|
Milky Moor posted:I liked the Rifters stuff in a lot of ways but it's not as good as Blingsight was. Still generally great, however. This reminds me that I never finished the third book. The Rifters series is not plotted very neatly. Book 1 had a good idea that mostly resolved itself but book 2 had plot threads that meandered and book 3 was a mess. He hadn't done a series before, so it's not surprising. They're still books with interesting ideas and the prose is decent so I still recommend them to everyone that likes Blindsight, just don't expect the same quality throughout.
|
# ? Jul 19, 2014 08:34 |
|
|
# ? May 30, 2024 13:19 |
Yeah, I really thought the first book was the best. I really liked that scene near the end where the AI's goals are figured out and how much of a 'oh gently caress' moment it is.
|
|
# ? Jul 19, 2014 08:43 |
|
Azathoth posted:I just finished all three Ambergris books by Jeff Vandermeer, and I enjoyed them unlike anything I've read in quite some time. In searching for something new to read in the same vein (not quite ready to tackle the Southern Reach books yet), I ran across this bundle: I haven't read all of them but this would be worth the price of admission for The Third Bear itself. Predecessor is one of the creepiest short stories I've read in a while, loaded with unsettling imagery that doesn't feel overdone. I liked It Came From The North and am working my way through Jagannath but both have been decent. None of the stories have really stuck with me, but that's not a terrible thing. Kosher Guide To Imaginary Animals feels a little bit like an in-joke between friends. I didn't particularly care for it, and the witty banter wasn't super memorable to someone whose first introduction to the "book persona" of Jeff and Ann Vandermeer. Haven't really read the rest, but Michael Cisco comes very highly recommended.
|
# ? Jul 21, 2014 00:30 |
|
Has Alastair Reynolds done anything worth reading recently? I really enjoyed the Revelation Space books and thought Pushing Ice was pretty good, but since then it seemed like he was just on a downwards slide and I gave up even looking for anything he did since Terminal World, which was excruciatingly dull and about the worst thing that could be produced by looting Vinge. But apparently he's had three books come out since then.
|
# ? Jul 21, 2014 17:07 |
|
Phanatic posted:Has Alastair Reynolds done anything worth reading recently? I really enjoyed the Revelation Space books and thought Pushing Ice was pretty good, but since then it seemed like he was just on a downwards slide and I gave up even looking for anything he did since Terminal World, which was excruciatingly dull and about the worst thing that could be produced by looting Vinge. But apparently he's had three books come out since then. Troika is pretty cool. Especially the (big spoiler) future human who appears at the end, whose species I wouldn't mind reading a whole book about.
|
# ? Jul 21, 2014 17:13 |
|
I liked Blue Remembered Earth, haven't read the sequel though.
|
# ? Jul 21, 2014 17:15 |
|
If you haven't already checked it out, go read House of Suns and if you enjoyed that universe, the short story Thousandth Night as a good side story with the same protagonists, but set earlier in the timeline. House of Suns is probably my favourite Reynolds book, and I really enjoyed all of the RS universe books.
|
# ? Jul 21, 2014 19:30 |
|
House of Suns is really good. He's a master of body horror that feels incredibly clinical but still terrifying.
|
# ? Jul 21, 2014 19:37 |
|
Germline is the heaviest military sci-fi book I've read since The Forever War holy poo poo is it dark
|
# ? Jul 22, 2014 02:23 |
|
I powered through the entire trilogy in a long weekend, and trust me-- it gets even more grimdark and awesome. I love it, but I'm also a military nerd too.
