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thehomemaster posted:I'm very uncomfortable about the persecution of bigots, it's just their opinion/belief. Please, Wright has no idea what actual persecution feels like. Persecution like that which he wants to visit upon people like me.
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Jul 2, 2015 17:24
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occamsnailfile posted:Please, Wright has no idea what actual persecution feels like. Persecution like that which he wants to visit upon people like me. Persecution is relative. Like, I'm sure Boko Haram is bad, but jesus, the Starbucks guy never loving gets my name right on the side of my vanilla latte cup.
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Jul 3, 2015 01:09
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A couple of chapters into Annihilation Score and Stross cites Excession by Banks.
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Jul 3, 2015 06:43
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I read the whole thing yesterday, and... welp. Nice masquerade you had there, be a shame if something happened to it. It was going to happen eventually, and things will only be getting worse, but I wasn't quite expecting that.
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Jul 3, 2015 06:52
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I agree with Wright. Kill all homos. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jul 3, 2015 11:11
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Finished The Widow's House, the fourth Dagger and Coin book. Hopefully the next one will close out the series before it starts to become bloated. Loved Cithrin's monetary invention, the economic aspect of the series remains strong. On the other hand I find myself often rooting against the "good guys" because the nobles, especially the Kalliams, are so unbearable. However I would like to read a series of Kit and Marcus and Geder just exploring uncharted lands, those have been my favorite parts.
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Jul 3, 2015 12:48
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If Hitler were still alive and wrote as well as Alastair Reynolds or insert good author here I would preorder all his books.
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Jul 4, 2015 01:08
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thehomemaster posted:I'm very uncomfortable about the persecution of bigots, it's just their opinion/belief. I'm not going to judge your bigotry and decide if it's nature or nurture, but if you are a bigot, then I'll treat you like someone in a wheelchair or with a learning disability - you've got an inherent problem which we all must be polite about, and work around, even if you're a dick about it. coyo7e fucked around with this message at 01:49 on Jul 4, 2015 |
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Jul 4, 2015 01:44
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RndmCnflct posted:If Hitler were still alive and wrote as well as Alastair Reynolds or insert good author here I would preorder all his books. http://www.amazon.com/The-Iron-Dream-Norman-Spinrad/dp/1490439455
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Jul 4, 2015 02:00
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withak posted:Change the address in your kindle settings to a UK address (I suggest 10 Downing Street), buy the book, download it, then change your address back. This has never worked for me. Billing info seems to make Amazon go "nope you're in the US gently caress off" and says I can't buy the UK things. 
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Jul 4, 2015 02:05
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It has the best cover  
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Jul 4, 2015 02:29
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FastestGunAlive posted:Finished The Widow's House, the fourth Dagger and Coin book. Hopefully the next one will close out the series before it starts to become bloated.
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Jul 4, 2015 02:57
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Dammit Goodreads told me the new Rollins book was coming out on the 2nd but they are dirty dirty liars and it's coming out in december sometime. Bastards.
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Jul 4, 2015 03:02
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coyo7e posted:I've been throwing around feelings and ideas and poo poo with friends, and have started to wonder if we should just treat strongly-held beliefs (in terms of employment, equality, etc, etc) like disabilities - if you must be given a role you're unfit to physically/mentally/theologically perform, then you get an assigned caregiver, just like the quadriplegic and autistic guy who used to pick up the recycling bins at my old office. I mean a ton of the peolpe who've been whining about affirmative action want to be considered as special snowflakes so sure, stamp them 
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Jul 4, 2015 15:34
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coyo7e posted:I've been throwing around feelings and ideas and poo poo with friends, and have started to wonder if we should just treat strongly-held beliefs (in terms of employment, equality, etc, etc) like disabilities - if you must be given a role you're unfit to physically/mentally/theologically perform, then you get an assigned caregiver, just like the quadriplegic and autistic guy who used to pick up the recycling bins at my old office. I mean a ton of the peolpe who've been whining about affirmative action want to be considered as special snowflakes so sure, stamp them so who gets to be the one who decides which persons thoughts mark them as defective? Because I know this guy named O'Brien who might be good at it, I can pass along his CV. Full disclosure, he is my big brother.
