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Tars Tarkas posted:Stainless Steel Rat is archetypal but I read it 25 years ago so no idea if it still holds up The first few Stainless Steel Rat books are fun as long as you have a tolerance for cocky rear end in a top hat heroes. But like so many other series, it falls off a cliff as the author tries to stretch things further and further. I wouldn't go more than three or four books deep.
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Feb 11, 2022 01:53
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Selachian posted:The first few Stainless Steel Rat books are fun as long as you have a tolerance for cocky rear end in a top hat heroes. But like so many other series, it falls off a cliff as the author tries to stretch things further and further. I wouldn't go more than three or four books deep. It does get a bit same-y as it goes along.
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Feb 11, 2022 01:56
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Doctor Jeep posted:excuse me sir, that's the Mil-SciFi thread Also the web serials.
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Feb 11, 2022 02:05
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branedotorg posted:I think the deathworld trilogy is his most readable and fun series but from left field:
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Feb 11, 2022 04:13
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Drakyn posted:Saddeningly, the book is very, very, very old-fashioned in its presentation of anything dinosaur-related. Feels like it fell through a timewarp from the 1950s. shameful lack of gay dinosaurs
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Feb 11, 2022 04:48
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Harry Harrison wrote popcorn fiction, and I say that with Harry Harrison being one of my favorite scifi authors. Aka nothing in his work is too deep, chapters end on constant cliffhanger scenarios, and the main characters in them tend to be just as smug as they are smart. Harrison's Deathworld series & Stainless Steel Rat series have the smugger/most mary sue like main characters that he wrote, his Bill the Galactic series is two amazingly good books about a drafted backwoods hick + plus a bunch of ghostwritten trash, and Harry Harrison's alt-history fiction tended to be forgettable to really loving bad (the Eden alt-history fiction series is godawful terrible). The Stainless Steel Rat series main character is hands-down the smuggest character in Harry Harrison's body of work. Although it took 3 books/3 different adventures for the Stainless Steel Rat main character to reach that smugness level the gentlemen bastards in Locke Lamora book 1 had that smugness level out of the gate. That level of un-earned smugness + Scott Lynch killing off any supporting characters who threatened to be more interesting than Locke Lamora was why I gave up on that book series really fast. Neal Asher: He's the UK's version of Jack Chalker.
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Feb 11, 2022 06:22
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Kind of weird place to shoehorn in how much you hate a completely unrelated book series but lol
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Feb 11, 2022 06:42
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Eh, giving up on book series isn't hating them. I liked the Scarlet Pimpernel aspect of the Locke Lamora series which I hadn't encountered in modern fantasy for awhile. Worse reaction I've had to a fantasy series is probably Steven Brust's Taltos and then the Southern Reach trilogy. The story series I'm glad never got expanded out into multiple books is probably Ryk Spoor's Digital Knight, because by the end of those short stories the main character was richer than Jeff Bezos and more improbably talented than Angus MacGyver, etc. .
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Feb 11, 2022 07:16
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General Battuta posted:We didn't get paid but the editors were really cool. How do you write for an anthology and not get paid? Especially a star wars one? Charity maybe? Just confused. Also, finished up Tavern by Deston Munden. It's on ku but I think it was free a while back too. It was a little hard to get into, but overall I'm glad I stuck it out. Guys world building and character description could use some help, but he's made a world with a ton of standard fantasy tropes but also tossed in a bunch of weird poo poo I've never heard of before, or just did kind of a "yea we got orcs but guess what, they ain't racist hicks and they aren't evil!" thing going on with various fantasy stuff. There's still some stuff that's the same, like the assassin lady who's mean is a dark elf. She seems fun though. I wouldn't rate it 5 star and life changing but if you are looking for a fantasy series that's more of a adventure and less of a LOTR setup, it's pretty good. I just got the second book in the series but apparently it's more like Ethshar where it's the same world but not the same people. Kinda reminds me of The Palace Job in a way.
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Feb 11, 2022 10:30
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MockingQuantum posted:I asked a similar question over in the general book recommendation thread, but I figured I'd ask here too: what are some fantasy novels that do politics, large-scale war, shifting alliances, betrayal, subterfuge, etc, well? I've been playing Tactics Ogre and want a good fantasy novel that has the same feel as that or Final Fantasy Tactics. I know the plot of both of those get a bit batshit but the initial war for succession and bands of partisans warring for control of territory is really interesting to me. I looked around online for some suggestions but most of the results I found say ASoIaF which I've read, but honestly I think the politics and intrigue are kind of the most hamfisted aspects of GRRM's books. I'd also be okay with historical fiction. Kameron Hurley's The Worldbreaker Saga
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Feb 11, 2022 12:30
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Doctor Jeep posted:I liked his "The Hammer and the Cross" trilogy a lot way back when I was on a vikings kick It's fun but also hella stupid. Norse gods as a D&D pantheon, main characters with waaaaay too modern ways of thinking. All monotheism is evil and you'd fix everything by just killing the rulers of the most powerful Christian and Muslim nations.
