted:thanks to the recs recently I started Orconomics and I am really glad I did. I've been avoiding it for years since the name/KU status made me think it'd be full of whacky memes. Much better written than I was expecting and a nice change of pace from the grimdark poo poo I've been reading. I mean, it sort of is grimdark but only in the sense that late stage capitalism is (and is also a surprisingly on point satire of the 2008 GFC). It is quite good though; well told and plotted and generally kind to its characters. J Zachary Pike has clearly read a lot of Dickens (he has an ok parody of A Christmas Carol set in the same world as Orconomics and featuring some of the same characters) and is channeling that social criticism into a typical fantasy world, which is an interesting angle to take.
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Oct 27, 2020 01:47
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Kestral posted:The only Parker I've read are Sixteen Ways and the first half of How to Rule an Empire and Get Away With It, but his writing style is pretty consistent between those two, for what it's worth. Empire in particular feels like a bit like Pratchett writing the more serious Watch books, but with the cynicism turned way, way up. This is definitely a person who should be writing about making deals with devils and I'm looking forward to getting to Prosper's Demon, especially if it ever comes out on audio. He’s an ex-lawyer, and there’s a lot of very bleak legal humour in his books (one of the ones about fencers had a throwaway paragraph about template letters that anyone who has had to manage a precedent bank will find very familiar). Bear in mind this is the profession with one of the highest incidences of alcoholism and substance abuse. Pratchett is fundamentally optimistic and I don’t think Tom Holt/Parker is. I do like his writing though: “He was hypnotised by the distant glare of his own cleverness” is a perfect description of that guy who corners you at a party and proceeds to drone on while completely ignoring your side of the conversation.
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Oct 27, 2020 01:53
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DurianGray posted:Looks like Tor just announced a sequel/preorders for a sequel to Prosper's Demon called Inside Man. I am a huge Parker fan but I always caution people that Parker is grimdark in a way that Abercrombie and Lawrence only wish they were. Those guys will have some horrible senseless poo poo happen and it’s just bad people doing bad stuff. Parker does it and it’s absolutely normal people doing normal poo poo because that’s what people do. Parker’s books are philosophically, ethically, and morally grimdark and it makes them for very bleak reading. I, personally enjoy the hell out of it, but Prosper’s Demon and 16 Ways and it’s sequel are really on the cheery, optimistic end of the scale and only one has a “happy” ending, really.
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Oct 27, 2020 04:35
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awesmoe posted:really? I thought it was garbage - I thought the characters were paper thin and bad-YA-novel level cliché, and since the setting was a retread of the first one, there wasnt any sense of mystery to keep things interesting I liked it, and I think it did manage to maintain some sense of mystery (more about the characters than the broader setting, but there were some surprises regarding the setting too). I'm not sure the autistic-savant protagonist is entirely psychologically plausible, and the basic plot structure definitely has a lot of parallels to the first book (a group of people, including both scientists and soldiers, who don't all get along very well take a road trip through a zombie-filled landscape, many of them die horribly, the youngest and most outsider-y member of the group gradually gains the respect of the adults, the protagonists learn surprising things about the zombies). But it's a plot structure that works oddly well. It helps, I suppose, that Carey gives his scientists, soldiers, and even zombies a kind of dignity that characters in other zombie-apocalypse stories often lack.
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Oct 27, 2020 05:26
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navyjack posted:I am a huge Parker fan but I always caution people that Parker is grimdark in a way that Abercrombie and Lawrence only wish they were. Those guys will have some horrible senseless poo poo happen and it’s just bad people doing bad stuff. Parker does it and it’s absolutely normal people doing normal poo poo because that’s what people do. Parker’s books are philosophically, ethically, and morally grimdark and it makes them for very bleak reading. I, personally enjoy the hell out of it, but Prosper’s Demon and 16 Ways and it’s sequel are really on the cheery, optimistic end of the scale and only one has a “happy” ending, really. They should give you a bottle of cheap liquor as a prize for finishing the Engineer trilogy, that one is really unrelenting and unpleasantly dark.
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Oct 27, 2020 05:54
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I was really enjoying 16 Ways, and then that Thing that happened at the end literally made me go "oh come on" at my Kindle. I'm the fool though, for expecting a Parker novel to have a happy ending.
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Oct 27, 2020 09:15
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Beefeater1980 posted:I mean, it sort of is grimdark but only in the sense that late stage capitalism is (and is also a surprisingly on point satire of the 2008 GFC). I like how there are two seperate spoofs of The Big Short and CDOs.
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Oct 27, 2020 12:23
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navyjack posted:I am a huge Parker fan but I always caution people that Parker is grimdark in a way that Abercrombie and Lawrence only wish they were. Just found out that K. J. Parker is also Tom Holt. Yeah, I can see why he'd use a pseudoname for the serious fantasy, it would be a serious whiplash to someone used to his light stuff.
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Oct 27, 2020 13:03
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His stated reason for choosing "Parker": It is a pen name.
