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Recently I've been re-reading David Gemmell's Troy series (the last time I came across it, I don't think it'd even been finished yet) and I forgot how much I enjoyed the author's take on Odysseus. So on that theme, I'm interested in novels or series which feature really interesting liars. Not necessarily in a way to cause mischief, theft, secrets, or harm, just people who don't really take "truth" as something which is always a virtue in itself. Being able to change reality with lies in ways such as Odysseus' crew beginning to exhibit and practice exceptional traits or training in an effort to emulate their fictional personas being one example I am thinking of. The lies do not necessarily have to be important to (or even part of) the plot, as long as they're constant, and hopefully outrageous with a kernel of truth that lies within or grows over time, a la Emporer Norton. I don't really mind if the lies end up being for good or ill however, I'd like to read something I haven't come across before about some outrageous liars and their hijinx. coyo7e fucked around with this message at 16:25 on Jan 25, 2014 |
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Jan 25, 2014 16:20
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paradoxGentleman posted:Welp, that was a discussion alright. Good luck! Get the Dover editions with pyle's illustrations. One word of warning: Pyle being essentially a pre-raphaelite he uses a lot of "fancy", faux-elizabethan language and some of his descriptions are skimmable. He also starts right at the sword in the stone. Still overall I think he's the most readable of the non-modern Arthur versions.
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Jan 25, 2014 23:19
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coyo7e posted:
It's probably already been recommended to you but the Lies of Locke Lamora. Seriously.
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Jan 26, 2014 06:57
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coyo7e posted:
I think maybe, possibly you might want to look at Mark Leyner's The Tetherballs of Bougainville and Et Tu Babe. Only those two I'm afraid, the rest aren't so hot.
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Jan 27, 2014 06:50
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I finished up Star Soldiers last night. It's actually two fairly short novels back to back (Star Guard and Star Rangers) which are suppose to be in the same fictional universe. There was supposedly thousands of years between them, but the "Central Control" in both books sound like entirely different entities and it's the only thing really linking them. I found the second novel (Star Rangers) a more enjoyable read. The characters were more interesting and it made a bit of effort to actually establish relationships. This was also my first time reading Andre Norton, I'll probably be reading a lot more of her stuff in the future since it's really easy to read. Despite wanting to get invested in the Culture series as was recommended a few posts up, I decided to finish up what I haven't read of The Lost Fleet first. I finished the original six books almost two years ago and figured I would catch up now before moving on.
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Jan 29, 2014 03:50
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So, Amazon are alerting me to the existence of a new John C Wright book due to having previously purchased the Golden Age books. Has anyone read Count to a Trillion and its sequels? I began it but the prose and behaviour were a little too strange and offputting and I found it hard to get through. I also felt some slight hints it would blossom into a hardcore right wing polemic I would be unable to endure. I was also still suffering from the second part of the War of the Dreaming. To those who have read it: how much of the series is his wonderful imagination from the Golden Age, and how much of it is thinly veiled proselytising for obnoxious beliefs?
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Jan 29, 2014 11:40
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There have been discussions about Wright at least twice in this thread, once including a pic of him in a silly hat, with a horrible quote about the otherness and inferiority of hooman feeemales. Apparently he had some sort of life event, converted to Catholicism, and rode the far-right crazy train over the horizon. By all accounts his newer works lay it on even thicker than The Golden Age.
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Jan 29, 2014 18:41
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So I picked up First Contact (The Last War Trilogy, Book 1) (In Her Name) off a post someone threw into this or the SF-operas thread and, well, I'm 150 pages in, and it's certainly exactly what I was promised with a healthy slice of  Still love it, but good lord is it ever goony. I  so hard when the scrappy Japanese protagonist (named Ichiro) whipped a katana out of his bedroll to repel boarders. I am gonna go out on a limb and assume that somewhere in this trilogy or series, a scary menace will loom up from deep space and everybody will have to work together and humanity will suddenly get a bunch of free laser guns and poo poo from their new buddies. Totally looking forward to it.
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Jan 29, 2014 22:40
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Hey, the last post reminded me, who here has read Contact by Carl Sagan? I think it's just a loving great story and the movie with Jodie Foster is less complex, but it's still really awesome and compliments the book well.
