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Psion posted:My concern is that #4 seems to be Weber's magic number; the horribly blatant telegraphing of a character death late in the book is a bad sign. Gah. I wasn't even aware there was a fourth Safehold book out, I'm only up to By Heresies Distressed.  If he kills off Sharleyan I am going to be so pissed  I don't know what it is about Weber's stuff that grabs me; I can recognize that a lot of his stuff is crap but I like it anyway (the same for Ringo, if I'm being honest). And then you have the rare diamonds in the rough like the Safehold books and In Fury Born... Psion posted:Really the problem with the HH books is he intended to kill Honor at the end of the last one and it's been incredibly obvious that his attempt to massage that change into these new books failed. The inconsistencies are legion in the 'transition' from old war (i.e. Peeps) to new war (i.e. Machiavellian Mesa Alignment) and it's just painful. Doubly so since, as I claimed above, he's not sure how to do it so his solution is to bury the inconsistencies in technobabble and dice rolls. I'll agree with this much. It was very obvious that he intended to do it (And I think he mentions it in the foreward of the book, even) and even when I first read it I was thinking "Isn't it time for her to exit the stage?" She had nearly a dozen books, there's really not much more Weber could have done with her. Oh well. WarLocke fucked around with this message at 17:50 on Jun 22, 2010 |
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Jun 22, 2010 17:47
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Man In Fury Born annoys me since he took a perfectly good, tightly written book (Path of the Fury) and just plastered on a bunch of ham-handed foreshadowing in the 'prequel' bit as well as meaningless, meaningless technical detail. I mean does the reader really need to know that her pistol - rather than just calling it a drat pistol - is ACTUALLY a Colt-Heckler-Koch 3mm blah blah blah blah blah laser sights blah? No. No they do not! Stop wasting my time. About the only good change is he changed the Cadre rifle from a twenty-millimeter to a five-millimeter hypervelocity, because I was wondering how exactly a man-portable weapon would be carrying 50+ rounds of 20mm  Still, the core of the book is still Path of the Fury and so I can't hate too much. I think he ought to write more one-offs or maybe strictly limit himself to a duology/trilogy, get back to the stuff which made him a success (i.e. the better writing than his current output) Also in general I don't really mind people reading books I think are garbage. I don't mind people reading books I think are good -- after all it's mostly subjective anyway. As long as people are reading books at all, I'm thinking that's a win. just not Mission of Honor, god dammit Psion fucked around with this message at 18:05 on Jun 22, 2010 |
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Jun 22, 2010 18:03
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Psion posted:Man In Fury Born annoys me since he took a perfectly good, tightly written book (Path of the Fury) and just plastered on a bunch of ham-handed foreshadowing in the 'prequel' bit as well as meaningless, meaningless technical detail. I think I just like masochistic melodrama. Path of the Fury was a good book, but the setup he added later (with Alicia becoming a drop commando, the cadre being betrayed, everyone but her dying, then her finding out about it and almost snapping) really added a lot to everything later, post-Tisiphone. In my opinion, I guess. It's the same thing that gets me about Merlin's situation on Safehold; what he's doing is probably going to take centuries, and even though Weber is probably not going to address it, the thought that he's effectively immortal and everyone he knows is going to grow old and die, over and over again, while he works toward his goal is incredibly bittersweet. I think the only Weber books I've read that don't have some sort of noble sacrifice angle are the Dahak ones. Hell, even The Armageddon Troll had shadows of the 'immortal with knowledge of a possible future' thing going on. Added a spoiler just in case someone does decide to read Path of the Fury/In Fury Born because of this discussion. Which they should. 
