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So apparently Peter Watts has been working on a Person of Interest tie-in novel. I, for one, am pretty goddamned excited about that. http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=6409
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Jan 5, 2016 23:57
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So Daniel Suarez's Daemon/Freedom is not that well written, but a fun read. Anything else similar to it, except maybe more well written?
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Jan 6, 2016 00:36
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xian posted:So Daniel Suarez's Daemon/Freedom is not that well written, but a fun read. Anything else similar to it, except maybe more well written? Linda Nagata's Red trilogy.
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Jan 6, 2016 00:38
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freebooter posted:Wear sunglasses you dork Toughen up your retinas, you pansy.
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Jan 6, 2016 00:46
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thanks!
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Jan 6, 2016 01:02
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I finished Ubik the other day and found it profoundly disturbing on a personal level. It is a good book, but it span me out proper. What unsettled me is the confusion which the situation causes. Nothing is real. I have a fear of losing my mental capacity and it made me think of all my patients with Alzheimer's disease.
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Jan 6, 2016 13:49
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GODS NOT REAL posted:I finished Ubik the other day and found it profoundly disturbing on a personal level. It is a good book, but it span me out proper. What unsettled me is the confusion which the situation causes. Nothing is real. I have a fear of losing my mental capacity and it made me think of all my patients with Alzheimer's disease. Dick.txt. Welcome to a book by a decidedly unhappy paranoid schizophrenic.
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Jan 6, 2016 13:51
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Last night I wrapped up (more like gave up) on The Dragon Never Sleeps by Glen Cook. What an absolutely confusing, messy novel. I had such a difficult time keeping the plot in order outside of the broad details. Characters were vaguely defined at best along with unclear motivations. I never once felt like I had a solid grasp of what was going on. Not to say that there wasn't anything positive. The idea of these millennia old guardships patrolling controlled space was very cool. Each ship had it's own personality. Space combat stuff was cool. That was really it. If this book was indicative of Cook's style, I'll be sure to skip whatever else he's done. Very frustrating.
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Jan 6, 2016 16:42
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I didn't fully enjoy The Dragon Never Sleeps either. What annoyed me was that you have this great setting like you said with these millennia old warships - and then the book does things like specifically describe all the colonies as identical prefabs right down to having the same district names. I found it impossible to care about the rebellions or power struggles when everyone involved fell kind of flat and when the society they lived in felt so completely lifeless/without wonder.
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Jan 6, 2016 17:49
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Just finished A Darkling Sea which got recommended in here a few pages book. The setting was well-developed and cool as hell, and I loved the aliens. It scratched a Vinge-esque itch for aliens that are significantly alien, and I really enjoyed all the various reasons for confusion/misunderstanding between species. The ending felt sort of rushed to me, though. Like the book had been taking its time and the author suddenly remembered he had to finish it by the end of the day or else. Still, a good read with neat science and cool aliens who I grew real fond of.
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Jan 6, 2016 20:56
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I finished reading The Mechanical yesterday and thought it was a fairly strong book that loses it at the end. Instead of a satisfying conclusion it was just a bunch of sequel hooks. Also, maybe it's just me but I really don't care about the whole war between New France and the Dutch Empire. It didn't feel like there was a good reason to root for New France.
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Jan 6, 2016 22:13
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A Tin Of Beans posted:Just finished A Darkling Sea which got recommended in here a few pages book. The setting was well-developed and cool as hell, and I loved the aliens. Compared to something like Children of Time or indeed Vinge (or even Dragon's Egg), I think Cambias' book is a bit too self-contained, though his Aliens are indeed hella cool. Just this week I finished both CoT and Ken Macleod's Learning the World, and they made me come pretty close to being as awed as when first reading Deepness in the Sky. Both are a bit sprawly, and the endings might seem a bit pat in too harsh a light, but hey it's the new year and I'm feeling magnanimous, so... A recommendation for both books if there's any people out there who want cool first contact space opera with 'hard' sci-fi trappings and charming aliens.
