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Ben Nevis posted:As I recall it starts out relatively non-gross. I mean, exploited workers, migrant boat people, etc etc and then the whole Amber storyline. Which is seriously really bad. Like worse than you're imagining if you've not read it. Yes, horrible things frequently happen to refugees -- but Piers Anthony is not the guy you want writing about that. The first book is one long string of rape (including kids getting raped, because Anthony), torture, murder, and cannibalism as the protagonist's ship is constantly raided by pirates.
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Nov 5, 2020 18:33
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Friends don't let friends read Piers Anthony
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Nov 5, 2020 18:38
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team overhead smash posted:Just started Rage of Dragons because it's been on my Kindle recommendation list for ages so thought I'd test how good Amazon's algorithms are. I have this in my backlog and haven't started it yet so I'll be interested to hear how good/bad it is.
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Nov 5, 2020 18:51
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Evil Fluffy posted:I have this in my backlog and haven't started it yet so I'll be interested to hear how good/bad it is. Finished it. Pretty generic. Feel free to read it if you want something fairly mindless. It did turn out that the country the protagonist was fighting for was intentionally portrayed as pretty awful.
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Nov 5, 2020 21:27
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Just finished reading The Three Body Problem. I'm left with many open questions about the scifi elements, that I don't think the narrator/characters addressed: - Why not make observations, ie from Trisolaris or (later in its advancement) satellites etc of the star system, and numerically model the system? With continual updates from observations, they should be able to get a model accurate enough for practical scales. This was attempted with the human computer, but not followed-up on. - During the human computer section, when faced with an unexpected result when testing the computer, what were Newton/Von Neumann's actual predictions for where the suns should be? What went wrong? - Why is the human computer loading an operating system when it's severely constrained, and has a single purpose? (Do a numerical computation) Why do you need FEM etc for a first attempt at a gravity sim? - Gravity goes with the inverse square of distance. How could a momentary conjunction of 3 stars at a thermally-safe distance counter a planet's gravity? - Quantum entanglement is a notoriously flawed concept of transmitting information. What does instantly mean with LY-scale distance? - Why could Trisolaran civilizations recover so quickly? I don't see how dehydration could save individuals from all the chaotic events. There's a lot of time in the lifetime of a star or universe, but not so much to make the time to evolve technological life insignificant. Especially when the planets are being gradually destroyed by the chaotic star system. Look at how long it took life to evolve agriculture, radio telescopes etc on earth. We can only do this so many times this before hitting the sun's end. - Why does Ye seem confused and stunned upon hearing of the Trisolarans' plan at the end? Wasn't this obvious as #1: A possibility from the moment she considered a first-contact scenario, and #2: The most likely option upon receiving the first message? It was odd that this didn't come up until late in the book, and we never heard a Redemptionst address this. The Adventist view is more plausible, and it's fun to think about Ye being so disillusioned from her life experiences to wanting to harm humanity, but this is something that should have been addressed, at least briefly. Maybe I'm spoiled by authors like Sagan, Weir, and Stephenson, and am not looking at this correctly. I find it fun to get lost in the Sci-Fi world, and imagine how it could actually be. Think about how to make these techs happen. Find flaws and doubts. I couldn't here, because the holes were too large. The proton bit at the end was super cool and would be fun to imagine. But if I can't trust the science and tech we know about, how can I speculate about the science we don't? I think the nano-wires slicing the ship were the only part that hit that cool wow, what if! emotion that drives me to sci-fi. I thought the high-point was the author giving us the opportunity to get inside the head of Ye, and try to imagine her actions after considering what she'd been through. Dominoes fucked around with this message at 02:29 on Nov 6, 2020 |
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Nov 6, 2020 02:09
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You figured it out, it's all authorial contrivance and isn't real.