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Jun 22, 2010 18:16
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But all of that was in Path of the Fury. It was implied instead of spelled out in painstaking detail, but it was still there. I mean sure it added some 'depth' but not an awful lot, all things considered (then again I already "knew the plot" as it were, so I'm biased) and I feel kind of insulted when authors feel the need to spell out everything literally in front of my face instead of assuming I'm an intelligent reader who can make logical connections between implied past history and a character's current actions. "Show, don't tell" is kind of a difficult phrase to apply to literature - I mean it's sort of ALWAYS being told - but if you show me a character's deeply sensitive to betrayal because of a past act and then have the character act appropriately, I don't need to be told exactly how, in 200 pages, they got to feel that way. Also he added pointless overly melodramatic speeches from the Emperor. (Because it's always a monarchy, you see.) I need to make David Weber bingo cards at this rate. It's more of a philosophy thing, I guess. I like books where authors assume I'm not stupid as a reader. His early work did. I think a lot of his current stuff doesn't. speaking of ALWAYS A MONARCHY, the Dahak one was goddamn hilarious. It was basically "oh well the 20th century world, when faced with this alien/terrorist threat, was like, really scared. So they decided to unite under you, a former astronaut who has no legitimate reason whatsoever to be RULER OF THE WORLD. And there were no problems with this except for one convenient plot related one. Hail Emperor Colin." I mean hahaha what? Can you imagine ANY POSSIBLE CIRCUMSTANCE where today's world would decide "nahhh let's just unite under an Emperor, that's cool." The mind boggles. Psion fucked around with this message at 18:32 on Jun 22, 2010 |
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Jun 22, 2010 18:29
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Psion posted:But all of that was in Path of the Fury. It was implied instead of spelled out in painstaking detail, but it was still there. I don't know, I felt it was the other way around. In Path of the Fury, you're told that Alicia was a drop commando, and they are badass. And you're told she was betrayed, but then the scale of what she does comes out of right field. With In Fury Born you at least get shown how she became a commando, what that means, what happened that was such a betrayal, and how much control she exerted to simply walk away instead of just starting to kill people. It explains just how far she's willing to go later on much better, to me. And the Dahak books should never be taken seriously, I thought that was obvious. I mean, the moon has always been a disguised spaceship, seriously?
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Jun 22, 2010 18:39
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Psion posted:Stopping after #2 is early but not unreasonable; stopping after #4 is required. Commodore Hornblower notwithstanding, that series gets pretty crap once he's no longer a regular ship captain. The fact that Weber started his character at a point the equivalent of four or five books into the story precluded any reasonably paced development of the character. I don't want to know how he's going to try and top book number 2, not in book 3, and definitely not in book 11 or whatever he got up to. Don't get me wrong, It's an interesting universe, and the tropes of Good Monarchy/Bad Egalitarian are comparatively fresh. It's just that I feel he painted his protagonist into a corner, and has now decided to paint over everything else with the gaudiest goddamn color Sherwin Williams has ever made because it's all he has left. Unfortunately even the space-politics get sort of stale, because the antagonists just become so comically evil. Takin' your star systems, rapin' your women. I don't mind expository technobabble, but what you quoted is definitely going over the top. Forester pretty much limited his nautibabble to ropes and sails, and you don't need a particularly vivid description to evoke the image of a group of people tugging on a rope to make a boat do something, or going over the mechanics of something like heating shot as the characters encounter it themselves. There seems to be a sweet spot of proper integration and pacing in terms of introducing new concepts to a universe to either explain something fundamental or to simply expand people's mental picture of it.
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Jun 23, 2010 01:41
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Psion posted:Gonna make you all hate yourselves for reading this.
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Jun 23, 2010 02:15
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Thank you for suggesting me to stick with Judas Unchained. I'm up to the third chapter after putting it off again and again, and it's starting to get really interesting. I can't say I was expecting to read "STICK 'EM UP MOTHERFUCKER" in a sci-fi novel, that's for sure.
