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darkgray posted:The name looked familiar, and checking my bookshelf, it turns out I've read her massive Wraeththu book. For the life of me I can't remember a single detail from it outside of having hermaphrodites or something. I've read it twice and in general her work is fascinating - extremely fanfiction-esque (full of angst, worldbuilding that's more indulgent than sensible, and pretty characters everywhere) but with great prose and really creative stuff. I don't know if I'd rec it to anyone, but it makes me sad that she's passed so soon. Wraethuthu is both creative and hilarious: humankind goes extinct because they're being replaced by Wraethtu, who are hermaphrodites who can do magic. One of them is a turbo-special Wraeththu who is setting up Utopia somewhere in what used to be Europe and he has magic horses and all kinds of weird powers and he plays with the main characters in some rough ways. The big twist and punchline to the entire series is - spoilers for the whole set! - that they're still too "male" and need to be balanced, so there's a secret female hermaphrodite species that appears and forces the turbo-special dude to play nice and let a character he's hosed around with for the whole trilogy finally have a happy ending.
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Jan 15, 2021 22:21
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Oh wow, yeah that reminds me that I bought the trilogy in an ebook sale a few years back. I think I got maybe halfway into the first one and then got distracted and didn't finish it. I might have to go back to those soon because they were definitely weird as hell but in a way that I dig. The hodgepodge of various New Age woo and old-school occultism is dumb fun too if you know much about those sorts of things at all.
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Jan 15, 2021 22:57
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Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GV95CWZ/ On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers - $4.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004LLII12/
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Jan 16, 2021 00:19
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I'm familiar with the Wraeththu books only through the RPG based on them, which collected some absolutely vicious reviews back in the day. The only thing of Constantine's I've ever read was her collaboration with Michael Moorcock, Silverheart, which was clearly the sort of "collaboration" where Moorcock jotted down an outline and Constantine wrote the actual book. It wasn't bad by any means, but it didn't exactly make me want to rush out and get more of her books.
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Jan 16, 2021 00:28
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Is The Red trilogy by Linda Nagata any good?
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Jan 16, 2021 00:46
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Ben Nevis posted:Is The Red trilogy by Linda Nagata any good? I thought it was a very interesting and depressing thriller with a pretty believable take on what near-future AI might look like. Tiny Timbs fucked around with this message at 02:55 on Jan 16, 2021 |
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Jan 16, 2021 02:52
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StrixNebulosa posted:Has anyone in here read Miles Cameron? I realized he has a five book mega-chonk series called the Traitor Son Cycle and I might be in the mood for a long big military fantasy adventure. Is it worth it? I read all five books and really enjoyed the entire series. I'd say certainly the first one is worth a shot, and particularly if you enjoy the really fantastic elements in it -- the magic and weird creatures who at the frontiers in the first book, and who become increasingly prominent as the series continue -- it's worth sticking with it. I thought across the give books Cameron did a good job of expanding the scope, introducing new characters, and working his way up to a pretty compelling finale.
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Jan 16, 2021 04:17
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McCoy Pauley posted:I read all five books and really enjoyed the entire series. I'd say certainly the first one is worth a shot, and particularly if you enjoy the really fantastic elements in it -- the magic and weird creatures who at the frontiers in the first book, and who become increasingly prominent as the series continue -- it's worth sticking with it. I thought across the give books Cameron did a good job of expanding the scope, introducing new characters, and working his way up to a pretty compelling finale. I'll second this opinion, and also that the dude's technical writing re: logistics and medieval-warfare is the cat's pajamas
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Jan 16, 2021 04:50
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Strategic Tea posted:Altered Carbon was fun but really hard to shake the discomfort that, despite the human body and gender allegedly becoming meaningless, it's fundamentally about Cool Special Forces Detective Man fighting sexual violence against women and the big baddie is a billionaire who kills prostitutes. Thank you for this. I’ve always thought that it was super derivative and never understood all the hullabaloo about it.
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Jan 16, 2021 05:47
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McCoy Pauley posted:I read all five books and really enjoyed the entire series. I'd say certainly the first one is worth a shot, and particularly if you enjoy the really fantastic elements in it -- the magic and weird creatures who at the frontiers in the first book, and who become increasingly prominent as the series continue -- it's worth sticking with it. I thought across the give books Cameron did a good job of expanding the scope, introducing new characters, and working his way up to a pretty compelling finale. Doesn’t the first one start with the main protagonist making himself invisible, infiltrate a monastery and randomly start kissing a hot nun without consent? Also, I remember thinking I was reading a novelisation of Warcraft 3 with regards to the enemies in book one.
