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LASER BEAM DREAM posted:I read the Riverworld series when I was in high school. Awesome premise, but the latter books start getting weird. I'd read until your done and not really worry about leaving it unfinished. I really enjoyed that as well- although the fun banter/interactions vs. the surprisingly lethal combat was really odd. I know a lot of people are worried about the series being extended, but I'll keep reading if it stays fun like that- it'll be easy to just stop reading them if/when the quality really drops off.
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Sep 29, 2014 00:00
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Finished Old Man's War on audiobook and loved the hell out of it, how are the sequels? Lokks like the 2nd book is about someone else and the third book is about John Perry again.
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Sep 29, 2014 16:17
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Kraps posted:Finished Old Man's War on audiobook and loved the hell out of it, how are the sequels? Lokks like the 2nd book is about someone else and the third book is about John Perry again. I liked the second book more than the first one. And yes, it is about a different person, indirectly related to Perry. Edit: I've just finished The Martian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martian_(Andy_Weir)). It is a hard SF novel about a guy who gets stranded in Mars when his fellow astronauts have to evacuate their landing site, thinking he is dead. The good: it is difficult to put down the book. Most of it is written diary-style, in a very plain language (lots of 'gently caress', 'crap', 'yay' and similar) but with plenty of numbers to digest for the nerdy readers (you'll learn how many poatatoes you need to survive for more than a year, and how many water you will need to keep them alive, for instance). The technical details _seem_ to be accurate, and the writer has clearly done his research. The bad: The writing is sometimes sloppy (perhaps it is intended, I'm not sure), and the structure of the book is quite irregular. It is not a "world building" book. The world is our world. NASA still runs the american space program, the chinese are trying to keep pace with it, ESA astronauts fly in american spaceships. The technology is completely current-time. No magic devices anywhere. So it is somewhere in the border between a techno-thriller and a science fiction book. I have liked it a lot. Amberskin fucked around with this message at 16:27 on Sep 29, 2014 |
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Sep 29, 2014 16:18
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Amberskin posted:The Martian Yeah liked it a lot too, though some of the nittygritty tech/math was getting tiring.
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Sep 29, 2014 16:43
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Amberskin posted:I liked the second book more than the first one. And yes, it is about a different person, indirectly related to Perry. I "read" this one in audiobook from audible, and it was fantastic. The book wasn't originally expected to be such a success as it was. The author was simply an astrophysics nerd writing as a hobby. He published serialized chapters on his blog for free. People then asked him to convert it to ebook formats for ease of reading, and then asked him to put it on amazon for an even easier method of putting on a kindle, it got tons of downloads, got noticed, got published, got on the NY Times best seller list, and is now going to be made into a movie directed by Ridley Scott.
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Sep 29, 2014 16:44
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Fiendish Dr. Wu posted:and is now going to be made into a movie directed by Ridley Scott. Holy crap, have a link?
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Sep 29, 2014 16:50
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I loved the sections of The Martian that took place on Mars and were in the protagonist's well-realized and charming POV, while simultaneously hating the sections that took place on Earth and featured cliche conversations that read like they came from Dan Brown. Thankfully the latter only accounted for like 30% of the book.
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Sep 29, 2014 16:50
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Kraps posted:Holy crap, have a link? It is in the wikipedia page. Matt Damon bas been casted as Mark Watney. Cpt. Mahatma Gandhi posted:I loved the sections of The Martian that took place on Mars and were in the protagonist's well-realized and charming POV, while simultaneously hating the sections that took place on Earth and featured cliche conversations that read like they came from Dan Brown. Thankfully the latter only accounted for like 30% of the book. Yeah, I felt the same. The interactions between the earth characters are quite awful and cliche. You have all the usual suspects: the risk-averse beaurocrat, the brilliant-but-socially-inept geek, the not-so-shy-but-charming female and so on. Somehow it recalls also some Arthur C. Clarke writings. Zero character development, lots of pretty ideas-science-engineering stuff.
