|
savinhill posted:Have you tried out Gary Gibson's Shoal books? He reminds me of Reynolds in some ways, and while Reynolds is generally a better writer, Gibson's characters are better imo. Haven't even heard of them. Any particular favorite, or place you have to start with them?
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2014 03:08
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 17, 2024 10:20 |
|
|
Piell posted:Redshirts is not really space opera so much as "the world works like it does in Star Trek, but from the PoV of one of the guys in red shirts". It's more of a comedy I guess? Wow, I'm glad I didn't buy it, in that case.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2014 03:10
|
|
|
Old Man's War might be a better space opera by Scalzi. I read Redshirts for a reading group I'm part of a few months ago. I personally liked it and the general consensus of the group was positive, though the ending was mixed (without giving anything away, there are like three or four endings in a row, Dark Tower style). But yeah, it goes from being space opera to much more meta-comedy-satire (mixed with time travel) by the halfway point.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2014 03:28
|
|
|
Chairman Capone posted:Old Man's War might be a better space opera by Scalzi. It also just completely rips off an idea Red Dwarf and League of Gentlemen have already done. Redshirts is a lovely book. Count Roland posted:Haven't even heard of them. Any particular favorite, or place you have to start with them? It's a trilogy that starts with Stealing Light.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2014 03:35
|
|
|
Count Roland posted:Hi there thread, Pushing Ice is my favorite from Alastair Reynolds
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2014 05:45
|
|
|
I'm reading Venor Vinge's A Fire Upon The Deep and I'm slowly understanding all this zone of thought stuff and weirdo telepathic dog pack stuff but the thing that keeps me cracking up is all the references to money among all these super advanced civilizations. After The Culture, it's just plain weird seeing scarcity and currency near the top of the pyramid.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2014 06:43
|
|
|
Well, when you move from Banks' socialist leanings to libertarian, you'll definitely get some, uh, differences in opinion on the essential underpinnings of civilization.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2014 06:46
|
|
|
Count Roland posted:Hi there thread, You could read "Blue-Remembered Earth" and "On A Steel Breeze" - they both revolve around a specific family and their relations to each other.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2014 06:52
|
|
|
So in Vinge's universe does being in a slower Zone make you a complete moron or does it just gently caress with computers? I recall Pham saying something about "down around IQ 60" when he was describing the "memory" of how he died, and wasn't sure if it made beings dumb or just broke computers. Ravna doesn't seem to have gotten dumber post-AFUTD, but maybe she's inured and beings not from the higher regions aren't affected as much.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2014 06:58
|
|
|
General Battuta posted:Well, when you move from Banks' socialist leanings to libertarian, you'll definitely get some, uh, differences in opinion on the essential underpinnings of civilization. The New Yorker has joined into that game then: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/shouts/2014/03/libertarian-police-department.html
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2014 07:07
|
|
|
FAUXTON posted:So in Vinge's universe does being in a slower Zone make you a complete moron or does it just gently caress with computers? I recall Pham saying something about "down around IQ 60" when he was describing the "memory" of how he died, and wasn't sure if it made beings dumb or just broke computers. Ravna doesn't seem to have gotten dumber post-AFUTD, but maybe she's inured and beings not from the higher regions aren't affected as much. Unmodified humans are the evolutionary product of the Slow Zone, being stuck there doesn't affect Ravna at all. Pham's Queng Ho expedition failed because they left the Slow Zone and entered the Unthinking Depths. It'd have been a lot more successful if they'd gone the other direction.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2014 07:16
|
|
|
FAUXTON posted:So in Vinge's universe does being in a slower Zone make you a complete moron or does it just gently caress with computers?