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Jan 16, 2021 06:09
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Cardiac posted:Doesn’t the first one start with the main protagonist making himself invisible, infiltrate a monastery and randomly start kissing a hot nun without consent? Potential spoilers I might be misremembering regarding these books: I vaguely recall something about the protagonist and the hot nun (who becomes a major character if not protagonist in her own right later) basically fell into an instant-we-have-magic-powers-and-share-a-link-attraction/lust/love *thing* and neither actually realized it at the time and just thought they were horny.
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Jan 16, 2021 06:29
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Sextro posted:Potential spoilers I might be misremembering regarding these books: I vaguely recall something about the protagonist and the hot nun (who becomes a major character if not protagonist in her own right later) basically fell into an instant-we-have-magic-powers-and-share-a-link-attraction/lust/love *thing* and neither actually realized it at the time and just thought they were horny. Chalk up another on the list of "creators who read ElfQuest and steal bits of it for the rest of their career." (No one tell my D&D players that the Big Bad of their campaign's first arc is Literally Just Madcoil From ElfQuest.) On topic, how much time does Traitor Son spend on the romance angle? That part sounds dire, but I'm a sucker for fantasy logistics.
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Jan 16, 2021 10:12
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Cardiac posted:Doesn’t the first one start with the main protagonist making himself invisible, infiltrate a monastery and randomly start kissing a hot nun without consent? Yep. Got the audiobook for this last month, and sure enough the first chapter or two has the hot youth (who's old at heart, and sexy, and magic, and a great fighter, and a prince or something?) creep onto and then make out with a hot nun (in training, she's too young). She slaps him and tells him to gently caress off and later he thinks, "drat, should've taken her." Quickest purchase to refund I've had in a long while.
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Jan 16, 2021 10:33
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StrixNebulosa posted:Has anyone in here read Miles Cameron? I realized he has a five book mega-chonk series called the Traitor Son Cycle and I might be in the mood for a long big military fantasy adventure. Is it worth it? The third and fourth ones dragged a bit but they are otherwise exactly as described. Recently reread them during the start of a covid lockdown. I enjoyed his other series, Masters and Mages more, it's a trilogy with more politics.
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Jan 16, 2021 10:56
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Fallom posted:I thought it was a very interesting and depressing thriller with a pretty believable take on what near-future AI might look like. Yeah, Linda writes good nihilistic near future stuff. The last good man is another depressingly believable military SciFi. Pacific Storm is one set in a post climate change Hawaii where a broke US has leased Hawaii to China during the handover.
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Jan 16, 2021 11:05
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Kestral posted:Chalk up another on the list of "creators who read ElfQuest and steal bits of it for the rest of their career." The romance is there but it's one of frustration, the nun decides to choose power over the main character. They both mope around but it's part of the background, not the major plot.
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Jan 16, 2021 11:09
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2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004RD8544/
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Jan 16, 2021 18:10
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The SFL Archives 1993 readthrough has been so highly annoying (TOR senior book editors have started chiming in, rabid David Brin discussion, rabid defenders of Pournelle and Niven, the usual universal "this thing sucks" Trek fan responses to a new Star Trek series, etc) that I went back in time and re-found the posts about IRL events of Philip K Dick that seemed to inspire VALIS, FLOW MY TEARS & SCANNER DARKLY, and stuck everything on the offsite blog. Already knew SFL 1993 was going to be pure pain bullshit for me, didn't expect to find myself already noping out in late January 1993. Highlights of the PKD stuff: Military grade plastique, stolen grapes, Dark-Haired-Girls, thwarting the narcs, and PKD breaking the ever-loving gently caress out of Timmie Powers brain. Tried reading some of Matt Ruff's work. Catfishing ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catfishing ) seems to be a core part of Ruff's writing style. Found Ruff's 88 Names & Bad Monkey's really stupid and bad, does the catfishing element die down in Ruff's Lovecraft Country? quantumfoam fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Jan 16, 2021 |
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Jan 16, 2021 22:55
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started Murderbot, find it delightful
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Jan 17, 2021 00:26
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Crashbee posted:I think maybe you want to look into the sub-genre of hard sci-fi, which emphasises scientific accuracy. I'll give that a try but is the writing a bit too dry, like I want book with lots of cool tech but I also don't want them to just explain to me how a chemical process occurs step by step.
