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Crash74 posted:I hope for the next book it follows mile's wife. It would be cool to see her do a adventure or his clone working on another crazy rear end project. Khizan posted:My bet for the next book is that it's about Byerly Vorrutyer on Jackson's Whole. Slo-Tek posted:Kshatryia and Nuovo Brazilia haven't gotten a book yet, even though they get a throwaway mention in pretty much every book. I was pretty disappointed with Cryoburn, didn't care enough about Kibou-Dani, or child-characters. All of these sound great. I think I'd like a book from Ekaterin's perspective the best, but By is a close second.
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Feb 12, 2014 15:48
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Khizan posted:My bet for the next book is that it's about Byerly Vorrutyer on Jackson's Whole. I could go for this.
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Feb 16, 2014 02:52
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Decius posted:Yeah, I too love Civil Campaign, even if - or maybe because - it is somewhat Jane Austen in space. Same with Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, although I found it more like the rest of the Vorkosigan saga compared the A Civil Campaign, despite Ivan being the protagonist. Haha, my sister recommended the series last week to me and that's almost exactly how I described Shards of Honor to my wife - "Pride and Prejudice in space." That's also probably why both my sister and I like it so much. 
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Feb 20, 2014 03:37
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This is hilarious: How David Weber orders a pizza
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Feb 21, 2014 00:37
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I've posted something similar to this before, got some suggestions, checked stuff out with varying success and I'm out of ideas again for now. I'm looking for sci fi/space opera, the bar doesn't have to even be very high quality wise but I'm a bit picky about a couple of things. I prefer to have a bit of spacebattles, spaceships, setting taking place in space some or most of the time and preferable something that is a series(more than one book). I'm reading Humanity's Fire right now, and I don't think I'll give up quite yet, but it's all mostly taking place on the one world and seems to involve mostly political intrigue and assassination/terror attacks. Also there is a "superweapon" that seems to be in play, but it seems they are making it more a mystical type thing which I also find lame. I actually prefer David Weber to this, as terrible as he can be at least there's spaceship pew pew and such between his boring stuff. I have the Vorksosigen books as well I intend to try, although I read about 1.5 books into the Cordelia part of the series, and it seemed to also be mostly just political or action stuff that seemed to mainly be planetside stuff, at least in the second book. Not that I don't enjoy some of the intrigue and plotting as well. So again, I guess I'm looking for something that involves spaceships or fleets of spaceships, and war or conflict between them. I also like when there's a bit of science babble even if it is unrealistic bullshit most of the time. It seems like there would be no shortage of this type of thing, but I seem to be having trouble finding it. The only other series I can think of offhand is Lost Fleet but I found the characters and how they act frustrating in some way I can't describe. I'm also aware of the Culture stuff which doesn't seem to be what I'm looking for since I prefer a series, however I do intend to read them on their own merit eventually because of how well received they tend to be. I imagine I didn't articulate my post very well as I usually am terrible at describing what it is I like in books or tv for some reason, but any suggestions are welcome if you think I might enjoy something. edit: Also read Revelation Space and enjoyed it pretty well, despite the ending. And also Hamilton's Commonwealth stuff which I actually really liked. edit2: That In Her Name: The Last War trilogy mentioned a page or two back seems to have really good reviews on Goodreads and Amazon for what little that's worth. The whole "sword fighting with honor" thing seems like it might be a bit doofy, but since the first book is free maybe I'll give it a shot. Also the Shoal Sequence looks like it might have an entertaining premise. Drunk Driver Dad fucked around with this message at 23:10 on Feb 23, 2014 |
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Feb 23, 2014 21:48
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Horror Queefs posted:I've posted something similar to this before, got some suggestions, checked stuff out with varying success and I'm out of ideas again for now. If you don't mind unrealistic bullshit, read the Deathstalker-books by Simon R. Green. It's a unrealistic spaceshit bullopera, as I like to call it. But thanks to never taking itself too seriously, it's still a great fun to read.
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Feb 23, 2014 23:37
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You should check out the Starfire series by David Weber and Steve White, it sounds like exactly what you want.