|
# ? Jul 22, 2014 02:37 |
|
I'm looking for a recommendation for a scifi book in the vein of Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep. I've read A Deepness in the Sky and just got a mobi of The Children of the Sky, so that's next. I've been thinking about what it is I liked about A Fire Upon the Deep and I really dug the parts about Blight and how the galaxy was handling it, and wished the author spent more time with all that stuff instead of focusing on the Tines so much. That sense of impending doom was great. Is there anything out there that's similar? E: It was the same in the Deepness book now that I think about it. The more interesting parts were the bits about what's happening in space as opposed to the alien world. Present fucked around with this message at 05:57 on Jul 22, 2014 |
# ? Jul 22, 2014 05:45 |
|
Present posted:I'm looking for a recommendation for a scifi book in the vein of Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep. I've read A Deepness in the Sky and just got a mobi of The Children of the Sky, so that's next. Give Seeds of Earth by Michael Cobley a shot. It's the first in a trilogy called Humanity's Fire. The basic gist is that humans left a dying Earth on three seedships, which ended up in three different situations. One landed on an alien world where humans learnt to live peacefully alongside an alien race (who are a bit like the Na'vi in Avatar). Another was intercepted by a huge, totalitarian alien empire who pretty much enslaved that group of humans. You find out what happened to the third ship much later, but the first book follows humans from the first two groups. There's planet-side stuff with the first bunch of humans (and some alien characters) as they repel a big invasion of their new world. Then there's some space-set stuff which is a big chase with starships and space ports and all the good stuff. This part reminded me a lot of Ravna's quest in A Fire Upon the Deep so I think you'll enjoy it. The storylines intersect by the end of the first book. The aliens are pretty cool, and it's a really fun series which feels like a mashup of Mass Effect (machines vs organics is a big plotline), Avatar and Star Wars. edit: If you liked the space stuff in AFUtD much more than the Tines, you're not going to like Children of the Sky at all.
|
# ? Jul 22, 2014 06:30 |
|
Xandu posted:I liked Blue Remembered Earth, haven't read the sequel though.
|
# ? Jul 22, 2014 07:09 |
|
GENDERWEIRD GREEDO posted:Germline is the heaviest military sci-fi book I've read since The Forever War holy poo poo is it dark Told yall. Book was heavy as hell.
|
# ? Jul 22, 2014 15:24 |
|
What's Germline about? People keep recommending it and I'm kind of interested, but I'm really not into the "ARE TROOPS HOOAH" milporn type of thing.
|
# ? Jul 22, 2014 16:05 |
|
Cardiovorax posted:What's Germline about? People keep recommending it and I'm kind of interested, but I'm really not into the "ARE TROOPS HOOAH" milporn type of thing. Imagine if Hunter S Thompson was covering the war in Afghanistan, and the war was run like Dick Cheney's wet dream. It is most certainly not cheerleading war.
|
# ? Jul 22, 2014 16:41 |
|
Fried Chicken posted:Imagine if Hunter S Thompson was covering the war in Afghanistan, and the war was run like Dick Cheney's wet dream. That's a real good description of the first book. The third book is like a cross between Apocalypse Now and Blade Runner. The second book is awesome too, I just can't think of something cool to compare it to right now.
|
# ? Jul 22, 2014 18:00 |
|
Germline is like reading a Shimazu post but more coherent. Slightly more coherent.
|
# ? Jul 22, 2014 18:54 |
|
Currently working my way through Fearsome Journeys: The new Solaris Book of Fantasy, an absolute gem of an anthology (Scott Lynch's Effigy Engine has been the star of the show so far) Does anybody have any fantasy anthologies they would recommend?
|
# ? Jul 22, 2014 20:06 |
|
Fried Chicken posted:Imagine if Hunter S Thompson was covering the war in Afghanistan, and the war was run like Dick Cheney's wet dream. savinhill posted:That's a real good description of the first book. The third book is like a cross between Apocalypse Now and Blade Runner. The second book is awesome too, I just can't think of something cool to compare it to right now.
|
# ? Jul 22, 2014 20:10 |
|
Germline is the one with the clone women soldiers? I'm trying to remember if I am thinking of one book or two books and got them meshed in my head. One had a guy who was... hijacking? (for lack of a better term) the intel/brain feeds from a clone soldier, and the other had all the clone soldiers as women.