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Feb 11, 2022 12:43
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Harrison could always write a story that moved along nicely and was entertaining to read, though.
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Feb 11, 2022 12:44
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quantumfoam posted:Neal Asher: He's the UK's version of Jack Chalker. That's not fair to Chalker.
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Feb 11, 2022 14:07
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:How do you write for an anthology and not get paid? Especially a star wars one? Charity maybe? Just confused. I mean, it's Star Wars, currently owned by Disney, recently in the news for taking the bold legal stance that buying distribution/IP rights for something means they get to sell it but the company they bought it from is still on the hook for paying royalties; IIRC some of that was even about Star Wars novelizations specifically I would be much less surprised to learn that Disney is trying to pay authors in exposure compared to, say, some small indie outfit with a budget of $5.25 and an ornamental table lamp.
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Feb 11, 2022 15:10
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Gnoman posted:I'm quite familiar with it. That's not his "main series", and it isn't a "praise the Confederacy! White supremacy forever!" book. The big thing at the end is the Confederates finding out that their "peculiar institution" is considered an abomination by history and the future world holds them in deep contempt. lol at the liberal conceit that they would care
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Feb 11, 2022 15:26
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branedotorg posted:
Yeah I enjoyed this one as well. A little more on it, there are also humans who evolved in cold regions so it's a story about humans vs. sleestaks. Also the dinomen have almost no technical capacity but unreal biotech capacity and all their advances are purpose-evolved organisms, like for guns they use an animal they evolved to be long and vaguely rifle shaped that shoots poisoned darts from it's lengthened proboscis. I thought it would be trash based on the gimmicky title, but the guy has some really interesting ideas and the prose isn't bad. This book is also inextricably linked in my mind with another, utterly unrelated book series, I think because I thought they'd both be bad based on the cover and I read them at the same time. That's the Snowfall trilogy, which is a cool post-apocalyptic series in a world 600 years after a new ice age and has very few of the usual cliches and tropes we're used to in PA fiction. zoux fucked around with this message at 16:06 on Feb 11, 2022 |
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Feb 11, 2022 16:00
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Strategic Tea posted:See, even without the badpolitic, if that is an accurate summary then I struggle to believe that someone who could turn out such utter poo poo mid-career is actually capable of writing anything good. There's a lot of weird books out there. When I first read that description I thought they were talking about John C. Wright's Golden Age books which are basically the same thing. It's a perennial issue in SF; a lot of it is deeply and perniciously right-wing randian / libertarian gobbledegook but it's also often technically well written. Wright for example is technically a decent writer, he's just insane (ex-athiest who had a stroke and a series of religious visions and converted to hardcore trad catholicism). It all depends on your definition of "good" and different people read for different things. Some people don't care about the politics they just want space lasers or whatever. Some people genuinely enjoy reading litrpgs. All we can really do is give people fair warning -- "yeah, that series has a lot of cool space lasers, but, you know, author is a fuckin' weirdo, etc." If recommendations were limited to just authors with good opinions who are also technically skilled, we'd just be an Ursula Le Guin forum, but her thread dropped into the vault for inactivity..
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Feb 11, 2022 16:07
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personally, as a rabid, frothing, insane commie, I don't really get bothered by the politics presented in a work unless it's presented as objectively correct- a lot of the old mil sci-fi guys like to lecture the reader on the perfidious threat of reds infiltrating schools in YOUR area or whatever. the author can be whatever flavor of dumbass they choose to be so long as their book isn't an ideological vehicle, and most books aren't- sometimes a little tainted by the world view, but that's whatever, almost everyone is like that.