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Jan 6, 2016 22:34
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I started Lord Of Light by Roger Zelazny today. Looking forward to it, as I've heard nothing but praise.
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Jan 6, 2016 22:36
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GODS NOT REAL posted:I finished Ubik the other day and found it profoundly disturbing on a personal level. It is a good book, but it span me out proper. What unsettled me is the confusion which the situation causes. Nothing is real. I have a fear of losing my mental capacity and it made me think of all my patients with Alzheimer's disease. The most creepy read ever for me was from revisiting Kafka shorts while riding a nasty flu, but that was mostly uh, because of it blending into fever hallucinations, ugh. I had a similar experience with Ubik; the book that left me feeling truly unmoored was Sartre's Nausea, which I read (on recommendation by an ex) while spinning my wheels and recovering from injury in the isolation of a place I'd moved back to, after a long absence. The circular dialogue, the strangely compelling repetition, the weird rank sense of failure and confusion really bled over into me and I felt completely flayed afterwards; something I'd never really expected from reading a book. So, if you're having any kind of existential struggles, you are nicely primed by Ubik and ready to go for Nausea!
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Jan 7, 2016 02:38
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I just finished Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds and I really enjoyed it, I also read through a lot of stuff by Peter Watts this year. Any recommendations?
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Jan 7, 2016 03:31
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holocaust bloopers posted:Last night I wrapped up (more like gave up) on The Dragon Never Sleeps by Glen Cook. What an absolutely confusing, messy novel. I had such a difficult time keeping the plot in order outside of the broad details. Characters were vaguely defined at best along with unclear motivations. I never once felt like I had a solid grasp of what was going on. Stylistically, The Dragon Never Sleeps is very similar to his Dread Empire books. I enjoyed TDNS but probably wouldn't recommend it; I barely got through the first Dread Empire book and definitely wouldn't recommend it. In contrast, the Black Company books are much more straightforward, as is Passage at Arms. I enjoyed those a lot more. The Starfishers and Darkwar trilogies are somewhere in between. And the Garrett, PI books are wildly different. Based on which parts of Dragon you called out as disliking (or liking), you should probably check out Passage at Arms and avoid the poo poo out of the Dread Empire books.
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Jan 7, 2016 03:37
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Elderbean posted:I just finished Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds and I really enjoyed it, I also read through a lot of stuff by Peter Watts this year. Any recommendations? Have you already read all the other Alastair Reynolds space opera books?
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Jan 7, 2016 16:49
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ToxicFrog posted:Stylistically, The Dragon Never Sleeps is very similar to his Dread Empire books. I enjoyed TDNS but probably wouldn't recommend it; I barely got through the first Dread Empire book and definitely wouldn't recommend it. Cool. Appreciate the info.
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Jan 7, 2016 18:28
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I've been reading (and generally enjoying) The Expanse series, but there is one thing that absolutely drives me in-freaking-sane. The word 'companionable.' It pops up in the most needless places, the authors use waaaay too much, it's in every book, and at this point, every time I read it, it takes me right out of the story. '...companionable silence...' '...companionable sips of beer...' '...throwing one companionable arm around Basia's shoulders...' '... companionably on the head...' '...Miller couldn't decide if it was companionable or awkward...' '...in companionable good cheer...' Argh. tonytheshoes fucked around with this message at 20:42 on Jan 7, 2016 |
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Jan 7, 2016 19:51
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I've always wanted to shamelessly overuse a phrase, then reveal it's a hypnotic trigger in plain sight. We could even put it on the jacket copy! "Would you kindly buy my book"
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Jan 7, 2016 20:31
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Wet leopard growl
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Jan 7, 2016 20:38
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fnord
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Jan 7, 2016 20:40
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angel opportunity gave a start
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Jan 7, 2016 21:02
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But have you heard about chitinous good people?
