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Chairman Capone posted:In the early Berserker stories, weren't the various human planets each specific analogues to 1500s European countries and the Berserkers analogs for the Ottomans? There might have been a story like that; I know one of my favorites was basically the Battle of Midway in space (Berserker Fury?).
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Sep 30, 2015 02:19
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Anyone familiar with Roger MacBride Allen's books? I picked up The Depths of Time from a bargain bin and enjoyed it well enough. Not great but fine for $5 and Amazon says there are two more in the series. Anyone know if they're worth ordering if I liked the first one?
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Sep 30, 2015 03:17
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Cythereal posted:Anyone familiar with Roger MacBride Allen's books? I picked up The Depths of Time from a bargain bin and enjoyed it well enough. Not great but fine for $5 and Amazon says there are two more in the series. Anyone know if they're worth ordering if I liked the first one? Hah, I just re-read those a few weeks ago. They're OK. Pretty interesting take on things. If you liked the universe he has set up in the first one, I'd say go ahead and read the rest.
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Sep 30, 2015 03:56
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rafikki posted:Hah, I just re-read those a few weeks ago. They're OK. Pretty interesting take on things. If you liked the universe he has set up in the first one, I'd say go ahead and read the rest. I liked the universe more than the characters, of whom only Koffield felt like a full character to me. The ending certainly did leave me wanting to know what would happen next, and I found the universe set up by the book, and the crisis facing it, an interesting one. The timeshaft system for getting around a lack of FTL struck me as clever and original. Haven't seen anything like that in sci-fi before.
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Sep 30, 2015 04:03
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Ceebees posted:I think someone said in either this or the SF/F thread that the newest book from the guy that did the Kresnov series has humanity as villains? I'll go look. Humans aren't really the villains there, although they might be allied to them. Renegade was ok, certainly worth $2. The writing felt a bit bland, but the setting was fairly interesting.
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Sep 30, 2015 11:11
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Ceebees posted:I think someone said in either this or the SF/F thread that the newest book from the guy that did the Kresnov series has humanity as villains? I'll go look. I really enjoyed it. For Joel Shepherd's first shot at a male protagonist, it's surprisingly good. Then again, I really really enjoyed the Kresnov series.
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Sep 30, 2015 15:26
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thetechnoloser posted:I really enjoyed it. For Joel Shepherd's first shot at a male protagonist, it's surprisingly good. Humanity are less the bad guys in the setting and more a client race of sorts for a bunch of galactic assholes, even if the events that lead to that were out of humanity's hands. It is mentioned that humans are one of the only known races to exterminate another sapient species, but that was in self defense. It's also interesting that Shepherd is a white guy writing space opera where Caucasians are a distinct phenotypic minority. Both the main lead and female lead are both varying shades of brown, as is most of humanity after Earth got destroyed and the resulting refugees started mixing. And yeah, I too enjoyed the Cassandra Kresnov series. Mars4523 fucked around with this message at 17:26 on Sep 30, 2015 |
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Sep 30, 2015 17:22
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ive been reading the culture series by iaian m banks and have been enjoying it quite a lot
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Oct 2, 2015 07:27
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ToxicFrog posted:Ringo's Legacy of the Aldenata, where humanity is recruited by the (pacifistic) Galactic Federation as the only thing badass enough to fight off the invading Posleen. Thanks for the recommendation this really fits the bill of humanity as the bad asses, but it's even more pulpy than The Damned was. I want to murder his poo poo Mary sue characters so bad. And the cally's war bullshit is where I could not take it anymore and quit. His constant Sluggy Freelance references make me want to puke. Ringo has some seriously warped political views too. The cap of it all was his totally poo poo dues ex machina at the end of the first trilogy was about as ham handed an ending as I've ever seen. The first trilogy seemed like some sort of crazy racist perspective about how america is going to be destroyed and defeated because of all the wimps and liberals and when the Chinese and Indians finally storm our boarders after defeating the rest of the world the true men of america will rise up and defeat them with bravery and superior american technology. Washout fucked around with this message at 07:51 on Oct 2, 2015 |
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Oct 2, 2015 07:46
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Wait until you read the book he wrote with Tom Kratmann
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Oct 2, 2015 07:53
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Wait until you read the book where his self insert is a pedophilic rapist.
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Oct 2, 2015 08:05
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Wait, I think I just won't read them. Like it started to get to "Bio Of A Space Tyrant" level of bad in the 4th book before I even finished it. Although I shamefully read that whole series when I was younger. Washout fucked around with this message at 08:08 on Oct 2, 2015 |
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Oct 2, 2015 08:06
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Washout posted:seemed like some sort of crazy racist perspective 
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Oct 2, 2015 08:17
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chrisoya posted:Please read the sequel with Tom Kratman, then tell us what you think about the originals. I can blow through one of these in about 2-3 hours so I'll give one a shot and then come back here and write a tirade. edit: I made it through the first paragraph of watch on the Rhine and rolled my eyes so hard I almost hurt myself, I take back everything and I'm not going to read it. Washout fucked around with this message at 11:08 on Oct 2, 2015 |
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Oct 2, 2015 11:05
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I'm almost done with all the Culture novels, only have Matter left. Whats next in space opera?
