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StrixNebulosa posted:Do you have any sci-fi competency porn? Dread Empire's Fall probably qualifies by dint of the two main characters being the only people who aren't actively incompetent.
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Aug 1, 2023 08:20
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thotsky posted:40K harry potter for zoomers Thanks that was what I was thinking
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Aug 1, 2023 09:07
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neurotech posted:I'm looking for some solid science fiction recommendations. I read Children of Time a few years ago and enjoyed it. Apart from that, the only other scifi book I can recall reading (and enjoying!) is Hyperion by Dan Simmons (aaaages ago). Seconding the Scott westerfeld recommendation - just buy the omnibus version. Walter Jon Williams Praxis books maybe? Slower, a lot more political intrigue and social drama with the relativistic space combat
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Aug 1, 2023 11:22
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Jedit posted:Dread Empire's Fall probably qualifies by dint of the two main characters being the only people who aren't actively incompetent. Which I just recommend for the previous question, re space combat stuff
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Aug 1, 2023 11:23
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thotsky posted:40K harry potter for zoomers 40k definitely. I feel like the Harry Potter vibes are only Gideon though.
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Aug 1, 2023 12:29
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Absurd Alhazred posted:I feel like this has been discussed here before but is there any good grand scale sci-fi without superluminal travel or communications? Most (all?) from Alastair Reynolds. Especially House of Suns (his best) but also the Inhibitor series and its spinoffs, though the Prefect Dreyfus Emergencies books are set in one location in the universe.
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Aug 1, 2023 12:37
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Absurd Alhazred posted:I feel like this has been discussed here before but is there any good grand scale sci-fi without superluminal travel or communications? If you want to go old school, Last and First Men takes place almost entirely in the solar system. Star Maker has communication via intergalactic telepathy.
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Aug 1, 2023 14:37
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Dr Kool-AIDS posted:I remember when I was deciding whether to read it or not I saw something on a blog about how life's too short to read Otherland, and I thought lol I have all kinds of free time and read it anyway. By the time I finished, I 100% agreed with the idea that life's too short to read Otherland. Am I remembering correctly that the big reveal is that Otherland runs on a server that's just like a satellite with somebody's psychic baby living in it?
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Aug 1, 2023 15:42
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Danhenge posted:Am I remembering correctly that the big reveal is that Otherland runs on a server that's just like a satellite with somebody's psychic baby living in it? get the baby to provide immersion rather than having to code that poo poo
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Aug 1, 2023 15:50
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Fart of Presto posted:Most (all?) from Alastair Reynolds. Reynolds is also the best author at using light speed limits to enhance his stories. So many authors and screenwriters view physics as a massive narrative inconvenience but he's really good at making the rules of space into interesting plot mechanics. GrandpaPants posted:What happened with Vernor Vinge anyway? He was pretty prolific for a time, then just stopped. He was never prolific, he's written eight novels over 35 years. He's primarily a CS professor, he's the guy that came up with the concept of the singularity, or at least the guy who introduced it into the gestalt, he didn't become a full-time writer until 2000 and he's only put out two books since then.
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Aug 1, 2023 15:55
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Awkward Davies posted:40k definitely. I feel like the Harry Potter vibes are only Gideon though. One thing I appreciate about Gideon is that it breaks the rules that Harry Potter would follow. If a Harry Potter book had 8 trials and 8 keys and 8 lessons, you would get to see all that poo poo. Even if Harry and the gang didn't solve all 8, someone would show up to exposit about to Harry and the reader about the ones he missed. In Gideon, you just don't get to have the whole picture. On a re-read, taking careful notes, you can put together things you miss on a first read, but you still only get about half. It would be very cool if Muir wrote the same story again but from the perspective of the third house. I've always had a thing for... is there a word for those? Periquels?
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Aug 1, 2023 16:38
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Jimbozig posted:It would be very cool if Muir wrote the same story again but from the perspective of the third house. I've always had a thing for... is there a word for those? Periquels? hard disagree based mainly on one of the worst series I’ve ever read aka Enders Shadow
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Aug 1, 2023 16:44
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mllaneza posted:Pushing Ice! Funnily enough I feel like Pushing Ice is the opposite of competency porn, most of the conflict in that book was driven by Bella and Svetlana being absolute idiots and not talking to each other.
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Aug 1, 2023 16:46
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buffalo all day posted:hard disagree based mainly on one of the worst series I’ve ever read aka Enders Shadow
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Aug 1, 2023 16:52
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Jimbozig posted:I've always had a thing for... is there a word for those? Periquels? I don't think there is.. shifting viewpoint, "a re-telling". One of the best examples of this I can think of is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and that's labeled a parody.