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Jan 29, 2014 23:21
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I just finished Blood Song, by Anthony Ryan last night. It's a bit Rothfuss (kid goes to school/monastary, develops mad skills and battles both politics and hidden dark powers which we slowly learn as he narrates the tale to a scribe), but if that's the kind of thing you are looking for, it's one of the best. The characterisation is good, the plot is pretty tight, the action scenes are well written, the world and it's history are nicely developed and he *just* stays on the right side of Fantasy Name Syndrome. It was getting towards bad-Rothfuss when the protagonist developed a crush on Hero Girl, but then instead of being a whiny bitch for 400 pages, he just goes about his business. And has an awesome dog. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13569581-blood-song Turns out it was originally self-published, which is surprising because it's well written, pretty lean and no one has weird sex with dinosaurs. I'll definitely pick up the next installment.
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Jan 29, 2014 23:46
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Tony Montana posted:Hey, the last post reminded me, who here has read Contact by Carl Sagan? I love the novel, and the ending is excellent.
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Jan 29, 2014 23:49
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systran posted:I love the novel, and the ending is excellent. Yep. Lots of it is excellent. They don't have the time to do it in the movie, but the way the message is layered and they only work it out after a significant period of time.. and then the next layer.. and it's.. no wait.. a blueprint? Some kind of machine? You have the whole religious thing happening just as you would think it would, and the actual manifestation of the eventual contact is just really well done. Just one of those out there that if you don't know about, pick it up and read it. It's not cumbersome and long, it's exciting and moves quickly.
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Jan 29, 2014 23:54
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I also like how rather than just cutting scene and having this giant mechanical thing (though that thing looked really cool in the movie,) it instead has the liquid they make and fill a pool with, and mysteriously parts are made and they have no idea how it works or why.
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Jan 30, 2014 00:02
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There you go scifi thread, you may have read the genre writers and know all about Asimov or Banks.. but if you've never read the scifi novel from a very real space scientist with a writer's streak (Pale Blue Dot), you really should. The plot is simple, or starts that way. What if SETI found something? Now? What if they were listening as they are, and they picked up a signal. Now, they actually have picked up weird things (the Wow signal), but this time.. when they turn the dishes back to where it was.. it's still there. What happens next? How does humanity react? Contact - Carl Sagan. edit: don't read the plot summary on the wiki page, you'll ruin it if you're going to read it. You should, the reveals are fantastic. Tony Montana fucked around with this message at 00:57 on Jan 30, 2014 |
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Jan 30, 2014 00:54
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BrosephofArimathea posted:I just finished Blood Song, by Anthony Ryan last night. It's a bit Rothfuss (kid goes to school/monastary, develops mad skills and battles both politics and hidden dark powers which we slowly learn as he narrates the tale to a scribe), but if that's the kind of thing you are looking for, it's one of the best. The characterisation is good, the plot is pretty tight, the action scenes are well written, the world and it's history are nicely developed and he *just* stays on the right side of Fantasy Name Syndrome. Yeah, it was very conventional fantasy with a lot of standard tropes, but the author's an awesome storyteller and I couldn't put this down til I was finished. Really looking forward to what this dude writes in the future.
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Jan 30, 2014 01:35
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Tony Montana posted:Hey, the last post reminded me, who here has read Contact by Carl Sagan? I have, it's great Unfortunately there isn't a Kindle version
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Jan 30, 2014 04:39
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Fried Chicken posted:I have, it's great Seriously. I just went to see the Kindle price, and it's not on there.
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Jan 30, 2014 05:14
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Xik posted:I found the second novel (Star Rangers) a more enjoyable read. The characters were more interesting and it made a bit of effort to actually establish relationships. This was also my first time reading Andre Norton, I'll probably be reading a lot more of her stuff in the future since it's really easy to read. I read an incredible amount of Andre Norton in jr high/high school and Star Rangers was my absolute favorite. Good call on a starting Norton.
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Jan 30, 2014 06:15
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fritz posted:I read an incredible amount of Andre Norton in jr high/high school and Star Rangers was my absolute favorite. Good call on a starting Norton. The group dynamic of the rangers was probably what made the book for me, there was just something really satisfying about them. Perhaps it was what seemed like unconditional trust between them that made it? I'm not really sure, but it was great. I've probably got enough reading material for the next couple months at the moment, but if you've got any other Andre Norton favourites you'd like to recommend, I'd definitely be interested in adding them to my "to-read" pile for the near future.
