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Lunsku posted:Inhibitor Phase felt like fanservice, unnecessary step back to an universe that was reasonably settled at this point in time, with the obligatory character throwbacks to the earlier and better novels. The general mood of the Inhibitor universe is still there and that bit works, I did enjoy the pressing end times vibe bit of it. But otherwise, just unnecessary. Machine Vendetta is pretty much the same. Not the best of Reynolds, but still ok. Revenger series was really the lowpoint of his career. Just because it is YA, doesn't mean it has to be bad! Only series/books from him I couldn't finish.
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Mar 3, 2024 15:34
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Finished Exordia last night. I loved the mixing of the "fantasy" religious elements and the hard sci-fi. Unfortunately the humor and sometimes tongue in cheek writing style really didn't click with me (no offense Battuta, just not my cup of tea). I do wonder if I just had too many preconceived notions about what a sci-fi book from the author of the Baru books would be like. It does make happy though because whenever I experience something that goes deep on such specific mixtures of topics I know that it's going to hit just right for someone and be their favorite thing ever.
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Mar 3, 2024 17:24
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A Proper Uppercut posted:Some of my favorite SFF audiobooks, a couple have already been mentioned. Just going through my Audible account for stuff where I really liked the narration. Simon Vance is probably my favorite audiobook narrator, he's done a lot of sf/f and thriller stuff and has that old timey British crooner voice that is just so soothing to listen to. The two books I have of his in my Audible library is Viriconium by M. John Harrison and Jerusalem by Alan Moore.
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Mar 3, 2024 17:48
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Number9Dream by David Mitchell - $4.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0012SMGOC/
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Mar 3, 2024 17:54
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Nuclear Tourist posted:Simon Vance is probably my favorite audiobook narrator, he's done a lot of sf/f and thriller stuff and has that old timey British crooner voice that is just so soothing to listen to. The two books I have of his in my Audible library is Viriconium by M. John Harrison and Jerusalem by Alan Moore. I'm assuming you like his A-M narration better than Tull? I think I've actually listened to something by Vance but I'm not sure what it was. Edit: Ah it was Naomi Novik's Temeraire series. Which I also recommend listening to until it gets too dumb.
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Mar 3, 2024 18:26
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Issaries posted:Machine Vendetta is pretty much the same. Not the best of Reynolds, but still ok. I thought Revenger was a good series and Machine Vendetta good. Glad to not have to care about inhibitors. Donaldson has a new independent series ( or well finished it). First book was decent but didn’t make me want to continue the series, kinda like Baru.
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Mar 3, 2024 20:07
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A Proper Uppercut posted:I'm assuming you like his A-M narration better than Tull? The one true Tull can never be bettered. I will not be taking questions, as none is necessary.
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Mar 3, 2024 23:06
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Deptfordx posted:The one true Tull can never be bettered. You won't see me disagreeing.
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Mar 3, 2024 23:22
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A Proper Uppercut posted:You won't see me disagreeing. They're all Ric Jerrom in the UK, as far as I know, and he does a really good job. Other really good audiobooks I've enjoyed: Peter Kenny doing the Culture series, Adjoa Andoh doing anything but especially The Power and The Old Drift, Jonathan Cecil doing Wodehouse, everybody doing How High We Go In The Dark, Michael Jayston reading le Carré, Ruth Ozeki reading her own work, Simon Vance reading Imagica.
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Mar 4, 2024 10:17
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There was something about the First Law books that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I’ve now realized that they remind me of various fantasy video games.
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Mar 4, 2024 15:17
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Im curious if they are games released before or after First Law's first trilogy came out.
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Mar 4, 2024 16:03
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FPyat posted:There was something about the First Law books that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I’ve now realized that they remind me of various fantasy video games. The thing I enjoyed about First Law was that after reading the first book I thought it was a well written but extremely generic fantasy story but by the end of the third book everything has been subverted in an interesting way. That kind of made it difficult to pitch though because you kind of need to read the whole trilogy before you see why it's so good. How do people feel about the follow up trilogy? I'm prob gonna give it a go soon.
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Mar 4, 2024 16:40
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The stand alones between the two trilogies are really good, the second trilogy is entertaining but not as satisfying.
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Mar 4, 2024 16:42
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The second one happens during an industrial revolution right? That's why I never read it, keep you guns out of my sword fantasy thanks.
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Mar 4, 2024 16:45
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Ccs posted:The stand alones between the two trilogies are really good, the second trilogy is entertaining but not as satisfying. Agree on the stand-alones but I felt the 2nd trilogy was very satisfying. Specifically Bayaz finally getting his comeuppance
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Mar 4, 2024 16:47
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zoux posted:The second one happens during an industrial revolution right? That's why I never read it, keep you guns out of my sword fantasy thanks. See this actually makes me more interested in it.
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Mar 4, 2024 16:54
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zoux posted:The second one happens during an industrial revolution right? That's why I never read it, keep you guns out of my sword fantasy thanks. It takes place during an Industrial Revolution, but the firearm technology is dated by comparison. They’re just getting the hang of cannons and there are no personal firearms. Everybody on an individual level still fights with swords, spears, axes, etc.
