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StrixNebulosa posted:I'm screwing around online looking through book blogs and found this: Have not read this one but Tidbeck's short stories are wonderful.
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Jun 10, 2022 03:14
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A Proper Uppercut posted:Just finished Adrian Tchaikovsky's Elder Race. Really enjoyed it. Pretty short as far as fantasy novels go, and seems to be standalone. That quote "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" (probably got that wrong) is kind of the main theme. Also really enjoyed the way he played with the language translation between the two main characters.
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Jun 10, 2022 05:29
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StrixNebulosa posted:I'm screwing around online looking through book blogs and found this: Yes! It's extremely good and extremely weird. Tidbeck is really really good at crafting a world.
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Jun 10, 2022 05:43
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Happiness Commando posted:Never don't repost the KA Applegate letter about the series ending Late but this letter is my favorite. She had some book about aliens fighting by developing entire cultures and having them destroy each other (as far as I remember from childhood), and I remember even then being surprised by how intense it was.
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Jun 10, 2022 06:39
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that was probably from the ellimist - they were just computer games but his species got wiped out by aliens who thought they were really manipulating whole cultures for fun (which he ends up doing later anyway) i loved the animorphs books but i loved those ones especially - the ellimist, visser, and hork-bajir chronicles were all borderline xenofiction and i fuckin love aliens
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Jun 10, 2022 06:56
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So I'm like a third of the way into Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots. I can't remember who recommended it, but it came up last time people were talking about Soon I Will Be Invincible, and I just want to say it's fantastic lol.
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Jun 10, 2022 07:29
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I read about 5% further and I revise my statement to say that it's absolutely horrifying lmfao. There's lots of stories out there where the heroes are worse than the villains but this one is the only one that legitimately upset me.
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Jun 10, 2022 07:42
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If Hench if the book I'm remembering, holy gently caress the ending got disturbing. Good book though.
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Jun 10, 2022 10:05
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:If Hench if the book I'm remembering, holy gently caress the ending got disturbing. Good book though. Yeah dude. It's nuts. I wish there was more, I like her writing but it seems like it's her only novel, at least on Amazon.
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Jun 10, 2022 10:11
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Hench is fun, and she seems to be working on a sequel
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Jun 10, 2022 14:25
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A Proper Uppercut posted:Really digging Tchaikovsky's stuff lately. I'm reading Children of Ruin after finishing Children of Time and his aliens are so good. The whole story of the Portiids is related in such an interesting and elegant way, you get to the point where you cannot wait to see what happens when they meet humans for the first time. Also, I kinda like spiders now wtf? There's also just a sprinkle of that ironic English Adams/Prachett idiom in his prose that really makes it readable. This thread costs me so much fuckign money.
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Jun 10, 2022 19:37
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zoux posted:I'm reading Children of Ruin after finishing Children of Time and his aliens are so good. The whole story of the Portiids is related in such an interesting and elegant way, you get to the point where you cannot wait to see what happens when they meet humans for the first time. Also, I kinda like spiders now wtf? There's also just a sprinkle of that ironic English Adams/Prachett idiom in his prose that really makes it readable. We're going on an adventure!
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Jun 10, 2022 20:57
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Groke posted:We're going on an adventure!  I loved that bit so much
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Jun 10, 2022 21:05
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Groke posted:We're going on an adventure! Literally just read that chapter. Marvelous.
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Jun 10, 2022 21:05
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The Player of Games (Culture #2) by Iain M Banks - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002WM3HC2/
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Jun 10, 2022 22:33
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zoux posted:I'm reading Children of Ruin after finishing Children of Time and his aliens are so good. The whole story of the Portiids is related in such an interesting and elegant way, you get to the point where you cannot wait to see what happens when they meet humans for the first time. Also, I kinda like spiders now wtf? There's also just a sprinkle of that ironic English Adams/Prachett idiom in his prose that really makes it readable. Children of Memory, the third part of the series, is meant to be released later this year.
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Jun 10, 2022 22:38
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zoux posted:I'm reading Children of Ruin after finishing Children of Time and his aliens are so good. The whole story of the Portiids is related in such an interesting and elegant way, you get to the point where you cannot wait to see what happens when they meet humans for the first time. Also, I kinda like spiders now wtf? There's also just a sprinkle of that ironic English Adams/Prachett idiom in his prose that really makes it readable. If you like Spiders you should pick up Vinge's 'A Deepness in the Sky', whose arachnid friends have a warm, bucolic Tolkienesque society 
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Jun 10, 2022 22:45
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NoneMoreNegative posted:If you like Spiders you should pick up Vinge's 'A Deepness in the Sky', whose arachnid friends have a warm, bucolic Tolkienesque society This remains my favorite book and I won’t say anything more. I love Vinge and wish he was still writing. Just reread Marooned in Real-time and it’s still a solid book too.
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Jun 11, 2022 00:00
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NoneMoreNegative posted:If you like Spiders you should pick up Vinge's 'A Deepness in the Sky', whose arachnid friends have a warm, bucolic Tolkienesque society Oh, one of my favorites
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Jun 11, 2022 00:01
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Velius posted:This remains my favorite book and I won’t say anything more. I love Vinge and wish he was still writing. Just reread Marooned in Real-time and it’s still a solid book too. Currently waiting for Rainbows End to become reality, we're almost right on track!
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Jun 11, 2022 01:38
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Thread was correct. The Raven's Tower was indeed excellent. Leckie is 4/5 for me with two of the novels being top-tier sci-fi/fantasy imo (Raven's Tower & Ancillary Justice). Her only mediocre book is Provenance.