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Jul 4, 2015 20:08
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I just finished Slow Bullets (novella) by Alastair Reynolds. Crossposted opinions from "What did you just finish?" thread: A nifty story full of the usual Reynolds staples: mysteries in space, dangerous sociopaths, gruesome moments (Crowl's trip to the med-bay is a memorable scene), and unknowable alien horrors. It's a good tale, kind of a fresh angle on the people-waking-on-a-generation-ship trope. There are some thoughtful moments about the preservation of culture. The arc about Scur's need for revenge against Orvin plays out well, with a surprising and satisfying resolution. Some disappointments, though. Murash is an interesting character who needed to be featured more. I'm still not entirely sure on the ship's purpose or why some people were included in its complement, and I want to know more about the places it goes at the story's end. Most egregious: the Sickening are one of Reynold's creepier creations, so it's disappointing that they get described once and then barely feature again in the story. The length suits the story well. It moves at a great pace, with no dull bits. But the way it was published was just a bit disappointing — it could have been the star attraction in a new (and long-overdue) collection of Reynolds' stories and novellas. Instead it's kind of an overpriced chapbook: readers pay full novel price for just 40,000 words. Nonetheless, it's a must-read for Reynolds' fans.
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Jul 5, 2015 13:17
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I was really disappointed by Slow Bullets, for several reasons. If you haven't read it and you want to don't bother reading further, its mostly spoilers and unadulterated whining in any case. First of all, I know its a novella, but for the most part it seems like Reynolds had one semi-interesting idea and decided to run with it (knowledge represented by the ship's computer slowly dying, and the passengers fighting to save what's left in various ways). He explored that idea for an extremely large portion of the book, and everyone on the ship, instead of acting like actual humans, simply go along with everything so that he can explore this idea. At one point they even force everyone on the ship to work incising passages onto the ship's walls. Apparently in the future hundreds upon hundreds of felons and soldiers are totally okay with being forcibly put to work on a ridiculous task. The technology was very strange. For the sake of plot, they're on an enormous FTL ship and there somehow isn't enough storage anywhere to save history's greatest texts. So a starship has less hard drive space than a mobile phone? I thought Scur's struggle for control of the ship was going to be interesting and perhaps even approach some realism. Instead, it was just scur running around solving problems with occasional interjections from her sort-of concillors, characters so bland I immediately forgot which one was which and it didn't matter anyways. In fact, there are only three characters one would remember. Scur, although to me she didn't feel authentic in the slightest, her nemesis, who for a sadistic war criminal was actually quite dull as well, and Murash, whose part of the story was by a MILE the most interesting. In fact, there would be a much better book there if he just scrapped this one and wrote a new book from Murash's perspective. Reynolds is not super-strong at characterization, but he has never had duller and less realistic characters than here. I'm a huge Reynolds fan, my favorite (and first) of his I read was the standalone Pushing Ice, and it remains my favorite although at this point I've read them all. Better characters, better ideas, better execution, more interesting plotline, etc. I highly recommend it to everyone, but especially people who like Reynolds but haven't checked that one out.
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Jul 6, 2015 05:34
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On the other hand, I just finished The Liar's Key and it was so so good. I did like Prince of Fools but wasn't totally crazy about it for some reason. The locations were cool and the characters okay, although both Jalan and Snorri are WAY better in this one. Jalan is finally starting to show some hints of self-awareness and conscience and realize that the reason people don't respect him isn't because they're ignorant savages but because he sucks a lot of the time. The balance in this second book between him sucking and not sucking is much better this time, he's finally learning from all his adventures. Thanks to Jalan the book has some laugh-out-loud funny moments, mostly near the beginning as he travels through futurepast Scandinavia with Snorri and Tuttugu. The [insert important title here] of Thorns books had a real problem with the unrelenting darkness and angst and grim pronouncements. Jorg's whining and self-love are actually parodied in Jalan, to good effect. And in this book the action, the exposition, the dialogue, is all paced well. Snorri is great too, a bit one-dimensional but that's who he is. Here he's a man in the grip of unbearable grief, set on a course he knows to be wrong but refuses to divert from regardless. There's some pretty big reveals about the world itself and how it became this way and what the major players are fighting for. There's also some fantastic new locations, and the book stretches from the utter north all the way through the continent to the Italian peninsula. In summary, if you haven't read Prince of Fools, go do that now. If you have, go read Liar's Key.
