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As opposed to YFH which is the philosophical and artistic position of Thomas Ligotti e: hell yeah
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Jan 6, 2022 22:23
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the page sniper baru cormorant
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Jan 6, 2022 22:42
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High frequency yiffing
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Jan 6, 2022 22:51
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The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J5X5LVQ/
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Jan 6, 2022 23:59
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pradmer posted:The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner - $1.99 One of Brunner's best 3 (or 4) novels, but not a real happy story for this plague year of 2021. Maybe give this one a skip if your feeling depressed at all.
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Jan 7, 2022 00:54
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Telsa Cola posted:I did as well and had much the same result as you. I also now understand people who saw Ready Player One as just constant nerd culture masturbation. I freely admit it's basically ready player one for people who like mil sci fi lol. The Confederacy having collective schizophrenia is a plot point believe it or not.
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Jan 7, 2022 01:10
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Larry Parrish posted:I freely admit it's basically ready player one for people who like mil sci fi lol. Yeah like I said I can't tell if I like it or not but I think I'm trending more towards liking it with the caveat that you really only need/can read a very limited amount in one sitting.
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Jan 7, 2022 01:25
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Telsa Cola posted:Yeah like I said I can't tell if I like it or not but I think I'm trending more towards liking it with the caveat that you really only need/can read a very limited amount in one sitting. I've been mainlining it all week
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Jan 7, 2022 01:28
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Limited-time deal: Activation Degradation: A Novel https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08QJG5KLK/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_dl_H3GA13B4V4R23QSW60R8 Advertised as Murderbot has First Contact style of novel, so for 2 bucks I'ma give it a whirl. Haven't read it, dunno poo poo about the author, just found it via Twitter and thought Murderbot fans might want to check it out.
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Jan 7, 2022 01:31
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Larry Parrish posted:I've been mainlining it all week Haha fair enough, each their own I guess.
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Jan 7, 2022 01:33
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Hollismason posted:The Black Company , The White Rose continues to be loving excellent. I went ahead and ordered The books of the South. Looking forward to those. Glad I found another books series to read that's so good. If you like reading about grim mercenary poo poo Mary Gentle's Ash is a consistent recommendation in this thread Michael Moorcok's Elric and other books in Eternal Champion series might also suit. There's a lot of them though so look through the plot descriptions for the tone and subject matter that most interests you I'm really keen on Paul Park's Starbridge Chronicles for that kind of vibe but your milage might vary
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Jan 7, 2022 03:24
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Hollismason posted:The Black Company , The White Rose continues to be loving excellent. I went ahead and ordered The books of the South. Looking forward to those. Glad I found another books series to read that's so good. You might like Jack Vance's Lyonesse. Some parts of the book are more fairytale weirdness but there is warfare and it has the same sort of terse prose as Cook.
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Jan 7, 2022 03:58
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I finished To Climates Unknown by Arturo Serrano, the second alternate history book I've read not written by Harry Turtledove. The sailor William Adams is killed in a freak accident in the 16th century, preventing him from being stranded in Japan as famously fictionalized by James Clavell. The changes bubble up from there, each chapter utilizing real historical figures and exploring how the world changes as they succeed where in reality they failed. Marvelous amounts of research, including the use of Celestia to calculate the correct positions of celestial bodies. It's just a shame that the book's climax is the worst case of a 180 degree turn in quality I have ever seen. The final verbal confrontation between the world's oppressed and its oppressors is rendered out in words you'd expect to hear in a children's cartoon. It's a shame to feel let down by a book that by all rights should have been a masterpiece of the genre. It is worth reading for the price of Kindle Unlimited, despite all that!
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Jan 7, 2022 06:21
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Hobnob posted:this plague year of 2021
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Jan 7, 2022 07:30
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FPyat posted:I finished To Climates Unknown by Arturo Serrano, the second alternate history book I've read not written by Harry Turtledove. The sailor William Adams is killed in a freak accident in the 16th century, preventing him from being stranded in Japan as famously fictionalized by James Clavell. The changes bubble up from there, each chapter utilizing real historical figures and exploring how the world changes as they succeed where in reality they failed. Marvelous amounts of research, including the use of Celestia to calculate the correct positions of celestial bodies. It's just a shame that the book's climax is the worst case of a 180 degree turn in quality I have ever seen. The final verbal confrontation between the world's oppressed and its oppressors is rendered out in words you'd expect to hear in a children's cartoon. It's a shame to feel let down by a book that by all rights should have been a masterpiece of the genre. It is worth reading for the price of Kindle Unlimited, despite all that! I misread you as saying that this was actually by Harry Turtledove and then blinked a lot when you mentioned "marvelous amounts of research", as that is not a phrase I would associate with Turtledove.