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Jan 17, 2021 01:31
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Ulio posted:I'll give that a try but is the writing a bit too dry, like I want book with lots of cool tech but I also don't want them to just explain to me how a chemical process occurs step by step. Depends on the author? Like, hard SF doesn't have to be super dry, the "hardness" scale is basically "everything described in this book is doable with our current understanding of physics and technology" <-> "'a wizard did it' but in space", and this is orthogonal to the "telling a story" <-> "writing a chemistry textbook and/or RPG sourcebook" axis. Most "hard" SF stops short of everything being plausible to give the plot some more wiggle room; Rendezvous with Rama has the alien "biots", The Mote in God's Eye has the FTL drive and emissive shields, and so forth -- but even when it does that any tech that gets handwaved into existence generally operates by very consistent and explicable rules even if the actual mechanism by which they work is never explained (in MiGE both the Alderson Drive and the Langston Field are total black boxes to the reader, for example.) All that said, I don't have any good recommendations for recent hard SF. The Martian, maybe?
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Jan 17, 2021 03:31
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I do not understand why writers in the training wheels phase of their careers feel like they can deliver takes like this with any authority. https://mobile.twitter.com/benedict_rs/status/1349954211358924800
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Jan 17, 2021 05:10
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https://twitter.com/jeffvandermeer/status/1350589393736790019?s=21 I didn’t realize this was a response to something.
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Jan 17, 2021 05:13
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When you think about it, all fiction is fan fiction 
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Jan 17, 2021 05:15
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Eason the Fifth posted:When you think about it, all fiction is fan fiction Haha I mean I find this kind of take bad too, but it does have some truth in that stuff like The Inferno is commentary on a piece of work that was on everyone’s mind at the time it was written. The purpose and form of writing has changed so much over the centuries that it’s not a very useful retort for people to make to the “fanfic is all bad” crowd though.
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Jan 17, 2021 05:23
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ToxicFrog posted:Depends on the author? Like, hard SF doesn't have to be super dry, the "hardness" scale is basically "everything described in this book is doable with our current understanding of physics and technology" <-> "'a wizard did it' but in space", and this is orthogonal to the "telling a story" <-> "writing a chemistry textbook and/or RPG sourcebook" axis. One funny thing with scientific articles is that when you write one you try to make a story out of your data instead just stating the experimental results.
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Jan 17, 2021 06:54
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Ccs posted:Haha I mean I find this kind of take bad too, but it does have some truth in that stuff like The Inferno is commentary on a piece of work that was on everyone’s mind at the time it was written. The purpose and form of writing has changed so much over the centuries that it’s not a very useful retort for people to make to the “fanfic is all bad” crowd though. Eason the Fifth fucked around with this message at 01:57 on Mar 21, 2022 |
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Jan 17, 2021 07:20
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ToxicFrog posted:Most "hard" SF stops short of everything being plausible to give the plot some more wiggle room; Rendezvous with Rama has the alien "biots", The Mote in God's Eye has the FTL drive and emissive shields, and so forth -- but even when it does that any tech that gets handwaved into existence generally operates by very consistent and explicable rules even if the actual mechanism by which they work is never explained (in MiGE both the Alderson Drive and the Langston Field are total black boxes to the reader, for example.) I've usually heard this described as the "one big lie" allowance. Hard authors will allow themselves to make one major advancement that they derive everything else from.
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Jan 17, 2021 07:36
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Ccs posted:I do not understand why writers in the training wheels phase of their careers feel like they can deliver takes like this with any authority. get a load of the woman expressing an opinion online as if she were an authority, who does that bitch think she is
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Jan 17, 2021 07:44
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Eugene V. Dubstep posted:get a load of the woman expressing an opinion online as if she were an authority, who does that bitch think she is
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Jan 17, 2021 07:46
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John Lee posted:The negative responses have absolutely nothing to do with gender, and 100% to do with the fact that people think she's way wrong. you can't escape gendered implications whenever you post a take about fanfic, I feel. the whole reason this Benedict character is getting ratio'd is that she's dumping on the only writing medium dominated by female and queer voices and interests, and which has been formative in the development of most of the up-and-coming female and queer authors in SFF publishing. editors too, come to think of it PupsOfWar fucked around with this message at 09:05 on Jan 17, 2021 |
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Jan 17, 2021 08:35
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So I'm like halfway through Kings of the Wyld, and I maye just have to stop, which I almost never do. I am listening on audiobook so I guess that might color my opinion of it. It feels like a bad PG-13 version of Abercrombie. The humor hits with a thud and the world building kinda stinks. It's annoying because I can almost see a good story in there. Also kind of a coincidence but I started KJ Parkers The Company, which seems like a much better "getting the band back together" story, at least so far.