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Jan 30, 2014 07:30
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Xik posted:The group dynamic of the rangers was probably what made the book for me, there was just something really satisfying about them. Perhaps it was what seemed like unconditional trust between them that made it? I'm not really sure, but it was great. It's been closing in on 30 years and the only ones I can remember with any clarity and fondness (besides 'Star Guard/Rangers') are 'Storm Over Warlock' and 'The Zero Stone.'
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Jan 30, 2014 08:02
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Thanks fritz, The Zero Stone sounds like it would be an interesting read. I added them both to my to-read shelf.
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Jan 30, 2014 08:54
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savinhill posted:Yeah, it was very conventional fantasy with a lot of standard tropes, but the author's an awesome storyteller and I couldn't put this down til I was finished. Really looking forward to what this dude writes in the future. I found Blood Song to be kind of...well, hard to stomach. On the one hand, it pulls off the tropes pretty well. If you want straight up fantasy with no particular surprises, this is definitely the book for you. But sometimes it hits the tropes a little too on the nose. There's magic wolves, magic swords, cockney orphans, feasting, training montages, etc. The only thing that really bothered me was that it was a very "no girls allowed" fantasy. There's a lot of testosterone-fueled dialogue about brotherhood and honor and strength while the main female roles are either a priestess who's biggest job is to get kidnapped or a scheming, wicked princess. That's a trope I have a hard time getting past. Now, as to whether that's better than the women-involved-in-the-creepiest-way-possible methods of Rothfuss is up for debate, but I'll agree, it's got the same kind of rhythm as Rothfuss, if none of the prose.
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Jan 30, 2014 10:30
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I wonder how I can put this in words: Can you guys recommend sci-fi books that have alien and/or robot characters who function like a sentient being that's not human? For example I liked in Mass Effect the alien races having their own cultures and worlds but in the end most of them are just re-skinned humans, with the exceptions of krogans going on and on about war and the asari talking about philosophical lifestyles because they live a thousand years. The Geth were the only actually different race. I'd like to read a book with intelligent life forms who are psychologically completely unlike humans. Bonus points if the life forms is based more or less on an real thing, like an ant colony or something like that.
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Jan 30, 2014 21:47
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If you want really alien aliens you should read Blindsight, which attacks some very fundamental human conceits about the nature of cognition and intelligence. You won't exactly be spending much quality time hanging out with alien characters, but that's sort of the point. For bonus points it's completely free online, since Watts' publisher abandoned the book. Stanislaw Lem also did some great work in the same vein.
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Jan 30, 2014 21:55
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ManOfTheYear posted:I wonder how I can put this in words: Can you guys recommend sci-fi books that have alien and/or robot characters who function like a sentient being that's not human? For example I liked in Mass Effect the alien races having their own cultures and worlds but in the end most of them are just re-skinned humans, with the exceptions of krogans going on and on about war and the asari talking about philosophical lifestyles because they live a thousand years. The Geth were the only actually different race. I'd like to read a book with intelligent life forms who are psychologically completely unlike humans. Bonus points if the life forms is based more or less on an real thing, like an ant colony or something like that. God Emperor of Dune is a tour-de-force on this in some respects but is also probably not at all what you're looking for. As mentioned, Stanislaw Lem's Solaris. Also a few short stories: http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html http://lesswrong.com/lw/y5/the_babyeating_aliens_18/
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Jan 30, 2014 22:16
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Solaris is a great suggestion, I'm a big fan of the Clooney movie too. I found the original book and the Russian classic movie a bit much, but just like Contact or Bladerunner, Solaris has a movie adaption that is good in it's own right and after you've read the text you get to see someone's visual interpretation of it. I liked your question, here is a thread I found: http://nanowrimo.org/forums/science-fiction/threads/146752 Check out the book Blindsight by Peter Watts. The aliens in that are kind of a hivemind, but they're spider-like and they're only visible when moving - except they only move between 'frames' that your eyes take. It's creepy stuff. what the gently caress
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Jan 30, 2014 22:22
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General Battuta posted:If you want really alien aliens you should read Blindsight, which attacks some very fundamental human conceits about the nature of cognition and intelligence. You won't exactly be spending much quality time hanging out with alien characters, but that's sort of the point. For bonus points it's completely free online, since Watts' publisher abandoned the book. Also, the Side-quel is out August 28th this year Tony Montana posted:
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Jan 30, 2014 22:36
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It depends on how alien you want it. Alan Dean Foster has written a lot of books on the lower end of that scale. In "The Damned," other aliens have difficulty interacting with humans because everyone else evolved to be pacifist and we're the only species that can fight without having a fit and going catatonic. His Flinx and Humanx series are basically the same conceit but reversed, in that humanity meets an alien-looking insectoid species that psychologically complements humans so well that the species' basically meld together and unify into one symbiotic whole. Somewhat in the middle is Mother of Demons by Eric Flint. A human colonization vessel crash-lands on the first alien world humanity attempts to colonize and loses most of its adult crew and basically all its provisions and knowledge. The native flora and fauna is nearly universally indigestible to humans. Mammals never really took off and the only intelligent species has more in common with giant cuttlefish than anything else. The differences in alien psychology are mostly evident in the social consequences of being an r-type reproductive strategy species with four sexes, while the human perspective is explored by an examination of how the next generation grows up in a complete cultural vacuum. On the other hand, there's Stanislaw Lem's Solaris on the far upper end of the scale. Humanity attempts interaction with an ecosystem-sized alien organism, but because it's so alien no communication can be established and the story basically resolves nothing in the end. The problem with asking for that sort of thing is always that a book about genuinely alien and incomprehensible characters isn't likely to be very interesting to read. They have to be human enough to have motivations and intents we can recognize, or you can simply not make a good story out of it.