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Feb 11, 2022 16:27
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buffalo all day posted:shameful lack of gay dinosaurs 
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Feb 11, 2022 16:36
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I'm sure there are plenty of authors I enjoy who have terrible opinions but keep them quiet and that don't bleed visibly in to their books. If there's an overwhelming stench of it then I'll maybe look into the author's politics just to confirm a suspicion that I'm supposed to be rooting for X insane thing. But if the work itself doesn't show Bad Politics and they aren't like famous for it, I will not go out of my way to figure out an authors beliefs. Just seems like a way to limit options needlessly
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Feb 11, 2022 16:36
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Also, depiction and endorsement aren't the same thing. Scifi is largely about creating artificial situations that can't exist in our world and seeing how people would live in those situations. People like to bring up the Heinlein was a Bad Person thing (maybe he was, I never met him) but there is not a coherent ideology between say, Starship Troopers, Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Stranger in a Strange Land. I think he was just trying out ideas rather than cycling between believing in hardcore authoritarian fascism, ultra sovereign libertarianism and the free love movement. ( I understand there's a lot of weirdo sex stuff in his later work but I never read those!)
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Feb 11, 2022 16:36
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zoux posted:Also, depiction and endorsement aren't the same thing. Scifi is largely about creating artificial situations that can't exist in our world and seeing how people would live in those situations. I don’t think it’s that inconsistent? From what I know of him, he seems like a fairly standard right-winger who doesn’t happen to be conventionally religious. That’s certainly how his nonfiction essay on predictions for the future comes across.
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Feb 11, 2022 17:09
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:There's a lot of weird books out there. When I first read that description I thought they were talking about John C. Wright's Golden Age books which are basically the same thing. Wright wrote The Golden Age et. seq. before his stroke/religious conversion, and it's purestrain Randian Superman too good for society. His focus changed a bit afterwards, but it's just as obnoxious (with the addition of tweaks like erotic schoolgirl spanking scenes, but actually she's really 4000 years old So That's Fine Then).
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Feb 11, 2022 18:59
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MockingQuantum posted:I asked a similar question over in the general book recommendation thread, but I figured I'd ask here too: what are some fantasy novels that do politics, large-scale war, shifting alliances, betrayal, subterfuge, etc, well? I've been playing Tactics Ogre and want a good fantasy novel that has the same feel as that or Final Fantasy Tactics. I know the plot of both of those get a bit batshit but the initial war for succession and bands of partisans warring for control of territory is really interesting to me. I looked around online for some suggestions but most of the results I found say ASoIaF which I've read, but honestly I think the politics and intrigue are kind of the most hamfisted aspects of GRRM's books. I'd also be okay with historical fiction. SLAMMING the deep-cut button for Julian May's Boreal Moon trilogy. E: maybe also Traitor Son Cycle Copernic fucked around with this message at 19:36 on Feb 11, 2022 |
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Feb 11, 2022 19:33
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zoux posted:Also, depiction and endorsement aren't the same thing. Scifi is largely about creating artificial situations that can't exist in our world and seeing how people would live in those situations. heinlein's ideology is being a dirty old man trying out ideas of what if i got laid a lot
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Feb 11, 2022 19:33
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:There's a lot of weird books out there. When I first read that description I thought they were talking about John C. Wright's Golden Age books which are basically the same thing. Hobnob posted:Wright wrote The Golden Age et. seq. before his stroke/religious conversion, and it's purestrain Randian Superman too good for society. His focus changed a bit afterwards, but it's just as obnoxious (with the addition of tweaks like erotic schoolgirl spanking scenes, but actually she's really 4000 years old So That's Fine Then).
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Feb 11, 2022 20:49
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Sham bam bamina! posted:This guy sounds epic.
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Feb 11, 2022 20:54
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Dude is a literal visionaryHobnob posted:(with the addition of tweaks like erotic schoolgirl spanking scenes, but actually she's really 4000 years old So That's Fine Then). Goddammit I didn't know about that because i'd stopped reading him once I realized how superlibertarian Golden Age was I should've known, I should've guessed, goddammit
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Feb 11, 2022 21:11
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Sham bam bamina! posted:This guy sounds epic. I'm sure it's been mentioned before, but Wright is also a virulently homophobic piece of poo poo; among other things, he's written that the "instinctive reaction of men toward (f-slur)" involves axe handles and tire irons. He's also infamous for writing a vicious essay about Terry Pratchett because Pratchett was pro-euthanasia. So if you do want to check out his work, I would suggest you consider whether you really want your money to end up in his pocket.
