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gohmak posted:I don't see a way to make that book cimenatically intriguiging They'll focus on the cultists and make it an action movie about the military taking down a bunch of conspirators with sci-fi guns.
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Aug 30, 2015 22:56
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I expect a Girl with the Dragon Tattoo scenario anyway if it is successful.
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Aug 30, 2015 23:00
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I enjoy seeing things over-analysed; where might one find short articles/essays on sci-fi that aren't complete nonsense?
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Aug 30, 2015 23:04
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flosofl posted:Regarding the Cultural Revolution, I think if they keep it focused on the rampages of the Red Guard, and no overt criticism of Mao, it would probably slip by. I don't imagine the Central Committee would have any issues with a film that stuck to the book. I think politically China is aware this book is highly regarded internationally and also of the criticism that would fall if they gently caress with the story when it's translated to film. I really hope the Cultural Revolution parts make it in mostly intact. My favorite scene in the book is when Yi tracks down the girls who killed her father and finds out that their lives are even worse than hers, and it breaks her instead of giving her any kind of catharsis.
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Aug 31, 2015 00:56
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Dzhay posted:I enjoy seeing things over-analysed; where might one find short articles/essays on sci-fi that aren't complete nonsense? You're looking for John Clute.
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Aug 31, 2015 15:16
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General Battuta, your "Baru Cormorant gives advice to other SF/F heroes" article is hilarious. I want the goddamn book. Link for everyone else: http://www.tor.com/2015/08/27/how-baru-cormorant-would-overthrow-emperor-palpatine-kill-voldemort-and-stop-sauron/
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Sep 1, 2015 04:55
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Hedrigall posted:General Battuta, your "Baru Cormorant gives advice to other SF/F heroes" article is hilarious. I want the goddamn book. They asked me for a clickbait title but when I proposed 'Your Heroes Are Morons' they wouldn't use it! I'm really glad you enjoyed it.
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Sep 1, 2015 05:02
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General Battuta posted:They asked me for a clickbait title but when I proposed 'Your Heroes Are Morons' they wouldn't use it! Dear Baru, Please critique my plan for a post-revolution Pandora: Phobophilia posted:...with some smart plays, the navi and aligned humans could maintain a stable detente for at least a generation. The human base was intact, self sufficient, and filled with automated manufacturing. The humans that sided with the navi have the technical know-how to keep the place running. They can take a carrot-and-stick approach. They can still export a flow of valuable mineral resources to Earth. A combination of jury-rigged anti-orbital weaponry and holding the mining facilities hostage with explosives can make it too expensive to re-invade and re-occupy the planet. This can be followed up with a multi-pronged hearts and minds campaign, the navi and aligned humans can broadcast manifestos stating their demands for independence. As the other humans were not massacred, and were simply expelled, public opinion for a retribution campaign can be kept low.
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Sep 1, 2015 08:40
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General Battuta posted:They asked me for a clickbait title but when I proposed 'Your Heroes Are Morons' they wouldn't use it! Suddenly I find myself wanting to read your book. Do you know if it's in the UK Kobo store?
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Sep 1, 2015 10:25
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thespaceinvader posted:Suddenly I find myself wanting to read your book. Do you know if it's in the UK Kobo store? https://store.kobobooks.com/en-UK/ebook/the-traitor-10
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Sep 1, 2015 10:38
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Phobophilia posted:Dear Baru, Not Baru. If I can recall the movie, the main issue with your picture is that the Navi'i do not care about competition nor industry. They simply want to be left alone; they didn't take the "gifts" from humans before, and they won't be involved with human politics as long as humans do not try to subjugate them again. On the other hand, the situation at Earth is really grim, and the "unobtanium" is depicted as a must-have resource to keep humankind alive. So the prospects are in a few years the surviving earth governments would take over the intersellar ships (if they are still in working order) and would go back to Pandora in full force. Just this time they will just nuke the Navi'i from orbit (the only way to be sure). They want the minerals, not the fancy plants or animals. So flatten Pandora, make it a parking lot and loot the unobtaium. RIP Green Pocahontas.
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Sep 1, 2015 10:57
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I shall obtain it. Thank you.
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Sep 1, 2015 14:11
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thespaceinvader posted:I shall obtain it. Thank you. That's not the right book, the real book isn't out for another two weeks.
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Sep 1, 2015 15:23
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Now that the war is over, he has returned home to his beloved England, and is determined to live a quiet life as a country gentleman. He believes that his wish is about to come true when he begins to fall for his elderly aunt’s lovely companion, Miss Millicent Danforth. But the French are not quite ready to let him go, and they’ve devised a devious plot that could destroy everything that Sebastian holds dear. He will have to use all of his wits if he plans on escaping this scheme with his life…and his love. 2nd book on the Captive Hearts series! I hope you bought that, tell us how it is later  .
