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Owlkill posted:I picked up The Reality Dysfunction by Peter F Hamilton when it was on sale for 99p recently. I'd heard good things about it, and I enjoyed Manhattan in Reverse, a short story collection of his, but I'm just not feeling it with this one. I'd give up now. I had similar feelings as you, like there were a few interesting parts and hopefully Hamilton would veer towards them and away from the dumb stuff. That never happens. I don't remember how much has happened by the point you've reached, but you'll end up reading about (not super spoilery, but just to be safe) almost-literal Satan, fully-literal Al Capone, and hippies driving around in a van. Oh and as I guess is routine for Hamilton, the ending of the trilogy is the dumbest thing. I read all three books just because of inertia and having "invested" so much time in the first 1000+ page book, but you're really not missing much by skipping the books. I'll even tell you the ending so you really won't have missed anything (THIS IS THE ENDING OF THE TRILOGY): everything is magically fixed by god (a black hole). Now you know how all that occasionally interesting conflict gets resolved: in the least interesting way possible! Edit: Since you mentioned liking Iain M. Banks, Hamilton, at least in the Night's Dawn Trilogy, is pretty dissimilar to Banks' style. He has random, "wacky" stuff happen for no apparent reason. Maybe he didn't really know what kind of book he wanted to write yet? If you want something more full on space opera and similar at least in tone to Banks, I'd try the "Revelation Space" books or "House of Suns" by Alastair Reynolds. Also, I just finished "The Quantum Thief" and "The Fractal Prince" by Hannu Rajaniemi, and while they're a little different, there's a lot of technology, AIs, and conflict in the solar system. sourdough fucked around with this message at 16:59 on Mar 7, 2013 |
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Mar 7, 2013 16:49
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RVProfootballer posted:I'd give up now. I had similar feelings as you, like there were a few interesting parts and hopefully Hamilton would veer towards them and away from the dumb stuff. That never happens. I don't remember how much has happened by the point you've reached, but you'll end up reading about (not super spoilery, but just to be safe) almost-literal Satan, fully-literal Al Capone, and hippies driving around in a van. Oh and as I guess is routine for Hamilton, the ending of the trilogy is the dumbest thing. I read all three books just because of inertia and having "invested" so much time in the first 1000+ page book, but you're really not missing much by skipping the books. Ah, I reckon I'll give up now then. That doesn't sound up my street at all. Especially not for three doorstop-sized books. But thanks for the Reynolds and Rajaniemi recommendations - I'll give those a try. Been meaning to read some Reynolds for a while now,
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Mar 7, 2013 17:24
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Owlkill posted:I picked up The Reality Dysfunction by Peter F Hamilton when it was on sale for 99p recently. I'd heard good things about it, and I enjoyed Manhattan in Reverse, a short story collection of his, but I'm just not feeling it with this one. I really enjoyed it. Have recommended it a few times with no bad feedback (yet).
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Mar 7, 2013 23:25
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General Battuta posted:This is definitely self published. I always feel like that should be flagged. I'm pretty upset that because I bought a few (mostly excellent!) self published books my Amazon recommendations page is completely ruined by a torrent of the worst self published poo poo imaginable.
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Mar 8, 2013 06:13
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RVProfootballer posted:I'd give up now. I had similar feelings as you, like there were a few interesting parts and hopefully Hamilton would veer towards them and away from the dumb stuff. That never happens. I don't remember how much has happened by the point you've reached, but you'll end up reading about (not super spoilery, but just to be safe) almost-literal Satan, fully-literal Al Capone, and hippies driving around in a van. Oh and as I guess is routine for Hamilton, the ending of the trilogy is the dumbest thing. I read all three books just because of inertia and having "invested" so much time in the first 1000+ page book, but you're really not missing much by skipping the books. Except that the book really starts up after awhile in the book and is actually a good read. The first book is interesting in how a virus would propagate itself through space. Also, you just happened to mention the most gimmicky things in the series. It's not like Hamilton have more stupid endings than other authors in the field. The Revelation Space series by Reynolds have a relatively weak ending as well.