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Jun 25, 2010 05:17
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Hung Yuri posted:Thank you for suggesting me to stick with Judas Unchained. I'm up to the third chapter after putting it off again and again, and it's starting to get really interesting. The joy that is Peter F. Hamilton. I'm still wondering how he's going to tie things up in the Evolutionary Void and if he can avoid the major pitfall of everything else he's written thusfar. See: Edeard at the end of the Temporal Void, Fallen Dragon  , Night's Dawn  ...Maybe his dreams of the world outside the void will show him what happens as a result of him mucking about with time, so that he stops? Tanith fucked around with this message at 17:46 on Jun 25, 2010 |
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Jun 25, 2010 17:43
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Tanith posted:The joy that is Peter F. Hamilton. Wait a second. Are you telling me Edeard is in Fallen Dragon and Night's dawn? I thought that was a separate universe? You're just trying to get me to spend more money on him aren't you, Mr. Hamilton. edit: I didnt click or read the spoilers because I haven't read the 2nd Void book yet.
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Jun 25, 2010 21:21
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Hung Yuri posted:Wait a second. Are you telling me Edeard is in Fallen Dragon and Night's dawn? I thought that was a separate universe? Paul Atreides is actually Edeard. Didn't you read the books by Herbert's son? ... I was referring to the non-Void books as other examples of Hamilton's completely losing it at the end of his books, and hoping against hope he hasn't painted himself into a corner with Edeard in said Void trilogy. Hamilton cannot write good endings.
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Jun 26, 2010 02:24
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Tanith posted:I was referring to the non-Void books as other examples of Hamilton's completely losing it at the end of his books, and hoping against hope he hasn't painted himself into a corner with Edeard in said Void trilogy. Hamilton cannot write good endings. You know there's going to be a bad ending when you're down to the last 20 pages and the author still hasn't gotten around to wrapping it up.
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Jun 26, 2010 03:45
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Tanith posted:Paul Atreides is actually Edeard. Didn't you read the books by Herbert's son? I've been meaning to read dune, but I sort of realize I just like the quotes at the beginning of each chapter.
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Jun 26, 2010 03:52
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Magnificent Quiver posted:You know there's going to be a bad ending when you're down to the last 20 pages and the author still hasn't gotten around to wrapping it up. The length of the Night's Dawn stuff almost justifies something that goofy, and the hangin' up my hat, bangin' the Lord of Ruin forever, here're the keys to Dad's Lady Mac, don't scratch the thermal insulation/micrometeorite foam as you're takin' here out and don't get frisky with any voidhawks was more disappointing than the hilarious DEUS EX MACHINA and space seahorses. Fallen Dragon was probably the biggest kick in the nuts, it was concise enough to have REAL potential to have a genuinely interesting and somewhat regular interesting ending, and even Lawrence literally says "Sweet loving fate" when he realizes where Hamilton's taking the plot. Wake up, Peter, your subconscious is trying to reach you through your characters. Hung Yuri posted:I've been meaning to read dune, but I sort of realize I just like the quotes at the beginning of each chapter. That's probably the only way you could make it through the entire series. If you're going to read Dune, you must take a shot every time you read about "X within X within X". Additionally, you are mandated to stop after God Emperor. Nothing good happens after God Emperor. I remember at the time thinking "Man, if only he'd written about the universe BEFORE the Kwisatz Haderach stuff!" and then his son and KJA came along and utterly crushed my hopes forever.  I like paranoid space Holy Roman Imperialism with more betrayals and deception than every book written by Robert Ludlum, just not what Brian Herbert did with it.It would be entirely possible to jack that premise of a universe, drop the sandworms, drop the fremen, ditch the mysticism, even simplify the spice down to some mineral on a shithole that makes space travel happen, and let it go in a completely different direction. Having reread Campbell's Lost Fleet for lack of anything better to do, I've come to conclude I like it more on the second go-through. The literary redundancy was less noticeable, and I think I had some of the visual preconceptions I'd picked up from the last read-through and used those to fill in the gaps. I might want to go through it again after rereading Walter Jon Williams Dread Empire's Fall just to have his visuals fresh in my memory to make up for Campbell's gaps.
