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Huh, apparently Amazon is having some kind of issue with the personal documents stuff. I was chatting up a tech support specialist earlier and after the general "please tell me the size of the books, are they drm'd, etc" questions he just goes "OH YEA, that's down at the moment". So, don't waste your time on the contact us stuff , just assume personal documents won't be working for newly emailed books for another couple of days.
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May 17, 2014 21:48
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DACK FAYDEN posted:I ran out of books by Stanislaw Lem. Then I ran out of books by PKD. Peter Heller's newest, "The Dog Stars"? http://www.amazon.com/The-Dog-Stars-Peter-Heller-ebook/dp/B007GZELF2
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May 17, 2014 22:09
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House Louse posted:Haha wow it's for real. Reminds me of when I was twelve writing about the "Black King" instead of the Dark Lord.
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May 17, 2014 23:37
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With the Nebulas just wrapped up San Jose, and Ann Leckie's great first year continues, with it now 2 1/2 out of 5 so far - Arthur C Clarke Award - British Science Fiction association awards (tied with Ack-Ack Macaque by Gareth L. Powell) - Nebula Best Novel - She lost to Ben Winters Countdown City for the Phillip K Dick award, and N.A. Sulway's Rupetta for the James Tiptree Jr award. Next up she will be going for Locus' Best First Novel before the inevitable loss to whoever pays the most for the votes at the Hugo's. Should be a shoe-in for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, though. quote:Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award to Samuel R. Delany
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May 18, 2014 06:10
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Yeah, things like the crisis of faith don't even happen in most military SF. The treatment of the token bleeding-heart liberal character was also an interesting sign of things to come - the end assessment was that his ideas were actually totally right, but he, personally, was too much of an ego-tripping dumbass to live long enough to put them into action.
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May 18, 2014 11:41
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evilbastard posted:With the Nebulas just wrapped up San Jose, and Ann Leckie's great first year continues, with it now 2 1/2 out of 5 so far This is the first time the four fiction awards have all gone to women. I was really suprised it won the Clarke and the BSFA, though, considering it was up against the new Chris Priest book.
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May 19, 2014 17:00
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Just finished "On a Steel Breeze" by Alastair Reynolds - it had some interesting features but overall the ending was fairly ambiguous and pretty annoying. Now I'm hankering for more alien contact books. Any ideas?
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May 19, 2014 18:02
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WastedJoker posted:Just finished "On a Steel Breeze" by Alastair Reynolds - it had some interesting features but overall the ending was fairly ambiguous and pretty annoying. Blindsight is the best alien contact book of the last...many years.
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May 19, 2014 18:05
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General Battuta posted:Blindsight is the best alien contact book of the last...many years. I've been tempted a few times but I've been put off by the hard part of it. I really struggled with Hyperion etc so I figure Blindsight might be a touch too hard for me.
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May 19, 2014 18:11
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WastedJoker posted:Now I'm hankering for more alien contact books. Any ideas? The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven
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May 19, 2014 18:19
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WastedJoker posted:Now I'm hankering for more alien contact books. Any ideas? Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon.
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May 19, 2014 18:20
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Kraps posted:The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven It's dated in places, but still one of the best first-contact novels ever.
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May 19, 2014 18:20
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WastedJoker posted:I've been tempted a few times but I've been put off by the hard part of it. I really struggled with Hyperion etc so I figure Blindsight might be a touch too hard for me. Have you read Contact by Carl Sagan?
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May 19, 2014 19:14
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Just read Ancillary Justice, it was really good and I loved how the gendered pronouns thing worked in the book.
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May 19, 2014 19:36
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WastedJoker posted:Just finished "On a Steel Breeze" by Alastair Reynolds - it had some interesting features but overall the ending was fairly ambiguous and pretty annoying. I read a pair of weeks ago Bowl of Heaven, by Gregory Benford and Larry Niven. It's kinda a Ringworld Mk. II. You really have to read the sequel (or second part), Shipstar to get the whole story. It has a very classic-cy flavour, with a little bit outdated development, but it is an interesting "first contact" approach.
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May 19, 2014 20:46
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Thanks, guys. I'd read most of the suggestions already! Finally settled on Proxima by Stephen Baxter.
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May 19, 2014 21:26
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thetechnoloser posted:Peter Heller's newest, "The Dog Stars"? This is really good. Reading it right now.
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May 19, 2014 21:53
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ZerodotJander posted:Just read Ancillary Justice, it was really good and I loved how the gendered pronouns thing worked in the book. With the main character constantly remarking on how difficult it was for no good reason and the whole thing not coming across well in English anyway? I thought it was poorly executed. It probably makes more sense in a Spanish translation or something if there is one. Otherwise you get the main character saying *I never know how to phrase this properly so I don't offend anyone, I hope I get it right!* "Hey, how's it going?" *phew, they didn't take offense* Tiny Timbs fucked around with this message at 01:04 on May 20, 2014 |
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May 20, 2014 01:02
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GENDERWEIRD GREEDO posted:With the main character constantly remarking on how difficult it was for no good reason and the whole thing not coming across well in English anyway? I thought it was poorly executed. It's obviously set in a world where English isn't the language. We're just reading the "translation" so to speak.
