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JackKnight posted:Has anyone read 'Metaplanetary' & 'Superluminal' by Tony Daniel? Those two books are pretty much my favorite out of all the books I have read. Can't get much better than a semi sentient wild Jeep that consistently evades people who hunt wild Jeeps for sport. And that isn't even the best part. These books are massively detailed, with tech that is wildly ambitious and political situations that are similar to current day, but also very heavily influenced by tech, plus AI rights, wars, evolved humans, etc. :-D You didn't mention the post-human holocaust. Holy gently caress this is not what I expected.
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Nov 7, 2014 06:51
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Moving on to Cibola Burn the fourth "James A Corey" Expanse novel, and I'm honestly kind of stoked. The second one really made me kind of sick of the ulti-protagonist James Holden however, it's kind of interesting to see a Holden-simile grow up and have to deal with different (although ultimately similar from my perspective) situations. I am enjoying reading about Holden Caulfield being forced in between two sides of an unwinnable conflict - which he knows is a lost cause and has no choice but to go on and do what he can. And there are all kinds of new alien planets and stuff which I  to.
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Nov 7, 2014 07:03
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I'm continuing with reading the early Hugo winners (Demolished Man was awesome). I just finished Heinlein's Double Star and man am I pissed off. He gets crap for being a fascist for writing Starship Troopers. He gets called out as a weird racist for Farnham's Freehold. Does he ever get credit for taking a stance that humanity must be more ethical if we're going to make it to the stars ? Does he get credit for flatly stating that whites did terrible things in Africa and Asia, things we must not do again ? How about creating a pan-species society. Nope. On a more positive note, I only just noticed than Manny in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is part of the Stone family.
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Nov 7, 2014 08:36
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Well, there's also Number of the Beast and Stranger in a Strange Land in addition to whatever else weird poo poo he's written I haven't read.
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Nov 7, 2014 08:42
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And Lazarus Long's time-traveling incest. Dude had a lot of weird and creepy ideas. Though, to be fair, he was good people.
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Nov 7, 2014 09:43
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Trying to read Heinlein always makes my teeth grate, although it does not make my nipples go "spung!" He really was a giant weirdo in almost every imaginable way.
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Nov 7, 2014 11:31
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There's a lot of Heinlein's stuff that I absolutely LOVE (Project Nightmare is probably my favorite short scifi) and a lot of it that's... well. Interesting ideas abound, but the weirdness/racism/fascism quotient is too high. e: Glory Road is loving awful, don't read it CaptainJuan fucked around with this message at 15:10 on Nov 7, 2014 |
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Nov 7, 2014 15:08
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Just finished Flight of the Silvers, which was a pretty good superhero-ish book. It's not the best first book in a series I've ever read, but it's got some pretty original "super powers" and concepts and I'm definitely going to read the second one as soon as it's out. Team David for life.
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Nov 7, 2014 17:10
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Finished Cibola Burns, nice change of pace from the first three expanse novels. Looking forward to reading more in this universe, and looking forward to seeing Bobbie back and doing stuff in the next book, hopefully. I just wish they'd get one or two more crew on the goddamned spaceship. 
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Nov 8, 2014 04:13
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CaptainJuan posted:There's a lot of Heinlein's stuff that I absolutely LOVE (Project Nightmare is probably my favorite short scifi) and a lot of it that's... well. Interesting ideas abound, but the weirdness/racism/fascism quotient is too high.
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Nov 8, 2014 07:04
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I've enjoyed a lot of Heinlein (Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Time Enough for Love, Stranger in a Strange Land, Revolt in 2100, Methuselah's Children, and a lot of short stories), and disliked a fair bit too. He was quite varied, there's likely something for everybody. I found Farnham's Freehold ugly but not offensive, while Sixth Column felt worse for racism. What I am not liking is this D-List book about the D-List supervillain: quote:Lacking any other resources, I go with my gut instinct. I set the clock in her cell to count only three seconds for every four. Her days just got six hours longer. Can anybody recommend a good "protagonist is corrupted by evil (and remains evil)" story or novel? I'm having trouble remembering if I've read any, mostly it's been in movies/TV or the characters are just being observed. Orwell's Animal Farm and Piers Anthony's For Love of Evil are as close as I can think of and neither is all that close.