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Jan 17, 2021 13:09
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Ulio posted:I'll give that a try but is the writing a bit too dry, like I want book with lots of cool tech but I also don't want them to just explain to me how a chemical process occurs step by step. Well, what are you looking for? You do get authors whose plots tend to be 'here's a thing and a scientist to give you a guided tour explaining the science behind how it could work', if that's what you want you could try say something by Arthur C Clarke like The Fountains of Paradise, which is about building the first space elevator. Or Man Plus by Frederick Pohl, which is about building the world's first cyborg. Do you want space stuff, time travel, aliens, something else? Crashbee fucked around with this message at 14:05 on Jan 17, 2021 |
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Jan 17, 2021 13:38
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PupsOfWar posted:the whole reason this Benedict character is getting ratio'd is that she's dumping on the only writing medium dominated by female and queer voices and interests, and which has been formative in the development of most of the up-and-coming female and queer authors in SFF publishing. like there's an argument to be made that fanfiction encourages pandering and the same pitfalls as serialization... but not much of one at all, and it'd be a real loving dumb take without the gender angle (although, of course, far far worse with it) Ulio posted:I'll give that a try but is the writing a bit too dry, like I want book with lots of cool tech but I also don't want them to just explain to me how a chemical process occurs step by step. DACK FAYDEN fucked around with this message at 13:41 on Jan 17, 2021 |
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Jan 17, 2021 13:39
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I enjoyed Diane Duane chiming in all 'well that's me told then'. I think a lot more authors start off in fanfic than that OP would suspect. I know Naomi Novik did and her work is excellent these days.
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Jan 17, 2021 14:39
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PupsOfWar posted:you can't escape gendered implications whenever you post a take about fanfic, I feel. I've heard that fanfiction is very bad though, with its own structural rules, social hierarchy and general hive mind consensus for each fan area of it. I could be wrong, so please correct me if so. That said, aspiring writers should just write write write, the more you do it the closer you will get to your optimal ability. That it is fanfic just means you don't have to bother coming up with your own characters or setting, which seems a bit lazy and you will miss out on that aspect of creating your very own fiction, but it is still writing, of which you should do a lot of. Advice given to me: *Read a great deal, and outside of your interest subjects. Write about what you know first. Do lots writing exercises. Rewrite everything, the first draft of anything tends to be poo poo, don't publish poo poo. If you can't make it work, put it on the shelf and start again.* Oh yeah, and take a notebook with you everywhere, you never know when a neat sentence, verbal exchange, or exciting scenario will occur to you.
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Jan 17, 2021 15:08
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Collateral posted:I've heard that fanfiction is very bad though, with its own structural rules, social hierarchy and general hive mind consensus for each fan area of it. I could be wrong, so please correct me if so. It *can* be but this is kind of a separate issue, almost, in terms of fan communites being potentially toxic. That's a wholly different issue to just 'writing fanfic makes you a bad author' which is obviously just not the case.
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Jan 17, 2021 15:52
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I mean, she's also getting dunked on because she defended her position by saying anyone who liked fanfiction were pro-capitalist shills who were happy when Amazon warehouse workers died.
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Jan 17, 2021 16:01
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A Proper Uppercut posted:So I'm like halfway through Kings of the Wyld, and I maye just have to stop, which I almost never do. I am listening on audiobook so I guess that might color my opinion of it. PG13 Abercrombie is dead on, but I'm stubborn and ended up finishing it. The sequel was one of the worst things I've ever read, and randomly introduced an entirely different villain in the last chunk.
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Jan 17, 2021 16:06
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Eason the Fifth posted:When you think about it, all fiction is fan fiction There are people in that thread making this exact claim.
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Jan 17, 2021 16:46
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