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Although a lot has been said about Peter F. Hamilton in here, there are two things he does a lot that really take me out of the story. The first has been mentioned already, which is the somewhat arbitrary "powers" invested to people through their technology. One person's shield is the best, can't get any better, but suddenly another person has a slightly stronger shield? No way! And the character seem surprised by this time after time after time. This happened A LOT in the void trilogy. It was especially egregious when the factions would supe somebody up with great weapons and a super duper shield, only to find that another faction suped up someone else with weapons and a slightly better shield that NO ONE WAS SUPPOSED TO HAVE! If ANA can make bad rear end shields, why would they be surprised each and every time another faction made equally bad rear end shields? The other thing he did an awful lot in The Void Trilogy, and to a lesser extent in the Commonwealth duology, was the repetetive nature of many of the scenes, in which: character X goes from point A to point B, clandestinely. character Y tails character X from point A to point B, watches them closely, then goes back to their ship and using an ULTRA SECURE LINK that no one is supposed to be able to crack (see gripe above) reports back to their superious. This exact scene played out numerous times, in which a character had to get somewhere, someone was following them, but nothing of any great significance would happen. Then the second character would get in their personal ship and report their findings, and the chapter would end. Also, a bit obvious and stated numerous time, but way too much sex in his books. I found it very off putting and I wish he would just stop it.
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Nov 26, 2011 18:02
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WINTER IS COMING posted:I am wanting to start on Alistair Reynolds - is Revelation Space the best place to start? Though not in the same universe as the others, House of Suns is by far the best thing that Reynolds has done. Amazingly fun book though the parts I liked most - the crazy imagery like the Vigilance and the gigantic scale - dwindled towards the second half.
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Nov 26, 2011 19:19
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I got a used copy of The Algebraist by Iain Banks as a book sale the other day, just because I liked the cover. I've read a few of his Culture books and liked them and I'm generally a fan of the more out-there type of space opera like Culture, so I'm assuming I'll like The Algebraist. But for anyone else who's read it, what's your opinion on it? Where does it stand in relation to Banks' typical Culture stuff? Better? Worse?
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Nov 26, 2011 20:31
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Chairman Capone posted:I got a used copy of The Algebraist by Iain Banks as a book sale the other day, just because I liked the cover. I've read a few of his Culture books and liked them and I'm generally a fan of the more out-there type of space opera like Culture, so I'm assuming I'll like The Algebraist. But for anyone else who's read it, what's your opinion on it? Where does it stand in relation to Banks' typical Culture stuff? Better? Worse? Having only read Weapons of Choice and the Algebraist, I'd say Weapons was a better book although the Algebraist was pretty interesting as a standalone novel. The biggest thing I have against is is that the main villain was so completely over the top I wasn't really sure if he was supposed to be taken seriously or not. Overall though, definitely worth the read.
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Nov 26, 2011 21:59
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Chairman Capone posted:I got a used copy of The Algebraist by Iain Banks as a book sale the other day, just because I liked the cover. I've read a few of his Culture books and liked them and I'm generally a fan of the more out-there type of space opera like Culture, so I'm assuming I'll like The Algebraist. But for anyone else who's read it, what's your opinion on it? Where does it stand in relation to Banks' typical Culture stuff? Better? Worse? It is definitely proper space opera, but in a totally different type of universe than Culture, where humans are just a small part of the current galactic empire. What I have really enjoyed so far, is all the history that this particular universe has. We are talking billions of years and different galactic eras described. Humor in the right doses, crazy concepts that you have to remind yourself is normal here, large scale destruction, Space Hitler etc. etc. While I still miss a quarter of the book, I wouldn't mind reading something else set in this universe. Of course I could be let down by a lovely ending, but I have a feeling it's on par with the Culture books. So I would say slightly below the Culture books but definitely worth checking out if you enjoy Banks.
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Nov 26, 2011 22:00
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The Algebraist is easily my least favorite Iain M. Banks novel. If you like The Algebraist and have yet to really get into the Culture novels, you are in for a treat when you do. Also, seconding The House of Suns as Alastair Reynolds' best book. By far.
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Nov 27, 2011 02:52
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Dr. Fabulous posted:Also, seconding The House of Suns as Alastair Reynolds' best book. By far.
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Nov 27, 2011 23:27
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Doniazade posted:Pushing Ice is a very close second though. I'd recommend it as a first book if you like harder SF. Really? I thought Pushing Ice was his weakest book. It just felt... pointless and aimless.
