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StrixNebulosa posted:Are there any good books about this as a plot point? Stranger in a Strange Land.
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May 23, 2023 03:03
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StrixNebulosa posted:Are there any good books about this as a plot point? The Spock like character in Rendevous with Rama belongs to a church that believes it, I don't remember how it affects the plot beyond him theorizing off it
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May 23, 2023 03:37
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Ragle Gumm posted:Stranger in a Strange Land. Hey, I said good books! 
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May 23, 2023 04:06
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Ragle Gumm posted:Stranger in a Strange Land. Well then I counter with any Discworld with Carrot in it
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May 23, 2023 04:21
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hey now, Carrot is Prester John in this metaphor not Jesus
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May 23, 2023 05:39
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I read a book as a kid about an alien invasion where toward the end its revealed the aliens used a lot of biblical imagery. it's left ambiguous as to whether a previous invasion by the aliens was the "real" source of inspiration behind Judeo-Christian mythology, or if the aliens were actually divine beings / angels and the invasion was the apocalypse I'm pretty sure the book was very hacky and bad, but it was a neat idea that's stuck with me for 20 years
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May 23, 2023 06:56
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WarpDogs posted:I read a book as a kid about an alien invasion where toward the end its revealed the aliens used a lot of biblical imagery. it's left ambiguous as to whether a previous invasion by the aliens was the "real" source of inspiration behind Judeo-Christian mythology, or if the aliens were actually divine beings / angels and the invasion was the apocalypse That's just Evangelion.
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May 23, 2023 08:19
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HopperUK posted:There's nothing about the existence of alien life that would contradict anything in most major religions. Cute Internet Atheist bit though. Yeah... most religious groups would fit the updated facts into their theology nicely, some would struggle, some would collapse, some would just deny everything, a few new cults would spring up... same as always. (And I'm speaking as someone who was an internet atheist before it was cool. Then I grew out of my 20s.)
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May 23, 2023 09:00
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sebmojo posted:Traveller is just all cassette futurist space vcrs and big clunky buttons, like alien isolation, I love that aesthetic. I don't think it tries to hard to be an authentic prediction Yeah, I was going to mention that, there's an appropriate cassette futurism subreddit with lots of lovely images of that sort of stuff.
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May 23, 2023 09:04
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FPyat posted:
Civilization was wholly inspired by the 1980 boardgame of the same name, though.
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May 23, 2023 10:21
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SimonChris posted:Japan and the Yakuza ruling the world is a classic. The Yakuza barely exists any more, and the average member is in their 50's because young people think they are lame. Kind of like SA, really. IIRC Robert Frezza's "Small Colonial War" (a fairly decent and somewhat funny Hammer's Slammers style story) where Japanese and Korean megacorps run everything was published the same month the Japanese bubble economy imploded.
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May 23, 2023 10:24
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Jedit posted:Civilization was wholly inspired by the 1980 boardgame of the same name, though. He probably was fond of playing that kind of game, too. The thing is the way the book conjures up numbers of pieces and board size and complexity beyond what can be done with counters and dice.
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May 23, 2023 11:09
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The Translators by Gord Rollo is a pretty good book. One of my favorites.
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May 23, 2023 11:11
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FPyat posted:He probably was fond of playing that kind of game, too. The thing is the way the book conjures up numbers of pieces and board size and complexity beyond what can be done with counters and dice. There's also one of his non-M books (was it Complicity? It's been ages) where the main character spends some time playing/thinking about a (fictional) computer game called Despot (IIRC), which sounded an awful lot like a not-Civ with more focus on the inner workings of society.
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May 23, 2023 11:50
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Jedit posted:Civilization was wholly inspired by the 1980 boardgame of the same name, though. Significantly inspired, yes, although they don't share that much in terms of game mechanics. Sid Meier's game also has a lot in common with the older computer game Empire. Explore flat map with units, there are cities, cities can build more units that can fight enemy units and capture cities...
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May 23, 2023 11:53
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I went to university with a guy who said his dad invented the Civ board game. It might have been true. He was very posh.
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May 23, 2023 12:21
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While the board game is a classic, we only managed to actually play it a handful of times even back when we were all students with no family obligations or anything, since it took all goddamn day and was best with a large number of players... Age of Renaissance was a later iteration of the basic design, much more streamlined, only required 4-6 players for 4 hours or something like that. Played a ton of that back at the end of the 90s.
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May 23, 2023 12:36
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Groke posted:Yeah... most religious groups would fit the updated facts into their theology nicely, some would struggle, some would collapse, some would just deny everything, a few new cults would spring up... same as always. (And I'm speaking as someone who was an internet atheist before it was cool. Then I grew out of my 20s.) There's also James Blish's A Case of Conscience.
