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dervival posted:Yeah, anyone ever read The Santaroga Barrier? what the hell was with all the loving jaspers, man. Sounds like something an anti-jasper would say
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Jun 18, 2023 19:15
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dervival posted:Yeah, anyone ever read The Santaroga Barrier? what the hell was with all the loving jaspers, man. That book is… definitely unique. I mean, unless I’ve just been missing out on all the other books where you can eat cheese that makes you trip balls, anyway.
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Jun 18, 2023 20:04
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mewse posted:Sounds like something an anti-jasper would say what're you gonna do, put insecticide in my coffee? 
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Jun 18, 2023 20:06
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I recently went through the Dune series and I think "quit when you've had enough" is entirely acceptable. Dune Messiah is the director's cut of the original, Children of Dune and God Emperor are the sequels where stuff starts getting weird, Heretics goes off the rails, and Chapterhouse is the nuns debating politics on top of the derailed train. My library system has the audiobooks for Hunters and Sandworms and I'm tempted to try them just out of morbid curiosity. quote:Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife, chopping off what's incomplete and saying: "Now, it's complete because it's ended here."
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Jun 18, 2023 22:44
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Awkward Davies posted:I just finished the 2nd in Becky Chamber's "Wayfarers" series, "A Closed and Common Orbit". I really liked it, the first one felt so wholesome and gentle, despite the obvious conflicts going on offscreen, the series is described as cozy but it's not utopian post-scarcity; there's war, poverty, slavery and class systems. it's been a while since i read it though and like most of chambers' stuff i liked it but don't have a burning desire to revisit it
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Jun 19, 2023 00:17
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Started in on the Silo books after being frustrated with the excruciating pace of the show, and... I think I might like the show better? The show does not resemble the books in any way beyond stealing some names to attach to people who are completely different characters, and the vague concept of "there is a Silo, people are in it and don't know why, and if you get sent outside you're dead" - if I was a fan of the books, I would be furious about this, because it doesn't seem to have any respect for the books. On the other hand, the show conveys the claustrophic feel of this closed society so, so much better than the first book does, and its characters feel and sound like people (even if they are terribly frustrating people, I'm looking at you Juliette), and the experience of the story isn't being held up by Hunger Games-tier prose. I'm near the end of book one - Juliette is currently trying to turn the power on in the abandoned silo - and thinking I might just read summaries of the rest of the series to see what neat SF concepts are at work, if any. Do the later books have any big ideas that are worth pushing through to reach?
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Jun 19, 2023 02:35
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I liked all of Wayfarers, but I think Book 4 got closest to Book 1 in terms of everything I liked about the series.
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Jun 19, 2023 05:11
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Kestral posted:Started in on the Silo books after being frustrated with the excruciating pace of the show, and... I think I might like the show better? The show does not resemble the books in any way beyond stealing some names to attach to people who are completely different characters, and the vague concept of "there is a Silo, people are in it and don't know why, and if you get sent outside you're dead" - if I was a fan of the books, I would be furious about this, because it doesn't seem to have any respect for the books. On the other hand, the show conveys the claustrophic feel of this closed society so, so much better than the first book does, and its characters feel and sound like people (even if they are terribly frustrating people, I'm looking at you Juliette), and the experience of the story isn't being held up by Hunger Games-tier prose. I read the first Silo book a while back and it ruined my faith in Amazon reviews permanently.
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Jun 19, 2023 05:33
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Kestral posted:Do the later books have any big ideas that are worth pushing through to reach? No, the opposite.
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Jun 19, 2023 05:42
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Kestral posted:Started in on the Silo books after being frustrated with the excruciating pace of the show, and... I think I might like the show better? The show does not resemble the books in any way beyond stealing some names to attach to people who are completely different characters, and the vague concept of "there is a Silo, people are in it and don't know why, and if you get sent outside you're dead" - if I was a fan of the books, I would be furious about this, because it doesn't seem to have any respect for the books. On the other hand, the show conveys the claustrophic feel of this closed society so, so much better than the first book does, and its characters feel and sound like people (even if they are terribly frustrating people, I'm looking at you Juliette), and the experience of the story isn't being held up by Hunger Games-tier prose. The first one was easily the best from what I recall
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Jun 19, 2023 09:07
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Someone in here or the silo tviv thread described the books as airport fiction and that's exactly the level they're on (also, exactly the circumstance under which I originally read them) -- something with not much depth but a few engaging ideas that can keep you occupied for a few hours. I was really surprised to hear it was getting a prestige scifi adaptation on Apple because that's not really the kind of book it was. They get more boring as they go on. I'm interested in seeing how the show continues because they're clearly not afraid to really heavily change things in the pursuit of making a good show. I'm undecided on whether they've achieved that, yet, but I don't mind it being different.