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Sep 1, 2015 21:22
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Hedrigall posted:General Battuta, your "Baru Cormorant gives advice to other SF/F heroes" article is hilarious. I want the goddamn book. I've already got it on pre-order!!
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Sep 1, 2015 21:27
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VagueRant posted:Just started The Name Of The Wind after five years of hearing how great Rothfuss is. He's not great, he's average and got lucky. Don't read the second book because it's pretty awful and really adds weight to Rothfuss's claims of having originally written this story during college (or high school?).
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Sep 1, 2015 21:58
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Just finished The Dark Forest.thehomemaster posted:OK spoiler time to get some clarification Part spoilers, part speculation. Zhang Beihai was essentially a pragmatist who saw Escapism as the only want to save human civilisation. So he had to kill the aerospacers so that technology would develop along the lines of radiation drives, and so enable fast engines for escape. He basically tricked everyone by accusing others of believing what he himself believes. It's possible that Zhang conspired with Hines - he'd have had to do it before the Sophons started monitoring the Wall-facers. As far as the book shows, only a small number of people were ever Imprinted, including Hines. But the idea of the threat of the Imprinted was sufficient to put Beihai in charge of the Natural Selection, and so execute his plan. I think the imprinting thing was basically a red herring otherwise. The Sophons never said anything about the imprinted. Serious ending spoilers: The Trisolarians warned the ETO to prioritise shutting down the Defeatists and Escapists over the Triumphalists. This is probably because of the Dark Forest Scenario. Humans that escape could potentially alert other galactic civilisations about the location of Earth and Tri-solaris, and invite a Dark Forest attack. In the end, two spaceships did escape, as did a lot of dead bodies, so that seems like a dangling plothook, if the alliance at the end fails to catch up with them, anyway. My interpretation is that Hines' wife actually betrayed Trisolaris at the PDC by declaring a false plan to the world. The scene when she was brought into hibernation suggested that she figured out the Dark Forest theory. Which given the Sophon's interactions with the ETO, could plausibly have crushed her faith in the Lords. So, by broadcasting the Imprinter plan, she helped the Escapists deceive both the PDC and the Sophons. EDIT: Amberskin posted:Actually I found that "victory" hard to believe. Even considering the Trisolarians are not experts at lying and deceiving, they just go belly-up after Luo Ji tells them his "updated" plan using the nukes. They just make their proble to unblock the sun (thus allowing earthlings to send whatever they want) and start providing technological assistance to the very same people they were going to EX-TER-MI-NATE. I can think about some ways to defuse the improvised transmission system and keep their plans running but, hey, it's not my Universe! More Dark Forest ending stuff I guess the point with that ending is that Luo Ji had established mutually assured destruction. The Trisolarians aren't murderous, but rather they just wanted to survive. They were acting purely in accord with the axioms of cosmic sociology. Luo Ji offered to them a stable scenario of peaceful co-existence. In this scenario either civilisation could call down a Dark Forest attack if they wanted to, which kept both sides honest. Sophon monitoring means that the Earth would be transparent to the Tri-solarians, and the Tri-solarians were naturally honest anyway (and well-understood by the humans, given the efforts of the ETO), which helped break down the chains of suspicion. The situation is also of benefit to Trisolaris because the Tri-solarians would be able to piggy-back off of the faster human rate of technological development, which gives them an advantage in the Dark Forest (The spectacular way Ji's spell worked probably scared the poo poo out of them, since that tech was way beyond theirs). We also know that the future humans were happy to allow the Trisolarians to share the solar system anyway, so humans at least do reject the axiom that galactic civilisations must expand to fill all available space. That the majority of humans rejected the implications of the Battles in the Darkness probably also helped. I also wonder if two centuries of constantly monitoring humanity (and Luo Ji's family in particular) had to some extent softened the Tri-solarian views. Re-the wallbreaker stuff, then yeah, that was also kinda silly. But I think the point of the wallfacers' mental breakdown in each case what that they were each told that their plan was irrelevant to Tri-solaris, even if carried out. Further each plan was morally atrocious, so revealing them helped discredit the Wallfacers (and Luo Ji in particular), and reflected negatively on humanity, steeling the Trisolarian resolve to destroy humanity. (Remember from the first book that the Adventist ETO were most afraid of the Trisolarians calling off the invasion and sparing humanity.) Fangz fucked around with this message at 23:34 on Sep 2, 2015 |
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Sep 2, 2015 22:51
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Solitair posted:I'm going to ask for recommendations here. I have a bunch of ideas for stories, but I need to be a good reader to be a good writer, and I was hoping to find other authors who worked with similar themes and ideas to see how it's done. Can I suggest things from years ago that are back in print thanks to the Kindle? The Helliconia Trilogy by Brian Alidiss: Set in a world thousands of light years from Earth that goes through a cyclic Ice age every thousand years or so. A Dangerous Energy by John Whitbourn: This is a book by an English Author is set in an alternative Universe where the reformation did not occur and would cover c,d and e. I really enjoyed the author's dry wit and take on magic. He has also written a number of other books set in the same timeline "To Build Jerusalem" and a trilogy called "Downs Lord" where humans are hunted for food and sport by eight foot high humanoids in another alternative universe. Or the life story of a man "groomed" for great things as an enforcer for the illuminati: "Popes and Phantoms" I think this is a very unappreciated author and they may be worth checking out... immelman fucked around with this message at 01:57 on Sep 3, 2015 |
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Sep 3, 2015 01:50
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Where can I pre-order General Battuta's Hermione Granger series? Very funny article. Well done, sir.