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Aug 1, 2023 17:04
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DACK FAYDEN posted:no you don't understand, he's so smart that they can't even measure it with the test We call him....Bean
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Aug 1, 2023 17:14
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I enjoyed Ender's Shadow. Too bad OSC is a piece of poo poo!
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Aug 1, 2023 17:32
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Absurd Alhazred posted:I enjoyed Ender's Shadow. Too bad OSC is a piece of poo poo! Waiting for the inevitable Simmons/Card collaboration which "reveals" that the Holocaust happened because Hitler was a gay Muslim.
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Aug 1, 2023 18:22
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Ravenfood posted:You want CJ Cherryh. Start with either Pride of Chanur or Cyteen, imo. Obviously there are other ways to get books, but does anyone know why there aren’t UK kindle versions of like any of her books? I prefer to actually pay authors I like and I don’t want another twenty seven paperbacks all up in my house (which is surprising since both my house and my kindle would suggest that I’m a collector of books).
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Aug 1, 2023 18:50
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Soldier of the Mist (Latro #1) by Gene Wolfe - $3.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009E6VSBG/ The Calculating Stars (Lady Astronaut #1) by Mary Robinette Kowal - $3.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0756JH5R1/ A Shadow in Summer (Long Price Quartet #1) by Daniel Abraham - $3.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001AN4WSW/ The Empress of Salt and Fortune (Singing Hills Cycle #1) by Nghi Vo - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07VH6Y4JD/ The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle - $3.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004YDL2CY/ One Human Minute by Stanislaw Lem - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008R2JSME/
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Aug 1, 2023 19:01
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Carrier posted:Funnily enough I feel like Pushing Ice is the opposite of competency porn, most of the conflict in that book was driven by Bella and Svetlana being absolute idiots and not talking to each other. I said they were good at their jobs. Interpersonal stuff is much harder. pradmer posted:The Calculating Stars (Lady Astronaut #1) by Mary Robinette Kowal - $3.99 The main character in this one is a double-PhD in Math and Physics, with a sideline in anxiety issues. She's the head computer for NACA in the early days of an urgently accelerated space program.
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Aug 1, 2023 19:20
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Just wanted to share that my first book is out: When the Stars Are Right: H. P. Lovecraft and Astronomy. Although it's a work of nonfiction, it looks at the history of both the space opera genre, and the wider scientific concepts inherent in space opera, from the late 19th and early 20th century through the lens of the life and work of H. P. Lovecraft. I co-wrote this with an astronomer who is also a Lovecraft fan, and this includes some original details on Lovecraft's interest in astronomy and his time as a kid hanging out at Providence's Ladd Observatory I dug out of the Brown University library archives that have never been seen before. Obviously Lovecraft is typically viewed as a horror author, but we wanted to specifically look at him as both a nonfiction science author, and as a science fiction author. Among other things the book covers early UFOs, ancient aliens, evolving notions of life on Venus and Mars, evolving concepts of how the solar system was formed, and the development of early rocket technology, and how Lovecraft both viewed and in some cases helped shape those ideas, including some original takes on the Lovecraftian influences of Robert Heinlein and Wernher von Braun. Hopefully some people might find it of interest, and while I know it might be a lot to ask people to buy, if you can request your local library to buy a copy, I would appreciate it!
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Aug 1, 2023 19:32
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Chairman Capone posted:Just wanted to share that my first book is out: When the Stars Are Right: H. P. Lovecraft and Astronomy.
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Aug 1, 2023 19:34
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pradmer posted:
For whoever wanted sci-fi competency porn this might fit the bill, if alt-history 1950s with a massively accelerated space program counts as sci-fi for you.
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Aug 1, 2023 19:39
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More Pratchett: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dunmanifestin/good-omens
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Aug 1, 2023 23:10
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Chairman Capone posted:Just wanted to share that my first book is out: When the Stars Are Right: H. P. Lovecraft and Astronomy. Although it's a work of nonfiction, it looks at the history of both the space opera genre, and the wider scientific concepts inherent in space opera, from the late 19th and early 20th century through the lens of the life and work of H. P. Lovecraft. I co-wrote this with an astronomer who is also a Lovecraft fan, and this includes some original details on Lovecraft's interest in astronomy and his time as a kid hanging out at Providence's Ladd Observatory I dug out of the Brown University library archives that have never been seen before. Obviously Lovecraft is typically viewed as a horror author, but we wanted to specifically look at him as both a nonfiction science author, and as a science fiction author. Among other things the book covers early UFOs, ancient aliens, evolving notions of life on Venus and Mars, evolving concepts of how the solar system was formed, and the development of early rocket technology, and how Lovecraft both viewed and in some cases helped shape those ideas, including some original takes on the Lovecraftian influences of Robert Heinlein and Wernher von Braun. Hopefully some people might find it of interest, and while I know it might be a lot to ask people to buy, if you can request your local library to buy a copy, I would appreciate it! That sounds interesting af just from the historical angle.