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Nov 28, 2011 03:11
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MikeJF posted:Really? I thought Pushing Ice was his weakest book. It just felt... pointless and aimless. Same here, with the additional problem that I felt that most of the conflict between the two female leads was based on them acting childish and stupid despite supposedly being smart, capable leaders. Even though the overarching plot was cool, it was a very frustrating read just because the characters were acting like idiots. It was the only book of Reynolds' that I flat out would not read again for fun. House of Suns is freakin' amazing, though.
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Nov 28, 2011 04:29
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The bickering between the two women in Pushing Ice killed the whole book for me. I liked some of the story, but I just couldn't get past the bullshit between those two women.
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Nov 29, 2011 03:51
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I've read all of Reynold's stuff. I think the worst hands down is Terminal World. It's basically "I need an excuse to write about cool loving airships". Century Rain is just about as bad as Terminal World but for different reasons. The "time travel" thing is the main part of the plot and it doesn't feel particularly interesting. The future world he created in this series feels kind of tacked on and unbelievable... which is usually the reason Reynold's stuff is so good: the worlds feel believable and real. Pushing Ice is probably my least favorite after those two... I liked a lot of ideas within it, but the bickering between the two main characters got out of hand. Beyond that, while there were some really interesting ideas in here, some of the execution fell flat and was somewhat unbelievable. I think House of Suns, Chasm City, the Prefect, and the trilogy are his best books. The short story collection is also well-worth checking out. The Prefect is really good in that it makes the glitter band (mentioned in passing basically in the Revelation Space trilogy) feel very real. It also explored very well how the Demarchy worked and that part was really cool to me. It dropped the ball a bit in some areas though, but overall I really enjoyed it. House of Suns is easily the best stand alone Reynolds did. It knows where it's going the whole way and has some really exciting ideas. Only at a few small points did it feel less than believable, for example the habitat they ended up in felt like a big, empty black box with cartoon character aliens hanging out inside. Chasm City is really loving solid; the backstory it builds up is probably the highlight though. Whatever happens outside of that (the "detective story") could kind of be interchanged with close to anything else and the end result would feel the same. The Revelation Space trilogy is really good but has a lot of weak points. He had some interesting ideas that ended up getting kind of dropped as the plot went on Think of how built up the weapon cache was and how it ultimately just kind of fired off a few times in a minor battle and didn't change the results of anything really. He also had some unfortunate "powering up" bullshit that felt really goofy and dumb like the goofy weapons and inertia dampeners etc.. The last book gets a lot of poo poo for the decisions it made. I think the pacing was mostly off, but I enjoyed reading it the whole way through. I just wish he would have taken at least 100 pages out of the ice world story with Aura and used that to flesh out the ending more. One thing that I really like about all of Reynold's books is his respect for FTL boundaries. Like someone said a while back, after you read sci-fi that acknowledges realistic limits of relativity, going to something where "THE Z DRIVE ACTIVATES WOOOSH" just feels fake and it also manages to ruin any sense of actual scale. Even when I see something like the new Star Trek movie, I can't help but think "Okay so they pretty much just teleport to Vulcan... it might as well be 100 miles away". Creating a universe where FTL limitations are actually present makes everything feel much more real and vast than a setting where you have warp drives or whatever else. It's kind of a dumb thing for me to focus on because for all we know, wormholes may be entirely feasible, but given our current understanding it's unlikely. angel opportunity fucked around with this message at 04:19 on Nov 29, 2011 |
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Nov 29, 2011 04:15
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Dr. Fabulous posted:character Y tails character X from point A to point B, watches them closely, then goes back to their ship and using an ULTRA SECURE LINK that no one is supposed to be able to crack (see gripe above) reports back to their superious.
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Nov 29, 2011 20:19
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Just finished the first book and half of the second of Donaldson's The Gap pentalogy. I was expecting it to be brutal, I was prepared for that. Everytime I pick up the book I think, "Well, let's see how depressed and miserable these characters are today!" My question is, is this mood sustained throughout all five books? The constant psychological torment and self-pity of the main character has all but taken over the entire story at this point. I can't really imagine that the entire series keeps this up, and quite frankly if it does I don't think I want to keep reading. Also, at this point in the story (granted, it's early) Morn is sort of driving me nuts. "Sure, go ahead and rape me, I will use the pain to help me relax so I can do my job better" type of stuff. Ugh.