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Nov 8, 2014 07:47
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Eh, he's a super villain. He's kinda supposed to be an asshat. No normal functioning, non psycho, completely stable human being is going to grow up to be a super villain, it's just not gonna happen. He's a bad guy, he does bad things because he's, well, not a good guy. I will say that doing that kinda poo poo does lead to a decent "come to jesus" moment later on. It's not for everyone, I'll be the first to admit it, but if you aren't digging the book then there's no shame or anything in giving up and going "gently caress it, I have better things to read". Not everyone is gonna like the same stuff. As much as I read, there's about 3 books a month where I get stared and just bust a fuckit because the book just does not sell itself to me.
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Nov 8, 2014 07:57
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rchandra posted:I've enjoyed a lot of Heinlein (Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Time Enough for Love, Stranger in a Strange Land, Revolt in 2100, Methuselah's Children, and a lot of short stories), and disliked a fair bit too. He was quite varied, there's likely something for everybody. I found Farnham's Freehold ugly but not offensive, while Sixth Column felt worse for racism.
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Nov 8, 2014 08:02
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:No normal functioning, non psycho, completely stable human being is going to grow up to be a super villain, it's just not gonna happen. He's a bad guy, he does bad things because he's, well, not a good guy. Read Worm. Or even Watchmen.
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Nov 8, 2014 09:50
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rchandra posted:
Would Han Pritcher (Foundation and Empire / Second Foundation) qualify as an evil converse?
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Nov 8, 2014 12:06
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TOOT BOOT posted:Read Worm. Or even Watchmen. Haven't read Worm but I'd argue that Ozymandias is far from completely stable. Any time you engineer the deaths of thousands if not millions of people, you are not exactly firing on all cylinders.
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Nov 8, 2014 13:30
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Eh, he's a super villain. He's kinda supposed to be an asshat. You're getting lots of "Things to Read" but check out "Soon I Will Be Invincible" which explicitly spells out that going too far to the right of the IQ Bell Curve is a form of psychosis.
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Nov 8, 2014 13:40
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Haven't read Worm but I'd argue that Ozymandias is far from completely stable. Any time you engineer the deaths of thousands if not millions of people, you are not exactly firing on all cylinders. Also, ugh, Worm.
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Nov 8, 2014 15:10
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navyjack posted:You're getting lots of "Things to Read" but check out "Soon I Will Be Invincible" which explicitly spells out that going too far to the right of the IQ Bell Curve is a form of psychosis. It's basically half good chapters half boring chapters. Also the audiobook of the good chapters is GREAT.
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Nov 8, 2014 17:34
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There's also "How to Succeed in Evil" which is about a professional supervillain-consultant, who gets so frustrated by his clients' utter inability to do anything effectively, causes him to become the ultimate supervillain, complete with a dwarf for a sidekick. It's not amazingly high-quality writing but it's fun and available for free in audio format if you poke around the web. I'm not sure if it's out in print or not but it is fun and pokes a lot of fun at super hero/villain tropes while getting more and more uncomfortably nasty as it progresses. Also there's the "Blackjack" series which isn't about a supervillain really, although the protagonist flips from evil to good iirc, and he also just tears people limb from limb in some shockingly violent scenes now and then. I enjoyed the series.