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Jan 30, 2014 22:36
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Tony Montana posted:Solaris is a great suggestion, I'm a big fan of the Clooney movie too. I found the original book and the Russian classic movie a bit much, but just like Contact or Bladerunner, Solaris has a movie adaption that is good in it's own right and after you've read the text you get to see someone's visual interpretation of it. The captain isn't much better...
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Jan 30, 2014 22:38
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ManOfTheYear posted:I wonder how I can put this in words: Can you guys recommend sci-fi books that have alien and/or robot characters who function like a sentient being that's not human? For example I liked in Mass Effect the alien races having their own cultures and worlds but in the end most of them are just re-skinned humans, with the exceptions of krogans going on and on about war and the asari talking about philosophical lifestyles because they live a thousand years. The Geth were the only actually different race. I'd like to read a book with intelligent life forms who are psychologically completely unlike humans. Bonus points if the life forms is based more or less on an real thing, like an ant colony or something like that. Deepness in the Sky Fire Upon the Deep, and Children of the Sky by Vernor Vinge, a pretty loose trilogy. His non humans are very non human and very well done, and certainly not reskinned humans
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Jan 30, 2014 22:39
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I hope this question belongs here. I vaguely remember a scene from a gritty fantasy novel but I forget if it was A Song Of Ice And Fire or something else. Can anyone help me out here? The scene went something like this: There was a noblewoman, I think, and a mighty knight. The knight asked the lady if she would take him in her service and she was about to do so but it turned out the knight's done something ludicrously twisted like killing his father and loving his mother and is completely unapologetic about it. I don't remember if she found out because someone told her or because she could red his mind/soul.
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Jan 30, 2014 23:20
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Xik posted:The group dynamic of the rangers was probably what made the book for me, there was just something really satisfying about them. Perhaps it was what seemed like unconditional trust between them that made it? I'm not really sure, but it was great. The two Beastmaster books Norton wrote are pretty entertaining (psychic Native American becomes a space cowboy with the help of his giant cat) and have been released in an omnibus. Later someone else wrote fan fiction of them and got it published somehow. So don't read any of the Beastmaster books not solely written by Andre Norton because they are the worst thing, just the worst. Stick with the originals.
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Jan 30, 2014 23:27
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Fried Chicken posted:Deepness in the Sky Fire Upon the Deep, and Children of the Sky by Vernor Vinge, a pretty loose trilogy. His non humans are very non human and very well done, and certainly not reskinned humans I wouldn't call them "reskinned humans" either but they're not utterly incomprehensible either. They're somewhere between starfish and Klingons in that you can still perfectly relate to them. Deepness actually has a pretty clever conceit to make this work well (you are essentially being treated to a translation of alien society into human language and concepts).