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Sep 3, 2015 01:54
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immelman posted:
Oh lord, I remember seeing those all the time on bookstore shelves when I was a kid but I never got around to reading them. Always seemed like a great concept.
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Sep 3, 2015 04:47
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Robot Wendigo posted:Where can I pre-order General Battuta's Hermione Granger series? There's probably at least five fanfics about it.
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Sep 3, 2015 07:05
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I read Helliconia when I was 16 and it was pretty cool even though some sequences were pretty boring because I'd grown up on Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke ("Why aren't they in space more?"). I should go back and read the trilogy again at some point.
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Sep 3, 2015 07:50
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Beware, for down this path lies Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.
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Sep 3, 2015 07:55
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Quit reading The Martian after about a third of the way in. The narrator sounds like a 15 year old, and the whole "story" is just him hooking stuff up to other stuff.
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Sep 3, 2015 09:39
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The Dennis System posted:Quit reading The Martian after about a third of the way in. The narrator sounds like a 15 year old, and the whole "story" is just him hooking stuff up to other stuff. I liked it, but I liked him space-duct-taping things and growing potatoes. He does get forced to go on a road trip with a rover full of potatoes later on, which changes things a bit, but you probably made the right choice.
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Sep 3, 2015 09:42
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The Dennis System posted:Quit reading The Martian after about a third of the way in. The narrator sounds like a 15 year old, and the whole "story" is just him hooking stuff up to other stuff. I read it and loved it. It's non-stop action, albeit engineering action not violent action. Enjoy the action, ignore the relative lack of plot or character development.
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Sep 3, 2015 11:04
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The Dennis System posted:Quit reading The Martian after about a third of the way in. The narrator sounds like a 15 year old, and the whole "story" is just him hooking stuff up to other stuff. coffeetable fucked around with this message at 11:29 on Sep 3, 2015 |
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Sep 3, 2015 11:12
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If you read The Martian for the dialogue and the deep insight into the human condition, you are doing it wrong. It is modern-day Robinson Crusoe, if Robinson Crusoe had focused exclusively on what crops to grow on the island. It is man against nature, not man against himself. There is no character growth because the trials of the character aren't because of his own personality flaws. No amount of character growth would get him off that planet. Why add something in that is irrelevant to the plot? I still liked it, and I'm not sure if a more "mature" narration wouldn't have turned it into an unimaginably dull engineering treatise.
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Sep 3, 2015 13:54
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ArchangeI posted:There is no character growth because the trials of the character aren't because of his own personality flaws. No amount of character growth would get him off that planet. Why add something in that is irrelevant to the plot? Man, before I read your post, I would probably have written something similar, but now I that it's presented like that it kinda feels like The Martian would have been a lot better if it was written differently. I think the main thing is that the plot never establishes why it's such a big deal that Watney be rescued. I mean the narrative kinda shits on the public relations side, the people trying to secure funding by cannibalizing other projects, the guy trying not to risk the other astronauts' lives, etc etc. If there was more of an arc, more character growth, then maybe we would have cared more about saving this guy. As it is, Weir ends the book with an essay on the topic, but it doesn't really ring true. Maybe I'd have 'enjoyed' the story more if Watney died in the end.