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Jun 19, 2023 09:23
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Yeah, I read the books when they were pretty new and that's exactly what they are: pleasant enough airport fiction. Not terrible, not great. I'd read more by this guy when in the proper mood for that kind of thing.
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Jun 19, 2023 09:49
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Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke - $4.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003RRXXMA/ The Adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser Volume One: Swords and Deviltry, Swords Against Death, and Swords in the Mist by Fritz Leiber - $3.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0741VJC4D/
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Jun 19, 2023 16:51
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Kestral posted:Started in on the Silo books after being frustrated with the excruciating pace of the show, and... I think I might like the show better? The show does not resemble the books in any way beyond stealing some names to attach to people who are completely different characters, and the vague concept of "there is a Silo, people are in it and don't know why, and if you get sent outside you're dead" - if I was a fan of the books, I would be furious about this, because it doesn't seem to have any respect for the books. On the other hand, the show conveys the claustrophic feel of this closed society so, so much better than the first book does, and its characters feel and sound like people (even if they are terribly frustrating people, I'm looking at you Juliette), and the experience of the story isn't being held up by Hunger Games-tier prose. The sequels get worse, so if you're not liking the first it's only downhill from there. The author does the thing where he takes away a lot of the mystery of the experience by doing a prequel that explains everything, and I really didn't care for the origins of the silos. I didn't hate any of them, I mostly saw them as pulpy audio books to put on while doing the dishes or driving to work something like 10 years ago, and they served that well enough. It was better than a true crime podcast. edit: Thinking back more, the Silo series worked really well for that. I made the mistake of listening to The Martian on audiobook at that time period and it was tough to turn off the book once I got to work or finished the dishes, because I found The Martian so engaging and I really liked it. I never had a problem turning off Silo.
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Jun 19, 2023 23:57
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The Silo tv show so far is fine, I want to like it more but it's fine for what it is. I also just found out that there's another tv series based on his Beacon 23 series, which I remember even less about than Silo. So that bodes well.
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Jun 20, 2023 02:03
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pradmer posted:Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro - $1.99 buffalo all day posted:This one is great treatment of AI and class, folks, and an easy read.
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Jun 20, 2023 03:05
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FPyat posted:The Galaxy and the Ground Within is the one that felt like a proper story. I'm not too fond of book 3. Book 3 came across to me as a set of short stories that got weaved together into a novel-like format. Which I like. But it does fall flat as a novel in its own right.
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Jun 20, 2023 03:34
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mllaneza posted:Book 3 came across to me as a set of short stories that got weaved together into a novel-like format. Which I like. But it does fall flat as a novel in its own right. Book 3 probably had some of the most memorable & affecting scenes for me, but I do like 1 and 4 better as books. 2 didn't really land for me, though I wouldn't say I disliked it.
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Jun 20, 2023 03:48
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I feel like I enjoyed 2 the most, but a lot of that was that I just really liked the 'Hatchet' On A Literal Garbage Planet plot.
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Jun 20, 2023 12:25
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Killing Pretty (Sandman Slim #7) by Richard Kadrey - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NLMC8TK/
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Jun 20, 2023 17:40
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Gutter Prayer is great.
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Jun 21, 2023 02:14
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Reading Excession and really liking it. Which culture novels cover the Idiran war?
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Jun 21, 2023 02:58
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D-Pad posted:Reading Excession and really liking it. Which culture novels cover the Idiran war? Pretty sure Consider Phlebas takes part during while Look to Windward deals with the aftermath of it.
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Jun 21, 2023 03:31
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Yeah I just read Phlebas, it's in the middle of the Idiran war, the main character is working for the Idirans but isn't one himself. I'm undecided how I felt about the book though, lol. It felt a bit like a fix-up, though to my knowledge it wasn't one.
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Jun 21, 2023 04:45
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Phlebas was the one I started and didn't like, skipped, and have now read everything else in the Culture series. So now I'm thinking it's worth going back to it for completeness, but I remember really not enjoying that book ~5 years ago. It's obviously the first book, and I think an old book by the time it came out, something Banks reworked or rewrote when he wanted to move into Sci-Fi. I don't know if that makes it The Tricky First Novel or whatever, I just sort of feel like I owe it to the series to make it through it now... And it does explain/set a lot of the stage for the rest of the books, even if they're not direct sequels. Look to Windward was fine for not having finished the first one.