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Mar 8, 2013 11:43
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Cardiac posted:Except that the book really starts up after awhile in the book and is actually a good read. Right, there are somewhat interesting ideas that get lost in Hamilton's "gimmicky things." The person asking for a recommendation already said he wasn't really liking it, which mirrors my experience pretty well, and I regret sinking so much time into the trilogy. If you want a serious or mature storyline, interrupting the main story to follow Al Capone and some space hippies really kills it. As for the ending, no, that ending is pretty much the worst I've read in awhile. You don't think having all the conflict and efforts by the characters rendered moot by a literal act of god is a really bad ending? Why did I even read about the various people trying to fix things? What was the point? I don't know whether Hamilton's other endings are that bad, but that seems to be a common reservation about him when his books are brought up.
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Mar 8, 2013 14:47
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Throwing in also that I stopped reading after about 200-300 pages in. I think I also stopped right after Al Capone appeared.
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Mar 8, 2013 15:37
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Fallom posted:I'm pretty upset that because I bought a few (mostly excellent!) self published books my Amazon recommendations page is completely ruined by a torrent of the worst self published poo poo imaginable. On the Amazon recommendations, if you look at the list of items, at the bottom of each you should see something along the lines of "Recommended because you purchased X Book (Fix this)" If you click the "Fix this" link, you get a popup with the books it's using, and you can check "Don't use this for recommendations". This is very handy if you frequently buy books as gifts, or found one good self-published book out of a pile of cruddy ones.
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Mar 8, 2013 16:49
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RVProfootballer posted:Right, there are somewhat interesting ideas that get lost in Hamilton's "gimmicky things." The person asking for a recommendation already said he wasn't really liking it, which mirrors my experience pretty well, and I regret sinking so much time into the trilogy. If you want a serious or mature storyline, interrupting the main story to follow Al Capone and some space hippies really kills it. Well, for the Reality Dysfunction, it is admittedly a slow start but it speeds up after awhile. I still think it is a good book and series and I've read a lot more scifi which is worse (incidentally some of it is by Hamilton). As for the Deus Ex Machina which is the end of the series, it is bad, but other series and authors are equally bad in writing a good ending for a long and convoluted storyline. To put it like this, which scifi serie which spans over several books have a good ending? Revelation space is bad in that regard, Asher (one of my favourite authors) ain't particularly good either on that. I understand if people get irritated about some details, but given that the series is 3x1000 pages, what you mention is not the major part of the books instead it is space zombies
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Mar 8, 2013 19:49
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Just put it down. Hamilton is Hamilton. He's kind of polarizing, and the awkward teenager sex is among the most common complaint. His format stays fairly constant; Every book of his has separate stories that intertwine about halfway in. You're on his weakest trilogy, though. If you like his style, read Fallen Dragon, Pandora's Star or the Greg Mandel stuff instead. Fallen Dragon is probably my favorite of his, mostly because it tells a tidy, self-contained story as opposed to the sprawling, half-book buildup of The Reality Disfunction.
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Mar 8, 2013 21:45
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Bhodi posted:Just put it down. Hamilton is Hamilton. He's kind of polarizing, and the awkward teenager sex is among the most common complaint. His format stays fairly constant; Every book of his has separate stories that intertwine about halfway in. Don't know if I would call Fallen Dragon a tidy story considering the end of the book. As for Pandora's star, it is definitely worse than Reality Dysfunction (unless you like space elves and space trees that is). The Void Trilogy is even worse.
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Mar 11, 2013 13:48
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Hamilton desperately needs help with plotting and characterization, but his command of the set-piece action sequence and fantastic alien landscape is second to none. He's also the most divisive author publishing today, but I'll still keep eagerly reading his stuff as fast as he can finish a series (he's also fantastic with cliffhangers, and I'm not suffering through a trilogy's worth again).
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Mar 11, 2013 23:27
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I was ok with the ending to The Great North Road. I think he should really just stick to single novels rather than epic series, although I understand the temptation.