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Oct 27, 2020 13:23
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If I've never read Parker where's a good place to start?
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Oct 27, 2020 15:33
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rmdx posted:The newest Penric & Desdemona novella (Masquerade in Lodi) by Lois McMaster Bujold is out. This one is an interquel, set between (I think) the 3rd and 4th stories, and it's as delightful as the rest. I've just finished this one, and it's one of the highlights of the series and very much "cozy fiction". I'll read as many of these as she wants to write. Now I'm on to the new Yoon Ha Lee, and it's just starting to get weird. So, about 3 chapters in.
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Oct 27, 2020 15:38
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Megasabin posted:If I've never read Parker where's a good place to start? I liked his short story collection Academic Exercises. I also enjoyed The Folding Knife. I found Sharps unmemorable and I can't bring myself to finish even the first of the Scavenger trilogy. Just incredibly boring.
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Oct 27, 2020 19:05
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Megasabin posted:If I've never read Parker where's a good place to start? The Folding Knife - selfcontained and on the optimistic side of his work.
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Oct 27, 2020 20:12
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The only parker I can remember reading was something about an alchemist who learned how to make a non work/material intensive version of blue dye for ink/paint. Wasn't grimdark that I can remember. There was also something about his wife being in suspended animation in a big bathtub of honey, but I can't recall why or how, so it might be a different book.
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Oct 27, 2020 21:23
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don't mellify my wife!!!
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Oct 27, 2020 21:51
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Groke posted:His stated reason for choosing "Parker": It is a pen name. Oh my god
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Oct 27, 2020 22:07
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New Laundry Files, Dead Lies Dreaming is out today.
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Oct 28, 2020 00:46
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Has anyone ever done a good mecha novel? I know they're a highly visual sci-fi concept, but there must have been enough folks having a crack at the idea for some decent stuff to come out of it.
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Oct 28, 2020 01:05
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Darth Walrus posted:Has anyone ever done a good mecha novel? I know they're a highly visual sci-fi concept, but there must have been enough folks having a crack at the idea for some decent stuff to come out of it. Steel Frame
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Oct 28, 2020 01:12
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Sleeping Giants/Waking Gods/Only Human is a trilogy called The Themis Files (by Sylvain Neuvel), and it's pretty good. It's an odd sort of thing, but it is mech based. Basically, a lady discovers a giant hand and spends her life researching it, realizes it's part of a bigger robot, and it turns out bad poo poo happens when only a single country has the equivalent of an alien Gundam.
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Oct 28, 2020 01:33
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Darth Walrus posted:Has anyone ever done a good mecha novel? I know they're a highly visual sci-fi concept, but there must have been enough folks having a crack at the idea for some decent stuff to come out of it. Over in the 40K aisle there's Dan Abnett's Titanicus. It's a massive war novel with giant stompy robots wrecking poo poo. Don't worry if you think there are too many characters to follow...
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Oct 28, 2020 01:54
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Darth Walrus posted:Has anyone ever done a good mecha novel? I know they're a highly visual sci-fi concept, but there must have been enough folks having a crack at the idea for some decent stuff to come out of it. There are a couple upcoming titles I know of that I'm keeping an eye out for because I really love mecha stories but would love for more non-anime options. Top of my looking-forward-to-it list is The Genesis of Misery by Neon Yang (formerly wrote as JY Yang -- they wrote the Tensorate series of novellas). The basic pitch is 'Joan of Arc but queer and with giant robots.' It's not slated to be published until 2022 though. The other upcoming one (that I know of at least) is Gearbreakers by Zoe Hana Mikuta, who I'm not as familiar with, but there's a good amount of plot synposes available since it's coming out June 2021. It's supposed to be YA with lesbian mech pilots/mech destroying soldiers from what I gather. There's also one mecha book I've read (a novella) which I could only recommend with A LOT of caveats because while I liked it, it's definitely not for everyone. It's Dreadnought by Gretchen Felker-Martin (it was published independently, but she just got picked up by Tor to publish her next horror novel, so don't let the Gumroad listing throw you off as far as quality at least). It's sort of like "what if Neon Genesis Evangelion dove even deeper into the hosed up mental states/circumstances of the characters and the system that forces them to pilot war machines?" ...so it's pretty bleak and there are content warnings for basically everything under the sun (and just to be clear, it's not Eva fanfic, but is definitely inspired by it). But if a story that's a very body-horror forward examination of how messed up it is to exploit mentally ill teen mech pilots sounds like your jam, it's there (and it's pay-what-you-want!). I know there are mech stories out there that don't all focus on lesbians, but at least all the ones I know of/am interested in seem to have that in common, ha.
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Oct 28, 2020 02:05
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Drone Jett posted:Steel Frame Yes, Steel Frame is a good novel about mechs/mech pilots. Andrew Skinner is great at writing exciting cinematic action scenes.
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Oct 28, 2020 02:08
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