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Jan 30, 2014 23:39
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ManOfTheYear posted:I wonder how I can put this in words: Can you guys recommend sci-fi books that have alien and/or robot characters who function like a sentient being that's not human? For example I liked in Mass Effect the alien races having their own cultures and worlds but in the end most of them are just re-skinned humans, with the exceptions of krogans going on and on about war and the asari talking about philosophical lifestyles because they live a thousand years. The Geth were the only actually different race. I'd like to read a book with intelligent life forms who are psychologically completely unlike humans. Bonus points if the life forms is based more or less on an real thing, like an ant colony or something like that. Ender's Game features a hivemind-like alien race. The sequels go into a lot more detail fleshing them out though some don't like the way they're written (and hate the author because he's a horrible bigot). I personally always thought the robots in Asimov's Robot series (and some of the Foundation books) had an interesting inhuman feel to them. I mean in many cases they're made to look like humans but they always have this ~otherness~ to them that is pretty subtle and vaguely creepy. There's a particular robot of some importance that shows up here and there whose perspective is particularly chilling, but you need to read pretty much every book he wrote to really get the pay-off.
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Jan 30, 2014 23:40
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Fried Chicken posted:What the gently caress is right, that is a gross misrepresentation of what they are. I had no idea, I've not read it. I'm interested now though, can you give a non-spoiler, brief description of this race? Cardiovorax posted:On the other hand, there's Stanislaw Lem's Solaris on the far upper end of the scale. Humanity attempts interaction with an ecosystem-sized alien organism, but because it's so alien no communication can be established and the story basically resolves nothing in the end. Well exactly, it's almost like in Trek you think 'ugh, they are all humanoids with bumps and talk English.. how lame and samey' but the reality is that means you can have a stack of plots and ideas and just jump straight into them, otherwise every episode would have be prefaced with 'then we took 3 years learning how to communicate and how to support their life so we could interact'. Solaris ends up very much being staring into the abyss and the abyss staring back to you and.. that's it. If you want to get all realistic, the alien is really alien and there is no understanding, certainly not in the short-term and quite probably not in the long-term either. Just think even just between different tribes of humans the problems we have, you're taking it to literally incomprehensible levels of difference. edit: this is also why Solaris is so good, and I like the Clooney movie. The soundtrack is amazing and the visuals as well.. you get this incredible sense of loneliness and isolation. There is no victorious moment of recognition. There is no communications break-through. Just the endless silence and loneliness of space and the living ocean below.. Kalenn Istarion posted:I personally always thought the robots in Asimov's Robot series (and some of the Foundation books) had an interesting inhuman feel to them. Mm, yes. Two robots endless debating till the end of time gets pretty inhuman. Tony Montana fucked around with this message at 00:52 on Jan 31, 2014 |
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Jan 31, 2014 00:50
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ManOfTheYear posted:I wonder how I can put this in words: Can you guys recommend sci-fi books that have alien and/or robot characters who function like a sentient being that's not human? For example I liked in Mass Effect the alien races having their own cultures and worlds but in the end most of them are just re-skinned humans, with the exceptions of krogans going on and on about war and the asari talking about philosophical lifestyles because they live a thousand years. The Geth were the only actually different race. I'd like to read a book with intelligent life forms who are psychologically completely unlike humans. Bonus points if the life forms is based more or less on an real thing, like an ant colony or something like that. Embassytown (Mieville) might fit what you're looking for. The aliens have some pretty fundamental psychological differences from humans. (Not as different as the ones in Blindsight, though, which is an excellent read.)
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Jan 31, 2014 01:32
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Fried Chicken posted:Deepness in the Sky Fire Upon the Deep, and Children of the Sky by Vernor Vinge, a pretty loose trilogy. His non humans are very non human and very well done, and certainly not reskinned humans They're physically pretty weird but mentally they're more or less written as reskinned humans. The Tines in Fire Upon the Deep are modestly weird but still fairly relatable. Tony Montana posted:I had no idea, I've not read it. I'm interested now though, can you give a non-spoiler, brief description of this race? No! That's the beauty of Blindsight. Can't explain what's so alien about them without giving away the climax of the book. Embassytown is quite a decent rec.
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Jan 31, 2014 07:26
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Speaking of Blindsight, I can't wait until the new book in that universe comes out. Unrelated, I spent a day or two deliberating between reading China Mountain Zhang and Ancillary Justice. I ended up starting Ancillary Justice...did I make the right choice?
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Jan 31, 2014 14:39
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systran posted:Speaking of Blindsight, I can't wait until the new book in that universe comes out. Haven't read the other one, but Ancillary Justice I enjoyed a lot. Really interesting take on AI, transhumanism and imperialism.
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Jan 31, 2014 16:01
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Recommend me some good lighthearted non-depressing fantasy. Something like earlier Pratchett.
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Jan 31, 2014 16:42
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