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The sex is written as luridly, outlandishly, and specifically as the violence, which makes it, I guess, kind of an interesting test for double standards. I mean the sex is really silly, spectacularly silly, but it's not any more goony than the shootouts. I'd still rather get caught reading one of the gunfights than one of the sex scenes.
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Jan 21, 2016 21:20
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General Battuta posted:The sex is written as luridly, outlandishly, and specifically as the violence, which makes it, I guess, kind of an interesting test for double standards. I mean the sex is really silly, spectacularly silly, but it's not any more goony than the shootouts. I got caught listening to one of the weird human/elf super graphic gay sex scenes from his fantasy series when I had the audiobook on when I was laying down for a nap.
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Jan 21, 2016 21:40
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savinhill posted:I got caught listening to one of the weird human/elf super graphic gay sex scenes from his fantasy series when I had the audiobook on when I was laying down for a nap. Let me answer some questions you might have: that was called an erection, and it's a perfectly normal thing that happens to all young men.
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Jan 21, 2016 22:45
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Isn't he the guy who said "the sex I write is the sex I have"? If true I suppose it might put him ahead of Peter F Hamilton and the like.
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Jan 21, 2016 23:46
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General Battuta posted:The sex is written as luridly, outlandishly, and specifically as the violence, which makes it, I guess, kind of an interesting test for double standards. I mean the sex is really silly, spectacularly silly, but it's not any more goony than the shootouts. Another sort of interesting double-standard test is opinions on the straight sex in the Kovacs books and the equally explicity gay sex in the Land Meant For Heroes books.
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Jan 22, 2016 00:41
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Hedrigall posted:Let me answer some questions you might have: that was called an erection, and it's a perfectly normal thing that happens to all young men. Dude, you got it all wrong, I haven't been able to call myself "young" for a very long time now
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Jan 22, 2016 00:51
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Khizan posted:Another sort of interesting double-standard test is opinions on the straight sex in the Kovacs books and the equally explicity gay sex in the Land Meant For Heroes books. I respect him a lot for that!
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Jan 22, 2016 00:55
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Hedrigall posted:I didn't make it to the second book. Please elaborate gohmak fucked around with this message at 03:47 on Jan 22, 2016 |
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Jan 22, 2016 03:44
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Oh god, there was some of that, wasn't there? I have rescued you. It's no wonder you want to have sex with me.
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Jan 22, 2016 04:48
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gohmak posted:It's been a while but I kind of remember Kovacs having sex with a male character that prefers woman's sleeve in a VR setting that allowed each other to make instantaneous cosmetic alterations to their partner at a touch while loving. or was it the rape her to save her therapy part? To be fair about that spoiler (from Broken Angels), the woman is explicitly manipulating Kovacs. Kovacs thinks she's in shock because she was in a labor camp or some such, but it's actually because she murdered a bunch of her colleagues in cold blood. She needs Kovacs help and believes sleeping with him (in virtual) will help keep him from asking too many questions.
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Jan 22, 2016 19:29
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Between Star Wars and The Martian I'm in the mood for some space stuff. Checked the first few pages of the thread and will probably be getting Relevation Space; but while I'm combing through the rest of the rather extensive thread, I thought I'd ask for recommendations. I'm closer to Star Wars/Mass Effect "mood" than something like Asimov or Dune for the moment, so something like: Space Stuff that Ed likes: Mass Effect The Dig Star Wars Brandon Sanderson's Firstborn Space Stuff that Ed dislikes: Space Racism Space Eugenics (these two seem to be a recurring theme with some authors from what I see in the thread) Asimov Dune
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Jan 22, 2016 21:33
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Evan Currie's 'On Silver Wings' books are the first thing that popped into my head when you mentioned wanting 'Mass Effect-ey' sci-fi. The protagonist is a space marine and basically Commander Shepard. He has another series, 'Odyssey One' which is more naval/ship centered but goes into even weirder/grander stuff.
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Jan 22, 2016 21:39
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Edmond Dantes posted:Between Star Wars and The Martian I'm in the mood for some space stuff. Checked the first few pages of the thread and will probably be getting Relevation Space; but while I'm combing through the rest of the rather extensive thread, I thought I'd ask for recommendations. The Icarus Hunt by Timothy Zahn. Stand alone novel written by one of the better Star Wars EU authors but his own unique galaxy. Leviathan Wakes, yeah some people love it, some hate it but it would tick the Star Wars/Mass Effect box. The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold. It's the third chronologically in the Vorkosigan Saga but worked well as an entry point.
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Jan 22, 2016 21:52
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ltr posted:The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold. It's the third chronologically in the Vorkosigan Saga but worked well as an entry point. The Vorkosigan stuff is great but I'm not sure I'd consider it to fit the 'mood' Edmond Dantes is looking for. Still a highly recommended read, it's just not very 'actiony', even in the more action oriented books (like The Warrior's Apprentice).
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Jan 22, 2016 21:56
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WarLocke posted:The Vorkosigan stuff is great but I'm not sure I'd consider it to fit the 'mood' Edmond Dantes is looking for. Yeah, I was boarderline on adding it, but after looking through some of the bad space related stuff I read last year, it stood out as one of better things I read.
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Jan 22, 2016 22:04
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WarLocke posted:Evan Currie's 'On Silver Wings' books are the first thing that popped into my head when you mentioned wanting 'Mass Effect-ey' sci-fi. The protagonist is a space marine and basically Commander Shepard. ltr posted:The Icarus Hunt by Timothy Zahn. Stand alone novel written by one of the better Star Wars EU authors but his own unique galaxy. Yeah, I know Zahn, I was about to make a comment on the post forestalling Star Wars UE recommendations since I already read Thrawn Trilogy and the rest is crap but forgot.  WarLocke posted:The Vorkosigan stuff is great but I'm not sure I'd consider it to fit the 'mood' Edmond Dantes is looking for. I don't mind lack of action in general, so I'll add them to my to-read list alongside Zahn's stuff; right now I'm looking for something "adventury" so I think NotFemShep's adventures do the trick. Cheers! (if anyone has more suggestions I'd love to read them).