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Mar 12, 2013 02:28
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Owlkill posted:I picked up The Reality Dysfunction by Peter F Hamilton when it was on sale for 99p recently. I'd heard good things about it, and I enjoyed Manhattan in Reverse, a short story collection of his, but I'm just not feeling it with this one. I read the first two with steadily decreasing enjoyment, and never bothered tracking down the third. The widescreen baroque space opera stuff (that first space battle, the marines in the forest) is great, but the juvenile sex obsession and the autistic repetition of phrases like 'neural nanonics' becomes teeth-grinding. Also? Al Capone.
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Mar 12, 2013 03:13
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sebmojo posted:the autistic repetition of phrases like 'neural nanonics' becomes teeth-grinding. I actually liked the later commonwealth books, though. At least if you skip the hippy adventures in fairyland sections.
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Mar 12, 2013 06:12
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The Night's Dawn Trilogy was...interesting, to put it best. If it were a quarter the length and didn't try to do so much, it would be a lot better. As it stands, it's basically a series of events happening that a bunch of (sometimes interesting) characters react to. The only reason it has the ending it has is to actually have an ending as opposed to just concluding abruptly. It's good if you're looking to just kill a bunch of time reading about stuff happening and seeing people's reactions to it. If you're looking for some actual excitement and plot, look elsewhere.
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Mar 12, 2013 06:47
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It's ages since I read that trilogy, but didn't it have a part where he mentions how organised religion was affected by knowing for certain there's life after death? The way I remember it was him going on about how interesting it was, then refusing to tell us about it. Also, those bitek people were insufferably smug. The first two Commonwealth books were much better, but yeah I skip over the bits with the trees.
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Mar 12, 2013 11:50
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mllaneza posted:Hamilton desperately needs help with plotting and characterization, but his command of the set-piece action sequence and fantastic alien landscape is second to none. He's also the most divisive author publishing today, but I'll still keep eagerly reading his stuff as fast as he can finish a series (he's also fantastic with cliffhangers, and I'm not suffering through a trilogy's worth again). NastyPBears posted:It's ages since I read that trilogy, but didn't it have a part where he mentions how organised religion was affected by knowing for certain there's life after death?
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Mar 14, 2013 19:16
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coyo7e posted:I'm personally a big fan of his "post-human space marine slogging through alien jungle" sequences. I can't get enough of weird-rear end cyborg mercenaries who've replaced essentially their entire bodies. Replace "alien jungle" with "alien tower of death and mathematics" and this is Diamond Dogs by Alastair Reynolds. A great, horrific novella.
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Mar 14, 2013 22:16
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Hedrigall posted:Replace "alien jungle" with "alien tower of death and mathematics" and this is Diamond Dogs by Alastair Reynolds. A great, horrific novella. 
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Mar 14, 2013 22:32
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coyo7e posted:I'm personally a big fan of his "post-human space marine slogging through alien jungle" sequences. I can't get enough of weird-rear end cyborg mercenaries who've replaced essentially their entire bodies. If Hamilton just could devote himself to writing only that kinda fiction I think we would all love him. Oh and GW should recruit Hamilton for writing Space Marine novels cause Space Marines don't have sex with teenagers
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Mar 15, 2013 10:08
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coyo7e posted:Bought Diamond Dogs/Turquoise Days for Kindle sight-unseen on this recommend. So thanks or gently caress you, it's still in the state of being both at once - at least until I open the book. I recommend it also. "Turquoise Days" isn't as good, but it's pretty decent. If you're already a fan of Reynold's Revelation Space universe, it's good for expanding on some of that universe's backstory details.
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Mar 15, 2013 17:52
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Cardiac posted:If Hamilton just could devote himself to writing only that kinda fiction I think we would all love him. 
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Mar 15, 2013 18:00
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coyo7e posted:Isn't that because they're all like 15 feet tall, though? I thought it was because they didn't have penises
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Mar 18, 2013 10:20
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coyo7e posted:I'm personally a big fan of his "post-human space marine slogging through alien jungle" sequences. I can't get enough of weird-rear end cyborg mercenaries who've replaced essentially their entire bodies. Wait what that sounds awesome. Maybe I'll give it another shot at some point, and just skip the adolescent sex scenes (presuming they don't add anything important story-wise).