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Feb 24, 2014 00:13
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Click the ? By my name. I wrote a post of books with exactly what you're looking for.
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Feb 24, 2014 05:29
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Piell posted:You should check out the Starfire series by David Weber and Steve White, it sounds like exactly what you want. Yeah, the Starfire books are okay. It matches your criteria in that 90% of the series is seen from the bridges of various warships. It kind of peaks with In Death Ground, though. The Shiva Option isn't too bad, but I didn't care for Insurrection and the later books by White and Meier without Weber left me cold. Note that while Insurrection was written first, it takes place chronologically after The Shiva Option but before Exodus, and makes much more sense when read there than in the published order.
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Feb 24, 2014 05:40
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Mister Kingdom posted:Just finished Barrayar. Much better than Shards. It's got some pure distilled awesome in it, for sure. There's a rather amusing reference in a much later book to going shopping with Cordelia.
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Feb 24, 2014 11:56
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Horror Queefs posted:I've posted something similar to this before, got some suggestions, checked stuff out with varying success and I'm out of ideas again for now. Neal Asher and the Polity or Owners series might be up you alley then. For space battles, I would say the latter part of the Polity has some massive high-paced fights. His universe is basically like Banks, but more action, grittier and faster-pacing plus bonus feature of terrifying ecosystems.
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Feb 24, 2014 12:55
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What about the Expanse series by James S. A. Corey (starts with Leviathan Wakes)?
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Feb 25, 2014 11:35
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Re-posting something I said about the Expanse series a few months ago...quote:I just finished Abaddon's Gate. While it's a decent enough little series, one thing really stood out to me.
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Feb 25, 2014 19:53
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If you want crazy weird space battles, and don't mind fairly poo poo story/writing/science bits, the Saga of the Seven Suns may be up your alley. I couldn't get through the third or so book, but it had a few decent battles that I remember. Note:it's been a few years and I can be easy to please. Also note that although I'm easy to please, the series was so bad that I couldn't finish it out.
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Feb 25, 2014 20:32
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I think I read the first three or four, and there were at least some interesting weird alien species. But fair warning: It's written by Kevin J Anderson.
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Feb 25, 2014 21:15
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Hedrigall posted:This is hilarious: This nails Weber's style but I feel like your post needs more exposition before you actually grace us with a hyperlink. Maybe start with the history of kites and keys before working up to the internet.
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Feb 25, 2014 22:00
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snooman posted:This nails Weber's style but I feel like your post needs more exposition before you actually grace us with a hyperlink. Maybe start with the history of kites and keys before working up to the internet. According to my experience with Weber it misses at least one person talking/thinking about how awesome sailing is. But almost perfect is good enough in my book.
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Feb 25, 2014 22:11
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snooman posted:This nails Weber's style but I feel like your post needs more exposition before you actually grace us with a hyperlink. Maybe start with the history of kites and keys before working up to the internet. Took things I noticed wrong: 1) Chapter start didn't spend a page introducing a character, his backstory, and motivations just to end with, "None of this would stop the <technobabbly weapon> that just killed him." 2) No reference to well Mrs. <CHARACTERS SURNAME> didn't raise no dummy or anything similar.
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Feb 25, 2014 22:26
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Libluini posted:According to my experience with Weber it misses at least one person talking/thinking about how awesome sailing is. But almost perfect is good enough in my book. I searched for 'baseball' and it found no hits, so i don't see how this could possibly be by Weber.
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Feb 26, 2014 05:08
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Horror Queefs posted:So again, I guess I'm looking for something that involves spaceships or fleets of spaceships, and war or conflict between them. I also like when there's a bit of science babble even if it is unrealistic bullshit most of the time.