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Sep 29, 2014 16:57
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Kraps posted:Holy crap, have a link? No but basically just google the martian ridley scott Amberskin posted:Yeah, I felt the same. The interactions between the earth characters are quite awful and cliche. You have all the usual suspects: the risk-averse beaurocrat, the brilliant-but-socially-inept geek, the not-so-shy-but-charming female and so on. Somehow it recalls also some Arthur C. Clarke writings. Zero character development, lots of pretty ideas-science-engineering stuff. I don't think this book even needed character development. It was simply about a well-rounded and intelligent person that has to think themselves out of a situation. Everybody in the book was professional. You're right about a few of the cliche's, but I felt that's just the way it is in that environment. I can see how some people may not like that. Regarding Watney, the author specifically stated in an interview that he didn't want to focus on the emotional impact that level of solitude would create. I guess there was some sort of emotional journey, but it isn't talked about much, at least until the end, and only regarding the protagonist.
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Sep 29, 2014 17:16
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Amberskin posted:It is in the wikipedia page. Matt Damon bas been casted as Mark Watney. I put that up to training and the need to survive. IIRC I think Watney sometimes loses it but immediately recovers because of that.
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Sep 29, 2014 17:26
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Kraps posted:Would the "female lead opposite Matt Damon" be the mission commander or the other astronaut? It could be the satellite operator in Earth too.
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Sep 29, 2014 17:30
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Kraps posted:I put that up to training and the need to survive. IIRC I think Watney sometimes loses it but immediately recovers because of that. Log Entry: Sol X I am hosed and I'm gonna die! (explains situation) Log Entry: Sol X 2 Well, I'm not dead! (explains how situation was solved)
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Sep 29, 2014 18:11
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Fiendish Dr. Wu posted:Log Entry: Sol X Mark: What the gently caress is this? JPL: Watch your language, this is an open transmission. Mark: Here you have some boobs: (.Y.)
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Sep 29, 2014 18:52
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The Brothers Cabal was just released, I bought it, and my kindle froze immediately.
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Sep 30, 2014 08:31
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regularizer posted:The Brothers Cabal was just released, I bought it, and my kindle froze immediately. Any word on a UK Kindle release? Nothing on Amazon.
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Sep 30, 2014 21:30
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I just finished Those Who Hunt the Night by Barbara Hambly. It was a good and enjoyable vampire book. I see she's written a number in this series. Should I be leery of a quality drop? I'm interested to see where she adds onto the mythos. I'll be honest and say I absolutely loving love a really elaborate vampire mythos like World of Darkness where ancient conspiracies, gothic horror, and elaborate vampire societies are everywhere, all treated without a hint of humour, so if it expands any way in that direction that would be cool.
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Sep 30, 2014 21:43
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Amberskin posted:I liked the second book more than the first one. And yes, it is about a different person, indirectly related to Perry. Nice, I was waiting for a good verdict and this thread has provided. Will pick it up. On that note anyone read Finches of Mars? I read about the first 50 pages and it was terrible. The author kept switching the perspective up, and the idea that universities could get us into space is laughable.
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Sep 30, 2014 21:55
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EdBlackadder posted:Any word on a UK Kindle release? Nothing on Amazon. I distinctly remember the 3rd book was published in the UK first, so that's weird.
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Sep 30, 2014 22:30
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I just burned (no pun intended) through Cibola Burn on my day off. It wasn't quite as gripping as the earlier entries in the expanse series, but still entertaining nonetheless. I'm bummed that I'll probably have to wait another year to read whatever comes next. I just got back into reading after a pretty long hiatus. I'm currently reading (slowly) on the mountains of madness. It's pretty floral writing, but I really like it. I'm looking to branch out to something a bit more fantasy oriented. I've got some good recommendations from the npr graphic in the op.