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Jan 7, 2016 21:05
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It was the easiest thing in the world
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Jan 7, 2016 21:11
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"Squamous" is a post-hypnotic trigger that makes nerds overlook Lovecraft's frothing racism and third-rate prose and pretend his books are worth anything.
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Jan 7, 2016 21:41
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enzyme-bonded concrete
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Jan 7, 2016 21:58
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General Battuta posted:I've always wanted to shamelessly overuse a phrase, then reveal it's a hypnotic trigger in plain sight. We could even put it on the jacket copy! "Would you kindly buy my book" You just need everyone to constantly talk about it. That's what got me to buy the book, nobody ever shutting up about it.
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Jan 7, 2016 22:44
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Words are wind.
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Jan 7, 2016 23:41
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General Battuta posted:Words are wind. We're just meat flapping its meat at other meat.
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Jan 8, 2016 00:49
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savinhill posted:Have you already read all the other Alastair Reynolds space opera books? I'm working my way through House of Suns but I haven't looked at the others.
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Jan 8, 2016 01:40
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Chasm City and the Prefect are both really cool stand-alones also.
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Jan 8, 2016 04:05
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i go back and forth on chasm city, without getting too spoilery the protagonist really shouldn't be such a loving chump. I think that's a weakness of alastair reynolds simply not being great at writing ruthless, calculating, manipulative people. The prefect is pretty good although considering that the glitter band is the height of human technological advancement ever, basically, it was kind of lolworthy that the space cops central data server was so weird and clunky. andrew smash fucked around with this message at 06:37 on Jan 8, 2016 |
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Jan 8, 2016 06:35
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andrew smash posted:i go back and forth on chasm city, without getting too spoilery the protagonist really shouldn't be such a loving chump. I think that's a weakness of alastair reynolds simply not being great at writing ruthless, calculating, manipulative people. More like he can't write a decent ending.
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Jan 8, 2016 07:12
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I'm catching up on being out of the loop on modern fiction for the past ~4 years. After reading Traitor Baru recently I would easily recommend it as must read Fantasy. What other scifi/fantasy/horror novels would you say are must reads from the past few years E: The Goblin Emperor and The Ocean At the End of the Lane were also two recent greats that I read. goodness fucked around with this message at 08:28 on Jan 8, 2016 |
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Jan 8, 2016 07:38
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goodness posted:I'm catching up on being out of the loop on modern fiction for the past ~4 years. After reading Traitor Baru recently I would easily recommend it as must read Fantasy. What other scifi/fantasy/horror novels would you say are must reads from the past few years Read the first book of the Southern Reach trilogy. It works as a standalone, though leaves many unanswered questions. I haven't read the sequels yet so I can't speak to their quality. It's all three of those genres, a short quick read, and very engrossing.
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Jan 8, 2016 08:04
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edit: oops
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Jan 8, 2016 14:03
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blue squares posted:Read the first book of the Southern Reach trilogy. It works as a standalone, though leaves many unanswered questions. I haven't read the sequels yet so I can't speak to their quality. It's all three of those genres, a short quick read, and very engrossing. I thought Annihilation was good and works well as a standalone. Authority was OK but I didn't somehow couldn't really get into it. The office intriguing is decent and the horror bits are fine, but I didn't find Control that compelling a protagonist and somehow it fell a bit flat for me. It picks up a fair bit towards the end when (minor plot spoiler) Control sets out after the Biologist though. How's the third one? I keep meaning to get around to it just for completeness but at the moment it's way down the reading list.
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Jan 8, 2016 14:19
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It's good. Explains some things, raises some questions, gets some closure. It just feels like he'd write a fourth book at some point.
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Jan 8, 2016 14:37
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General Battuta posted:I've always wanted to shamelessly overuse a phrase, then reveal it's a hypnotic trigger in plain sight. We could even put it on the jacket copy! "Would you kindly buy my book" I remember reading the Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice and I had to stop half-way because every other page seemed to have "preternatural" worked in somehow.
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Jan 8, 2016 14:47
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