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Jul 6, 2015 06:01
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Yeah I really didn't like ${TITLE} Of Thorns but am really enjoying Prince of Fools. I'm a sucker for humor/action in my books!
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Jul 6, 2015 08:44
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Did anyone read the Great Way trilogy by Harry Connolly? I'm about halfway through the second book and not really feeling it. Does it get better? It's written in such a way that the reader always figures things out long before the characters do but instead of making me feel smart it makes me think the protagonists are dense.
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Jul 6, 2015 09:41
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TOOT BOOT posted:Did anyone read the Great Way trilogy by Harry Connolly? I'm about halfway through the second book and not really feeling it. Does it get better? It's written in such a way that the reader always figures things out long before the characters do but instead of making me feel smart it makes me think the protagonists are dense. The series ending is really dumb and comes out of nowhere.
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Jul 6, 2015 14:32
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TOOT BOOT posted:Did anyone read the Great Way trilogy by Harry Connolly? I'm about halfway through the second book and not really feeling it. Does it get better? It's written in such a way that the reader always figures things out long before the characters do but instead of making me feel smart it makes me think the protagonists are dense. It is pretty bad. If you ain't feeling it don't force it.
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Jul 6, 2015 14:49
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Firstborn posted:I recently started to listen to the audiobook of The Red Knight, book 1 of the Traitor Son Cycle, by Christian Cameron (styled as Miles Cameron for some reason). I am really enjoying it. It's about heroic knights battling "the wild", which is anything from giant bears to demons to wyverns. What's interesting is that because a lot of the conflict is knights interacting, they go by the laws of the chivalry of the world, so there's a lot of assholes bowing and offering phony apologies and posturing over each other with words that seem benign but are to actually get ahead. There's also what I can only describe as "anime catholic" religion, which is very much about revering saints, the cross, the Jesus analogue (I think they call him Jesu), and that sort of thing but in a metal paladin way where soldiers are carried to their caskets on spears, and holy magic burns away evil and provides protection against it. It's pretty great. Also, the author is a turbonerd re-enactor and former Navy officer, and knows his arms, armor, and tactics. When he writes his gore and battle, he knows the difference between a fauld and a pauldron and describes fighting stances and stuff. Yeah I'm a big fan. The sequel is also fantastic, expanding the world to a satisfying degree and adding a lot of disparate elements, one of my favorite settings being the enormous stretch of wooded wilds and the outwallers, many native american in aspect, who live there. The attention to detail in the ~16th century arms and armor is appreciated. I guess the author is one of those guys that like to dress up in armor and hit other guys with blunted swords. Whatever works. My only complaint would be that the main character is way too much without flaw and it takes away some of the tension. Still, fantastic books with a well-realized world and strong plotting. The second is better than the first in my opinion. thetechnoloser posted:Closest to Dune I can think of the "The Dragon Never Sleeps", by Glen Cook. Warring Houses, gholas/clones, political intrigue. Just don't expect the book to explain everything to you. I enjoyed it, but it's not for everyone. This book is amazing! It was absolutely shocking to me. I'm a Glenn Cook fan in that I more or less enjoyed the Black Company series but I never knew he could write like this. It's fast paced and frenetic and confusing and fascinating. MrFlibble posted:Fairly sure one of the Red Dwarf books covers it as well. Everyone should read the red dwarf books anyway, they're really funny. Yes yes a million times yes. In point of fact, though, it's really only the first two that I can recommend without reservation. Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers and Better Than Life. Both have the perfect mix of humorous and dramatic and interesting and fanciful.