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Oct 1, 2014 00:42
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Peter Watts is doing a Q&A for Echopraxia on Reddit if anyone's interested. Looks like it just started and there's not very many comments/questions so far, so if you still have any burning questions about the novel, chime in and maybe you can get an answer from Watts himself.
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Oct 1, 2014 17:04
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Neurosis posted:I just finished Those Who Hunt the Night by Barbara Hambly. It was a good and enjoyable vampire book. I see she's written a number in this series. Should I be leery of a quality drop? I'm interested to see where she adds onto the mythos. I'll be honest and say I absolutely loving love a really elaborate vampire mythos like World of Darkness where ancient conspiracies, gothic horror, and elaborate vampire societies are everywhere, all treated without a hint of humour, so if it expands any way in that direction that would be cool. Have you read the fantasy series she's done?
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Oct 1, 2014 20:15
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savinhill posted:Have you read the fantasy series she's done? Nope! How's that? I was put off looking further into her bibliography when I saw how much licenced stuff she's done.
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Oct 1, 2014 21:43
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Neurosis posted:Nope! How's that? I was put off looking further into her bibliography when I saw how much licenced stuff she's done. Its a paycheck, even Brandon Sanderson has done a licensed novel.
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Oct 1, 2014 21:56
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What I've read of Hambly's is generally decent.
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Oct 1, 2014 22:22
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My friend just got a Kindle and I have a pretty big Kindle library (~470 books), so I offered to lend him some of my books. He's not a huge reader, so to help him pick out what he wants to borrow I spent 6 hours picking out and writing reviews for some books I think he'd like (wound up being 66 books on the list). This list trends very very heavily towards science fiction / fantasy, with lots of urban fantasy since he's crazy about the Dresden Files books. Is this thread the right place to post my reviews to be fact-checked and to have my opinions mocked, or is there a better place for that kind of thing?
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Oct 2, 2014 00:12
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Six hours??? I mean sure you can post them and you'll get responses
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Oct 2, 2014 00:15
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Shnakepup posted:Peter Watts is doing a Q&A for Echopraxia on Reddit if anyone's interested. Looks like it just started and there's not very many comments/questions so far, so if you still have any burning questions about the novel, chime in and maybe you can get an answer from Watts himself. Pretty good Q&A, but Watts might be a bit too full of himself with the "If you don't understand why this happened you just weren't paying attention" stuff. I think he might be realizing it, though.
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Oct 2, 2014 00:15
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Well Redshirts is one of the most amazing things I've heard. Freaking hilarious with an amazing plot, characters, and setting, and then there's the codas, the third of which almost made me explode it was so heartwarming. Goddam. This Scalzi guy is pretty good at wording.
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Oct 2, 2014 02:16
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So after being on a bit of a book slump for sci-fi, I discovered Peter F. Hamilton's "The Night's Dawn Trilogy" (thanks to someone mentioning it a few pages back). I'm about 1/3 into the first book "The Reality Dysfunction" and so far I'm really liking it. The writing style reminds me a lot of Alastair Reynolds, which is a very good thing as I'm a huge fan of his. To anyone who's read it, what do you think of it? How do the other two books in the trilogy compare to the first? What are some other good books by him? As for my book slump, I tried 3 books and made it anywhere from 1/4 to 1/2 through them and ended up putting them down for now. I'll probably end up finishing them at some point since I hate starting a book and not finishing it. The first one I tried was Alastair Reynold's "Terminal World". It's really different from his usual stuff. I really liked the whole idea and the setting of Spearpoint and was hoping the story would stay there. Once the main character got involved with the Swarm, it felt like the book lost it's momentum and I lost interest. It wasn't terrible but after reading House of Suns right before it, it kind of felt flat. The second was "Gridlinked" by Neal Asher. The pacing of it was a bit too fast for me and there didn't seem to be much world building. Literally from the first page it was just non stop action. Also, a lot of people have said they really liked his alien eco systems but I didn't really care for Dragon at all. That's partially my fault though, I tend to be very picky when it comes to alien life in sci-fi books The third was "Burning Paradise" by Robert Charles Wilson. I find once you've read a couple books by him, you know the general pacing and story layout for the rest. I really enjoyed "Spin" and "Blind Lake" but the other books I've read of his seem to follow the exact same formula. Out of the three mentioned here, this is probably the only one I won't finish. edit - I'd definitely like to see those reviews. I'd say post them here, (maybe a couple per post). If you decide not to post them here feel free to PM them to me! johnsonrod fucked around with this message at 06:53 on Oct 2, 2014 |