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Sep 3, 2015 14:52
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They kinda didn't have a choice, really. "Left an astronaut to die on Mars" would have been such a PR disaster that it might well have been the end of NASA, certainly the end of NASA's manned spaceflight program. They had to make an effort to get him back as soon as they announced he was still alive (and they couldn't have kept that under wraps forever, other nations have Mars probes too). I agree that from a purely economic standpoint it made little sense to spend billions of dollars to get one guy back to Earth, compromising the entire program in the process. But then I try to imagine having to be the guy who goes "Yeah, the guy who is still fighting for his life on Mars? Who is using every ounce of his ingenuity to stay alive in an environment that would kill him in a heartbeat if given half a chance? gently caress that guy, we have Jupiter probes to send out. He was an rear end in a top hat anyway." I dunno, the question why never really concerned me all that much. Maybe it's because when I am in a dangerous situation I don't want anyone to go "well, is rescuing Archangel going to be a net benefit for our society?" (insert joke about "judging by your posting it wouldn't!")
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Sep 3, 2015 15:05
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ArchangeI posted:They kinda didn't have a choice, really. "Left an astronaut to die on Mars" would have been such a PR disaster that it might well have been the end of NASA, certainly the end of NASA's manned spaceflight program. They had to make an effort to get him back as soon as they announced he was still alive (and they couldn't have kept that under wraps forever, other nations have Mars probes too). I agree that from a purely economic standpoint it made little sense to spend billions of dollars to get one guy back to Earth, compromising the entire program in the process. But then I try to imagine having to be the guy who goes "Yeah, the guy who is still fighting for his life on Mars? Who is using every ounce of his ingenuity to stay alive in an environment that would kill him in a heartbeat if given half a chance? gently caress that guy, we have Jupiter probes to send out. He was an rear end in a top hat anyway." Well, it's true that those are the choices as presented, but maybe that also dodges the question about whether saving Watney is the right thing to do. Having come off The Dark Forest, I can't help but think that Cixin Liu's rather more morally grey universe would have offered a different solution. Perhaps Liu's Watney would have threatened suicide unless the rescue plan was called off. Perhaps some pragmatist down the line would have sabotaged the rescue program so that it could not have gone ahead, and then taken the fall personally. Maybe the guy on the spaceship who received the new flightplan would have realized the implications, and quietly deleted it instead of making the rest of the crew have to make the choice of whether to risk their lives or not. I suspect Liu would have shown more sympathy for the people saying 'No', for whom Weir didn't have much time at all. Or if Watney *was* to be saved, a better case could have been made for what it meant for humanity. It disappointed me that Weir didn't really care about the aftermath. Fangz fucked around with this message at 15:33 on Sep 3, 2015 |
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Sep 3, 2015 15:31
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I've been reading through The Martian as well, and while I like the stranded on Mars stuff the Earth parts really drag and can get real dumb. Like the scene with the strawman media reporter who doesn't understand that there's no air on Mars so the protag can't take off his helmet to pose for a shot.
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Sep 3, 2015 15:45
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It kinda comes off as being written by someone who treats science like a religion, if that makes sense?
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Sep 3, 2015 15:46
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I enjoyed Red Mars while I was reading it, but the ending really fell flat for me, and now when I think back on the entire story it just feels really not good to me. Even though there was actually a lot of characterization, and some very distinct characters, none of them felt like real people to me. It just has this very weird aftertaste to me, and I have no real desire to read further on in the trilogy, nor do I even want to read any other KSR stuff for now.
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Sep 3, 2015 15:52
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Fangz posted:Man, before I read your post, I would probably have written something similar, but now I that it's presented like that it kinda feels like The Martian would have been a lot better if it was written differently. I think the main thing is that the plot never establishes why it's such a big deal that Watney be rescued. I mean the narrative kinda shits on the public relations side, the people trying to secure funding by cannibalizing other projects, the guy trying not to risk the other astronauts' lives, etc etc. If there was more of an arc, more character growth, then maybe we would have cared more about saving this guy. Just judging from how we've reacted to aviation disasters in real life, there would be no way in hell the American public would have accepted leaving somebody behind on Mars as long as there's perceived progress in his rescue. Hell, Teddy Sanders is lucky that they eventually managed to rescue Watney, because otherwise if a classified documents leak revealed to the public that NASA could have known about Watney's survival for weeks if they weren't sticking their heads in the sand, his head would be on a pike. Anyone foolish enough to publicly advocate writing Watney off to save money and/or reduce the risk to other (volunteering) astronauts would be crucified. None of the rumination on humanity's willingness to sacrifice in order to save individual people in distress rings false at all. Cramming a character arc in there is just unnecessary. Plus, it's not clear what that hypothetical character arc could be, anyways.