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Mar 18, 2013 16:50
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Owlkill posted:Wait what that sounds awesome. Maybe I'll give it another shot at some point, and just skip the adolescent sex scenes (presuming they don't add anything important story-wise). The first two books of Neutronium Alchemist/etc have lots of marines after the initial colony stuff happens and things begin to go south, as well.
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Mar 18, 2013 19:14
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In my continuing effort to find a lightweight space action oriented book, I recently read (mostly skimmed) the first two books of the Annihilation series by Saxon Andrew. Long story short, avoid at all costs. If you have anything against self-published books then this series will confirm all your hated for them 10 times over, and if you don't have anything against self-published books then you will afterwards. Generally I can handle self-published quirks as long as I dig through and find enough reasonable user reviews on Goodreads or Amazon, but that process failed me on this trip. Does it have SCIENCE(tm) introduced through akward and ridiculous conversations or introspective moments just before an action scene? Check. Is humanity mystically enlightened and transcendent of worldly problems of the past despite actual evidence in the books themselves? Check. Does it have cheesey love at first sight romance? Check. Does it have a 17 year old kid with amazing super powers who goes on to become the ruler of Earth halfway through the first book because the ruling party is elected by having super powers and he's got more super powers than anyone else? Oh yeah. Is there a readily apparent, and active, effort to acually avoid logical consistency or having any part of the story make sense? Definitely. I wasn't even sure you could write a original story this bad, let alone still charge people for it (thankfully it was free through Prime).
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Mar 22, 2013 20:15
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Perhaps read a few more book descriptions next time?  I looked at http://www.annihilationseries.com/book-04.php and drat that stuff is cringe-worthy.
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Mar 27, 2013 01:51
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Does any one know where I can find a good summary of what's happened in the first two books of the Expanse series? I read the first two about a year ago and Abbadon's Gate just came out this week.
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Jun 6, 2013 23:24
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Take the crew and ship of Firefly. Then throw them into this plot. Some EvilMegaCorp finds a SuperMolecule from OutsideSpace that does SpaceMagic. SuperMolecule is released onto an asteroid colony and turns into a SpaceMonster. SpaceMonster crashes on Venus and becomes a Megaship of some kind. The last bit of Caliban's War has the Megaship rising out of the atmosphere of Venus. [dramatic music] It is anything but original, but it is a decent time killer. Collateral fucked around with this message at 08:26 on Jun 7, 2013 |
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Jun 7, 2013 08:20
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This book is FREE on Kindle. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ARPEJC8/ref=kinw_myk_ro_title. I downloaded it because, well, it was free so I couldn't lose much. It turned out to be very good and I subsequently bought the second book. Being brand new to this (impressive) forum, I don't know exactly how to creatre quote boxes and this borrowed summary makes the book sound like less than it really is. quote:Conquered by the Jao twenty years ago, the Earth is shackled under alien tyranny—and threatened by the even more dangerous Ekhat, who are sending a genocidal extermination fleet to the solar system. Humanity's only chance rests with an unusual pair of allies: a young Jao prince, newly arrived to Terra to assume his duties, and a young human woman brought up amongst the Jao occupiers. I see that Neal Asdher, particularly the Spatterjay serties was suggested many pages ago. I consider the first book, http://www.amazon.com/The-Skinner-ebook/dp/B0058U6YJI/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1370645403&sr=1-1&keywords=the+skinner as an all time favorite of mine. I'll get better at this over time (rolls eyes self-deprecatingly) See, I did figure out the quote thingy.
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Jun 7, 2013 23:57
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Cardiac posted:I thought it was because they didn't have penises Hamilton would write about Slaanesh Space Marines.