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Jun 27, 2010 03:35
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Based on a early recommendation in this thread I'm binging my way through the Ian M Banks Culture novels. I am really loving the moral ambiguity prevalent throughout the series. A lot of space opera, sci fi, or hell, most novels in general is clearly good guys versus bad guys. The way that the Minds in Bank's book twist and manipulate people to their own supposedly benevolent ends while lying constantly is one of the coolest ideas I've seen in science fiction in awhile. 'Player of Games' and 'Use of Weapons' had more memorable moments than anything else I've read recently. Are there any other good series that focus on moral ambiguity and manipulation?
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Jun 27, 2010 09:36
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CAPTAIN poo poo posted:Based on a early recommendation in this thread I'm binging my way through the Ian M Banks Culture novels. I am really loving the moral ambiguity prevalent throughout the series. A lot of space opera, sci fi, or hell, most novels in general is clearly good guys versus bad guys. The way that the Minds in Bank's book twist and manipulate people to their own supposedly benevolent ends while lying constantly is one of the coolest ideas I've seen in science fiction in awhile. 'Player of Games' and 'Use of Weapons' had more memorable moments than anything else I've read recently. Are there any other good series that focus on moral ambiguity and manipulation? Neal Asher's Polity series takes a similar setting (AIs ruling over humans for their own good in a (nearly) post scarcity setting) but goes in a bit different (=grayer/darker) direction.
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Jun 28, 2010 06:56
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Decius posted:Neal Asher's Polity series takes a similar setting (AIs ruling over humans for their own good in a (nearly) post scarcity setting) but goes in a bit different (=grayer/darker) direction. I like the Polity novels, but they're loving impossible to get in bookstores in the states, and I don't like buying off Amazon. I ended up accidentally sequence-breaking, because us Yanks don't apparently need any indication of where a book falls in a series, either. 
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Jun 28, 2010 13:33
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http://www.powells.com/s?kw=neal+asher Bam. US shipped and not from Amazon.
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Jun 29, 2010 06:49
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mllaneza posted:The ships kinda look like a kazoo. All the warships look like this because of quirks with the universe's technobabble: Those are not kazoos, They are dildos. Do they fly through gates/wormholes/giant space vagina monsters? If so then thats hot. Otherwise, I have a question. I Have never read a Space Opera before, except for old favorites like Heinlein and Herbert's Dune series, so any past experience I have is with works that are pretty dated. Whats a goos series to sort of ease me into the genre? I love the idea of the Space Opera, But the closest thing I've experienced to it lately is playing mass effect. Mrfreezewarning fucked around with this message at 16:46 on Jul 22, 2010 |
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Jul 22, 2010 14:53
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Inyourbase posted:Those are not kazoos, They are dildos. Do they fly through gates/wormholes/giant space vagina monsters? If so then thats hot. That might be subconscious on Weber's behalf, but other people are a little more blatant : Iain M Banks, Excession posted:Eventually, though, Ulver had said her farewells, decided to leave all her animals and two trunks of clothes behind and then - having remained serene in the midst of much hullabaloo and some tears from Klatsli - entered a traveltube with a frostily blue Churt Lyne and was taken to the Forward Docks and a big, brightly lit hangar, where the Psychopath Class ex-Rapid Offensive Unit Frank Exchange of Views was waiting for her.
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Jul 22, 2010 22:15
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evilbastard posted:That might be subconscious on Weber's behalf, but other people are a little more blatant : Well I'm sold. That has to be the most oddly serious, but actually ridiculous quote ever, but the name of the ship slays me.
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Jul 22, 2010 22:37
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evilbastard posted:That might be subconscious on Weber's behalf, but other people are a little more blatant : To be fair though, Banks knows how to end a conversation or a scene with a fair bit of impact.