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May 20, 2014 01:05
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Hedrigall posted:It's obviously set in a world where English isn't the language. We're just reading the "translation" so to speak. Yeah, it's tough to get that across in a (mostly) non-gendered language but I wish the author had figured out a different way to express it. The sections describing dress and appearance were more effective and seemed more in character. Tiny Timbs fucked around with this message at 01:10 on May 20, 2014 |
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May 20, 2014 01:07
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WastedJoker posted:I've been tempted a few times but I've been put off by the hard part of it. I really struggled with Hyperion etc so I figure Blindsight might be a touch too hard for me. Nah, the ideas in Blindsight are a little complicated but the writing itself is fairly clear. Anyway, I've been reading Dhalgren by Samuel Delaney and man, that's a bizarre book.
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May 20, 2014 01:50
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muscles like this? posted:Nah, the ideas in Blindsight are a little complicated but the writing itself is fairly clear. Yeah, I thought the writing was clear as well. What was tough to get about Hyperion? I loved that book (and hate what the author's become now) and I don't remember anything particularly hard about it.
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May 20, 2014 02:03
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GENDERWEIRD GREEDO posted:Yeah, it's tough to get that across in a (mostly) non-gendered language but I wish the author had figured out a different way to express it. The sections describing dress and appearance were more effective and seemed more in character. She made it clear specifically by saying stuff like, "'you' was gendered in this language, so I had to guess when addressing her..." This made it obvious that different languages were being spoken with different grammatical features. I do agree that this whole thing was greatly inflated and given way more focus than it needed...mostly because the culture in the book had no other greatly interesting features.
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May 20, 2014 02:05
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WastedJoker posted:I've been tempted a few times but I've been put off by the hard part of it. I really struggled with Hyperion etc so I figure Blindsight might be a touch too hard for me. No, read Blindsight Bow before the SquidLord
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May 20, 2014 02:13
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systran posted:She made it clear specifically by saying stuff like, "'you' was gendered in this language, so I had to guess when addressing her..." I didn't say it wasn't obvious, just that it didn't fit well in the narration and took you out of the story a little bit. It was more "Oh, the author is pointing this out" and less "this is something the character would actually remark on". And yeah, the part where that's the defining characteristic of the culture is the bigger issue. Tiny Timbs fucked around with this message at 02:19 on May 20, 2014 |
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May 20, 2014 02:16
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Ah yeah, I see what you mean and agree. I give Ancillary Justice most of the credit I give it, and I am okay with it winning (I guess) primarily because it's the only character-driven sci-fi novel I read that was published last year. I ready very few novels published last year, and I kind of doubt there wasn't a better character-driven one out there though. Either way, I am pretty tired of stuff like Alistair Reynolds where the whole book is a mystery based on a physics idea he has, which he then duct-tapes up with a plot and characters. This book was decent in all aspects, but the whole gender thing felt like a pet idea (just like how Reynolds has pet physics ideas he shoves into books) that the author didn't scale back enough to make it subtle and seamless. I think I would have preferred that the entire book only used "they" as a third-person pronoun, and then she needed to put a lot more interesting ideas into the culture she created to make it especially interesting. The only cool thing about using "she," was how it kind of smacked me in the face as a reader and confirmed my bias of assuming people are male. That was a cool effect the first two times it happened, but it was really at cost of fitting into the larger narrative and world since it jolted me out of the story more than it needed to.
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May 20, 2014 02:27
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A new nancy kress novella has me all in a tizzy.
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May 20, 2014 12:15
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Nevvy Z posted:A new nancy kress novella has me all in a tizzy. What's the name?
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May 20, 2014 17:12
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General Battuta posted:What's the name? Annabel Lee, Nancy Kress From the list above of last years nominees. I love her short stories and generally loath her novels (except the beggers they were ok at first) so I can't wait to read the novella and find out how I feel. I don't know how new it is but I don't really keep track of publishing or even where to begin trying to track my favorite authors stories. I just pickup collections every now and then.
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May 21, 2014 04:01
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Finished Ex-Purgatory yesterday, the fourth in the Ex-Heroes series. Continues the trend of this series being light, fun reads. I'm not at all into the zombie genre but I like super heroes, and I really enjoy the ones in this series. Recommend it for anyone into either of those genres. My only issue was the lack of big, super powered battles in this one when compared to the others. Also still waiting on the author to flesh out and give more screen time to some of the more interesting non-super humans.
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May 21, 2014 04:57
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I'm just past the first (long) chapter in The Black Company and it's written really weirdly. I still don't know what the hell is going on or what anything is. It constantly feels like there's missing information, like I'm only getting part of the story. The worst part is there are little individual lines that are interesting but I find myself going "but where's the rest?" Is it just me? Does it get better? Will it eventually all click?
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May 21, 2014 08:22
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Question: Does anyone have any good links to science fiction blogs (preferably Australian or global) that does book reviews/author interviews, etc?
