|
[edit] wrong thread
tonytheshoes fucked around with this message at 21:51 on Jan 7, 2016 |
#
?
Jan 6, 2016 06:48
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 11, 2024 05:23 |
|
|
kalleth posted:I've been reading the Seafort Saga recently by David Feintuch. On the face of it, they're pretty standard milsf, but oh God I hate the protagonist. Well, it's a great series, that's why. And as you found out, it's also hard to stomach. I keep rolling my eyes at David Feintuch's ideas of how a future society will turn out, but I still enjoyed it. On Seafort, I like that old rear end in a top hat. Too bad for him he lives in a society were healing mental illnesses is stigmatized, because holy gently caress that guy needed therapy for his clinical depression at least twice.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2016 12:43
|
|
|
For a while, Reynolds was writing Conjoiner short stories with the adventures of Nevil Clavain, starting on Mars and going throughout the galaxy--have these ever been collected into an omnibus edition? I think I've got copies of most of them in various "Year's Best SF" collections, but that's a lot of page to wander through. (His short stories are good, I really like "Diamond Dogs" a lot.)
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2016 02:57
|
|
|
Libluini posted:Well, it's a great series, that's why. And as you found out, it's also hard to stomach. I keep rolling my eyes at David Feintuch's ideas of how a future society will turn out, but I still enjoyed it. On Seafort, I like that old rear end in a top hat. Too bad for him he lives in a society were healing mental illnesses is stigmatized, because holy gently caress that guy needed therapy for his clinical depression at least twice. I only read the first two. I decided I didn't need to read any more. Not sure if it's Feintuch being weird as hell about women or it's intentional that Seafort/his society is, but I tossed it into the same bin as Honor Harrington: Age of Sail epics in space sound like a good idea, but I've yet to see one that's well written and not very weird about women characters.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2016 04:38
|
|
|
Cythereal posted:I only read the first two. I decided I didn't need to read any more. Not sure if it's Feintuch being weird as hell about women or it's intentional that Seafort/his society is, but I tossed it into the same bin as Honor Harrington: Age of Sail epics in space sound like a good idea, but I've yet to see one that's well written and not very weird about women characters. Where do you get him being weird about women? The longer the series goes on, the more women-characters show up. And his navy is rather egalitarian: They see no difference between man and women, they even have to live in the same rooms together.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2016 12:26
|
|
|
Jet Jaguar posted:For a while, Reynolds was writing Conjoiner short stories with the adventures of Nevil Clavain, starting on Mars and going throughout the galaxy--have these ever been collected into an omnibus edition? I think I've got copies of most of them in various "Year's Best SF" collections, but that's a lot of page to wander through. (His short stories are good, I really like "Diamond Dogs" a lot.) Sorry to say, there's only two Clavain stories: "Great Wall of Mars" and "Glacial". In fact this is the full list of Revelation Space short stories and novellas: "Great Wall of Mars" "Glacial" "Weather" "Grafenwalder's Bestiary" "Nightingale" "Dilation Sleep" "A Spy In Europa" "Galactic North" "Diamond Dogs" "Turquoise Days" "Monkey Suit" "The Last Log of the Lachrimosa" The first 8 are in the collection Galactic North; the next two are in the collection Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days; "Monkey Suit" is in Deep Navigation; and "The Last Log..." is available for free on the Subterranean Press website (and is one of his best short stories). Along with the 5 novels, that's the extent of the Revelation Space universe (until he writes more). Now, you might be thinking of the unrelated Merlin trilogy of stories: "Hideaway", "Minla's Flowers", and "Merlin's Gun". These are all in the collection Zima Blue. They're totally awesome. Reynolds himself has described them as "Revelation Space turned up to eleven".