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Jul 22, 2010 22:42
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Flipswitch posted:To be fair though, Banks knows how to Weber is a persistently mediocre writer with a knack for technobabble. He hit his high point early in the series and hasn only been accentuating his flaws since. Banks on the other hand is an accomplished prose stylist with a bad habit of resolving plots with a single twist, usually "Special Circumstances was playing games the whole time". Not all of his books fall into that trap, and even the ones that do are still very well written. People remake movies, how about an Honor Harrington remake written by some fans who understand "show, don't tell" ?
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Jul 22, 2010 22:56
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Inyourbase posted:Well I'm sold. That has to be the most oddly serious, but actually ridiculous quote ever, but the name of the ship slays me. the banks thread is here, where they'll tell you to start with Use of Weapons on account of it being fantastic.
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Jul 23, 2010 06:51
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I just finished the first couple of books of Roger Allen McBride's Solace series, The Depths of Time and The Ocean of Years and they were pretty good. I've pretty much been sitting on these for years because I'd bought the second one in the series accidentally and then took forever to buy the first and then forgot I had them. The plot involves a society where intersteller travel is effected by a complex system of cryosleep and worm holes-people spend years traveling sublight while frozen to a wormhole, then go X number of years back in time, toodle along some more in sublight, and by doing so end up where they want to be within a few days or weeks after they left subjectively, but with 50-100 years of time passing on ship. There's a big crazy mystery involving terraforming, a galactic puzzle hunt, and a brooding admiral as a protagonist who's right up there with Seafort and Black Jack McGeary on the emo scale (though he's a bit harder to get in the head of than either of those two, because most of the story is told from the POV of his companions). Really fun reads. I'd never read any of his stuff before and was pleasantly surprised. I'll definitely be looking for the third in the trilogy.
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Jul 29, 2010 02:58
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Astroman posted:Really fun reads. I'd never read any of his stuff before and was pleasantly surprised. I'll definitely be looking for the third in the trilogy. They're pretty good books. The Shores of Tomorrow ends up with some really mindblowing stuff in it, although it all follows logically from the premises laid out in the preceding books. The scale of it is just hugemongous though.
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Jul 30, 2010 04:51
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I don't believe Timothy Zahn's Conquerors Trilogy has been mentioned yet. It's a fun read, seemingly starting out as just another "first encounter with inexplicably hostile alien species sparks all-out war" novel, but through Zahn's typical twists and turns it becomes apparent after a while that it's all a bit more complicated than that. Though perhaps a bit formulaic, there are some neat ideas in the books, and the second part is particularly interesting as it's written entirely from the aliens' perspective. And of course it's all very space opera.Chairman Capone posted:The Foundation Trilogy by Asimov for me is and always will be the defining space opera. These are honestly probably my favorite books of all time, one of the few that I re-read regularly, and top Lord of the Rings and Star Wars as my favorite sci-fi/fantasy series. The various sequels/prequels not so much (although I prefer the sequels just because I really liked the characters of Pelorat and Trevize and the notion of revisiting the old Robot/Empire series planets even if the plot itself was a bit flat), but the original three books are THE gold standard of sci-fi for me. MikeJF posted:Oh jesus. The Rama sequels win everything in this category.
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Jul 30, 2010 12:17
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Sombrerotron posted:gently caress those books forever. Well maybe not Rama II, which was still pretty interesting I thought, but turning the series into a ham-fisted anthropological essay 'livened up' with episodes of underage sex and finally ending by saying God probably did it?? was just insulting. It's been so long since I read those books that I only vaguely recall them, but my vague recollection is of frustration and disappointment.
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Jul 30, 2010 13:09
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Sombrerotron posted:Well maybe not Rama II, which was still pretty interesting I thought, but turning the series into a ham-fisted anthropological essay 'livened up' with episodes of underage sex and finally ending by saying God probably did it?? was just insulting. Bringing Jesus into a sci-fi space opera is, at least for me, the only thing that ruins a novel faster than having King Arthur and Lancelot wander in from stage left. Dan Simmon's Hyperion series had the same drat problem. All this great setup and mystery, then -- Space Jesus is the Answer to Everything! Space Jesus!