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May 21, 2014 11:28
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SA goon Hedrigall's blog is pretty cool: http://outtherebooks.wordpress.com
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May 21, 2014 14:02
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VagueRant posted:I'm just past the first (long) chapter in The Black Company and it's written really weirdly. I still don't know what the hell is going on or what anything is. It constantly feels like there's missing information, like I'm only getting part of the story. The worst part is there are little individual lines that are interesting but I find myself going "but where's the rest?" It gets better and will come together by the end of the trilogy. I read the entire series, which I don't recommend unless you really, really, really like them. The first three stand well enough on their own.
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May 21, 2014 14:10
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The Supreme Court posted:SA goon Hedrigall's blog is pretty cool: Aw thanks  but my blog is pretty niche, as I mainly post about China Miéville's stuff. (I have a few more general SF posts, such as one about the "books like Mass Effect" question, and another reviewing 5 recent "space horror" books)Homemaster posted:Question: Does anyone have any good links to science fiction blogs (preferably Australian or global) that does book reviews/author interviews, etc? SF Signal, Tor.com and io9 are my go-to megablogs, which do 10-20 posts per day with a handful of writers on staff. SF Signal is good, focusing on books but there's fantasy and horror in the mix too. They do a really cool link roundup post daily, collecting genre-fiction-related articles and reviews and so on from around the web. They're also great for brand new book covers, anthology tables-of-contents, and so on. Tor.com focus on books too, and they have tons of reviews and free short stories and neat stuff. They do a lot of re-read projects where a blogger tackles a book chapter by chapter and goes really indepth with the analysis. io9 is a general geek-culture blog, with upwards of 30 posts a day, only 2 or 3 of which will be book-related daily. The quality is high, though. EDIT: Try http://io9.com/tag/books for just the book stuff! Then there's a ton of independent SF/F book review blogs I follow. The cream of the crop are The Wertzone, Sci-Fi Fan Letter, Adventures in Reading, Speculative Book Review, The Speculative Scotsman, and goddamn I have like 25 more in my RSS reader. You'll be able to find any of the above easily by googling, sorry I'm too tired to go embedding URLs right now. Finally check out a cool Youtube channel that started recently: https://www.youtube.com/user/SFReviewsnet - he does book reviews and weekly mailbags (showing off ARCs and new titles he's gotten in the mail, they're fun to watch!), as well as the occasional editorial type video on award nominations and so on. Slickly produced with a good host. Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 14:31 on May 21, 2014 |
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May 21, 2014 14:21
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Here's an interesting-looking new book by the way: synopsis posted:A wickedly entertaining spoof SF space adventure by Steven Erikson, a life-long 'Star Trek' fan and author of the multi-million copy selling 'The Malazan Book of the Fallen' series. It could be fun, but then, I thought that about Redshirts when I first heard of it, and god that book is a loving disaster.
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May 21, 2014 14:47
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What could possibly go wrong in a book with a synopsis that contains "mankind-exploring-space-for-the-good-of-all-species-but-trashing-stuff-with-a-lot-of-hi-tech-kit-along-the-way type over-blown"? At least Willful Child has the same number of syllables as Enterprise.
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May 21, 2014 15:28
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Hedrigall posted:io9 is a general geek-culture blog, with upwards of 30 posts a day, only 2 or 3 of which will be book-related daily. The quality is high, though. EDIT: Try http://io9.com/tag/books for just the book stuff! I would definitely not say that io9 is "high quality." Their tastes aren't very discerning and come off as incredibly suspect most of the time, probably because they write in the tone of a fanboy/girl who is a bit too into their geek identity, so it comes off as very shallow. They do, however, cover a LOT of stuff. I'm just not convinced they cover it well, albeit for reasons that are ill-defined at best.
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May 21, 2014 16:14
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Abaddon's Gate. Yeah... I want to like the book and/or series, but it's such a piece of poo poo. I read it pretty fast, it kept my attention and I sort of feel I've been entertained. But ugh, the new characters they keep introducing. From the cartoon villain Ashford to miss U-turn personality HMM who? to the pastor half saves the day (out of nowhere via vacuum), half mind boggy naive (save the psychotic mass murderer rich person at all costs) *all life is precious* . But lets have the plot the two previous books have been building up to sort of whimper out, as voices in the protagonists head tells him how to defuse the solar system threatening problem. Followed to the authors wrapping up the book/plot in like 4 pages . At least we got a fart joke in the end. The worst part of the praise on goodreads and review sites. poo poo, I'm sort of incoherent arn't I?
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May 21, 2014 16:14
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Hedrigall posted:Here's an interesting-looking new book by the way: Redshirts plot synopsis got me excited until I read it. It's dreadful and awful book. I'm not sure if I want to read Old Man's War if the writing and.plot style is similar? As for Willful Child, again I found his 10 book doorstops series tedious. Only gave up at book four or three. I'll give this book a try. Why can't those kind of books be awesome as Galaxy Quest levels?
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May 21, 2014 17:04
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