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Aug 2, 2023 00:45
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GrandpaPants posted:What happened with Vernor Vinge anyway? He was pretty prolific for a time, then just stopped. his ex-wife wrote some pretty decent sci-fi too, particularly the Snow Queen and Summer Queen books one of which won a hugo.
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Aug 2, 2023 01:33
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Was she called Veronica? Don't answer this plz, that way it can stay true for me
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Aug 2, 2023 01:48
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branedotorg posted:his ex-wife wrote some pretty decent sci-fi too, particularly the Snow Queen and Summer Queen books one of which won a hugo. I looked at her wikipedia and now I want to read her Ladyhawke novelization. I enjoyed Snow Queen, and I'm pretty sure my mother had the Catspaw series about a male psychic named Cat.
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Aug 2, 2023 02:10
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zoux posted:Reynolds is also the best author at using light speed limits to enhance his stories. So many authors and screenwriters view physics as a massive narrative inconvenience but he's really good at making the rules of space into interesting plot mechanics. I also really like how Haldeman did some pretty cool stuff with light speed travel in The Forever War.
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Aug 2, 2023 02:22
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Cherryh is good with this too
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Aug 2, 2023 02:40
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bagrada posted:I looked at her wikipedia and now I want to read her Ladyhawke novelization. I enjoyed Snow Queen, and I'm pretty sure my mother had the Catspaw series about a male psychic named Cat. Ohh no her current husband is James Frenkel, known giant sex pest
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Aug 2, 2023 02:44
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bagrada posted:I looked at her wikipedia and now I want to read her Ladyhawke novelization. I enjoyed Snow Queen, and I'm pretty sure my mother had the Catspaw series about a male psychic named Cat. I remember reading the ‘Cat’ series a long, long time ago. I don’t remember the first book at all, and the third one was disappointing—the aliens ended up feeling like every mystical ‘Native People’ stereotype mashed together—and also barely made an impression. But, for some reason, I really enjoyed the 2nd one, Catspaw, I think (without looking it up), which had more of a political intrigue and mystery plot. I’ve seen the series marketed as YA, and maybe the first one is, but the 2nd book has some seriously rough content in it.
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Aug 2, 2023 13:42
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I think back to the people who were disturbed by Blindsight because non-conscious entities would feel no moral restraints preventing them from going wild with sadism and psychopathic torture. I wonder whether they were mixing up consciousness and conscience.
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Aug 2, 2023 15:24
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Just finished Space Marine by Ian Watson, and I'd like to enthusiastically recommend this to everyone It's ostensibly a Warhammer 40K book, but it was written in the early 90s when the worldbuilding was in its early days and constantly in flux. I think it'd actually make for a bad book if you're trying to get into 40K because it contains a lot of things that has since been written out of the world and the tone is very different But for rest of us it's a delightfully bizarre piece of scifi. It follows 3 youths from a hive planet, each from wildly different social strata whose lives are briefly linked during a terrible event as kids. Coincidentally all three are recruited into the Imperial Fists chapter of the Space Marines. They are indoctrinated and physically changed into something no longer human, yet they are still unable to free themselves of their link to each other and the class divisions they left behind What follows is some really good military scifi punctuated by moments of horror, humor, and utter insanity. Its grotesque, dreamlike, absolutely insane, and what makes it all work is that it knows what it is. Not even the 3rd person narrator is immune to the events that happen in the book, and it frequently has to stop and catch its breath, or turn to the reader with an aside, or get caught up in the madness as if its contagious it rules
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Aug 2, 2023 17:23
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Sins of Empire (Gods of Blood and Powder #1) by Brian McClellan - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KT7YTV4/ The Curse of the Mistwraith (Wars of Light and Shadow #1) by Janny Wurts - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00457WT8K/
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Aug 2, 2023 17:40
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pradmer posted:
Picking this one up…nice!
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Aug 2, 2023 17:45
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buffalo all day posted:Picking this one up…nice! I really hope you like it!
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Aug 2, 2023 17:53
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WarpDogs posted:Just finished Space Marine by Ian Watson, and I'd like to enthusiastically recommend this to everyone (it has stuck with me to this day, people were really homophobic back then!)
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Aug 2, 2023 18:20
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WarpDogs posted:Just finished Space Marine by Ian Watson, and I'd like to enthusiastically recommend this to everyone He also did an Inquistor trilogy around the same time. Not as good but even more bugfuck insane.
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Aug 2, 2023 19:30
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