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2016 13:05
|
|
|
Was it Alastair Reynolds who had that short story about the guy who fought from the low ranks to be a general in some future war that nobody remembers what is about? Really sending up how absurd milsf can be and/or is necessarily depending on your perspective.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2016 20:37
|
|
|
Scales? It's more flash fiction than a short but yeah, absurd kinda covers it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2016 21:55
|
|
|
Koesj posted:Scales? It's more flash fiction than a short but yeah, absurd kinda covers it. I have no idea what I just read.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2016 23:40
|
|
|
The soldiers they sent out have twisted themselves around so much trying to be better fighters that they forget that they're humans, and become the enemy that they were sent out to fight in the first place.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2016 02:16
|
|
|
Weird, I wonder why I thought there were more Conjoiner stories than just those two... I will have to take a look at the Zima Blue stuff, I'm pretty sure I have that laying around somewhere. A friend of mine has a long plane flight ahead and was looking for something to read during it. I suggested maybe going back and rereading some Culture novels. I'm reading through the Expanse books right now, the third book really needed more Chrisjen Avasarala in it. I think he may have read those already.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2016 06:24
|
|
|
Koesj posted:Scales? It's more flash fiction than a short but yeah, absurd kinda covers it. Yesss, so good.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2016 18:35
|
|
|
After having heard about it for years, I finally finished reading Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow. A great book on first contact, if you like that topic then absolutely should read it. I only now realized there's a sequel, I might try to get to it soon, but really it made me interested in going back to Wayne Barlowe's Expedition.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2016 20:01
|
|
|
Chairman Capone posted:After having heard about it for years, I finally finished reading Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow. A great book on first contact, if you like that topic then absolutely should read it. I only now realized there's a sequel, I might try to get to it soon, but really it made me interested in going back to Wayne Barlowe's Expedition. Man, Expedition is a gorgeous book. Unfortunately, half the pages are falling out of mine; it seemed to have real lovely binding.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2016 20:34
|
|
|
Miss-Bomarc posted:The soldiers they sent out have twisted themselves around so much trying to be better fighters that they forget that they're humans, and become the enemy that they were sent out to fight in the first place.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2016 22:12
|
|
|
Chairman Capone posted:After having heard about it for years, I finally finished reading Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow. A great book on first contact, if you like that topic then absolutely should read it. I only now realized there's a sequel, I might try to get to it soon, but really it made me interested in going back to Wayne Barlowe's Expedition. The wife and I read The Sparrow and the sequel and really liked both. In addition to being good stories, they're a really interesting exploration of what religious faith requires in a universe that seems indifferent to suffering at best. The funny thing is that neither she nor I are religious and we loved them, and my mother (who is a minister) loved them every bit as much if not more.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2016 22:13
|
|
|
Yeah, I'm not religious at all, and I found a lot of the religious themes it presented to be quite interesting (even if at the same time I kind of wanted to just yell at Emilio at a few points).
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2016 22:38
|
|
|
I'm not religious at all, and I hated that book.
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2016 03:28
|
|
|
Has anyone read The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers? I usually have a rule against self published books, but she got picked up by HarperCollins for the ebook release and while not a ton happened in it I enjoyed it more than probably any other scifi release of the last year.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2016 04:27
|
|
|
Mrfreezewarning posted:Has anyone read The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers? I usually have a rule against self published books, but she got picked up by HarperCollins for the ebook release and while not a ton happened in it I enjoyed it more than probably any other scifi release of the last year. I bought it for my Kindle after hearing good things about it, but haven't gotten around to reading it yet. It'll probably be something I'll try and get through in 2016, though.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2016 05:09
|
|
|
Yeah I really liked it. Listening again on audiobook. It's far from hard-SF, kind of a mishmash of the best of recent space TV shows (Firefly, Farscape etc) in book form.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2016 05:11
|
|
|
I kept going "AS IF" in my head reading that book. It was pretty fun, I guess, but I can't bring myself to recommend it, and I did find the frankly unrealistic and implausible plot/universe detracted quite a lot, personally.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2016 05:58
|
|
|
Yeah, it was pleasant popcorn, but very much popcorn. Like a popcorn jellybean.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2016 08:55
|
|
|
Mrfreezewarning posted:Has anyone read The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers? I usually have a rule against self published books, but she got picked up by HarperCollins for the ebook release and while not a ton happened in it I enjoyed it more than probably any other scifi release of the last year. It's a pretty fun book to read, but I felt like a lot of it was inspired by Mass Effect (almost a little too much).
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2016 20:42
|
|
|
Probably surprising no one, David Weber's latest, The road to hell, was pretty terrible. I generally like Weber, but I dislike this series - I got the new book as I had nothing else to read for a long train trip. Long story short, basically nothing happens in the entire book and he also made the bold choice not to reiterate any of the previous story (the previous book came out 9 years ago) so I had very little idea of who anyone was or why they were doing the little they did.