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Oct 2, 2014 06:49
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nightchild12 posted:My friend just got a Kindle and I have a pretty big Kindle library (~470 books), so I offered to lend him some of my books. He's not a huge reader, so to help him pick out what he wants to borrow I spent 6 hours picking out and writing reviews for some books I think he'd like (wound up being 66 books on the list). This list trends very very heavily towards science fiction / fantasy, with lots of urban fantasy since he's crazy about the Dresden Files books. Is this thread the right place to post my reviews to be fact-checked and to have my opinions mocked, or is there a better place for that kind of thing? I'd like to read your reviews, though I dunno if you want to just spam the thread with them. Since you put so much effort into it why not dump them on Goodreads or somewhere like that where people might see them and post a link? Or maybe a google doc?
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Oct 2, 2014 06:49
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systran posted:Six hours??? Yup, six hours. That includes time spent going through all my books and selecting them, writing the reviews, and editing. It works out to about 11 per hour, or about 5 and a half minutes per review, which I don't think is too bad. General Emergency posted:I'd like to read your reviews, though I dunno if you want to just spam the thread with them. Since you put so much effort into it why not dump them on Goodreads or somewhere like that where people might see them and post a link? Or maybe a google doc? Right, good idea. Here's a link to a google doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1d-Afk6v-Jf99v6HsOCWawHGpFEu_uPWyJ4e2xL9WUB8/edit?usp=sharing They're in mostly alphabetical order, with some exceptions where I put something in as it popped into my head. Let me know what you think. They are written with a specific person in mind, so there are a number of references and assumptions I've made that almost definitely don't apply to anyone reading this thread. There are probably some minor spoilers, but since I wrote them for someone who I want to read them, I've tried to not spoil anything except some of the basic plot. Not even that in some cases.
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Oct 2, 2014 07:15
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johnsonrod posted:So after being on a bit of a book slump for sci-fi, I discovered Peter F. Hamilton's "The Night's Dawn Trilogy" (thanks to someone mentioning it a few pages back). I'm about 1/3 into the first book "The Reality Dysfunction" and so far I'm really liking it. The writing style reminds me a lot of Alastair Reynolds, which is a very good thing as I'm a huge fan of his. To anyone who's read it, what do you think of it? How do the other two books in the trilogy compare to the first? What are some other good books by him? Well, Space Al Capone does not show up until book 2 so..... Of the trilogy, the first book is the best and I especially like the marine action. The rest of the books are more large-scale space opera with space battles and some land battles. Hamilton adds weirder and weirder elements into the series, which is kinda off-putting if your priorities are marine and space battles. It is still a good series, but there is a clear downward spiral from the first book. Of his other books, I would recommend Broken Dragon, which is basically another version of Starship Troopers. johnsonrod posted:The first one I tried was Alastair Reynold's "Terminal World". It's really different from his usual stuff. I really liked the whole idea and the setting of Spearpoint and was hoping the story would stay there. Once the main character got involved with the Swarm, it felt like the book lost it's momentum and I lost interest. It wasn't terrible but after reading House of Suns right before it, it kind of felt flat. I liked Terminal World, since it was different from his other stuff and had some similarities with Mievilles work, another favourite author of mine. On the other hand, I didn't find House of Suns so amazing, since it was not really my type of space opera. johnsonrod posted:The second was "Gridlinked" by Neal Asher. The pacing of it was a bit too fast for me and there didn't seem to be much world building. Literally from the first page it was just non stop action. Also, a lot of people have said they really liked his alien eco systems but I didn't really care for Dragon at all. That's partially my fault though, I tend to be very picky when it comes to alien life in sci-fi books Well, Gridlinked is not the best novel to start Asher with. The Skinner is much better for that or Line of Polity, both of which are featuring nasty ecosystems. His novel collections are also decent in that way. When we talk about Asher and alien ecosystems, we don't mean Dragon at all. World building is not so much the case as universe building, which is also better in other books. As for fast-paced, well, that is just a hallmark for Asher. His books are fast-paced, genocidal in body counts, cynical and grim with very fast-paced air, sea, land and space battles + interesting and very alien aliens. He is probably my favourite sci-fi author for all of the above reasons (well not the body count, which was on the order of billions in his last series).
