|
Just picked up Borne by Jeff VanderMeer because I really liked the Southern Reach trilogy and finally discovered that he has more books. As far as prose goes, I remember really enjoying his descriptions of the absolutely bizarre poo poo happening and I don't think I was annoyed with anything even once.
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 16:52
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 31, 2024 21:41 |
|
|
Ended up finishing Skullsinger by Rey S Morfin and it was surprisingly good. Sword and sorcery but with guns instead of only swords. Basic idea is a guy ends up being made the acolyte of a dark god and tries to get unacolyted, and things don't really go well for him in that regard. I enjoyed it, was surprised by moments in it, and I'm actively following the author on Amazon so when the new book comes out I'll know to get it. It's on KU as well, so yay free reads!
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 17:02
|
|
|
pradmer posted:Broken Stars: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation by Ken Liu - $2.99 OMG thank you, I loved Invisible Planets and had no idea he had another anthology out!
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 18:01
|
|
|
freebooter posted:I'll go against the grain and say I found it to be very dry and lifeless. It's 'Ideas' sci-fi which I know is right up some people's alleyway, but there are so many writers who can match good sci-fi concepts with genuinely good writing that I don't understand why Chiang gets so much praise. Story of Your Life and Hell is the Absence of God both made me cry.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 18:05
|
|
|
I think the only Chiang story I haven't really liked is the one from Exhalation about the digital life forms. While it was well written and had some interesting ideas my main issue is that it ends up not really going anywhere. It feels like it just stops instead of actually having an ending.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 18:10
|
|
|
freebooter posted:I'll go against the grain and say I found it to be very dry and lifeless. It's 'Ideas' sci-fi which I know is right up some people's alleyway, but there are so many writers who can match good sci-fi concepts with genuinely good writing that I don't understand why Chiang gets so much praise. extremely considerate of you to include a subopinion in your larger opinion that makes it clear that the entire thing can be safely disregarded (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 18:28
|
|
|
Mauser posted:Just picked up Borne by Jeff VanderMeer because I really liked the Southern Reach trilogy and finally discovered that he has more books. As far as prose goes, I remember really enjoying his descriptions of the absolutely bizarre poo poo happening and I don't think I was annoyed with anything even once. If you end up liking Borne, pick up the companion novella, The Strange Bird. Happens in parallel to the main story, and I think it's probably the best thing he's ever written.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 18:43
|
|
|
muscles like this! posted:I think the only Chiang story I haven't really liked is the one from Exhalation about the digital life forms. While it was well written and had some interesting ideas my main issue is that it ends up not really going anywhere. It feels like it just stops instead of actually having an ending. The Neopets story is by far the longest one, is written like a clinical case study, and is boring. My conclusion was that it was written as a deliberate inversion of the classic 'what have we created?' lifeform story that inevitably escapes and mutates and has interesting things happen in it. The Truth of Fact has a clumsy, eye-roller twist and feels like Chiang set out to write a story about memory + colonialism without finding strong plot elements at all. Even the better stories have that short story vibe where you say "ah, what a clever little scientific concept" and then thats about it.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 19:04
|
|
|
Walh Hara posted:To be honest, no, I don't that there are many writers that match good sci-fi concepts with genuinely good writing at all? Like 90% of sci-fi writers have bad prose (worse than Chiang) and 95% don't have very interesting ideas either. I'd say about half of Greg Egan's stuff is well-written with good sci-fi concepts. His short stories punch especially hard; the Axiomatic collection really messed with me. E: And as seems to be a running theme of my recommendations, he's an author who deals with a lot of transhumanism that has also managed to be lovely about IRL transhumanism. 