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Mar 4, 2024 17:00
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The gunpowder empires were shootin poo poo up in very cool fashion. Super underused in fantasy imo. Camel-mounted swivel guns 
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Mar 4, 2024 17:05
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Say whatever else you will about it but I really like powder magic and the stuff that trilogy did with it.
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Mar 4, 2024 17:16
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Does anyone in here remember when I read Jack Chalker's Web of the Chozen? Well, while Jack Chalker is notorious for writing weird body horror stuff and shoving his fetishes into books, this one bothered me immensely and it still follows me around - the concept of being turned into a truly alien form, adapting to it, then deciding unilaterally that it's a better form to be in than the human one - to the point where the final third of the book is the escalating infection of the entire human species with the "turn into this species" virus, and it's presented as a great ending. Weird author, weird book, great body horror with a really dissonant tone. Anyways, yesterday I did psychic damage to myself by finding and then reading CM Koseman's All Tomorrows: A Billion Year Chronicle of the Myriad Species and Mixed Fortunes of Man.  It's free on his website, and it's an... a weird combination of Olaf Stapledon's macro-scale stuff with Barlowe's Expedition, with a deep fusion of horror. The gist is, humans go to the stars, and the first aliens they find are the godlike Qu, who promptly wage war, conquer humanity, and go nuts with the genetic engineering, twisting the human form into all kinds of weird, sometimes-stunted creatures. They're treated like pets, toys, experiments, tools, prisoners, and worse, and - billions of years later, the Qu just up and leave, abandoning their creations to their fates. The only humans to escape this atrocity are forced to mutate themselves so they literally can't go back to planets due to gravity, and so - it's a future where there are humans, but nowhere near as we know them. And it's presented in this very... gleeful hands-off cruelty? I don't know, I just - I was left so unsettled by this book, and the youtube animations are even worse/better. They're so well done. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDWvfKcfuDg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnxxRRJnGG0 I - I'm just, there's something about this entire concept, the invasion, the twisting, the ruined (or not ruined) remnants - and this isn't even getting into the back half of it, where it gets weirder. I haven't been left this disquieted in a while. I'm really happy I could stop reading it and go hug my partner and dog afterwards.
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Mar 4, 2024 17:19
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General Battuta posted:The gunpowder empires were shootin poo poo up in very cool fashion. Super underused in fantasy imo. Camel-mounted swivel guns This is one of the two reasons why the only people I've seen write good steampunk (present company excepted to the extent such terms may apply) have been China mieville and Michael swanwyck. They both realize it should be fantasy not science fiction. (The other reason is they both realize you can't write Victorian fiction without tackling issues of social class, capitalism, and imperialism head on).
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Mar 4, 2024 17:19
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StrixNebulosa posted:
I short listed that one for some.botm polls a few times but don't think it ever won Anyway this is canon: https://youtu.be/IhYmF02SqTg?si=uk1fXlhGqgNBV11i
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Mar 4, 2024 17:23
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StrixNebulosa posted:Does anyone in here remember when I read Jack Chalker's Web of the Chozen? I thought All Tomorrows was pretty neat right up until the point where we encounter the big brained future humans who have mastered the dark art of zero-g fart propulsion. Before I stumbled upon All Tomorrows I was also kind of unaware that there's apparently a whole niche sci-fi biology subgenre that's all about coming up with weird ways in which humanity will evolve in the far future.
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Mar 4, 2024 17:39
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All Tomorrows is an interesting one because it’s not like Dougal Dixon’s pioneering horrorshow Man After Man wasn’t also extremely bleak. I mean it had one branch of posthumanity swinging back by earth without even realising it was their original homeworld, and causally abducting their distant cousins to use as a lobotomised manual workforce. All Tomorrows, by contrast, felt more 40k. That’s a bit reductive but it ends up with a few distinct big post-human factions taking a ‘there is only war’ approach and being ultra-fundamentalist about it. Same applies to the actual aliens. It’s simpler in a way, more space opera, and to my mind a bit less compelling for it (although the body horror is nearly as good as Dixon’s and I quite like the ending).
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Mar 4, 2024 17:57
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GhastlyBizness posted:All Tomorrows is an interesting one because it’s not like Dougal Dixon’s pioneering horrorshow Man After Man wasn’t also extremely bleak. I mean it had one branch of posthumanity swinging back by earth without even realising it was their original homeworld, and causally abducting their distant cousins to use as a lobotomised manual workforce. Which is the one that spun out the "Seasons' Greetings" meme?
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Mar 4, 2024 18:31
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Chairman Capone posted:Which is the one that spun out the "Seasons' Greetings" meme? Man After Man. All Tomorrows is frequently good body horror but the art is more alien, whereas Dixon gets insane mileage from creepy post-humans that are more or less weird hairy dudes. The author of All Tomorrows also did some really quite detailed exobiology stuff for a world called Snaia, under the (awesome) pen name Nemo Ramjet. It’s tricky to find online but dude knows how to make things alien and it’s interesting to see how far you can stretch something while still tying the concept back to Earth animals, however loosely.