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Nov 6, 2020 03:06
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Dominoes posted:Just finished reading The Three Body Problem. I'm left with many open questions about the scifi elements, that I don't think the narrator/characters addressed: I think the basic answer to these questions is that Cixin Liu had a somewhat exaggerated sense of the difficulty of the titular three-body problem. Those suns are just that unpredictable. quote:
Presumably it's "instant" in the "common sense" sense, as a result of using quantum physics against Einsteinian physics to make things work in a manner more like Newtonian physics, or something like that. While I'm not a physicist, I suspect that's impossible even in theory, but it's at least superficially more plausible than most sci-fi means of FTL communication or travel. quote:- Why could Trisolaran civilizations recover so quickly? I don't see how dehydration could save individuals from all the chaotic events. There's a lot of time in the lifetime of a star or universe, While I don't think the specific details of these particular questions are answered in The Dark Forest, and I haven't finished Death's End, The Dark Forest does suggest a general answer: Trisolarian biology is very weird. quote:
I don't remember the details of that plot point very well. quote:Maybe I'm spoiled by authors like Sagan, Weir, and Stephenson, and am not looking at this correctly. I find it fun to get lost in the Sci-Fi world, and imagine how it could actually be. Think about how to make these techs happen. Find flaws and doubts. I couldn't here, because the holes were too large. The proton bit at the end was super cool and would be fun to imagine. But if I can't trust the science and tech we know about, how can I speculate about the science we don't? I think the nano-wires slicing the ship were the only part that hit that cool wow, what if! emotion that drives me to sci-fi. I haven't read anything by Sagan or Weir, but Stephenson has plenty of things that aren't all that scientifically plausible, or even completely consistent. For example, the way the Primer's AI works in the The Diamond Age doesn't make much sense (especially since we're told earlier in the book that AI, strictly speaking, doesn't exist). Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 05:33 on Nov 6, 2020 |
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Nov 6, 2020 04:52
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I got around to Piranesi and highly recommend it to anyone looking for something short and thoughtful. Definitely not what I was expecting from the author of Strange/Norrell 15 years later, but also somehow totally consistent with what you could imagine Clarke's writing becoming. Really beautiful and bittersweet, hard to type much about it without spoilers except that if you like her and like Borges short stories about labyrinths, you'll certainly enjoy this.
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Nov 6, 2020 05:21
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The Forever War by Joe Haldeman - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PI184XG/ The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PI181JI/
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Nov 7, 2020 00:01
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Dead Lies Dreaming by Stross was very good. It's a high-tech heist story (with some magic and/or superpowers) set in the Laundry universe. This is crime, not espionage, so none of the major players from previous books appear at all. It's much more about ordinary people trying to get along in a world where there an actual Elder God in 10 Downing Street. I'd recommend this for anyone who likes high-tech crime, even if you previously bounced off of the Laundry series.
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Nov 7, 2020 00:13
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My review for Wolfhound Century, as taken from my goodreads review: I don't strictly know that I'm qualified to review this book, given that I only have a surface-level understanding of the history of the Soviet Union and can't speak to the cultural themes Higgins is drawing on here, but drat if I didn't enjoy reading it. The plot hook is that in fantasy not-USSR, an unpopular inspector from a rural area is called into the capital of the not-USSR to find a revolutionary leader and report on him. Immediately there are strange things about the setting: the capital is not not-Moscow, but actually not-Saint Petersburg, judging from its location at the mouth of the sea on swampy marshland. Other things abound: the presence of dead angels, their flesh implanted into children and molded into golems. Stranger things. Sentient rain. The walking spirit of the forest. The best thing about this book is how it seamlessly weaves in the mundane life of the city with the strange magic afoot. It feels real, like a true city even when giants walk the streets. And it feels like a right proper USSR spy drama in the rest of it, which is brilliant - inter-department intrigue, hiding files, interrogation, dimly lit rooms, realizing that something is very, very wrong. I cannot overstate how well the author conveys the city, the characters, or what they believe in and fight for. Or rather, what they don't fight for, because - and this is lovely - only one character opens the novel knowing his clear-cut purpose. The rest have to figure it out along the way. A note on structure: the author writes in short chapters, a few pages before he jumps again. It works brilliantly to convey a series of snapshots of the city, the people, the plot. It never feels rushed or cut, instead more like it's covering a lot of ground without boring you with what would be filler. The ending is clear: more is coming. The plot has not been resolved. There is an angel in the forest who wishes to see mankind in starships, and depending on who you sympathize with, you'll want to see it succeed. Highly recommended. I'm starting the next book now.
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Nov 7, 2020 05:22
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That review made me sprint over to Amazon and get the collected trilogy.
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Nov 7, 2020 09:57
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Finished the Dragons of Babel and I really like Swanwick's industrial faerie world. I like how he takes his time to take detours like a marble lion talking about his life and liked the joke about how sex with centaurs is considered bestiality by both parties.
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Nov 7, 2020 10:34
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FewtureMD posted:That review made me sprint over to Amazon and get the collected trilogy. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 13:22 on Nov 7, 2020 |
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Nov 7, 2020 13:20
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mllaneza posted:Dead Lies Dreaming by Stross was very good. It's a high-tech heist story (with some magic and/or superpowers) set in the Laundry universe. This is crime, not espionage, so none of the major players from previous books appear at all. It's much more about ordinary people trying to get along in a world where there an actual Elder God in 10 Downing Street. I'd recommend this for anyone who likes high-tech crime, even if you previously bounced off of the Laundry series. Good to know. I was less interested in the vampires, even less in the elven invasion, I had decided to tap out all together after the superhero Case Nightmare Green thing. Might dip the toe back in again.