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Feb 11, 2022 21:13
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Selachian posted:I'm sure it's been mentioned before, but Wright is also a virulently homophobic piece of poo poo; among other things, he's written that the "instinctive reaction of men toward (homophobic slur)" involves axe handles and tire irons. He's also infamous for writing a vicious essay about Terry Pratchett because Pratchett was pro-euthanasia. I must have been actively working to forget this dude, christ, how did I forget that too
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Feb 11, 2022 21:14
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I've honestly hit a point with market saturation that if a book is written by someone who has reprehensible world views, it's probably infested the book enough that it's not worth my time. I'll hold my nose for some books (and morbid fascination hits hard sometimes) but in general, I don't want to waste my time reading stuff by garbage people. Or, there is a real fascinating emotional movement when you find out that a book you enjoyed as a kid (Ender's Game) was written by someone who wanted to outlaw my relationship with my (at the time) girlfriend. I know Death of the Author is a thing, but... I'm reading these things for entertainment, to expand my horizons, to think about things I wouldn't normally consider, and I can afford to be picky.
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Feb 11, 2022 21:25
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Death of the Author just means that only what is in the text is relevant for the reading. It doesn’t mean you should send your money to Hitler just because his book doesn’t directly advocate for the extermination of Jews. So yeah, I agree, let’s not buy books by proven assholes. Unless they’re good and already dead like Mishima or d’Annunzio, of course.
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Feb 11, 2022 21:29
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I must have been actively working to forget this dude, christ, how did I forget that too We talk about his utterly unhinged rant about Legend of Korra -- due to Korra kissing a lady -- every year or so. The schoolgirl spanking is in the Chronicles of Chaos series and is much worse then already described. It is a straight-up rape fantasy of a 14 year old girl who is Actually Into It. IMO he goes well beyond the 'bad politics' category into the Piers Anthony/David Eddings tier. If you want bonkers future stuff go with Jean Le Flambeur or NineFox Gambit, and if it has to be libertarian just read heinlein.
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Feb 11, 2022 21:37
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Ahhh remember when Dan Simmons was fine.
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Feb 11, 2022 21:57
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StrixNebulosa posted:I've honestly hit a point with market saturation that if a book is written by someone who has reprehensible world views, it's probably infested the book enough that it's not worth my time. I'll hold my nose for some books (and morbid fascination hits hard sometimes) but in general, I don't want to waste my time reading stuff by garbage people. The real crime with enders game isn't Orson Scott Card being an insane Mormon, it's that it sucks and the better sequels in the crazy future got abandoned in favor of what is basically fan fiction.
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Feb 11, 2022 22:16
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I read The Golden Age books as a kind of jerk safari awhile ago. I admire the insane scope of them, they are grasping towards some kind of mythological operatic scale that I haven't seen anyone else pull off. Then it will turn into a loving contract negotiation. It was like reading some mirror universe Stainslaw Lem... does this guy know what he's describing is a nightmare shitworld? It's not quite Randian -- the existing world is ALREADY a libertarian future paradise, which means it loving sucks, and it is the adversary of Wright's Great Man character protag who is like pagan Jesus, possibly redeeming it by casting it off and becoming something greater.. It was kind of an awed hate-read. Also I like brain-uploading and simulated world stories and he definitely commits fully to those elements; if you like them too I think they're worth reading, for free.
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Feb 11, 2022 23:34
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Copernic posted:SLAMMING the deep-cut button for Julian May's Boreal Moon trilogy. Traitor Son series was pretty good.
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Feb 11, 2022 23:53
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Larry Parrish posted:The real crime with enders game isn't Orson Scott Card being an insane Mormon, it's that it sucks and the better sequels in the crazy future got abandoned in favor of what is basically fan fiction. I'm of the opinion that the only reason people like Ender's Game is because they happened to encounter the book at the perfect time to be blown away with just how much fun zero gravity laser tag would be without being old enough to think about how stupid literally everything else is.
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Feb 12, 2022 01:18
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Khizan posted:I'm of the opinion that the only reason people like Ender's Game is because they happened to encounter the book at the perfect time to be blown away with just how much fun zero gravity laser tag would be without being old enough to think about how stupid literally everything else is. the whole ender as hitler thing is insanely dumb but the book itself is so dumb that who’s to say what’s true
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Feb 12, 2022 01:31
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Khizan posted:I'm of the opinion that the only reason people like Ender's Game is because they happened to encounter the book at the perfect time to be blown away with just how much fun zero gravity laser tag would be without being old enough to think about how stupid literally everything else is. There's also the extreme adolescent wish-fulfilment aspect (You see there's this kid and he's different so he gets bullied a lot but actually he's really a tactical genius and he saves the world and anyone who fights him ends up dead), but yeah, some people really like that whole zero gravity combat game thing.
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Feb 12, 2022 01:53
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