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Jul 6, 2015 16:16
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Speaking of Cook, any references on his Instrumentalities of the Night series? I loved his Garrett books but Black Company frankly bored me; how much of the historical aspect is in this series?
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Jul 6, 2015 16:47
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It's the only NotEurope setting I've ever seen that includes the NotProtestant Reformation, so that's pretty cool. But stylistically, its much closer to the Black Company than the Garrett books, so if you didn't like BC than you probably won't like it.
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Jul 6, 2015 17:50
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Play posted:Yes yes a million times yes. In point of fact, though, it's really only the first two that I can recommend without reservation. Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers and Better Than Life. Both have the perfect mix of humorous and dramatic and interesting and fanciful. Backwards is really good if you haven't watched the tv show. I remember enjoying Grants other sci fi comedy book Colony as well. And I wouldn't call Last Human bad. But I agree neither of the two trilogy enders are as good as the first two books.
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Jul 6, 2015 18:01
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Patrick Spens posted:It's the only NotEurope setting I've ever seen that includes the NotProtestant Reformation, so that's pretty cool. But stylistically, its much closer to the Black Company than the Garrett books, so if you didn't like BC than you probably won't like it.
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Jul 6, 2015 18:03
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Read The Martian this weekend and I was thoroughly disappointed. The book had the emotional depth of a Michael Bay movie, a mostly unlikeable protagonist (hurr, (.Y.) boobs), cardboard supporting characters, and absolutely zero suspense or feeling of danger. I dunno, maybe I went in with different expectations, but it seemed like the kind of book that my friends who read maybe 2-3 books a year would have really liked. I'm not trying to be smug, just didn't get the hype.
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Jul 6, 2015 19:48
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tonytheshoes posted:Read The Martian this weekend and I was thoroughly disappointed. The book had the emotional depth of a Michael Bay movie, a mostly unlikeable protagonist (hurr, (.Y.) boobs), cardboard supporting characters, and absolutely zero suspense or feeling of danger. I'm half-way through so I reserve final judgement but... you're not wrong. The science stuff is the only reason to read it. The protagonist is a touch too big of a dweeb to believe, especially once the mission psychologist claims he was the social glue that kept the crew together. The boobs part was precisely where any illusions I had were shattered and I went from "I can buy this character" to "Jesus Christ!". I am enjoying it, but the same way I'd enjoy a Tom Clancy or a Michael Crichton novel. The older ones like Red Storm Rising and Airframe, not the newer ones where they went off the deep end. I can't wait to see what they do with the movie because they have the chance to improve on all the flaws. The premise and the basic story are the biggest strength and you just build good characters on top of that and you have a great science fiction movie. I do hope near future space SF makes a resurgence with The Martian and the Expanse being hits. Also cast Matt Damon in everything.
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Jul 6, 2015 20:15
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tonytheshoes posted:a mostly unlikeable protagonist (hurr, (.Y.) boobs) man with silly sense of humor!? NO! NO! You're mostly right but I think that's a funny example to give for "mostly unlikable". Tiny Timbs fucked around with this message at 20:24 on Jul 6, 2015 |
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Jul 6, 2015 20:21
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I would argue sometimes Watney lacks a proper grasp of... gravitas.