QuantumNinja fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Feb 19, 2021 |
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 19:10
|
|
|
Yeah granted The Neopets story feels more like a narrative parody of a Derrida essay than a plot in its own right. I still found it interesting (but the implications!?!?^1000), but I probably wouldn't insist someone else read it.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 19:11
|
|
|
QuantumNinja posted:I'd say about half of Greg Egan's stuff is well-written with good sci-fi concepts. His short stories punch especially hard; the Axiomatic collection really messed with me. Oh loving hell, how and when has Greg Egan been lovely?
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 19:34
|
|
|
You need to read more widely if you think no one's doing smart, well-written poo poo in sff. There's a lot of good work happening in short fiction in particular. The Translator, at Low Tide by Vajra Chandrasekera was one of my favorites from last year.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 19:36
|
|
|
CommonShore posted:Yeah granted The Neopets story feels more like a narrative parody of a Derrida essay than a plot in its own right. I still found it interesting (but the implications!?!?^1000), but I probably wouldn't insist someone else read it. I took it as a (depressing) look at what would probably actually happen if true AI were invented today
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 19:39
|
|
|
tiniestacorn posted:You need to read more widely if you think no one's doing smart, well-written poo poo in sff. not to speak for others, but i would say there is a healthy middle ground between "no one" and "so many" writers like that, and thats where I am. there are more good writers than there were 50 years ago, for sure!
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 19:43
|
|
|
Groke posted:Oh loving hell, how and when has Greg Egan been lovely? His novel Zendegi apparently includes a number of trans-phobic characters who insult a trans character, and the book does little to demonstrate this as not great. I haven't read it personally, just seen snippets of the discussion. 
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 19:43
|
|
|
QuantumNinja posted:His novel Zendegi has garnered a lot of criticism for a number of reasons. In particular, it includes a number of trans-phobic characters who insult a trans character, and the book does little to demonstrate this as not great. I haven't read it personally, just seen snippets of the discussion. I'm all for cutting out the Dan Simmons and OSC's (or Richard Morgans) of the world but can we not tar people as transphobic based on summaries of snippets of a discussion?
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 19:46
|
|
|
buffalo all day posted:I'm all for cutting out the Dan Simmons and OSC's (or Richard Morgans) of the world but can we not tar people as transphobic based on summaries of snippets of a discussion? Hey, I'm all down for that. It seems like it has bothered some people, though, so i thought it worth mentoning. The most notable discussion I found is here: https://high-priestess-of-elua.tumblr.com/post/622972194890334208/i-emailed-greg-egan-about-transphobia-in-zendegi
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 19:48
|
|
|
QuantumNinja posted:Hey, I'm all down for that. It seems like it has bothered some people, though, so i thought it worth mentoning. The most notable discussion I found is here: https://high-priestess-of-elua.tumblr.com/post/622972194890334208/i-emailed-greg-egan-about-transphobia-in-zendegi Thanks for linking, I definitely agree with you that it's worth noting/discussing when stuff may be triggering! but note: that person's tumblr posted:I feel that this explanation is not entirely satisfactory, but the fact Egan felt the need to write an explanation (or answer me at all) reassures me that eir intentions were good, at least. i just think we should be careful about labeling the authors?