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Oct 2, 2014 12:08
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nightchild12 posted:
I read the ones for books that I read and feel they are accurate reviews even if I don't always agree. I laughed at the Ancillary Justice review...I don't think you're wrong but I think it's funny how you had to mention gender pronouns and didn't really touch on the meat of the book (which reflects how it got an award!) quote:Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie - Science Fiction, Space Opera. Part of a spaceship looking for revenge on what killed it. Perspective jumps back and forth between past when it was still a whole spaceship, and present when it is just an ancillary. Spaceship does not understand gender or gender pronouns, refers to everyone as if they were female, which some people do not like. Won several awards. I thought it was very good. I would say: quote:Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie - Science Fiction, Space Opera. Part of a spaceship, Breck, looking for revenge on what killed her. Perspective jumps back and forth between past when she was still a whole spaceship, and present when she is just an ancillary. Breck comes across a former officer turned burnout addict who served on her when she was a ship, and Breck must work toward revenge on the emperor while helping her friend recover. Book was good but gently caress all the focus on the gender pronouns.
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Oct 2, 2014 13:18
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It seems to practically be sacrilege to say so, but I didn't think Ancillary Justice was very good at all. I didn't like the characters, I wasn't particularly engaged by the story, and I didn't find the setting interesting.
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Oct 2, 2014 14:08
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eriktown posted:It seems to practically be sacrilege to say so, but I didn't think Ancillary Justice was very good at all. I didn't like the characters, I wasn't particularly engaged by the story, and I didn't find the setting interesting. Nah, we all had a nice little hate circlejerk here when the Hugos were announced.
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Oct 2, 2014 16:39
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Now, don't exaggerate. There were negative opinions, but everyone was perfectly civil about it.
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Oct 2, 2014 16:54
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Cardiovorax posted:Now, don't exaggerate. There were negative opinions, but everyone was perfectly civil about it. Oh, sure. I am just reminiscing.
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Oct 2, 2014 17:03
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eriktown posted:It seems to practically be sacrilege to say so, but I didn't think Ancillary Justice was very good at all. I didn't like the characters, I wasn't particularly engaged by the story, and I didn't find the setting interesting. I roughly agree with you. It wasn't bad but I've read a hundred books this year that were just as good or better. (If I really wanted to troll, I'd start posting about how Wheel of Time did more to advance gender issues in SF & F just by having independent female characters than Ancillary Justice ever accomplished by mucking up pronouns. But I can't troll now, I have to be responsible).
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Oct 2, 2014 17:04
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Personally, I thought it was too derivative of the Culture series and a bit too SJW-baity with the whole pronoun thing. I know some people don't agree with the former, but in my opinion the differences only highlight the similarities more.
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Oct 2, 2014 17:18
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Cardiovorax posted:Personally, I thought it was too derivative of the Culture series and a bit too SJW-baity with the whole pronoun thing. I know some people don't agree with the former, but in my opinion the differences only highlight the similarities more. I might have gotten more of a Culture vibe off of it if Leckie appeared to have even a vestigial sense of humor.
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Oct 2, 2014 18:37
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