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Sep 3, 2015 16:00
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Mars4523 posted:What the hell? That's heartless. I've already said that I don't think killing Watney is the only ending I would have accepted. As presented, the media frenzy pointing to the necessity of saving Watney is quite realistic, and it's also quite logical that put on the point like that, the spaceship crew would be quite incapable to making the choice to not risk their lives. My point is that there is a deeper moral question that the book generally skirts around. (Edit: also given the dispassionate nature of the narrative, it's not like we are actually made to sympathise with the popular perspective that Watney MUST BE SAVED. The public on earth come off more as useful idiots that have to be tricked into giving what we want.) Ultimately, I think there is a fundamental inconsistency at play. You have the idea of a manned space program, involving by necessity putting human lives at risk to achieve various benefits to science and society. Then you have the attitude that you should drop almost everything, redirect almost every resource, be it from scientific research, from social programs on Earth, and so forth, to save a guy who signed up fully knowing that he might die in the course of his mission. How are these two attitudes compatible? I think the book could benefit a lot from addressing that more directly. Fangz fucked around with this message at 16:30 on Sep 3, 2015 |
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Sep 3, 2015 16:25
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It's just not that kind of book. It's like airport fiction. It would benefit, as literature, from a character arc and from a deeper contemplation of the themes and politics involved, but its aimed at a target audience that doesn't care.
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Sep 3, 2015 16:32
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Antti posted:It's just not that kind of book. It's like airport fiction. It would benefit, as literature, from a character arc and from a deeper contemplation of the themes and politics involved, but its aimed at a target audience that doesn't care. Yeah. And IMHO, that's a shame.
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Sep 3, 2015 16:33
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There is a difference between signing up knowing that you might end up strewn across the Atlantic ocean because some engineer made a miscalculation, and signing up knowing that your government will tell you you are poo poo outta luck when they leave you behind on Mars, even though a rescue would technically be feasible. The problem is that the narrative doesn't really allow for some deep soul-searching as to whether or not a rescue mission makes sense from an economic standpoint. It also doesn't allow for Watney to do anything because of the time constraints. the moment he wakes up and fixes his suit, he has made that decision, because none of it would make any sense if he might just decide - not be forced by circumstance, but decide out of his own free will - to pop his helmet and die later. Hell, one could argue that his drive to survive is such an ingrained part of him that he is literally incapable of contemplating it. The only people who could conceivably have a character arc are people back on Earth, and that would, I feel, fundamentally change the book, taking the focus away from the main character who may be saved or not saved depending on what a secondary character decides, after some deep soul-searching and contemplating their humanity. At the core The Martian is a book about human ingenuity and using technology to overcome problems in a hostile world. One could write a book with a similar scenario and focus on different aspects, but I don't think that book would by necessity be better because of it.
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Sep 3, 2015 16:51
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ArchangeI posted:There is a difference between signing up knowing that you might end up strewn across the Atlantic ocean because some engineer made a miscalculation, and signing up knowing that your government will tell you you are poo poo outta luck when they leave you behind on Mars, even though a rescue would technically be feasible. There is some credibility to that sort of argument. But then again, I kinda adopt the view that safety in something like a space program is inherently something that has to be balanced against cost and resources. I personally don't think that as a moral dilemma, the question of 'how much resources/lost opportunities for science are you willing to spend to cut down the probability of an astronaut dying by a certain percentage' changes whether you are looking at it before the program starts (and considering manned exploration vs otherwise) or you are looking at it after someone has gone wrong and are evaluating the idea of a rescue mission. There's a fuzzy grey area in the end where a rescue mission, strictly speaking, is possible, but it would not be desirable. How many hospitals are you prepared to shut to save Watney? It's surely not infinite. So personally, if I were Watney, I would have known that there is a chance economics is gonna kill me. Whether it'd be because the money wasn't spent on backup safety features in the planning stages, or whether it'd be because the government didn't think a rescue was worth it, or whether it was sending me into space in the first place doesn't make a difference. The media would crucify the guy who had to make the decision, but depending on the circumstances, it would be the right one. (This is more specific spoilers, I don't know if we are tagging these) Similarly I was miffed that the planner who didn't want to risk the remaining crew was portrayed as a coward. Yes, he could ask the crew, but if any of them didn't accept the plan, they face being crucified by the world media and the regard of the other crew-members if Watney died, so to what extent was it a free choice? It would have been interesting if the choice was up to Watney, and so the question was reframed as being given the opportunity to risk *his* life to save the others. It seems very likely to me that Watney would prefer the more risky Iris mission in that situation, sparing the other crew the danger. The fact that the planner on the ground does *not* have his own life in the balance makes him best equipped to judge. I don't know if people regard this conversation as a derail or not.
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Sep 3, 2015 17:42
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