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Mar 4, 2024 18:37
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gvibes posted:I think Assassin's Blade. It is allegedly less smutty than some of the others. I've been reading the ACOTAR series for a book club and it hasn't been what I expected tbh. It's a lot more flirting and insinuation and lead up instead of just being smut. I'm in the middle of book 2 and there's been maybe three real sex scenes that I've read so far? What really got me is that there is a a lot of trauma depicted, and not just interpersonal relationship trauma, but trauma from the way the main character is brought up, and some things she choose/was forced to do for the more political/worldly side of the story. I've only read one Malazan book so far, but the ACOTAR main character is in a darker headspace than anyone in Gardens of the Moon. The Magic isn't has hard-magic as Brandon Sanderson's stuff, but book 2 is definitely exploring more of the magic so that's been pretty fun as I love to see different magic systems. I'm not gonna tell anyone they have to read it, but it's not what most sci-fi/fantasy readers will tell you it is.
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Mar 4, 2024 22:55
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I read Tchaikovsky's City of Last Chances and House of Open Wounds after the recommendations of various posts a few weeks (?) ago. They're both good. I like how tidy House of Open Wounds is; it feels very narratively complete for a story in a way that many sci-fi writers don't really accomplish. I decided to read some short stories afterwards; after choosing two random Clarkesworld story and realizing they were by the same author, I dug more into Isabel Kim's ouevre. She's written quite a few short stories, all published online. https://www.isabel.kim/work I enjoy them. Termination Stories for the Cyberpunk Dystopia Protagonist is a cool piece, that is evocative of 36 Streets with a Cool and Sexy Asian Girl in a Cyberpunk Story and table-top gaming, especially *World hacks. Homecoming is Just Another Word for the Sublimation of the Self is one of the best "What does it mean to be an Asian American" stories I've read. The Narrative Implications of Your Untimely Death is also good; I think it has some interesting things to say on media consumption on 2023 in a subversion of the murdergame story that is/was so appealing then. Her stories have interesting sci-fi ideas, written well, often are weird in the good way, and are thought-provoking and leaves you wanting just a taste more in that way a good short story does. got some chores tonight fucked around with this message at 00:33 on Mar 5, 2024 |
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Mar 5, 2024 00:31
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https://twitter.com/FilmUpdates/status/1764721423178682641 This is absolutely bonkers to me. I never thought that Frank Herbert's extremely convoluted and complicated sci fi epic could be adapted well (with ample evidence thereof) or be a huge hit but here we are. Messiah is definitely happening. There's a non-zero chance that we get a God Emperor movie. Dune mania is sweeping the nation. My little sister is reading Dune - she was a cheerleader in high school. Film studios always chase trends, so what unfilmable scif/fantasy epics would you like to see Hollywood drop $250m on? Gene Wolfe estate's phone is blowing up.
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Mar 5, 2024 02:07
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How many dune movies do I have to sit through to trick the studio into trying to adapt the prequels?
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Mar 5, 2024 02:12
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They should jump straight to the prequels.
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Mar 5, 2024 02:12
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mystes posted:How many dune movies do I have to sit through to trick the studio into trying to adapt the prequels? What prequels?
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Mar 5, 2024 02:14
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zoux posted:Film studios always chase trends, so what unfilmable scif/fantasy epics would you like to see Hollywood drop $250m on? Gene Wolfe estate's phone is blowing up. The Abolition of Species by Dietmar Dath would be just nuts if put to film, but at the exact same time if anyone films it I fear it will turn out like that recent CGI Cats abomination.  Jack Campbell's Lost Fleet series, while schlock, is fun scholock and I'd love to see those space battles put to film tho. That would be a lot easier to film too!
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Mar 5, 2024 02:30
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zoux posted:
Honestly I want a legitimate Macross live action. Now that's a quagmire.
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Mar 5, 2024 02:36
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So I finally found a quasi sci fi shirt story that I’ve been trying to find for years (The Law, by Robert Coates), but I have no idea what the ending means. Any ideas?
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Mar 5, 2024 02:43
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zoux posted:Film studios always chase trends, so what unfilmable scif/fantasy epics would you like to see Hollywood drop $250m on? Gene Wolfe estate's phone is blowing up.
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Mar 5, 2024 02:44
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I'd enjoy some Stainless Steel Rat movies. Kind of a different thing but hey. And agreed from a couple pages ago that Raymond Chandler and Pratchett rule, shouts out. And always agree Macross rules, and especially the music of Macross 7 (got me into Yoshiki Fukuyama oh yes)
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Mar 5, 2024 02:56
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zoux posted:https://twitter.com/FilmUpdates/status/1764721423178682641 Still desperately want someone to spend 250m on Julian May’s exile saga - it’ll never happen but I can dream.
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Mar 5, 2024 03:10
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In my head I've always thought that Ship of Fools/Unto Leviathan would make a great sci-fi horror miniseries a la The Terror. Probably way too niche for something like that to ever happen, but still.
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Mar 5, 2024 03:18
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xiw posted:Still desperately want someone to spend 250m on Julian May’s exile saga - it’ll never happen but I can dream. The psychic space elf rape camps might be a tricky sell in 2024
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Mar 5, 2024 03:24
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