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Feb 26, 2014 05:17
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Miss-Bomarc posted:Drake's "Leary" series is, I think, what you have in mind. I would suggest starting with "Lt. Leary Commanding", because the first book is kind of different in tone (and spends a surprising amount of time not being about spaceships.) I concur. David Drake's RCN series is pretty fun to read. The faster than light technology is a bit unusual but as far as I saw, internally consistent and enjoyable to read about, and the characters either likeable or fun to read about. The spaceships themselves are, I believe, fairly small? Relatable sizes anyway. I enjoy myself more with vessels on a sort of wet-navy scale compared to stuff with ships the size of moons (Empire from the Ashes) or what not. Personal preference of course. Doesn't matter to most people I guess  I also detected less political background noise compared to Weber's work, which is good for someone far removed from American politics like me. Psykmoe fucked around with this message at 15:26 on Feb 26, 2014 |
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Feb 26, 2014 15:18
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Spug posted:What about the Expanse series by James S. A. Corey (starts with Leviathan Wakes)? First book is good, second one worse but Bad Grandma saves it, third is just tedious and boring. The good characters are not kept around in the series. nucleicmaxid posted:If you want crazy weird space battles, and don't mind fairly poo poo story/writing/science bits, the Saga of the Seven Suns may be up your alley. For sure it is crazy weird space battles, with emphasis on weird. Every book just tried to top the previous in new fantastical things, which became frustrating after a while. It is easy to read, no doubt about it though.
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Feb 26, 2014 15:49
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edit: Wrong thread, meant to be in the Science Fiction thread. Confirming my stupidity.
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Feb 26, 2014 18:16
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Cardiac posted:First book is good, second one worse but Bad Grandma saves it, third is just tedious and boring. The good characters are not kept around in the series. The first book and the detective scenes were the best. The atmosphere was awesome. He should stick to noir.
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Feb 26, 2014 19:09
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orange sky posted:The first book and the detective scenes were the best. The atmosphere was awesome. He should stick to noir. Yeah, he/they write morally ambiguous characters better than Mary Sues like Holden. Bad part, they extended the series from 3 to 7 because reasons.
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Feb 26, 2014 20:58
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Do you really think Holden is a Mary Sue? All of the other characters in the series consider his "Mary Sue'ness" to be over the top and a liability (and tons of people hate him or think he's stupid for it). I can see not liking the character, but I don't know if I'd call him a straight up Mary Sue.
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Feb 26, 2014 21:46
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syphon posted:Do you really think Holden is a Mary Sue? All of the other characters in the series consider his "Mary Sue'ness" to be over the top and a liability (and tons of people hate him or think he's stupid for it). I can see not liking the character, but I don't know if I'd call him a straight up Mary Sue. Don't really think of him as a Mary Sue, but he's stupidly idealistic and plain stupid sometimes throughout the whole thing. One would expect him to be just a bit sharper by book 3. I still like the books, but I have to agree that some characters are a flat line. E: What are the next books gonna be about? Exploring other galaxies and poo poo?
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Feb 26, 2014 22:47
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Read Spheres of Influence, the sequel to Grand Central Arena by Ryk Spoor. Much like the earlier book, it's enjoyable as pure optimistic space-opera pulp, but I gotta warn you guys, the dude lets his nerd flag fly. In one of its subplots, the book features Marc C. DuQuesne from the Skylark series teaming up with Sun Wukong and Kim Possible (who is sharing a body with Oasis from Sluggy Freelance) to face down Ensign Mary Sue. At one point, Wukong helps Freeza from Dragonball Z beat up a few dozen hired goons. Space opera this pure is a rare and pleasant thing, and the author's imagination and enthusiasm are charming when he's not going full weeaboo at you, but if you can't read the spoilered section without your eyeballs rolling out of your skull, this is not the book for you.
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Feb 26, 2014 23:18
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Darth Walrus posted:if you can't read the spoilered section without your eyeballs rolling out of your skull, this is not the book for you. Aww, goddamn it. I already bought it but hadn't gotten around to reading it yet, and now I wish I hadn't bought it.
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Feb 27, 2014 02:06
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Hughlander posted:Took things I noticed wrong: "...So that's about the size of it," concluded Hughlander, the better part of two hours later.