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Dec 2, 2011 04:15
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Dr. Fabulous posted:Just finished the first book and half of the second of Donaldson's The Gap pentalogy. I would say that the tone eases from depressing to exciting, with lots of 'no way, holy poo poo this is cool' later on. And there are so many twists and turns you never really know whose side someone is on.
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Dec 2, 2011 18:28
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Dr. Fabulous posted:Just finished the first book and half of the second of Donaldson's The Gap pentalogy. Morn is a hard character, because she's actually a MacGuffin more than a person, for a lot of the beginning especially.
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Dec 3, 2011 02:40
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Dr. Fabulous posted:The Algebraist is easily my least favorite Iain M. Banks novel. If you like The Algebraist and have yet to really get into the Culture novels, you are in for a treat when you do. I got through half of The Algebraist before I gave up on it.When Fassin and his alien buddy escapes into the gas giant and meet the Dwellers the whole thing just seems to descend into slapstick comedy which felt really out of place. It's the only thing by Iain M. Banks I've read though. I should really get around to read the Culture novels, I've seen a few interviews with him and he seems like a really cool dude.
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Dec 3, 2011 12:45
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On the subject of Culture novels, can I put in a wholehearted recommendation to Surface Detail, which has been a really good story so far. I'm actually enjoying it way more than Matter, which I found a bit dry and convoluted.
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Dec 10, 2011 00:17
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Matter was great towards the end, the way it picked up was awesome.
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Dec 10, 2011 02:29
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WMain00 posted:On the subject of Culture novels, can I put in a wholehearted recommendation to Surface Detail, which has been a really good story so far. Just started this one, glad to hear it stays good.
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Dec 10, 2011 16:21
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Wanted to pop in and thank the people who recommended House of Suns, I'm about 200 pages in and I'm loving it, the sense of wonder stuff is amazing. The no FTL rule is clearly not an obstacle to writing epic space opera, if anything it's just an inspiration. I'm going to move to the Revelation Space trilogy next, I think.
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Dec 10, 2011 20:02
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So I just read the first Honor Harrington novel and couldn't really stand it - even setting aside the annoying as gently caress right-wing caricatures in the book's political machinations, the characters are so flat and unlikable and Honor is such a Mary Sue sperg. Ugh. Any recommendations for space opera that is more character-driven or at least focuses more on realistic characterization and that is less... I dunno, spergy? In the sense that it does not cut up action scenes with pages of fellatio concerning the history and mechanics of FTL or the relative awesomeness of space guns and space armor. I would say my favorite author is CJ Cherryh and some of the best space opera I've read are her books "Heavy Time," "The Pride of Chanur," and "Downbelow Station" if that helps.
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Dec 17, 2011 01:46
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Bass Concert Hall posted:So I just read the first Honor Harrington novel and couldn't really stand it - even setting aside the annoying as gently caress right-wing caricatures in the book's political machinations, the characters are so flat and unlikable and Honor is such a Mary Sue sperg. Ugh. Peter F. Hamilton, Vernor Vinge, and Charles Stross are all fairly good. Peter F. Hamilton has some decent characters and decent plots and worldbuilding. Vinge has great pacing/tension and in his best work really nails the 'space opera" vibe in a way that most modern authors can't match -- sometimes he feels more like a Golden Age writer than a modern one. Charles Stross is great but writes a lot of different types of things. Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise are great space opera.