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Nov 8, 2020 04:21
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branedotorg posted:Good to know. I was less interested in the vampires, even less in the elven invasion, I had decided to tap out all together after the superhero Case Nightmare Green thing. Elves appear in the first sentence of Dead Lies Dreaming, but super powers don't show up until a bit farther down the page.
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Nov 8, 2020 08:44
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Alhazred posted:Finished the Dragons of Babel and I really like Swanwick's industrial faerie world. I like how he takes his time to take detours like a marble lion talking about his life and liked the joke about how sex with centaurs is considered bestiality by both parties. That brick joke at the end of the lion monologue is great
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Nov 9, 2020 13:33
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I just finished reading the entire 7 book Prince of Nothing saga by R Scott Bakker and ... dear god, why did no one get that man an editor? I rarely feel like my time reading is ill-spent, but this was certainly a new low. Luckily, Blindsight is next up, and I've been hearing the good word about that for some time.
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Nov 9, 2020 13:45
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Moreau posted:I just finished reading the entire 7 book Prince of Nothing saga by R Scott Bakker and ... dear god, why did no one get that man an editor? I rarely feel like my time reading is ill-spent, but this was certainly a new low. Yeah, talk at the time was that the editor quit after the first 3 and then, well whatever happened happened.
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Nov 9, 2020 14:10
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just finished First Cycle by H. Beam Piper, it's the one with this cover, and the bad inaccurate art aside, it's a pretty good book about a meeting between two civilizations on a double planet who think incredibly different from each other. since this is a Piper book, the Not-Texans are the "good ones".
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Nov 9, 2020 20:41
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StrixNebulosa posted:Immediately there are strange things about the setting: the capital is not not-Moscow, but actually not-Saint Petersburg, judging from its location at the mouth of the sea on swampy marshland. Note the capital of Russia before the Revolution...(which did not primarily occur in Moscow)
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Nov 10, 2020 00:57
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StrixNebulosa posted:My review for Wolfhound Century, as taken from my goodreads review:
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Nov 10, 2020 05:16
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I've started digging into the Philip K. Dick Award shortlists over the years (i.e. I ordered a bunch of them off Abebooks and they'll start showing up over the next five months or so) because I think they're less known and maybe more interesting than the more famous authors who tend to get nominated for the Hugo or Nebula. First up was Them Bones by Howard Waldrop which is about time travellers trying to go back and avert the nuclear war that's ruined their own time, but loving up and ending up in an alternate universe. It was... fine! Maybe less interesting than that elevator pitch makes it sound, since it's mostly set in a small area of Mississippi in an alternate-universe-but-still-pre-industrial Native American society. Felt more like an extended short story than a full novel, but it was short and fun and readable and I liked it well enough.
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Nov 10, 2020 09:15
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I wonder how you gauge a novel's success in the long term? I was just notified that Jurassic Park will be having its 30th anniversary on the 20th of this month. All of Crichton's books sold well but easy come and easy go. I think some of his books are popular enough still but hard to really tell. In any event I always preferred he novel to the film for a few reasons. The novel actually has more action for one thing. Love the section with the raft and the T-Rex or when the raptors corner the kids in the computer room. Might have to do a reread.
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Nov 10, 2020 12:00
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And from actually good fantasy to incredibly indulgent schlocky sci-fi, here's my short review of Aliens vs Predator: Prey. To be clear, this book has two ratings in my head: the first is the quality rating. It's a 3/5, maybe edging into a 4/5. The prose is good but not spectacular and the plot is relatively straight-forward. The second rating is the fun rating, and that's why it's five stars: this is what I wanted from the AVP movie and kind of didn't really get. It has a team-up between a badass lady and a badass predator and they fight aliens and reach a mutual understanding and then unlike the very end of the AVP movie where they leave her alone in the arctic to basically freeze to death, at the end of this book she's taken on a hunt with other predators and THAT'S MY JAM. I am SO here for two species having to survive together despite communication problems, and for alien cultures, and alien fighting, and this book delivered! It even has some great scenes that explain predator - yautja - culture and it's fascinating, I want more. Tell me everything about yautja and how they see the world and operate in it. Finally - yes, I checked out the comic this book is novelizing and it's okay. The art is good but not great. The writing is the skeleton of the book but doesn't have much of the cool detailing and fleshing out of the yautja. This book is the ideal form of the comic and I had a great time reading it.
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Nov 10, 2020 16:43
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Harmony Black by Craig Schaefer - $0.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZX99WCA/
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Nov 10, 2020 23:58
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Ok, I finally started reading Monster Baru, and one the one hand, I can't put it down But on the other hand Aminata got a letter from Tain Hu and she put it back unread and I have a horrible feeling she's never going to get around to reading it and I'm loving dying here, Battuta why are you doing this to me, why 
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Nov 11, 2020 04:31
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tildes posted:- Request to read more of book I posted - I just realized you don't have PMs, so I actually have no idea how to contact with you with a beta read? If you see this by some chance, drop your email in here and I'll shoot you a link to the full thing. Actual thread content: I finally read Annihilation and really liked it. For people who have read the other two books in the Area X series, are they worth picking up, or is there a drop-off in quality?