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Jul 30, 2010 14:02
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I have to admit, I love Ian Douglas and his whole idea of the USMC in outer spaaaaaaaaaaace. Are there any other semi-realistic military scifi books out there? I'm thinking of getting the Familias Regnant series, Jack Campbell's Lost Fleet series, and what looks to be the exceptionally pulpy StarFist series.
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Aug 11, 2010 03:17
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Bringing Jesus into a sci-fi space opera is, at least for me, the only thing that ruins a novel faster than having King Arthur and Lancelot wander in from stage left. Dan Simmon's Hyperion series had the same drat problem. All this great setup and mystery, then -- Space Jesus is the Answer to Everything! Space Jesus! Time travel ruins every book I've ever read that had it. By comparison I'm ok with Jesus figures as long as they're not horribly blatant.
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Aug 11, 2010 03:31
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Magnificent Quiver posted:Time travel ruins every book I've ever read that had it. Well, I gave up on Hamilton. Space jesus and Al Copone? gently caress that
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Aug 11, 2010 15:22
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Insane Totoro posted:I have to admit, I love Ian Douglas and his whole idea of the USMC in outer spaaaaaaaaaaace. Douglas' books are great, I have 2 of the 3 so far. Campbell is good. If you can stand the angst of Black Jack, then I'd recommend David Feintuch's Seafort Saga, though it's more a Napoleonic version of the military than a modern one, and the main character is great but  as hell. It's also jarring at first how this series which takes place in the future has such old-fashioned religious and moral sensibilities, but when you get into the background of the society it's interesting and plausible how they got there.
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Aug 11, 2010 17:54
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Unfortunately, David Feintuch (the Seafort writer) pulled a GRRM with a twist - he died while writing the last book in the series, and while the publisher has the manuscript they've never gotten anyone to sign a release. It's still a very good series. Like most series it winds up lower in quality by the end, but the first five books are still some of my favorite space opera. It's Hornblower in space but in a good way.
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Aug 11, 2010 18:37
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Phummus posted:Well, I gave up on Hamilton. Space jesus and Al Copone? gently caress that Wait, hold up, what?
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Aug 11, 2010 23:01
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Flipswitch posted:Wait, hold up, what? No you've got it right, Hamilton's books are just straight-up retarded and mostly irredeemable. There's much better space opera out there. His latest dreamworld series or whatever isn't bad though.
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Aug 11, 2010 23:42
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Magnificent Quiver posted:No you've got it right, Hamilton's books are just straight-up retarded and mostly irredeemable. There's much better space opera out there. Like what? Hamilton is mostly my biggest foray into (the books anyways) space opera.
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Aug 12, 2010 00:47
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Just finished reading Kage Baker's The Empress of Mars. Loved it. I know it's loosly set in a big series of hers, my question is, are any of the other ones as good as Empress of Mars/have the same sort of feel to them? Or are they a completely different creature altogether?
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Aug 12, 2010 01:44
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If you like Peter F. Hamilton: do not read the Night's Dawn trilogy. Seriously, do NOT. Evolutionary Void's out on the 24th. Please don't gently caress this up.Also I've decided that I like Campbell/Hemry's Lost Fleet series, because it is pulpy in a Battlestar Galactica sort of way with interfleet drama, "No I should be commander!" hissyfits and a character named Captain Falco.
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Aug 12, 2010 04:38
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Flipswitch posted:Wait, hold up, what? Here there be spoilers for the Night's Dawn Trilogy. Here's the series in a nutshell. Hero guy fucks everybody, including a 15 year old whom he impregnates. Bad guy is bad because well...he's bad. Oh, he's a devil worshiper. Devil worshiper is framed for crucifying a 10 year old. Some alien magic happens, and the dead return to possess the living. One of the dead who comes back is Al loving Capone. Hero stops Al loving Capone by finding out where God lives and uses god to make the bad things stop. Everybody fucks everybody else. The end.
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Aug 12, 2010 14:03
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