|
# ? Jul 22, 2014 23:08 |
|
holocaust bloopers posted:Germline is like reading a Shimazu post but more coherent. Slightly more coherent. Great now I'm just going to think of shim posts for the rest of the book Which, really, fits pretty well
|
# ? Jul 23, 2014 01:26 |
|
Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Germline is the one with the clone women soldiers? Germline has the women clones, I think you are thinking of The Ghost Brigades for the other Germline is dark. Like, afterwards, go watch Zero Dark Thirty or True Detective to cheer yourself up levels of dark
|
# ? Jul 23, 2014 01:28 |
|
Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Germline is the one with the clone women soldiers? I think you are getting two different books meshed together in your memory. Germline does have the clone women soldiers but I don't remember any brain/intel hijacking type stuff happening. The main character of Germline was a messed up journalist if that helps distinguish it in your memory. edit: beaten
|
# ? Jul 23, 2014 01:52 |
|
Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Germline is the one with the clone women soldiers? You may also be getting some Ancillary Justice mixed up in there. That has lots of gender ambiguity and ship/brain/zombie weirdness.
|
# ? Jul 23, 2014 02:00 |
|
Ah, yea I was getting 2 mixed up. Germline has the girl soldiers, and Embedded (by Dan Abnett) has the reporter brainjacking the soldier thing. I've read part of both of them, and apparently got em a lil mixed up. Time to add em to the ever growing list o books I need to finish up!
|
# ? Jul 23, 2014 02:06 |
|
I appreciated Germline as a 'gonzo future war' story, but one book of that was enough for me. I understand the sequels are from different perspectives, but how similar is the overall tone?
|
# ? Jul 23, 2014 04:11 |
|
Who wrote the Germline you guys are all talking about? Goodreads gives me like a hundred results.
|
# ? Jul 23, 2014 08:12 |
|
T. C. McCarthy
|
# ? Jul 23, 2014 09:30 |
|
mallamp posted:Blue Remembered Earth is my favorite Reynolds, but sadly the sequel wasn't that great.. Hopefully it's not because of that infamous contract.
|
# ? Jul 23, 2014 18:54 |
|
Spug posted:What contract The one that was, like, literally a million dollars for ten books.
|
# ? Jul 23, 2014 19:54 |
|
eriktown posted:The one that was, like, literally a million dollars for ten books. A bit more. It was a million pounds so it was closer to $1.7 mill for 10 books. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jun/23/alastair-reynolds-1m-contract-science-fiction
|
# ? Jul 23, 2014 20:31 |
|
He could buy time by doing a couple more short story/novella collections. There's a ton of uncollected stuff.
|
# ? Jul 23, 2014 22:59 |
|
Hedrigall posted:He could buy time by doing a couple more short story/novella collections. At least the three novellas you listed, Thousandth Night, The Six Directions of Space and Troika, are now all available on Amazon as individual titles. It always annoys me that I have to buy a full short story collection, where over half the stories are of no interest to me, either due to theme or author, just to be able to read one from one of my favourite authors.
|
# ? Jul 23, 2014 23:44 |
|
If some British goon could buy Kill Baxter for me that would be great, thanks. A month is too long to wait for a book that's already out to be released in another country.
|
# ? Jul 24, 2014 01:35 |
|
regularizer posted:If some British goon could buy Kill Baxter for me that would be great, thanks. A month is too long to wait for a book that's already out to be released in another country. Just order off of amazon.co.uk?
|
# ? Jul 24, 2014 01:37 |
|
Fart of Presto posted:At least the three novellas you listed, Thousandth Night, The Six Directions of Space and Troika, are now all available on Amazon as individual titles. Not for Australia at least fritz posted:Just order off of amazon.co.uk? Or better yet, bookdepository.co.uk which will ship anywhere for free.
|
# ? Jul 24, 2014 01:46 |
|
Todays Science Fiction & Fantasy Daily Deal on Amazon is The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner for $1.99 (Kindle) I've always heard it's one of the original cyberpunk stories, before even Gibson came along, but having never read it and never seen it this cheap before, I know what my next summer reading book is
|
# ? Jul 24, 2014 11:18 |
|
Fart of Presto posted:Todays Science Fiction & Fantasy Daily Deal on Amazon is The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner for $1.99 (Kindle) It is, I've been curious about it for years, and I can't buy it cheap now because of Nazizon regional lockout.
|
# ? Jul 24, 2014 11:58 |
|
|
# ? May 30, 2024 13:19 |
|
Because I love you, have the Echopraxia excerpt. http://www.tor.com/stories/2014/07/echopraxia-excerpt-peter-watts And remember the Colonel come out on the 29th
|
# ? Jul 24, 2014 17:34 |