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Jan 7, 2022 08:07
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Limited-time deal: Activation Degradation: A Novel https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08QJG5KLK/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_dl_H3GA13B4V4R23QSW60R8 Eh, it's cheap, might be fun Northwest Smith by C.L. Moore $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07H18LRBL/ Easier than tracking down the Weird Tales issues these short stories are from even if some of them are scanned online. Space outlaw tales with a lot of dark themed world transportation stuff tossed in, some may seem too similar if you read this in one sitting. You have probably read/watched things that borrowed from these (or borrowed from something that borrowed from these). This is old stuff but I don't remember if there is any surprise racism (I haven't read all of the stories)
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Jan 7, 2022 08:57
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Sailor Viy posted:You might like Jack Vance's Lyonesse. Some parts of the book are more fairytale weirdness but there is warfare and it has the same sort of terse prose as Cook. I love Lyonesse (some questionable sexual stuff aside) but I can’t think of two authors with prose more different than Vance and Cook!! Edit for clarity: Cook is extremely terse for sure in the Black Company books but Vance has an incredibly distinctive and a probably impossible to imitate style which I almost think is closest to an author like PG Wodehouse than any other in sci-fi and fantasy. Lyonnesse is not as extreme in that regard as some of his other books but it has both an unusual moody, classical atmosphere, lots of whimsy and a big focus on expressive dialogue. It’s a great book (all three in the trilogy are very good) but yeah not at all like Black Company. (IMO about a million times better) Blamestorm fucked around with this message at 10:50 on Jan 7, 2022 |
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Jan 7, 2022 10:44
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Apropos "Humanity, gently caress Yeah" stuff, does anyone have recommendations for non-military SF that celebrates humanity's unique abilities? I'm much more interested in stuff focusing on human culture (did you know humans have thousands of words for food? and adopt predatory animals into their families?) and biology (well, I heard that humans can survive below the freezing point of water, despite being made of water -- and can go days, sometimes weeks, without eating!) than more "humanity saves the aliens from the other aliens because we are The Best At War" stuff like First Contact, The Damned, the Posleen books, etc. I've already read We're the Weird Aliens, which had a nice mix of that stuff.
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Jan 7, 2022 16:47
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ToxicFrog posted:Apropos "Humanity, gently caress Yeah" stuff, does anyone have recommendations for non-military SF that celebrates humanity's unique abilities? I'm much more interested in stuff focusing on human culture (did you know humans have thousands of words for food? and adopt predatory animals into their families?) and biology (well, I heard that humans can survive below the freezing point of water, despite being made of water -- and can go days, sometimes weeks, without eating!) than more "humanity saves the aliens from the other aliens because we are The Best At War" stuff like First Contact, The Damned, the Posleen books, etc. Embassytown by China Mieville is a little bit like this - it's focused on the humans' ability to serve as translators/ambassadors to a strange alien species. Not sure how much of a celebration it is, though. Becky Chambers's books also talk about the unique aspects of humanity versus other alien species, but humans are definitely not "superior".
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Jan 7, 2022 17:07
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buffalo all day posted:Becky Chambers's books also talk about the unique aspects of humanity versus other alien species, but humans are definitely not "superior". 
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Jan 7, 2022 17:10
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Blamestorm posted:Edit for clarity: Cook is extremely terse for sure in the Black Company books Fun fact about Cook's style. His early stuff was written while he was working on GM's light truck assembly line. Not in the "hobby" or "second job" sense, but as in actually on the line. He'd spend about 30 seconds performing his operation on a piece., pick up his pencil, jot down a couple of sentences, put the pencil down... That would explain both the terseness and how well it flows since he has time to think before the next burst of writing stuff down. I'm sure he didn't spend an entire shift in that cycle, but he was suspiciously prolific in the 80s - I count 27 novels published between 1979 and 1989; they're all fairly short but that's still a ton of text.