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Feb 27, 2014 05:53
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syphon posted:Do you really think Holden is a Mary Sue? All of the other characters in the series consider his "Mary Sue'ness" to be over the top and a liability (and tons of people hate him or think he's stupid for it). I can see not liking the character, but I don't know if I'd call him a straight up Mary Sue. Yeah, if anything his whole "honest guy" thing seems to piss people off/cause deaths more than actually helping pretty much all the time. Add in things like his little issue in the last novel being less than forgiving of Clarissa than the people she actually hurt and getting called on it, and he has too many reasonable flaws for me to really dub him a Marty Sue. Also seems to keep surviving by the skin of his teeth really, though that sort of applies to everybody in the Expanse series. Along with "humanity will choose the smart option after all other options have been exhausted"; I suppose Holden's main superpower is getting there first most of the time.
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Feb 28, 2014 00:20
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His problem is not so much that he's perfect as that all his flaws and struggles are profoundly familiar, trite, and boring.
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Feb 28, 2014 01:25
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The Expanse is fun to read, but yeah, I wouldn't expect anything super interesting in terms of characterization. I did like that the authors included more women in the second and third books.
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Feb 28, 2014 01:37
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General Battuta posted:His problem is not so much that he's perfect as that all his flaws and struggles are profoundly familiar, trite, and boring. Yeah and it might not be so bad if we didn't get to see this setting through other POVs that are much better/more interesting. His XO/girlfriend is pretty bland too, which is too bad because she's the one character he spends the most time thinking about.
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Feb 28, 2014 02:19
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MadDogMike posted:being less than forgiving of Clarissa than the people she actually hurt and getting called on it Well we can't hold that against him, Clarissa was unbearable (in a good, deliberate way).  Oh it's so unfair how dare they send daddy to prison over sadistic experiments on living people for  E: Even at the end, I think, she comes round because of the sheer number of people who die for her revenge, rather than admitting dad did anything wrong. Strategic Tea fucked around with this message at 13:25 on Feb 28, 2014 |
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Feb 28, 2014 13:23
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Cardiac posted:First book is good, second one worse but Bad Grandma saves it, third is just tedious and boring. The good characters are not kept around in the series. Cardiac posted:Yeah, he/they write morally ambiguous characters better than Mary Sues like Holden. orange sky posted:E: What are the next books gonna be about? Exploring other galaxies and poo poo?
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Mar 4, 2014 12:23
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Spug posted:Agreed on the second one but I really liked the third, more space opera. What characters do you miss? Miller sticks around so Well, Miller was only interesting in the first book, and now he is some kind of disembodied ghost similar to Clarkes 2010. Spug posted:Well 6 but yeah I'm done with this series, it is not going anywhere interesting and none of the characters are that interesting.
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Mar 4, 2014 13:02
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So anyone here read Proxima by Stephen Baxter? I think he's one of the absolute best sci-fi authors currently but I didn't even realize he had done another book until I just read about it on io9. From what I read about it there it kind of sounds like a conceptual successor to the Manifold trilogy, which is fine with me.
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Mar 4, 2014 15:42
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Has anyone here read the Quadrail books? I was talking about Timothy Zahn the other day (well, listening to my brother how everyone in the Thrawn trilogy purses their lips all the time) and I looked up what else the guy wrote. Quadrail's 'FTL train network' concept sounds goofy as hell but I do love trains so...easy reading or eyerollingly annoying?
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Mar 5, 2014 01:58
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Psykmoe posted:Has anyone here read the Quadrail books? I was talking about Timothy Zahn the other day (well, listening to my brother how everyone in the Thrawn trilogy purses their lips all the time) and I looked up what else the guy wrote. Read The Icarus Hunt instead, which is a standalone and totally awesome. Here's what I wrote on Goodreads about The Icarus Hunt... me on goodreads posted:A pretty fun and fast-paced murder mystery/space chase thriller. ... and here's what I wrote about the first Quadrail book, Night Train to Rigel. me on goodreads posted:It was just okay. Pretty silly overall, with by-the-numbers action sequences, and barely any science in the sci-fi.
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Mar 5, 2014 02:05
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