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 19:54
|
|
|
tiniestacorn posted:You need to read more widely if you think no one's doing smart, well-written poo poo in sff. There's a lot of good work happening in short fiction in particular. The Translator, at Low Tide by Vajra Chandrasekera was one of my favorites from last year. Thanks for the recommendation! I'll check it out. That said, that's a bit of a straw man argument: of course there are other people with better prose. I just don't believe there are that many: even if you could name 50 better (not just prose but also ideas) sff authors then Chiang would still be in the top half of sff authors I read.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 22:03
|
|
|
Paladin of Souls (Chalion #2) by Lois McMaster Bujold - $4.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FC138Q/ Daughter of the Empire (Empire Trilogy #1) by Raymond Feist and Janny Wurts - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073TJH5XR/ Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B016CQUL4U/ New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KT7YTO6/ The Novels of Samuel R. Delany Volume One: Babel-17, Nova, and Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand - $3.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075KWTQNG/
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 23:47
|
|
|
Groke posted:Oh loving hell, how and when has Greg Egan been lovely? Whenever whatever he writes is a barely hidden excuse to do some MATHS. The maths asides have got very tangential to the emotional and character elements of his stories in the last 15 years or so. Try reading 3-Adica. Where other writers barely conceal their sexual fetishes and desires in the pages of their stories, Egan inserts hobbiest maths or physics forum posts. I love him, but there's a lot of bullshit once you get into 00s Edit: ooops I read this as lovely writing not lovely person. One of the things known for certain about Egan as a person is that he's very active in the fight against Australia's brutal and inhumane treatment of refugees and people seeking asylum. Edit 2: pradmer posted:The Novels of Samuel R. Delany Volume One: Babel-17, Nova, and Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand - $3.99 This is an extremely pro-click deal. fez_machine fucked around with this message at 00:17 on Feb 20, 2021 |
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2021 00:11
|
|
|
muscles like this! posted:I think the only Chiang story I haven't really liked is the one from Exhalation about the digital life forms. While it was well written and had some interesting ideas my main issue is that it ends up not really going anywhere. It feels like it just stops instead of actually having an ending. Was that the one about the robot people? If so, I loved it simply for the visual of the guy who is doing brain surgery on himself via this control and mirrors.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2021 00:26
|
|
|
Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Was that the one about the robot people? That one is Exhalation itself, and it's one of my favorites, also mostly for that imagery.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2021 00:30
|
|
|
fez_machine posted:One of the things known for certain about Egan as a person is that he's very active in the fight against Australia's brutal and inhumane treatment of refugees and people seeking asylum. That's really awesome. I was very sad when I found the post I linked. I really like Greg Egan's work (i'm a maths nerd at heart), so I'd much prefer feeling comfortable recommending it to friends.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2021 01:18
|
|
|
Greg Egan's writing isn't for everyone, and that is fine. Not everyone enjoys the same authors or writing styles. Egan's work perennially appeared in Gardner Dozois edited Years Best Sci-Fi collections, which are worth checking out simply because the Dozois edited Year's Best Sci-Fi collections have a lot of great stories in them. Burned through my existing to-read physical book pile & ebooks within a day and have started diving into some of the often recommended SFL Archives authors & story series hoping to find something good. Most of the authors and stories SFLers raved positively about aged badly. Way too many pro-eugenics slanted stories, way too much plot critical load bearing sexual assault and incest in 99.9997% of the most highly recommended stories, way too much libertarian bootstrapping stories, way way too much racism, etc. Suzette Haden Elgin's Ozark Trilogy aged pretty well, excluding the weirdness about marrying ages/lifespans of people. Bounced extremely hard off every single story in a mega RA Lafferty short story collection. The revolution from Rosinante by AA Gilliland is a terrible-engaging read because it's got so many wtf-elements happening. And then there is Winn Schwartau's Terminal Compromise.... It is so extremely terrible and dated it has been sanitized from existence on the authors self-maintained wikipedia page despite predicting a grounding of Boeing 737's airplanes worldwide along with Amazon's Mechanical Turk service.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2021 03:26
|
|
|
Just recently blew through all the Murderbot stories by Martha Wells and loved them.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2021 03:35
|
|
|