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Jan 7, 2022 17:23
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Well poo poo. Guess I should watch out the next time I write a cheque.
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Jan 7, 2022 17:57
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ToxicFrog posted:Apropos "Humanity, gently caress Yeah" stuff, does anyone have recommendations for non-military SF that celebrates humanity's unique abilities? I'm much more interested in stuff focusing on human culture (did you know humans have thousands of words for food? and adopt predatory animals into their families?) and biology (well, I heard that humans can survive below the freezing point of water, despite being made of water -- and can go days, sometimes weeks, without eating!) than more "humanity saves the aliens from the other aliens because we are The Best At War" stuff like First Contact, The Damned, the Posleen books, etc. The Pink Ones is sorta like that. I don't remember a bunch of military stories but I know there's at least 1. Laughed my rear end off at the opening story though. The rest were mixtures of things, but generally a "holy poo poo this can drink CAFFEINE? THAT HIGHLY POISONOUS SUBSTANCE IS BANNED IN 4 SECTORS" kinda vibe, which was great. We're the Weird ones had the alien reddit and the worry about the human getting too bruised, right?
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Jan 7, 2022 18:36
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buffalo all day posted:Embassytown by China Mieville is a little bit like this - it's focused on the humans' ability to serve as translators/ambassadors to a strange alien species. Not sure how much of a celebration it is, though. Becky Chambers's books also talk about the unique aspects of humanity versus other alien species, but humans are definitely not "superior". Humans don't necessarily have to be superior but they do have to be interesting; a lot of SF (and fantasy, for that matter) treats humans as the Boring Baseline that all other species of sophonts are interesting (and usually superior) variations from. Chambers is at least adjacent to what I'm talking about. Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:The Pink Ones is sorta like that. I don't remember a bunch of military stories but I know there's at least 1. Laughed my rear end off at the opening story though. The rest were mixtures of things, but generally a "holy poo poo this can drink CAFFEINE? THAT HIGHLY POISONOUS SUBSTANCE IS BANNED IN 4 SECTORS" kinda vibe, which was great. I'll check it out! I'm not opposed to some mil-SF mixed in there (WtWA had some as well), I just don't want it to be, like, 90-100% of it like what First Contact turned into as soon as the berserkers show up. quote:We're the Weird ones had the alien reddit and the worry about the human getting too bruised, right? Yep, that's the one. And getting hazmat gear to carefully disassemble some equipment and get the potassium out because apparently humans need trace amounts of it.
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Jan 7, 2022 19:48
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How much of a spoiler for Hyperion is the phrase "the Shrike is basically a terminator made to kill God?" I saw someone say that and without much context, it doesn't make too much sense, but if definitely seems like a big piece of the central mystery.
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Jan 7, 2022 20:02
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Hiro Protagonist posted:How much of a spoiler for Hyperion is the phrase "the Shrike is basically a terminator made to kill God?" I saw someone say that and without much context, it doesn't make too much sense, but if definitely seems like a big piece of the central mystery.
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Jan 7, 2022 20:03
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anilEhilated posted:Honestly, it doesn't even sound right. If anything, it should be Jesus and it only really comes up in the last two books which aren't very good anyway. So probably minimal to none? The Shrike is a robot that was sent by an evil AI is an answer, or at least, more info, but not very clear. Edit: like, I imagine that is probably on the tier of knowing Leto II is a weird worm dude God-Emperor, but I didn't know if it was one of those "ruins the central mystery and thus the big reason to read" or just a minor later thing. Hiro Protagonist fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Jan 7, 2022 |
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Jan 7, 2022 20:09
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Edit: hyperion is . . .let's just say the first book is the strongest
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Jan 7, 2022 20:14
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i recommend everyone read the entire hyperion series just to experience the work and the author going off the rails simultaneously
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Jan 7, 2022 20:27
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Blamestorm posted:I love Lyonesse (some questionable sexual stuff aside) but I can’t think of two authors with prose more different than Vance and Cook!! Yeah I guess when I see someone ask for "old school fantasy" I always go to Lyonesse because I love it so much. (Questionable sexual stuff aside.)
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Jan 7, 2022 22:37
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The big distinguishing thing about humanity is how insanely inbred we are. We're like a species of clones compared to most nonhuman animals.