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Nov 8, 2014 19:45
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While we are on the superhero topic- "Ex-Heroes" series, which is superheroes versus zombies. I hate the zombie genre but enjoyed these books. A couple quick reviews from my last two reads: "Dead Sea" by Tim Curran- a freighter is transported... somewhere else when passing through the Bermuda Triangle and the crew has to survive and find a way out. Pretty long read that drags in the beginning, but a lot of cool set pieces for anyone in a horror mood. There's a lot going on- haunted ships, cosmic horror, prehistoric wildlife, aliens, which all doesn't really mix well but the individual scenes are very tense and creative. One of the more antagonistic characters is very vulgar and homophobic, so warning for that. "The Darwin Elevator" by Jason Hough. Set in the near-future where a hidden alien civilization has placed a space elevator in Darwin for some reason. It provides a small aura that protects the remnants of humanity from a disease that turns you into a feral subhuman. The rich and intelligent live on space stations orbiting the elevator and trade food for water and air with the poor masses crammed below. The protagonists happen to be some of the very few people who are immune, and they scavenge the world for supplies. Its a space elevator so don't expect anything deep or ground breaking. Its very much a light read, an airplane book, with good action scenes.  s be ware, apparently in the future firearms use clips instead of magazines.
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Nov 9, 2014 00:01
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FastestGunAlive posted:
This series is rad and I'd consider it a little heavier than your typical airplane book, but not by that much. The last time I brought it up the only response I got was a guy kind of making fun of a character's name and that was it so I'm glad someone else has read it.
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Nov 9, 2014 00:06
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FastestGunAlive posted:While we are on the superhero topic- "Ex-Heroes" series, which is superheroes versus zombies. I hate the zombie genre but enjoyed these books. Dead Sea was pretty solid though. I enjoyed the heck out of it.
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Nov 9, 2014 03:12
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It is, I think we discussed it a few months ago as well. Have you read anything else by Curran? And if so what would you recommend?
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Nov 9, 2014 04:08
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Not yet, I've been busy reading the James A Corey "Expanse" stuff mostly recently, and re-listening to Bakker's stuff on audio because I never finished the first trilogy. I keep meaning to get to Clive Barker's Hellbound Heart etc as well but have been too busy to sit and read a lot.
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Nov 9, 2014 04:20
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I went kind of retro and read Tad Williams' Otherland and Southmarch series. I kind of dug Otherland. It maintained a pretty good narrative pace. The conceit gave the author the opportunity to create some interesting worlds (and some not so interesting ones). Southmarch was pretty bad all around.
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Nov 9, 2014 04:32
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FastestGunAlive posted:It is, I think we discussed it a few months ago as well. Have you read anything else by Curran? And if so what would you recommend? Get Blood, Bones, and Bullets, it collects three of his better novellas.
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Nov 9, 2014 04:51
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:The Martian was pretty good, and it's near future scifi. Dunno if you have read it yet or not. I enjoyed that book got it on Amazon maybe two years ago when it was $.99 was a pretty refreshing sci-fi book, it felt like and episode the background history of early exploration that is usually glossed over in most stories. Also in the last few months Got about halfway through the Wheel of Time series before I ragequit I think around book 8-9 and the plot seems to have stopped, everyone is a dick and I honestly want Rand to go insane and kill everyone with balefire. Then went and read the Mars Trilogy, those were good and I found it an interesting take going into detail of colonizing another planet. Thought the third book was a little superfluous, it felt like the series really ended about a third of the way through it and the remainder was a massive epilogue. Also read the Quantum Prince and the rest of that trilogy, thought it was also really interesting disliked aspects of it however parts of it were very creative, a little hard to follow I had to read through each book twice to pick up on everything, luckily I am a fast reader. Read the two Hard Luck Hank books in about a day. They aren't brilliant literature by any means ,but were fun stories that seemed self evident in the silliness of the setting. Also read another Amazon self published book series Terms of Enlistment and its sequel whose name escapes me atm. Another simple entertaining albiet derivative story that reminded me alot of Starship Troopers and the Forever War, the good parts of them. I guess atm I need some new recommendations for book series. Jack2142 fucked around with this message at 08:08 on Nov 9, 2014 |
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Nov 9, 2014 07:42
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FastestGunAlive posted:"The Darwin Elevator" by Jason Hough. Set in the near-future where a hidden alien civilization has placed a space elevator in Darwin for some reason. Did the author provide an explanation of how a space elevator would work if it was not located on the equator?