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Jun 8, 2013 09:25
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specklebang posted:This book is FREE on Kindle. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ARPEJC8/ref=kinw_myk_ro_title. I downloaded it because, well, it was free so I couldn't lose much. It turned out to be very good and I subsequently bought the second book. Eric Flint (the author) is a socialist and big proponent of the idea that since people are probably gonna steal your stuff anyway just accept it and move on. As a result he's put quite a few of his books especially the earlier ones out there for free. After all he reckons it builds a lot of goodwill and according to him sales of his books had nearly doubled since he started doing it simply due to word of mouth (well that and being a sneaky bastard and only giving away the first couple of books in his series for free to get people hooked). He has a lot of books available for free download here. I really like his Alt-History stuff even though he does get a little preachy at times, but if you want more sci-fi from him I recommend Mother of Demons by him as a good stand alone read.
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Jun 8, 2013 21:17
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Thanks for the link. I have read a lot of this thread and I haven't seen Gary Gibson. His Shoal; series was very good Space Opera and his Final Days is solid apocalyptic writing. First book of The Shoal http://www.amazon.com/Stealing-Light-ebook/dp/B003GK21C6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1370723507&sr=8-1&keywords=gary+gibson First book of Final Days http://www.amazon.com/Final-Days-ebook/dp/B005BOHZ76/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1370723507&sr=8-2&keywords=gary+gibson He sort of reminds me of Neal Asher. Ferrosol posted:Eric Flint (the author) is a socialist and big proponent of the idea that since people are probably gonna steal your stuff anyway just accept it and move on. As a result he's put quite a few of his books especially the earlier ones out there for free. After all he reckons it builds a lot of goodwill and according to him sales of his books had nearly doubled since he started doing it simply due to word of mouth (well that and being a sneaky bastard and only giving away the first couple of books in his series for free to get people hooked). He has a lot of books available for free download here. I really like his Alt-History stuff even though he does get a little preachy at times, but if you want more sci-fi from him I recommend Mother of Demons by him as a good stand alone read.
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Jun 8, 2013 21:35
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You can hit 'quote' on a post and then type below the block of quoted text to reply to it.
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Jun 8, 2013 21:37
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Ferrosol posted:Eric Flint (the author) is a socialist and big proponent of the idea that since people are probably gonna steal your stuff anyway just accept it and move on. As a result he's put quite a few of his books especially the earlier ones out there for free. After all he reckons it builds a lot of goodwill and according to him sales of his books had nearly doubled since he started doing it simply due to word of mouth (well that and being a sneaky bastard and only giving away the first couple of books in his series for free to get people hooked). He has a lot of books available for free download here. I really like his Alt-History stuff even though he does get a little preachy at times, but if you want more sci-fi from him I recommend Mother of Demons by him as a good stand alone read. Here's the intro for the free library he wrote: http://www.baen.com/library/intro.asp And sure, usually it's just the first few in a series. Then again, when a series gets big you have the phenomenon where book 3 comes out in hardcover and gets display space in bookstores, but then the first two volumes aren't in stock. Boom, potential new reader goes away without buying your book. With the first few in a series free the reader has an increased supply of new series to read. It's a good tradeoff. These days Baen is putting CDs into books, so impulse purchasers of, say, the new Honor Harrington hardback have the whole drat series right there on disc ready to go onto a reader. Sadly, the recent Kindle deal has the free library cut down to a sad fraction of its former glory.
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Jun 9, 2013 03:27
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Iain Banks just passed away. 
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Jun 9, 2013 17:37
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Steakandchips posted:Iain Banks just passed away. Nooooooooo god dammit.
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Jun 9, 2013 23:45
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mllaneza posted:Here's the intro for the free library he wrote: It is an excellent idea. It will be interesting to see if they can keep it up with the kindle deal. In other words I can understand Kindle saying no, we want to sell your stuff now. However as the deal continues, hopefully kindle reaches a point they will accept the free route for the older books to drum up interest.
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Jun 10, 2013 00:56
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Never.More posted:It is an excellent idea. It will be interesting to see if they can keep it up with the kindle deal. In other words I can understand Kindle saying no, we want to sell your stuff now. However as the deal continues, hopefully kindle reaches a point they will accept the free route for the older books to drum up interest. Kindle does free books all the time. I think the terms though are basically that Amazon will sell the books at least at the cheapest price they are available online. So any book they have on their site for free will be free on Amazon as well.
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Jun 10, 2013 15:09
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