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2014 07:19
|
|
|
gohmak posted:Pushing Ice is my favorite from Alastair Reynolds Funny, it's actually my least favorite of his. By a pretty substantial margin.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2014 07:23
|
|
|
I've only read two of his, but I greatly preferred Century Rain to Pushing Ice. I wasn't fond of the way Pushing Ice was structured, nor did I really buy the central characters being able to get away with the crap they pull over the course of the book. Century Rain had a really neat setting and I liked the protagonist more, even if I was a little let down by the end of the book.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2014 07:46
|
|
|
The problem with Pushing Ice is that it's a bait-and-switch. I was *interested* in the travails of ice miners. I was not interested in what I actually got.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2014 08:42
|
|
|
I actually liked the overarching concept, but the main characters were just absolutely horrible. It's like Reynolds sat down and thought "Well I've got this interesting story arc, but I really need some more personal angle to the drama...That's it! I'll make the two lead female characters absolutely loving insane and unfit to lead, and have them bicker at each other like children for literally decades!" I literally don't know a single person who's as lovely and irresponsible as the leads in Pushing Ice, and I absolutely don't get why a group of supposedly hardheaded and practical minors would consent to let themselves be governed by irresponsible morons. And to make things worse, people sometimes hold that story up as an example of strong female leads in science fiction, when they are anything but. And even that lack of character realism would be forgivable if it resulted in a more interesting story, but it had exactly the opposite effect.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2014 09:28
|
|
|
FAUXTON posted:So in Vinge's universe does being in a slower Zone make you a complete moron or does it just gently caress with computers? I recall Pham saying something about "down around IQ 60" when he was describing the "memory" of how he died, and wasn't sure if it made beings dumb or just broke computers. Ravna doesn't seem to have gotten dumber post-AFUTD, but maybe she's inured and beings not from the higher regions aren't affected as much. Being from a higher zone doesn't protect you from getting dumber as you go into slower zones, but humans evolved in the Slow Zone and Ravna apparently doesn't have any intellectual enhancements that stop working as she goes back to the Slow Zone. Whatever they did to her to make her immortal is still working, too, which is interesting given that one of the limitations of the Slow Zone was that immortality is not possible. Or at least Ravna and the children in the Slow Zone think it's still working, anyway. Neurosis fucked around with this message at 14:58 on Apr 3, 2014 |
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2014 14:47
|
|
|
Not entirely sure it's SPACE OPERA but it's got bigass battles. i'm looking for the name of a book i read some years ago, where humanity is suddenly attacked by beings that claim to be human, are intensely religious and hate humanity because they aren't, the big twist is that it's a human colony ship that crashed on their planet and taught them all of this. and it's got cold war Russian/american/everyone else themes going on too
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2014 15:30
|
|
|
Sounds like Crusade.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2014 16:33
|
|
|
Count Roland posted:Haven't even heard of them. Any particular favorite, or place you have to start with them? The first one, Stealing Light, is the best one. Another space opera book that has the oppressive, creepy atmosphere and people getting weird from being in space too long aspects that I like in Reynolds is Ship of Fools by Richard Paul Russo.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2014 20:06
|
|
|
Piell posted:Sounds like Crusade. Yeah, that's Crusade all right. It's the first (chronologically) of the Starfire novels written by David Weber and Steve White, based on the Starfire tactical combat game. The best books in the series are In Death Ground and The Shiva Option that chronicle the war against the Arachnids. Some of the characters from Crusade appear in those books so if you liked Crusade, you should go through the Arachnid books too. The other Weber & White book, Insurrection, kinda sucks and the ones after Weber leaves the series are terrible.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2014 20:13
|
|
|
fookolt posted:I'm reading Venor Vinge's A Fire Upon The Deep and I'm slowly understanding all this zone of thought stuff and weirdo telepathic dog pack stuff but the thing that keeps me cracking up is all the references to money among all these super advanced civilizations. After The Culture, it's just plain weird seeing scarcity and currency near the top of the pyramid. It makes more sense if you think of money as debt rather than access to resources. In the lower zones it the debt is used for access, but in the higher, culture like ones, it is for things like "the great old one will answer some questions for the library because he owes them a debt for helping him investigate the blight"
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2014 00:54
|
|
|
FAUXTON posted:So in Vinge's universe does being in a slower Zone make you a complete moron or does it just gently caress with computers? I recall Pham saying something about "down around IQ 60" when he was describing the "memory" of how he died, and wasn't sure if it made beings dumb or just broke computers. Ravna doesn't seem to have gotten dumber post-AFUTD, but maybe she's inured and beings not from the higher regions aren't affected as much. Both. The zones reflect differences in "constants" in the universe. One aspect of this is no FTL, another (related) is no oracles, then it looks like more and more P problems become NP for some related reason, so thinking becomes slower. Apparently it ties in with Gödel Escher Bach in some way, something about how universal constants define mathematical space and patterns result and he was reflecting that there, but I don't remember exactly how. I always figured it was more so he could skewer all kinds of space opera,
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2014 01:00
|
|
|
I always had this idea that it had to do with the speed of light. Like that old joke in Futurama about how they don't go faster than light, they just increased the speed of light so they can go faster.