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Jul 6, 2015 20:44
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PINING 4 PORKINS posted:man with silly sense of humor!? NO! NO! Ok, good point... still, I'd think 2 years without human contact would knock at least some of the sense of humor out of him after a while... Then again, maybe that's why he's an astronaut and I'm not. Maybe 'unlikeable' is the wrong word. 'Unrealistic' is probably more on point. tonytheshoes fucked around with this message at 21:06 on Jul 6, 2015 |
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Jul 6, 2015 20:57
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It's interesting how humor can be so polarizing. In fact, I'd go so far as to say "very likable protagonist" was a strength of The Martian and one of the reasons I recommend it to people. Some people love the boob jokes (I did) and some don't. It's not a book, but I remember having the same discussion about the video game Borderlanders 2. It's filled with humor that someone described as "internet memes". I loved the poo poo out of it, and kept cracking up as I was playing. Someone else posted how he couldn't stand the humor and ended up abandoning the game. I guess it's just interesting how it invokes strong reactions in both directions! syphon fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Jul 6, 2015 |
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Jul 6, 2015 21:06
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syphon posted:It's interesting how humor can be so polarizing. In fact, I'd go so far as to say "very likable protagonist" was a strength of The Martian and one of the reasons I recommend it to people. Some people love the boob jokes (I did) and some don't. I did chuckle at a couple of his jokes, but I can't recall most of them, aside from 'science the poo poo out of this.'
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Jul 6, 2015 21:08
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To me it was that he was very relatable. I suppose a book like this won't stand the test of time very well (as pop culture and slang and whatnot evolves) but reading the book felt like reading about one of my friends. It was written in that goofy/dorky way that we talk to each other, so I was able to relate with him very well.
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Jul 6, 2015 21:11
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tonytheshoes posted:I did chuckle at a couple of his jokes, but I can't recall most of them, aside from 'science the poo poo out of this.' IIRC the boobs joke was perfectly OK it its context since the guy was really upset with NASA telling him to tone down his typing "because of the children" while he was in a deadly situation. On unrelated issues, I have finished "Absolution Gap", which closes the Inhibitor series of the Revelation Space series. And, gently caress the Clavain's death story is really grim, even if not a single drop of blood is depicted in the text. Someone posted here he found the ending of the novel a little bit rushed on, after the story drags itself by 20-30 chapters, and I quite agree with him. Anyway, AR writing is good enough to keep me interested, so I have really enjoyed the book, as well as the other ones in the same series. I am a little bit disappointed with the conclusion of the RS universe; that stuff about von Newman machines gone astray is not really very original, and it is difficult to assume that a civilization able to push out the wolves is not able to fix his own machines (although in Galactic North AR tries to justify that). It looks like AR wanted to kill the universe and came with that Greenfly infestation thing. The only thing I feel bad about AR and the RS series is waiting too much to read those books. If anyone has not read them, please do it.
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Jul 6, 2015 21:18
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Amberskin posted:IIRC the boobs joke was perfectly OK it its context since the guy was really upset with NASA telling him to tone down his typing "because of the children" while he was in a deadly situation. That's what I'm thinking. This guy is stranded on a barren planet. Let him have his humor. Also this: Andy Weir posted:"There are a bunch of severe psychological effects that would happen to someone being isolated for almost two years. And also the anxiety and stress of being on the verge of death from various problems for so long—most people would not be able to handle that. The loneliness, the isolation, the anxiety, and stress—I mean, it would take an enormous psychological toll. And I didn’t deal with any of that. I just said like, 'Nope, that’s not how Mark Watney rolls.' So he has almost superhuman ability to deal with stress and solitude.
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Jul 6, 2015 21:25
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Temeraire is not very good
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Jul 6, 2015 21:51
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anilEhilated posted:Early or Late BC? Because the first three books weren't so bad and I'm a sucker for magical history settings so that might be able to carry it. It does share the lack of focus that characterizes late BC, but if you really like fantasy places that are obviously based on historical areas I'd give it a shot. You don't just get NotEurope, you get NotGermany, and NotRome, and NotFatimids and NotTime displaced Vikings. Also, have you read his Dread Empire series? corn in the bible posted:Temeraire is not very good Temeraire is pretty good, but later novels drop off quickly and deeply.
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Jul 6, 2015 22:20
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Fiendish Dr. Wu posted:That's what I'm thinking. This guy is stranded on a barren planet. Let him have his humor. Also this: Got it--so it's a summer blockbuster in book form. Just not my thing...
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Jul 6, 2015 22:30
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