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Oct 2, 2015 12:09
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Animal posted:I'm almost done with all the Culture novels, only have Matter left. Whats next in space opera? The Demon Princes series by Jack Vance Neal Asher's stuff, if you want a Culture knock-off. Watch on the Rhine, as discussed above, but only if you commit and post impressions. What did you like about the Culture that you'd like to read more of?
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Oct 2, 2015 12:42
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Washout posted:Thanks for the recommendation this really fits the bill of humanity as the bad asses, but it's even more pulpy than The Damned was. I want to murder his poo poo Mary sue characters so bad. And the cally's war bullshit is where I could not take it anymore and quit. His constant Sluggy Freelance references make me want to puke. Ringo has some seriously warped political views too. The cap of it all was his totally poo poo dues ex machina at the end of the first trilogy was about as ham handed an ending as I've ever seen. I didn't say they were good  I actually enjoyed them when I read them years ago, but this is largely down to me being in a mood to read about a lot of poo poo blowing up and not thinking too hard about anything else.
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Oct 2, 2015 13:14
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ToxicFrog posted:I didn't say they were good I'd recommend the first one to anyone, it's a bit ham fisted but still really cool and gives a great sense of being up against the wall but fighting back at all odds. The second book is actually pretty good too, but in the 3rd one the wheels completely come off and the sluggy freelance poo poo is the main story line and it's just ugh. Reading it is a bit like trying to reread your favorite Heinlein novels, after a while the veneer manages to come off and they are just not as good as you remembered. Washout fucked around with this message at 13:42 on Oct 2, 2015 |
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Oct 2, 2015 13:40
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I just read angles of darkness and it really surprised me with the kind of weird duality, typical 40k dreck was a bit less prevalent that in other space marine books.
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Oct 2, 2015 13:45
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Animal posted:I'm almost done with all the Culture novels, only have Matter left. Whats next in space opera? Ancillary Justice is really pretty good space opera.
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Oct 2, 2015 18:32
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General Battuta posted:Ancillary Justice is really pretty good space opera. Ehhh. Reading a space opera shouldn't be a slog, and I struggled through the first book, then gave up a few chapters into the second. The gender stuff was an interesting attempt and didn't bother me; what I struggled with was not caring about the world or the people in it. Also, it might just have been because Breq as a viewpoint character means that the story is told with a flattened affect, but Leckie's prose felt bland and flat to me.
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Oct 2, 2015 23:29
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Washout posted:I'd recommend the first one to anyone, it's a bit ham fisted but still really cool and gives a great sense of being up against the wall but fighting back at all odds. The second book is actually pretty good too, but in the 3rd one the wheels completely come off and the sluggy freelance poo poo is the main story line and it's just ugh. I also like The hero, and Eye of the Storm, which are set later in the same universe. He seems to have got one book into the new story arc and given up though.
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Oct 5, 2015 14:00
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chrisoya posted:The Dragon Never Sleeps by Glen Cook I'm gonna dis-reccomend this... I read and loved all of Cook's Black Company, but dragon never sleeps is an endless barrage of future space jargon and never has any exposition at all. It has too many plot lines and never serves any of them satisfactorily. It would have been a great duo or trilogy but as it is its kind of a slog. It does have a couple cool space battles and some of the various intrigues/scheming has payoff but it's too much work to get there for too little reward. If you liked culture you should check out Against A Dark Background and The Algebraist, both also by Banks, if you haven't. They're both one-offs and both in very different universes than the Culture, but both great.
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Oct 5, 2015 17:44
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pile of brown posted:I'm gonna dis-reccomend this... I read and loved all of Cook's Black Company, but dragon never sleeps is an endless barrage of future space jargon and never has any exposition at all. It has too many plot lines and never serves any of them satisfactorily. It would have been a great duo or trilogy but as it is its kind of a slog. It does have a couple cool space battles and some of the various intrigues/scheming has payoff but it's too much work to get there for too little reward. There is always the Known Space series/universe. Some of them are pretty bad but there is a lot of good in them. All the man-kzin wars stuff is very skippable unless you want to know where the idea for wing commander came from. Washout fucked around with this message at 01:12 on Oct 6, 2015 |
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Oct 5, 2015 23:36
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Some of the early Maz-Kzin War volumes are good. The two Nora Argamentine stories by Donald Kingsbury are both fantastic. Looking up the list on Wikipedia now, I'd say the first 7 volumes are good. Starting with Volume 8, it takes a dramatic dive for the worst as Hal Colebatch and Matthew Joseph Harrington pretty much take over the series, plus Niven starts writing more himself and they're all terrible. Speaking of which, it's also probably best to not read any of the main Known Space works written after 1980 and/or set after The Ringworld Engineers.