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May 23, 2023 13:24
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Groke posted:There's also one of his non-M books (was it Complicity? It's been ages) where the main character spends some time playing/thinking about a (fictional) computer game called Despot (IIRC), which sounded an awful lot like a not-Civ with more focus on the inner workings of society. Yeah that's it
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May 23, 2023 13:58
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Kestral posted:If I wanted to read the Mabinogion and whatever the definitive collection of Irish mythology is, whose translations into English should I be looking at? Irish mate of my mum's gave me Kinsella's translation of the Tain when I was... 10 or so? because I should know my ancestral myths as well as all the Greek and Roman stuff I was reading. Has the stuff like Medb digging humongous trenches to dump her period in before a battle, which even at that age made me suspect that Wasn't How It Worked.
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May 23, 2023 14:51
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HopperUK posted:I went to university with a guy who said his dad invented the Civ board game. It might have been true. He was very posh. If his name was Tresham then he might have been telling the truth. Mind you, it's hardly the sort of thing you'd spontaneously lie about.
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May 23, 2023 15:34
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Speaking of books that dated themselves horribly: Another by Norman Spinrad. Russian Spring. Cold War keeps going, the USSR successfully reforms their economy, generally gets their poo poo together, and is basically leading over the USA which on the other hand is stagnating into Christian fascism and loving up all its international diplomacy... by the time it was edited, printed and shipped to the bookstores, the USSR had accidentally fallen apart and so it was already alternate history.
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May 23, 2023 18:18
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WarpDogs posted:I read a book as a kid about an alien invasion where toward the end its revealed the aliens used a lot of biblical imagery. it's left ambiguous as to whether a previous invasion by the aliens was the "real" source of inspiration behind Judeo-Christian mythology, or if the aliens were actually divine beings / angels and the invasion was the apocalypse Sounds like Dean Koontz's The Taking. World-wide abductions are revealed to be to be the literal Rapture, and the malicious aliens menacing the main characters are actually demons.
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May 23, 2023 18:28
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Groke posted:There's also one of his non-M books (was it Complicity? It's been ages) where the main character spends some time playing/thinking about a (fictional) computer game called Despot (IIRC), which sounded an awful lot like a not-Civ with more focus on the inner workings of society. Also in The Steep Approach to Garbadale (or The Crow Road, take two) the whole plot is the family that founded Empire! deciding to sell out or not.
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May 23, 2023 18:30
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Walh Hara posted:Let me recommend The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah to everybody. Just an incredible story, well written and a great setting. The authors handles the mysteries and the foreshadowing of these extremely well. The interaction of the 4 travelers is another positive as well, with none of them being able to trust the others. Easily the best fantasy books I've read in a long time. I just started this, and I really shouldn’t have after finishing The Adventures of Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty, because its writing is so much better and also the setting is so well researched. Like Stardust Thief feels like a secondary world fantasy because its setting is kinda a nebulous not-actual-Arabia (or perhaps a half-forgotten pre-Islamic Arabia lost to mists of time), but it’s relying on standard Arabesque tropes to prop it up and filled with unquestioned modern sensibilities. Whereas Al-Sirafi is firmly set during the Crusades in the Gulf of Aden (but with magic), and challenges those same Arabesque cliches with deeper cultural knowledge, a recognition of Islam and the characters’ complicated relationships with it, and a lot of historical details. And Chakraborty left a nice blurb for Stardust Thief, so I’m not gonna come down to hard on it for being less good than a more experienced author’s novel, but drat I wish I’d read them in the opposite order
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May 23, 2023 18:43
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Fate Accomplice posted:logically I feel like the arrival of sentient aliens will signal the final end to religion, but I imagine there'll be millions who delude themselves like this. Dune has a wonderfully goofy moment in the appendix about this. quote:There is a fifth force which shaped religious belief, but its effect is universeal and profound that it deserves to stand alone.
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May 23, 2023 19:26
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This is, of course, my wife - and in any discussion of my happiness she deserves to be pronounced thus:
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May 23, 2023 19:41
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Bilirubin posted:Well then I counter with any Discworld with Carrot in it Every time someone mentions Discworld, I get reminded about how much I love Discworld.
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May 23, 2023 20:03
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Poldarn posted:Every time someone mentions Discworld, I get reminded about how much I love Discworld. Yes. Since I discovered those books in the late 1980s. And I still have not read the last one.
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May 23, 2023 20:17
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zoux posted:Do you guys have a favorite miss from past sci fi that dates it horribly? You know like how 80s sci fi movies are riddled with CRTs displays, or how almost everyone missed the idea of the smart phone. In Robert Heinlein's Tunnel in the Sky (1955), humanity is colonizing the stars with the help of a revolutionary teleportation device, but there's one scene where the protagonist decides to figure out how many people are going through the portals and he pulls out a slide rule since Heinlein didn't foresee the invention of the electronic calculator (first one showed up in the 60s, portable ones began appearing in the 70s). Whirling fucked around with this message at 20:41 on May 23, 2023 |
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May 23, 2023 20:36
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So The spear cuts through the water was ok, not amazing. But the hit ratio of this thread is 50/50, so that’s ok. Definitely not on Bakker level in terms of gore (or a regular history book for that matter). Anyone read house at the cerulean sea? Got it recommended from a friend.