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Dec 17, 2011 01:51
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Bass Concert Hall posted:So I just read the first Honor Harrington novel and couldn't really stand it - even setting aside the annoying as gently caress right-wing caricatures in the book's political machinations, the characters are so flat and unlikable and Honor is such a Mary Sue sperg. Ugh. It's interesting to find someone else who likes Heavy Time, it's a great story but not very well known. For anyone who likes Cherryh I'd recommend Bujold's Vorkosigan novels (not heavy on the space opera but strongly character driven), and almost anything by Alastair Reynolds starting with Revelation Space. Neal Asher's stories have a bit of right-wing bias but nowhere near as heavy-handed as Weber - try Gridlinked. And if somehow you've managed to miss Iain (M.) Banks, well, then, read stuff by Iain (M.) Banks. Hobnob fucked around with this message at 04:19 on Dec 17, 2011 |
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Dec 17, 2011 02:07
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Bass Concert Hall posted:Any recommendations for space opera that is more character-driven or at least focuses more on realistic characterization and that is less... I dunno, spergy? In the sense that it does not cut up action scenes with pages of fellatio concerning the history and mechanics of FTL or the relative awesomeness of space guns and space armor. I would say my favorite author is CJ Cherryh and some of the best space opera I've read are her books "Heavy Time," "The Pride of Chanur," and "Downbelow Station" if that helps. If you haven't read the Vorkosigan Saga yet, you probably ought to. Some of the best characters in the business, for my money. As noted earlier, they are almost all available for free in every e-format here http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/24-CryoburnCD/CryoburnCD/ Except for Memory, which while one of the stronger books, is smack dab in the middle of the chronology, so you'll be 4-5 books in before you need to unass 6$ to complete 12 books worth of awesome. The first few are very space-opera adventurey, the later ones are variously experimental, mysteries, and a self titled 'comedy of manners'. Slo-Tek fucked around with this message at 02:13 on Dec 17, 2011 |
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Dec 17, 2011 02:10
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What's the best reading order for the Vorkosigan Saga? Should I go for the internal chronological order or by publication date ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorkosigan_Saga#Works
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Dec 17, 2011 08:53
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Fart of Presto posted:What's the best reading order for the Vorkosigan Saga? I'd go with chronological; publication is an interesting way to analyze her how writing style evolved but jumping four books backwards in chronology to pick up Cetaganda isn't something I'd do to a new reader. It also puts Cetaganda earlier in the sequence for the new reader, which is is good. It's one of my favorite murder mysteries and a darned interesting intrigue story to boot.
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Dec 17, 2011 09:15
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Bass Concert Hall posted:So I just read the first Honor Harrington novel and couldn't really stand it - even setting aside the annoying as gently caress right-wing caricatures in the book's political machinations, the characters are so flat and unlikable and Honor is such a Mary Sue sperg. Ugh. Have you read Elizabeth Moon? I enjoyed the Harris/Serrano series Hunting Party Sporting Chance Winning Colors Once a Hero Rules of Engagement Change of Command Against the Odds Have you read Sharon Lee and Steve Miller? Romantic Space Opera. If you were only going to read one of the many Liaden Universe books, I'd say check out Scout's Progress, but I have enjoyed all of them. Have you read Cherryh's Foreigner series? What about Cyteen and Regenesis?
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Dec 17, 2011 16:26
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mllaneza posted:I'd go with chronological; publication is an interesting way to analyze her how writing style evolved but jumping four books backwards in chronology to pick up Cetaganda isn't something I'd do to a new reader. It also puts Cetaganda earlier in the sequence for the new reader, which is is good. It's one of my favorite murder mysteries and a darned interesting intrigue story to boot. I found Falling Free to be quite skippable. Doesn't feature any of the main characters, and doesn't generally get a re-read when I re-read the whole mess of them. So if you have the omnibus editions, you'll probably either want to start with Cordelia's Honor or Young Miles.
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Dec 17, 2011 16:32
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Zola posted:Have you read Elizabeth Moon? I enjoyed the Harris/Serrano series Personally I liked Moon's Vatta's War series better than Serrano.
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Dec 18, 2011 04:40
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Jigoku San posted:Personally I liked Moon's Vatta's War series better than Serrano. I did as well, although both are worth reading; Moon tends to make far more interesting non-combat drama in her books, but they also usually have one or two large set-pieces. Whereas reading Harrington is mostly skipping everything that's NOT a set-piece.
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Dec 18, 2011 15:16
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Velius posted:I did as well, although both are worth reading; Moon tends to make far more interesting non-combat drama in her books, but they also usually have one or two large set-pieces. Whereas reading Harrington is mostly skipping everything that's NOT a set-piece. The thing that annoyed me about Moon was the constant hints at larger things going on that never went anywhere. Someone is intentionally killing off the experienced NCOs, Who? Why? Oops I'll just stop writing in this world.
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Dec 18, 2011 17:14
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Hughlander posted:The thing that annoyed me about Moon was the constant hints at larger things going on that never went anywhere. Someone is intentionally killing off the experienced NCOs, Who? Why? Oops I'll just stop writing in this world. I thought that was explained It was the Space Mafia nation. Because if you really want to cripple an army you don't take out the officers but the experienced NCOs because they teach the enlisted ranks and pass on the traditions of naval service and all that crap. been a while since I read that series but pretty sure that was the explanation.