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2016 13:35
|
|
|
pork never goes bad posted:I kept going "AS IF" in my head reading that book. It was pretty fun, I guess, but I can't bring myself to recommend it, and I did find the frankly unrealistic and implausible plot/universe detracted quite a lot, personally. I don't think it is a instant classic or anything but what about the world struck you as any more unrealistic than your average space opera? I liked the transportation angle, the use of wormholes and small disposable crafts to get small amounts of cargo around (the mail, a single person), and it didn't wand wave away relativity and actually talked about subFTL travel being horribly inefficient. Some of the talk about gender seemed to be tumblrriffic but not unrealistic. I'm not arguing with you, just curious.
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2016 19:53
|
|
|
Altered Carbon is becoming a Netflix series... http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-classic-cyberpunk-novel-altered-carbon-is-becoming-1754048539
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2016 20:47
|
|
|
Hughlander posted:Altered Carbon is becoming a Netflix series... http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-classic-cyberpunk-novel-altered-carbon-is-becoming-1754048539 I am ready for this.
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2016 20:55
|
|
|
Darkrenown posted:Probably surprising no one, David Weber's latest, The road to hell, was pretty terrible. I generally like Weber, but I dislike this series - I got the new book as I had nothing else to read for a long train trip. Long story short, basically nothing happens in the entire book and he also made the bold choice not to reiterate any of the previous story (the previous book came out 9 years ago) so I had very little idea of who anyone was or why they were doing the little they did. Oh he finally wrote a third Hell's Gate book? I'll probably read it anyway, Weber is apparently a big blind spot for me.
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2016 22:06
|
|
|
Hughlander posted:Altered Carbon is becoming a Netflix series... http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-classic-cyberpunk-novel-altered-carbon-is-becoming-1754048539 I hope they make it to the second book so they can include the weird virtual sex scene that creeped out even the creepiest of sci-fi nerd readers.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2016 01:54
|
|
|
Virigoth posted:I hope they make it to the second book so they can include the weird virtual sex scene that creeped out even the creepiest of sci-fi nerd readers. I didn't make it to the second book. Please elaborate 
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2016 01:56
|
|
|
Hedrigall posted:I didn't make it to the second book. Please elaborate They rent some virtual machines after virtually torturing someone and have weird sex. quote:Lick me, she said, with sudden urgency. I went down on one knee and pressed my face into the crease, spearing forward with my tongue, working at the tight whorl of closed sphincter. It gets weirder from there for about 10 pages
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2016 02:28
|
|
|
That article made this book I've never heard of sound like an amazing cyberpunk/post-cyberpunk novel, but some of these posts seem to indicate otherwise? I'm confused, is it indeed "brilliant" as the article says, or no?
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2016 11:33
|
|
|
Longbaugh01 posted:That article made this book I've never heard of sound like an amazing cyberpunk/post-cyberpunk novel, but some of these posts seem to indicate otherwise? I'm confused, is it indeed "brilliant" as the article says, or no? Some people don't get on with it, but it's a standard recommendation in the Sci-Fi thread. I loved it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2016 12:14
|
|
|
It won my heart when the hotel lobby blew a guy into hamburger with a chain gun.
|
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2016 14:30
|
|
|
Altered Carbon is really good. The sequels not so much. Market Forces from the same author is not really space opera, but it did make me depressed for about a month so I thoroughly recommend it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2016 14:55
|
|
|
Biomute posted:Altered Carbon is really good. The sequels not so much. Market Forces is absolutely bonkers. I've read it about 5 times now and it never gets old.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2016 16:29
|
|
|
Black Man aka Thirteen is also very good, and has some very weird and unpleasant bits. But overall, I liked the fast pacing and the twisted universe in which it happens. It's also a mystery novel wrapped in a SF setting, the same as Altered Carbon.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2016 17:18
|
|
|
Longbaugh01 posted:That article made this book I've never heard of sound like an amazing cyberpunk/post-cyberpunk novel, but some of these posts seem to indicate otherwise? I'm confused, is it indeed "brilliant" as the article says, or no? Altered Carbon was really good. I enjoyed the series as a whole even though I like to make fun of it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2016 18:56
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 11, 2024 05:23 |
|
|
Virigoth posted:Altered Carbon was really good. I enjoyed the series as a whole even though I like to make fun of it. This. It's like the Neuromancer Trilogy but written by somebody with a much better eye for action and plot than Gibson had at the time (though a lot less mind-breaking concepts are introduced in AC than in Gibson's first works). Morgan is really good at the action bits, really good at creeping people out with the sex bits, damned solid at world-building... I thoroughly enjoyed all three of them, though one can certainly make fun of small bits here and there.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2016 21:13
|
|