quantumfoam posted:Greg Egan's writing isn't for everyone, and that is fine. Not everyone enjoys the same authors or writing styles.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2021 03:49
|
|
|
pradmer posted:Daughter of the Empire (Empire Trilogy #1) by Raymond Feist and Janny Wurts - $2.99 This trilogy is real good, even if you aren't a fan of the Riftwar Cycle in general.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2021 04:35
|
|
|
pradmer posted:Daughter of the Empire (Empire Trilogy #1) by Raymond Feist and Janny Wurts - $2.99 Evil Fluffy posted:This trilogy is real good, even if you aren't a fan of the Riftwar Cycle in general. The Empire Trilogy is amazing. I never finished the Riftwar Saga (I can't even remember which book I tapped out on) but I reread the Empire Trilogy time and time again. Strong female protagonist (and not in the Strong Female Character type of way), lots of very well done political intrigue, beautiful worldbuilding and Janny Wurtz prose (though it's toned down from how she would normally write since it's a collaboration with Feist). If you like the Empire Trilogy, then you should also try Wurtz's Wars of Light and Shadow, which is a massive epic (11 books total, 10 published) that's equally worth reading and has more of Wurtz's flowery prose. I love reading her work but it's dense so despite how fast I read, I'm actually two published books behind (I think I actually read Initiate's Trial but had baby brain so remember none of it) and I need to do an entire series reread before Song of the Mysteries comes out. A crap load of stuff must have happened in Destiny's Conflict because up until Initiate's Trial I was still super confused as to how she planned to have the whole thing wrapped up in two more books.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2021 15:47
|
|
|
The most recent thing I've read from Egan was that story where all the surviving Australians are forced to become boat refugees.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2021 16:28
|
|
|
So I had no idea there was a new Becky Chambers Wayfarers novel out, The Galaxy, and the Ground Within. I'm gonna pick it up, wondering if anyone has gotten to it yet. Edit: ah gently caress, nevermind. I looked real quick and it had a publication date of Feb 18, but now I see it isn't until April. A Proper Uppercut fucked around with this message at 18:08 on Feb 20, 2021 |
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2021 18:06
|
|
|
Use of Weapons (Culture #3) by Iain M Banks - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0015DWLTE/
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2021 18:13
|
|
|
A Proper Uppercut posted:So I had no idea there was a new Becky Chambers Wayfarers novel out, The Galaxy, and the Ground Within. She's also got another non-Wayfarers book called A Psalm for the Wild-Built coming out later this year (July 13 is the current release date). If you like her stuff and haven't read To Be Taught, If Fortunate yet, I'd definitely recommend it if you're looking for something to tide you over until April.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2021 18:40
|
|
|
A Proper Uppercut posted:So I had no idea there was a new Becky Chambers Wayfarers novel out, The Galaxy, and the Ground Within. I just finished reading it - it’s definitely out on kindle at least. Some real sad moments. Very much like the previous in the series so if you liked them you should get it.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2021 21:42
|
|
|
Update on the Baen's Bar situation: Toni Weisskopf is disinvited from WorldCon over the whole affair. Probably because people were very mad that moderators on the Baen Forums were advocating (and offering to train people in the execution of) mass murdering everyone in cities and Baen's reaction was "Look, it'd be wrong to censor those posts, and also nothing on the forums represents us so we're completely blameless."
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2021 21:47
|
|
|
Sad Puppies 2: Insurrection Boogaloo
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2021 21:52
|
|
|
https://twitter.com/sfsignal/status/1363141575396614146
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2021 22:23
|
|
|
pradmer posted:Paladin of Souls (Chalion #2) by Lois McMaster Bujold - $4.99 The Chalion books are some of Bujold's very best works. I'd say it's worth picking up Curse of Chalion so you can take advantage of this deal. Paladin is a direct sequel to Curse, so you'll want to read Curse first.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2021 23:10
|
|
|
Cacto posted:I just finished reading it - it’s definitely out on kindle at least. Some real sad moments. Very much like the previous in the series so if you liked them you should get it. Are you in the US? Not on Kindle for me.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2021 23:53
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 31, 2024 21:41 |
|
|
I just got a real weird Kindle deal from Amazon where I got a $5 discount on either of the two Dreamblood novels by NK Jemisin (which are $10 each,) except the discount doesn't work on the collected version (which is $12 total.) So yeah, I could save money in the short term but if I wanted both books in the series I would pay more. Although really those prices are dumb as hell.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2021 00:11
|
|