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Oct 6, 2015 00:06
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pile of brown posted:I'm gonna dis-reccomend this... I read and loved all of Cook's Black Company, but dragon never sleeps is an endless barrage of future space jargon and never has any exposition at all. It has too many plot lines and never serves any of them satisfactorily. It would have been a great duo or trilogy but as it is its kind of a slog. It does have a couple cool space battles and some of the various intrigues/scheming has payoff but it's too much work to get there for too little reward.  My re-recommendation will override your disreccomendation of TDNS. Dragon is a fantastic book and weaves together a living universe. Some things resolve, some don't, threads are left, threads tie off, because it's a goddamned masterpiece. It's a book about the journey with endings that can continue on because they aren't meant for that book to close. Not everybody needs a Lord of the Rings/Star Wars 'we've saved the world' party at the end to signify an end to an adventure. And sometimes exposition is fine, but you don't need it to the extent some people seem to require when the book is written well - as this one is.
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Oct 6, 2015 00:39
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It is worth keeping in mind that "The Dragon Never Sleeps" is entirely willing to just say "whoops that character died, plotline over". In a lot of ways it's more like a collection of cool bits than a complete story.
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Oct 6, 2015 05:01
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Drifter posted:
My biggest problem with TDNS is that it jumps all over the place in both time and space and you practically need to keep a notebook of all the different people, planets and governments so that you can orient yourself after each jump. I did enjoy it, but it's not an easy read.
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Oct 6, 2015 11:47
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ToxicFrog posted:My biggest problem with TDNS is that it jumps all over the place in both time and space and you practically need to keep a notebook of all the different people, planets and governments so that you can orient yourself after each jump. And a spreadsheet.
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Oct 6, 2015 13:31
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I liked TDNS a lot, and one thing that would have helped me when reading it would be to know that there isn't really a single main character, and there aren't really clearly defined good and bad sides. The whole thing is ambiguous and looks at the conflict(s) from many angles. It's like Dune mixed with Star Wars but everything is morally gray. It owns.
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Oct 6, 2015 16:54
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Prolonged Priapism posted:I liked TDNS a lot, and one thing that would have helped me when reading it would be to know that there isn't really a single main character...
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Oct 7, 2015 02:46
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chrisoya posted:Some games you play with pencils, a pad of graph paper, and a spreadsheet. Some books you read with a notepad, noticeboards and bits of red string. To be clear you are talking about David Weber right?
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Oct 7, 2015 02:59
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Chairman Capone posted:In the early Berserker stories, weren't the various human planets each specific analogues to 1500s European countries and the Berserkers analogs for the Ottomans? He did the Siege of Malta in one book, Midway in another, WW1 flying aces in one story… He had kind of a thing about using real history.
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Oct 7, 2015 03:13
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I think I'm a pretty active reader and I've read plenty of books that are "harder" than TDNS, I just didn't think he did a good job with it. Like i said i liked some elements of it and I thought it would have been an awesome trilogy but as a nonstop barrage of space jargon and characters I didn't find it very rewarding. I'll probably read it again at some point and maybe I'll like it more then. Recently read the ghost brigades and I like how it basically turned Old Man's War on its head... looking forward to reading some more books in the series.
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Oct 7, 2015 18:51
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I'm glad that between Expanse and OMW we are spoilt for space opera. Both getting movies/series. I've been reading "Sector General" and I'm getting serious Star Trek vibes. It predates star trek by a fair margin, and there is a Federation and a Starfleet with a pacifistic mandate and a rich, alien filled universe. The protagonist learns "star trek" lessons in every book, Its about a huge space station hospital. The ties that bind the alien civilizations together are medical, I really like it, love how 1950s it is. The boss of the hospital says things like "I'm hearing on the grapevine that you hate women, good, that is a good trait for a doctor."
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Oct 7, 2015 19:01
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Baloogan posted:Sector General I like Sector General, apart from the 50s misogyny. I just finished reading all four Skylark books by E E Smith. Very 30s science, predating the Standard Model, with casual racism and sexism. His 'good' character is also pretty cavalier about genociding a race, trillions and trillions of lives.
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Oct 8, 2015 00:53
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Sector General also has trained medical doctors saying things like "Salad? That is food for mere rabbits and women and the like. I will have a steak like I do for every meal!"
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Oct 8, 2015 01:10
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I just started the Culture series with Player of Games last week and finished Use of Weapons today. God drat. For some reason before I ever read any of the Culture series I never imagined it to be as dark as it is, and I love it. Should I go ahead and start Consider Phlebas or go read some other Culture novel next?
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Oct 8, 2015 01:58
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Hedrigall posted:Sector General also has trained medical doctors saying things like "Salad? That is food for mere rabbits and women and the like. I will have a steak like I do for every meal!" As a tall white straight STEM-educated all-beef well-dressed lactose-tolerant non-latte-drinking pro-gluten no-kale beef-fed beef-cake hail-satan all-natural corn-fed leaded-gasoline fully-capable scotch-drinking mainstream-christian catholic republican with-guns pro-dairy heinlein-approved extra-misogynist patriotic american male with no disabilities reading old sci fi is great.
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Oct 8, 2015 02:03
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1950s posted:Her respiration was slow and deep, that of a person either perfectly relaxed or asleep, and the things it was doing to her swimsuit was also doing things to Conway. He thought suddenly that if she was telepathic at this moment she would be up and running for dear life . . .
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Oct 8, 2015 03:32
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