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May 23, 2023 20:52
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DACK FAYDEN posted:I never actually read it but The Book of Strange New Things is about the first priest sent to a planet where intelligent life was discovered and the instant the aliens lay eyes on him they go "hey, you're father greg or whatever, we've been waiting for you to tell us about Jesus and this book of strange new things!" completely unprompted. But I have no idea how it ends. I finished listening to this the other day and it was good, but it definitely doesn't fit the Jesus is an alien thing. Jesus Lover 5 is an alien, though.
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May 23, 2023 21:01
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Cardiac posted:Anyone read house at the cerulean sea? I thought it was twee and toothless, and learning it was inspired by the attempted genocide of Indigenous Canadians turned it from something I was unimpressed by into "I am never going to read another book by this person".
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May 23, 2023 21:21
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Walh Hara posted:Let me recommend The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah to everybody. Just an incredible story, well written and a great setting. The authors handles the mysteries and the foreshadowing of these extremely well. The interaction of the 4 travelers is another positive as well, with none of them being able to trust the others. Easily the best fantasy books I've read in a long time. Quoting you again to ask, does this book get better? Because I’m at the 15% mark and thinking about dropping it. This prince who’s supposed to be 22 acts like and is treated like he’s loving 12. He does nothing but sulk around the palace worrying about getting grounded by his daddy rather than… learning statecraft or warcraft like someone in his position would have by 16??? Like what the gently caress, this poo poo reads like a YA protagonist. How the gently caress is he 22? He’s not even as mature as a teenager, and no one seems to regard him as an adult. His entire character only makes sense if he was a literal child
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May 23, 2023 21:30
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I agree, House is extremely twee, to the point where I didn’t feel any of the characters behaved like actual people. I did not know what it was inspired by, but the twee-ness of the entire thing feels worse now. For what it’s worth, I think his later book Under the Whispering Door was more grounded and actually had some emotional heft. I don’t think I’d reread it, but I liked it significantly more than House.
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May 23, 2023 21:35
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The Girl with All the Gifts (#1) by MR Carey - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CO7FLFG/
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May 23, 2023 23:21
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Stuporstar posted:Quoting you again to ask, does this book get better? Because I’m at the 15% mark and thinking about dropping it. Not sure what to tell you, personally I'm inclined to drop books very fast. If I ever wonder whether I should drop a book then I will certainly do so. The prince certainly gets character growth. It's intended that you as a reader think he's an useless, hopelessly naive and sheltered boy - and it's also clear that everybody in the setting thinks so. In some ways this is the opposite of YA, since YA protonists are usually precocious superstars that are good in everything. Thanks for the recommendation of The Adventures of Al-Sirafi! My impression/recollection of her Daevabad trilogy was not overly positive, but that's because I didn't like the whole love triangle and "last of your kind hero" stuff.
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May 24, 2023 00:06
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Shnakepup posted:Sounds like Dean Koontz's The Taking. World-wide abductions are revealed to be to be the literal Rapture, and the malicious aliens menacing the main characters are actually demons. oh man, you got it. I went through a Koontz phase in high school so it must have been around then can't believe Dean Koontz wrote Evangelion fan fiction
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May 24, 2023 00:19
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The only things I remember from that book are the demon/alien/monster that phased through the airlock on the ISS and one of the characters saying the ash/snow/forgot what it was smelled like semen. loving weird book. Don't think it had a magical dog though, so it has that going for it, which is nice.
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May 24, 2023 00:29
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Walh Hara posted:Not sure what to tell you, personally I'm inclined to drop books very fast. If I ever wonder whether I should drop a book then I will certainly do so. Yeah, Al-Sirafi is definitely a cut above the Daevabad trilogy. I liked it myself, but this new book proves she’s really become a seasoned writer. I love that the protagonist is a middle-aged mother who thought she retired from all this poo poo only to rediscover her love for adventure after being forced into it. The Adventures of Al-Sirafi is more like Tim Powers Stranger Tides, except set in the medieval Indian Ocean (and devoid of any of the unfortunate sexism in the latter), with a 1st person protagonist whose voice alone is entertaining. As for Stardust Thief, the problem is why is this prince so useless? They’re treating him like a pampered princess they have to preserve for an arranged marriage, and I see no signs of an intentional gender swap there. So why? Why is he no good at anything at the age of 22? It makes absolutely no sense. Royalty isn’t just an inherited position, it’s a vocation with duties, and they trusted him with none of them? He’s the most uninteresting love interest I’ve read in a while, and it’s kinda hard to give a crap about his character growth when he doesn’t have much character to begin with. This book reads 100% YA to me, because he’s not meant to be precocious superstar, the female protagonist is. All he has to do is be hansom and make moon eyes at her (and maybe frustrate her a bit by being incapable of tying his own sandals). So yeah, I’m afraid this is a DNF for me
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May 24, 2023 01:07
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