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Dec 18, 2011 19:22
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Ferrosol posted:I thought that was explained It was the Space Mafia nation. Because if you really want to cripple an army you don't take out the officers but the experienced NCOs because they teach the enlisted ranks and pass on the traditions of naval service and all that crap. been a while since I read that series but pretty sure that was the explanation. I may have missed it but I thought that was just hinted at but never resolved in world, it's been like 10 years since I touched the series, I just thought that it was going to be part of an overall arc, instead the whole series just dropped without ever 'starting' from what I'd consider the start.
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Dec 18, 2011 20:37
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Thanks for the recommendations guys. I have definitely read Vinge and the Foreigner series, as well as Cyteen; not Regenesis yet, because goddamn Cyteen is a hosed up novel and not light reading. Since posting I've read my way through The Player of Games and am finishing up Pushing Ice; having never read Banks or Reynolds I'm really impressed by both. Next up is Bujold and perhaps this Vatta's War business. I don't know if this is out-of-genre, but do you think the Red Mars/Blue Mars/Green Mars series is worth reading?
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Dec 23, 2011 06:26
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Bass Concert Hall posted:I don't know if this is out-of-genre, but do you think the Red Mars/Blue Mars/Green Mars series is worth reading? I do, it's one of the hard SF epics. His use of Mars itself as a character is masterful. You may or may not enjoy a lot of the character stuff, but there's plenty of plot and setting to groove on.
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Dec 23, 2011 06:30
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Bass Concert Hall posted:Thanks for the recommendations guys. I have definitely read Vinge and the Foreigner series, as well as Cyteen; not Regenesis yet, because goddamn Cyteen is a hosed up novel and not light reading. Since posting I've read my way through The Player of Games and am finishing up Pushing Ice; having never read Banks or Reynolds I'm really impressed by both. Next up is Bujold and perhaps this Vatta's War business. Yes. I really, really liked it and lost my copies due to lending it out to someone, one of these days I've got to replace it because it's good enough to re-read. I think that the thing I especially enjoyed about it is that the technology in the books in large measure is technology that currently actually exists, so such a mission is actually very possible. EDIT: You might also want to check out Forty Thousand In Gehenna when you get through Cyteen, it was out of print for quite a while but just came out in Alliance Space, which also includes the novel Merchanter's Luck, which wasn't bad. Zola fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Dec 23, 2011 |
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Dec 23, 2011 20:07
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Has anyone read "In Conquest Born" by C.S Friedman? It is the first book that I didn't finish reading. I came about 130 pages in until I couldn't take it any more. That girl child just feels like a massive Mary-Sue, the obvious "women are best" theme is just grating and the book itself is just weird. I don't even understand the point of the warrior civilization (men are evil!!!!), what's the point if a little girl can totally crush one of their best soldiers? Please tell me how wrong I am and how good the book becomes after page 140...or?
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Dec 29, 2011 11:23
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TjyvTompa posted:Has anyone read "In Conquest Born" by C.S Friedman? I read it a long time ago but I remember liking it, and I'm usually a picky reader. Edit: Oh, and if I recall properly, a lot of things that both main characters "know" early in the book turn out to be propaganda fed to them by their respective states. Mr.48 fucked around with this message at 08:43 on Dec 30, 2011 |
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Dec 30, 2011 08:37
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TjyvTompa posted:Has anyone read "In Conquest Born" by C.S Friedman? I read it like 10+ years ago, and I remember really liking it, but it was so long ago that many of the details have faded. And I don't recall it having a grating 'men bad women good' tone at all -- it was contrasting two different cultures, and they each thought the other culture was worthless, but the point of the book was that they were both so caught up in their own ideologies that they couldn't realistically evaluate each other's strengths or weaknesses. I don't understand your question about the warrior civilisation, so can't address it, sorry. But, you know, if you hate it, why bother? There's plenty of stuff out there that's likely to be more to your tastes.
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Dec 30, 2011 21:57
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I've got a question for the thread: Can anyone recommend any books which deal mostly with alien ways of thinking, alien societies, that sort of thing? I've always been interested in stories from alien points of view (especially when humans are examined through alien eyes) and "first contact" stories. I've been especially interested in the possibilities of exotic aliens since reading Peter Watts' Blindsight. One recent recommendation I've had from elsewhere is China Mieville's Embassytown, and I'm looking into getting that, but does anyone here have some thoughts on this topic? As a general outline of what I'm familiar with, I've read most of the stuff written by Iain M. Banks, Bruce Sterling, Alastair Reynolds, and I'm currently powering through loads of C.J. Cherryh's stuff (her Foreigner and Mri books feature loads of this stuff).
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Dec 31, 2011 18:42
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