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Nov 11, 2020 04:47
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The other two are different, but I thought also very good. Authority in particular is a big change, but pays off at the end, and in setting up Acceptance. I don’t think there’s any drop off in quality, just shifts in focus - not even really in tone. And Vandermeer, knowing that the three books would be published in short succession, has said it relieved him of any perceived need to make them self-contained - each informs the others. Short version, would recommend continuing on with the other two.
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Nov 11, 2020 05:14
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Nae posted:I just realized you don't have PMs, so I actually have no idea how to contact with you with a beta read? If you see this by some chance, drop your email in here and I'll shoot you a link to the full thing. There's not so much a drop-off in quality as much as they go in very different directions. The other two books do a fairly good job of capturing the same deep strangeness of Annihilation, though they focus on different aspects of Area X, as well as different characters. I still liked them a lot as a big fan of that sort of weird tales/sci-fi mashup, but Annihilation is definitely the standout of the three. The other two books don't have quite as much of the "expedition into an alien zone" feel, if you're looking for more of that. edit: yeah Kalman said it well, the three books tie into each other very well, with somewhat different approaches to explaining (or pointedly not explaining) what's going on in Area X and its history.
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Nov 11, 2020 05:18
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Authority is a slog the first time but is many peoples’ favorite. Acceptance is my personal favorite, it has the most humanity.
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Nov 11, 2020 05:19
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Nae posted:I just realized you don't have PMs, so I actually have no idea how to contact with you with a beta read? If you see this by some chance, drop your email in here and I'll shoot you a link to the full thing. You can email satemp845 at gmail dot com! Thanks! tildes fucked around with this message at 05:26 on Nov 11, 2020 |
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Nov 11, 2020 05:20
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General Battuta posted:Authority is a slog the first time but is many peoples’ favorite. Acceptance is my personal favorite, it has the most humanity. Yeah I took a while getting through Authority and if you'd asked me right after I read it, I probably would have said I didn't really like it, but a lot of the stuff that has stuck with me most significantly is from Authority. Acceptance was a surprisingly effective ending to the trilogy given all the different directions it went through the three books.
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Nov 11, 2020 05:21
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Good to hear that Authority and Acceptance are worth a read, since I just bounced off the Library of the Unwritten when I couldn't convince myself to keep reading after 20%. 'Hell has a library full of unwritten books and the characters escape to find their authors' seemed sweet, but the audience-surrogate character is frustratingly inept and the rest of the cast doesn't have much going for it. It's always a bummer when the pages don't live up to the premise, but that's just the way it is sometimes. tildes posted:You can email satemp845 at gmail dot com! Thanks! Done!
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Nov 11, 2020 05:50
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General Battuta posted:Authority is a slog the first time
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Nov 11, 2020 17:55
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anilEhilated posted:This is the key part, I think. It gets a lot better on re-read when you know where the series is going. the ending of Authority kind of made me want to go back and reevaluate the whole thing, which was the whole point, I think.
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Nov 11, 2020 18:02
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Childhood's End by Arthur C Clarke - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07XG6MG3Y/
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Nov 11, 2020 18:16
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Nae posted:Good to hear that Authority and Acceptance are worth a read, since I just bounced off the Library of the Unwritten when I couldn't convince myself to keep reading after 20%. 'Hell has a library full of unwritten books and the characters escape to find their authors' seemed sweet, but the audience-surrogate character is frustratingly inept and the rest of the cast doesn't have much going for it. It's always a bummer when the pages don't live up to the premise, but that's just the way it is sometimes. I worked at a library until very recently, and all of my coworker friends loved Library of the Unwritten but it was so bad. I'm glad I'm not alone. It was like when I met a guy getting a PhD in English that liked Rothfuss. I was completely boggled.
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Nov 11, 2020 19:16
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uber_stoat posted:the ending of Authority kind of made me want to go back and reevaluate the whole thing, which was the whole point, I think. Authority has some of Vandermeer's scariest writing towards the end, too, I love the tone he's able to set there as things spiral. Not quite as scary as the bar scene at the end of Acceptance, where the guy playing piano starts mashing it until his hands are bleeding and everything goes batshit crazy, but close. but also Acceptance is legitimately touching and beautiful.
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Nov 11, 2020 19:22
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eke out posted:Authority has some of Vandermeer's scariest writing towards the end, too, I love the tone he's able to set there as things spiral. the Lighthouse Keeper, oof.
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Nov 11, 2020 19:33
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