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Nov 9, 2014 12:43
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Jedit posted:Did the author provide an explanation of how a space elevator would work if it was not located on the equator? Why should he have to? quote:Q: Would the space elevators have to be placed exactly on the equatorial line, like a satellite in a geosynchronous orbit, to maximize the centripetal force of the Earth's rotation to stiffen the elevator cable? Or would they work equally well anywhere on the surface of the Earth? What would be the "orbital physics 101" considerations here? http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/edwards-elevator.html
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Nov 9, 2014 17:15
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Fun fact: The Canadelevator in Edmonton would be tilted over about 55 degrees from vertical. It would look like a steep ramp leading up and to the south.
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Nov 9, 2014 17:51
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I've just given up on Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie. I really liked its predecessor, but this book really didn't grab my attention. For the first 150 pages nothing seems to be happening. Have I made a huge mistake? Does a plot start to happen after pp.150?
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Nov 9, 2014 18:15
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gvibes posted:I went kind of retro and read Tad Williams' Otherland and Southmarch series. I kind of dug Otherland. It maintained a pretty good narrative pace. The conceit gave the author the opportunity to create some interesting worlds (and some not so interesting ones). I haven't read any of the Southmarch, but I really enjoyed Otherland both for the tech set pieces and for the societal/whatever you want to call it stuff. I think one of the things I may like the most about it is there is so much unexplored space in there on top of what the story does that it easily feeds some great set pieces for tabletop gaming in multiple genres (I can see sci-fi, fantasy, and horror all working with minimal tweaking).
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Nov 9, 2014 20:08
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I finished The Half-Made World recently based on recommendations from this thread. It was pretty good! It did kind of leave me hanging though at the end.. I thought that since there's a second book that we would find out what actually happens in the world once the secret of the First Folk is found but nope! The second book doesn't seem to actually follow in sequence. All in all though a great read.
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Nov 10, 2014 00:33
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I've been a big fan of Starship Troopers and Robin hobbs' Assassin series and the continuation into the tawny man trilogy, I especially liked the characterization of Fitz, and the stance that heinlein took towards pushing the idea that humanity needs to change it's moral outlook before we can hit the stars en masse. I've also burnt through The Long Earth, and as enjoyable as it was I thought the time jump between the first and second was far too much, and made me feel disconnected with the characters. with that out of the way, I was wondering if anyone knew of any Real Robot that wasn't awful? or any steampunk-esque mecha? I'd like to start work on my own story, and I'd like to read anything RR and SP I can get my hands on, though definitly focusing on the mecha aspect.
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Nov 10, 2014 06:05
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Any other one has found Interstellar to be a complete crap? The black hole is beautiful, the spaceships are nice, but the whole story, the acting and the dialogs are an absolute mess. And of course, the solution to the characters and the whole world problems is just love. What a disappointment...
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Nov 10, 2014 12:15
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Of the fourth-wall breaking Star Trek parodies I've read recently I very much prefer Redshirts over Willful Child. I love Erikson, and I'd still recommend it for sure, but I think Redshirts had a much stronger narrative. Willful Child's episodic structure didn't work as well as it could have.
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Nov 10, 2014 15:09
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Considering Redshirts was a giant piece of poo poo, I think I'll stay well away from this one too then. Cheers!
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Nov 10, 2014 15:14
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I'm a casual and infrequent visitor to this thread so apologies if I'm making a terribly obvious recommendation: I just finished Trucksong and it's just the most remarkable bit of recent sci-fi I've read in ages. The story of a boy in post-apocalyptic Australia trying to track down the sentient truck who stole his girl. Beautifully written and full of clever, unique world-building.
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Nov 11, 2014 00:01
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Just got The Three-Body Problem, looking forward to it since translation is a big interest of mine. Let's see what Chinese SF has to offer!
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Nov 11, 2014 02:05
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