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Jun 21, 2023 17:14
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Yeah I went straight to Player of Games and Use of Weapons, then came back to Phlebas. I don't really feel like I missed any really important context for those two books, though for all I know it's important to some of the other ones. It felt pretty aimless honestly, and doesn't really compare in quality to the other two Culture novels I've read, I genuinely think it's a (very small) disservice to the books to market Phlebas as the "first" one even if that's technically true.
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Jun 21, 2023 17:22
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While there's some cool stuff in Phlebas The raid on the ring world full of cruise ships was great, and I liked the last act on Schar's World a lot, a couple scenes in that book really felt like that Darkplace image: Specifically The planet that handles death sentences by drowning prisoners in poo poo, and the cannibalism stuff later I could have absolutely done without those. Player of Games I liked. Use of Weapons I think I gave up on like 1/3 of the way through. Chainclaw fucked around with this message at 18:05 on Jun 21, 2023 |
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Jun 21, 2023 18:03
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I read Pheblas first and enjoyed it, but it is different to the others. It’s a string of action set pieces in the Culture universe. I reread it recently and there are some interesting side themes about the Culture’s identity crisis over the war that mean more when you’ve read the others, but not enough to be worth it if you didn’t enjoy it. I’m rereading Windward now, I’ll probably try to do the one that talks more about the Culture alternative/offshoots or whatever next.
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Jun 21, 2023 18:09
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Chainclaw posted:Specifically I had completely forgotten that second bit before rereading, and yeah they were both a bit over the top. His first novel I read was Wasp Factory though, so I guess that set the standard.
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Jun 21, 2023 18:12
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Major Ryan posted:Phlebas was the one I started and didn't like, skipped, and have now read everything else in the Culture series. So now I'm thinking it's worth going back to it for completeness, but I remember really not enjoying that book ~5 years ago. I believe that Consider Phlebas, Player of Games, and Use of Weapons were all written multiple years before Phlebas was published and that the publisher chose Phlebas first but all 3 got very heavily edited before publishing, but that Phlebas was the first to get a perspective from outside of the Culture
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Jun 21, 2023 19:13
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Chainclaw posted:that Darkplace image:
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Jun 21, 2023 20:08
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The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003WUYPTC/
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Jun 21, 2023 22:54
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Not really scifi
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Jun 21, 2023 23:12
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Gaius Marius posted:Not really scifi It's of crossover interest, Genre Cop
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Jun 21, 2023 23:42
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No no it's absolutely sci-fi, it depicts a culture and setting that you can't find on earth.
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Jun 22, 2023 00:04
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Nobody wants to admit it but Aubrey Maturin is *absolutely* science fiction on multiple levels
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Jun 22, 2023 00:21
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Nobody wants to admit it but Aubrey Maturin is *absolutely* science fiction on multiple levels Actually a popular opinion in here already. Hell, people were saying the same thing on rec.arts.sf.written back in the 90s. That's how I discovered them.
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Jun 22, 2023 00:47
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Groke posted:Actually a popular opinion in here already. Hell, people were saying the same thing on rec.arts.sf.written back in the 90s. That's how I discovered them. As a huge Aubrey-Maturin fan (if my username hadn’t given that away) who hasn’t heard this argument before I’m extremely curious.
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Jun 22, 2023 01:45
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I think people who like science fiction will find the O'Brien books easier to read than people who don't perhaps. You're brought into a world with different customs and technology and it may not be fully explained. You're expected to gather a lot of detail about how the world works from context. Some folk will read something they don't entirely understand and think 'I don't get it, this sucks', but scifi readers are more likely to think 'I don't get it, I will read on, if it's important I expect the author will make sure I understand it in time'.
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Jun 22, 2023 01:53
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Groke posted:Actually a popular opinion in here already. Hell, people were saying the same thing on rec.arts.sf.written back in the 90s. That's how I discovered them. no no this hot take is mine and fresh and you can't have it Awkward Davies posted:As a huge Aubrey-Maturin fan (if my username hadn’t given that away) who hasn’t heard this argument before I’m extremely curious. Boats. . . .are technology USS Enterprise, HMS Suprise, it's just a syllable apart
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Jun 22, 2023 01:54
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