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Jun 11, 2022 02:21
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moonmazed posted:that was probably from the ellimist - they were just computer games but his species got wiped out by aliens who thought they were really manipulating whole cultures for fun (which he ends up doing later anyway) The Andalite Chronicles is the only book from the series that I still own. I love how even when the protagonist is a blue alien centaur, they still have to be a teenage blue alien centaur.
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Jun 11, 2022 07:01
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can't believe i forgot about the most important one < >
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Jun 11, 2022 07:12
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Rainbows End felt incredibly prophetic for a while when it seemed like AR was right around the corner.
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Jun 11, 2022 09:43
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A Perfect Vacuum by Stanislaw Lem - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008FC7TZ4/
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Jun 11, 2022 17:27
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Larry Parrish posted:
How exactly do I get this novel on my Kindle? I'm. Little lost with this royal roads thing
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Jun 11, 2022 18:14
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Jarvisi posted:How exactly do I get this novel on my Kindle? I'm. Little lost with this royal roads thing Use Calibre.
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Jun 11, 2022 19:50
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Jarvisi posted:How exactly do I get this novel on my Kindle? I'm. Little lost with this royal roads thing you don't, unless you use an app to archive the pages as an ebook format of some kind. some people swear by those but I think they're more annoying than just reading the web site.
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Jun 11, 2022 20:20
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Larry Parrish posted:you don't, unless you use an app to archive the pages as an ebook format of some kind. some people swear by those but I think they're more annoying than just reading the web site. Bummer. I hate being forced to be online
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Jun 11, 2022 21:36
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Calibre+fanficfare plug-in. You point it at the RR url and it will make a ebook file from that. Occasionally push the update button and it will download-and-append new chapters.
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Jun 11, 2022 23:05
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Janny Wurts's Master of Whitestorm is on sale today! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08S7GH5C5/ - $1.99 It's another of her standalones. The one that usually gets recommended is To Ride Hell's Chasm. This one is a solid read too.
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Jun 11, 2022 23:08
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The Tower of Fools (Hussite #1) by Andrzej Sapkowski - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZZ22J48/ CIRCE by Madeline Miller - $4.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074M5TLLJ/
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Jun 12, 2022 18:00
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How does Watts' Icarus Array work exactly? Sending "blueprints" for anti-protons? What does that mean?
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Jun 13, 2022 19:31
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zoux posted:How does Watts' Icarus Array work exactly? Sending "blueprints" for anti-protons? What does that mean? Ugh I had to stop and think this through and I don't think I got it quite right, but: Here's the real science. It's possible to teleport information from one atom to another assuming you have an appropriate channel between them. This requires both a quantum connection (entanglement) and a classical link (something like a laser pulse). The teleportation is limited to the speed of light, as is all information transfer with quantum entanglement; despite what properties like Mass Effect would have you think, it is NOT instantaneous. The information that's transmitted is stuff like an electron's spin. It's quantum information, the kind of thing you can't know definitely until you measure it. Here's the science fiction: Just as you can teleport other quantum information, it's possible to move the quantum state of 'being antimatter' (the quantum numbers that define a particle as matter or antimatter, specifically) from one atom to another. Energy is conserved because you're just swapping the two around. You entangle a proton and an antiproton, then teleport the 'anti' part from one proton to the other. So Watts says, there's a giant reactor (the Icarus Array) around the sun. It uses sunlight to turn regular matter into antimatter. Meanwhile we've got a giant spaceship, the Thesus, which we want to be propelled by matter/antimatter annihilation. But we don't want to actually store antimatter aboard, because it's incredibly dangerous, and the containment systems would be really massive and slow the ship down. So we're going to have the Icarus Array shoot a big stream of photons out to the Theseus. These photons are going to be the classical channel we use to accompany quantum teleportation. They [I don't understand this part well and don't think I got it right] entangle our antiprotons on the Icarus Array with protons stored aboard the Theseus. Then we do quantum teleportation and, boom, we swap our antiprotons on the Icarus Array with protons on the Theseus. We then react the antiprotons we just sent to the Theseus with other protons aboard, creating energy (which ultimately came from the sun, and was just stored in antiprotons for ease of transport and release). Voila, we have 'telematter': the ability to remotely transform matter into antimatter for use as fuel. The universe is okay with it because we're not creating energy form nothing, just very rapidly moving it.
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Jun 13, 2022 20:04
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I see, that makes sense (in the spooky action from a distance manner anyway)
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Jun 13, 2022 20:08
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that just sounds like the old 60s plan for propelling solar sails with massive laser batteries but with more steps
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Jun 13, 2022 22:53
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Well you get a shitton more thrust out of antimatter reactions
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Jun 14, 2022 00:14
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zoux posted:How does Watts' Icarus Array work exactly? Sending "blueprints" for anti-protons? What does that mean? It's like a 3d-printer that works off of quantum mechanics, rsync the file copying/cloning utility and a gently caress load of magic. offtopic: Some oddball non-fiction book I read last week brought The Brick Moon, a 1869 scifi novella to my attention.
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Jun 14, 2022 00:20
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The Icarus Array hits the sweet spot for me, where I have heard of all of the words and names of things involved, but have the barest possible understanding of what they actually are. That's scifi baby!
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Jun 14, 2022 00:43
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going to bring back classical rear end-pull sci fi for my story about earth harvesting copium from primitive aliens to power their civilization
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Jun 14, 2022 03:31
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