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Jan 7, 2022 23:09
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General Battuta posted:The big distinguishing thing about humanity is how insanely inbred we are. We're like a species of clones compared to most nonhuman animals. Especially for a species so numerous and widespread.
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Jan 7, 2022 23:20
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General Battuta posted:The big distinguishing thing about humanity is how insanely inbred we are. We're like a species of clones compared to most nonhuman animals. Sorry, humans aren't even on the horizon when we have stuff like an international invasion of self cloning mutant crayfish. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/attack-of-the-crayfish-clones/552236/
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Jan 7, 2022 23:54
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Hey I don’t know if there’s a thread for general trash media franchise tie-in fiction (I looked and didn’t see one) but I like the Halo video game series and I think the Forerunners are neat (even if their copy-paste architecture makes for bad game level design), did I just gently caress up by buying the Halo Forerunner book trilogy?
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Jan 8, 2022 01:20
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Hel posted:Sorry, humans aren't even on the horizon when we have stuff like an international invasion of self cloning mutant crayfish. Or a whole lot of domestic animals Studbooks and the like are super important not just from a prestige point but also it helps prevent inbreeding.
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Jan 8, 2022 01:22
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Kchama posted:I misread you as saying that this was actually by Harry Turtledove and then blinked a lot when you mentioned "marvelous amounts of research", as that is not a phrase I would associate with Turtledove. Turtledove does a fair bit of research - most of the characters in Guns Of The South are taken from actual muster rolls from the Confederate unit in question, with personalities extrapolated from their service record. The woman in disguise is even historical - he found her arrest record for prostitution and a newspaper account mentioning her military service. His problem is more often bad sources (He's cited Death Traps a few times on his Twitter, for example), failure to even attempt to project reasonable consequences for his changes (there's a reason my thread was originally titled "What's the butterfly effect"), and a great willingness to ignore what his research discovers if it suits the story he wants to tell. The last one isn't really that much of a problem.
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Jan 8, 2022 02:31
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Hiro Protagonist posted:How much of a spoiler for Hyperion is the phrase "the Shrike is basically a terminator made to kill God?" I saw someone say that and without much context, it doesn't make too much sense, but if definitely seems like a big piece of the central mystery. It's either just a joke because the visualization is funny or they didn't get the book at all. Xenomrph posted:Hey I don’t know if there’s a thread for general trash media franchise tie-in fiction (I looked and didn’t see one) but I like the Halo video game series and I think the Forerunners are neat (even if their copy-paste architecture makes for bad game level design), did I just gently caress up by buying the Halo Forerunner book trilogy? Youre both wrong about the game and buying those books, so lol. Have fun with those. Even serious nerds I knew hated the Halo tie-ins. Larry Parrish fucked around with this message at 03:12 on Jan 8, 2022 |
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Jan 8, 2022 03:09
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Xenomrph posted:Hey I don’t know if there’s a thread for general trash media franchise tie-in fiction (I looked and didn’t see one) but I like the Halo video game series and I think the Forerunners are neat (even if their copy-paste architecture makes for bad game level design), did I just gently caress up by buying the Halo Forerunner book trilogy? No idea, but I am genuinely excited to read the Halo books now that I'm playing Halo finally with my partner. I know they're bad but too loving bad I'm gonna have a good time!
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Jan 8, 2022 03:21
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Xenomrph posted:Hey I don’t know if there’s a thread for general trash media franchise tie-in fiction (I looked and didn’t see one) but I like the Halo video game series and I think the Forerunners are neat (even if their copy-paste architecture makes for bad game level design), did I just gently caress up by buying the Halo Forerunner book trilogy? I haven't read them, but I liked most of the Halo novels myself when I read them as a teen, and I heard the Forerunner Trilogy was one of the best ones they did. So probably not!
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Jan 8, 2022 03:22
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Gnoman posted:Turtledove does a fair bit of research - most of the characters in Guns Of The South are taken from actual muster rolls from the Confederate unit in question, with personalities extrapolated from their service record. The woman in disguise is even historical - he found her arrest record for prostitution and a newspaper account mentioning her military service. His problem is more often bad sources (He's cited Death Traps a few times on his Twitter, for example), failure to even attempt to project reasonable consequences for his changes (there's a reason my thread was originally titled "What's the butterfly effect"), and a great willingness to ignore what his research discovers if it suits the story he wants to tell.
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Jan 8, 2022 04:07
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