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2014 03:44
|
|
|
Fried Chicken posted:Both. The zones reflect differences in "constants" in the universe. One aspect of this is no FTL, another (related) is no oracles, then it looks like more and more P problems become NP for some related reason, so thinking becomes slower. Apparently it ties in with Gödel Escher Bach in some way, something about how universal constants define mathematical space and patterns result and he was reflecting that there, but I don't remember exactly how. Vinge is a pretty firm believer in the Singularity (he coined the term IIRC). Zones of thought eliminate the problem of "Well, by this far in the future everyone would've just ascended to a higher level anyway..."
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2014 11:59
|
|
|
I thought Kurzweil coined the term. E: nope, von Neumann, but Vinge made it famous. FAUXTON fucked around with this message at 12:31 on Apr 4, 2014 |
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2014 12:28
|
|
|
Oh, well, at least that will sound more impressive when I explain the idea to people than "Oh, the guy who formulated the phrase is a sci-fi writer."
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2014 13:12
|
|
|
Neurosis posted:Oh, well, at least that will sound more impressive when I explain the idea to people than "Oh, the guy who formulated the phrase is a sci-fi writer." Can just call him a PhD of Math and Computer Science professor instead. Just like Von Nuemann was.
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2014 14:04
|
|
|
Neurosis posted:Vinge is a pretty firm believer in the Singularity (he coined the term IIRC). Zones of thought eliminate the problem of "Well, by this far in the future everyone would've just ascended to a higher level anyway..." Interesting! I had no idea he coined the term.
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2014 14:48
|
|
|
I just finished The Icarus Hunt by Timothy Zahn. I've never gone from loving everything about a book to hating it so completely in the last 2 chapters before. The mystery was interesting and at what feels like the book's halfway point suddenly it just ends with a twist that seemed really contrived and out of nowhere to me.
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2014 17:21
|
|
|
Just started reading Leviathan Wakes. Off to a pretty good start so far. Seems quite a bit like Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2014 03:44
|
|
|
Fenrra posted:Just started reading Leviathan Wakes. Off to a pretty good start so far. Seems quite a bit like Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga. I just finished reading the trilogy recently thanks to my local library and overall I liked it. Space piracy, ineffable alien menaces, corrupt military industrial complexes, interplanetary politics, and protagonists that are sometimes kind of dicks while also trying their damnedest to do the right thing... Lots of good stuff. It gets a little more mary-sue-esque than I like at times, but it's definitely appropriate for fans of this thread's focus. There are some pretty neat Alien and 2001: A Space Odyssey beats in there, but nothing too overtly hackish or stolen. You'll hardly be able to tell that one of the co-authors was GRRM's primary lackey.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2014 07:04
|
|
|
Just a reminder that it's not a trilogy, there's three more books still to go, starting with Cibola Burn next month.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2014 07:09
|
|
|
Hedrigall posted:Just a reminder that it's not a trilogy, there's three more books still to go, starting with Cibola Burn next month. If the quality of the series keeps with the current trend, the next book will be just a toothless skinhead taking your money at the bookstore, kicking you in the groin with his steel-capped boot and making GBS threads on your head as you writhe in agony on the floor.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2014 10:39
|
|
|
mcustic posted:If the quality of the series keeps with the current trend, the next book will be just a toothless skinhead taking your money at the bookstore, kicking you in the groin with his steel-capped boot and making GBS threads on your head as you writhe in agony on the floor. Ehh, don't say poo poo like that when I'm considering picking it up. I'm easily persuaded 
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2014 13:41
|
|
|
First book good, second book better, third book FARRRRRT, but the early synopses etc for the fourth book sound promising, like they get the story back on track.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2014 14:18
|
|
|
Hedrigall posted:First book good, second book better, third book FARRRRRT, but the early synopses etc for the fourth book sound promising, like they get the story back on track. If fourth book doesn't have grandma character then I need to be convinced to bother to continue.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2014 16:54
|
|
|
Vaz posted:If fourth book doesn't have grandma character then I need to be convinced to bother to continue. Yes same. I just want her to take charge of everything and tell the erstwhile protagonist he's an idiot.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2014 17:29
|
|
|
Is the second book generally considered better than the first? I've heard a lot of people say that the character roster is pretty dull, but maybe I'm confusing it with the third book.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2014 19:20
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 17, 2024 10:20 |
|
|
Holden is dullest character and grandma is most interesting. Holden is main character in whole series, Grandma so far is only in second book.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2014 20:21
|
|