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Jan 22, 2016 22:19
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Edmond Dantes posted:(if anyone has more suggestions I'd love to read them). I'm going to throw out a couple names that get a lot of bad press (not all of which is undeserved) but that write fun books. David Weber's Honor Harrington books are basically a modern Horatio Hornblower (but in SPAAAACE), not nearly of the quality of some other mentions so far (like the Vorkosigan books), but you can get most of the main series in ebook form for free from the publisher itself. Most of the books aren't very action-packed in the personal sense, although there's a lot of space navy battle stuff. Weber teamed up with Steve White to write the Starfire books, which have a paper-thin plot (fitting, since they're an adaptation of a tabletop war game) but lots of action and explosions if you want more than that. John Ringo's Legacy of the Aldenata books are basically a story of what happens when a bunch of pacifistic aliens try to enlist humanity as a firebreak against a huge Zerg-like horde of rapacious other aliens. This one is much more action-ey, featuring hoo-ah marines in power armor versus hordes of aliens and other such silly and awesome type stuff. Be warned that Ringo is kind of an 'iffy' writer, he tends to insert some awkward pandering and borderline-offensive stuff (though this series isn't his worst; just do not read the Paladin of Shadows/Ghost books). Ringo also wrote the Troy Rising books which are pretty loving awesome. The first one is kind of a laissez-faire capitalism thing where the protagonist makes a glorified Sun-powered death star laser and the sequels focus on the kilometers-long asteroid battle station (the eponymous Troy) guarding the gates of the solar system from alien invaders.
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Jan 22, 2016 22:37
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WarLocke posted:John Ringo's Legacy of the Aldenata books are basically a story of what happens when a bunch of pacifistic aliens try to enlist humanity as a firebreak against a huge Zerg-like horde of rapacious other aliens. This one is much more action-ey, featuring hoo-ah marines in power armor versus hordes of aliens and other such silly and awesome type stuff. Be warned that Ringo is kind of an 'iffy' writer, he tends to insert some awkward pandering and borderline-offensive stuff (though this series isn't his worst; just do not read the Paladin of Shadows/Ghost books).  Do not read Watch on the Rhine, a novel in this series by John Ringo and Tom Kratman.
90s Cringe Rock fucked around with this message at 23:17 on Jan 22, 2016 |
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Jan 22, 2016 23:14
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Edmond Dantes posted:Between Star Wars and The Martian I'm in the mood for some space stuff. Checked the first few pages of the thread and will probably be getting Relevation Space; but while I'm combing through the rest of the rather extensive thread, I thought I'd ask for recommendations. For more recent works I'd suggest Saturn's Children and Neptune's Brood by Charles Stross, and the Virga series and Lockstep by Karl Schroeder.
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Jan 22, 2016 23:24
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Edmond Dantes posted:Between Star Wars and The Martian I'm in the mood for some space stuff. Checked the first few pages of the thread and will probably be getting Relevation Space; but while I'm combing through the rest of the rather extensive thread, I thought I'd ask for recommendations. Someone already suggested "Leviathan Wakes", the first novel in The Expanse series. Take a look at that one, and if you get into it, go for the second one (Calibans War), which is usually regarded as the best one in the series. Three is awful, opinions are divided on four (tending to fall into the awful side), and five is quite good again. Edit: on a second thought, the "belter" (as in "inhabitant of the asteroid belt") stuff in the Expanse could fall into that "space racism" thing. Edit2: vvv Then you'll be fine. Amberskin fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Jan 23, 2016 |
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Jan 22, 2016 23:52
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I took "space racism" to mean the author being racist, not that characters couldn't be racist.
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Jan 23, 2016 00:09
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Thanks to all for the recommendations, I'll read some synopses and reviews and see what catches my eye.Chairman Capone posted:For more recent works I'd suggest Saturn's Children and Neptune's Brood by Charles Stross, and the Virga series and Lockstep by Karl Schroeder. Amberskin posted:Edit: on a second thought, the "belter" (as in "inhabitant of the asteroid belt") stuff in the Expanse could fall into that "space racism" thing. Antti posted:I took "space racism" to mean the author being racist, not that characters couldn't be racist.
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Jan 23, 2016 00:16
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Edmond Dantes posted:Yeah, I know Zahn, I was about to make a comment on the post forestalling Star Wars UE recommendations since I already read Thrawn Trilogy and the rest is crap but forgot. The Icarus Hunt is by Zahn, but it's not SWEU -- most of his work is original. It's also fun as hell. I'd also recommend the Conquerors trilogy, also by Zahn.
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Jan 23, 2016 03:01
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Zahn's best sci-fi is probably Manta's Gift.
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Jan 23, 2016 03:18
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ToxicFrog posted:The Icarus Hunt is by Zahn, but it's not SWEU -- most of his work is original. It's also fun as hell. Oh, no, what I meant was that I know Zahn is good because I read Thrawn, and since I already read it SWEU recommendations would be no good since Thrawn is the only good thing to come out of there.
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Jan 23, 2016 03:41
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xPanda posted:Isn't he the guy who said "the sex I write is the sex I have"? If true I suppose it might put him ahead of Peter F Hamilton and the like. Similarly, but more disturbing, the stuff in the torture scene is all taken from Amnesty International reports.
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Jan 23, 2016 16:14
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Zahn's Conqueror's trilogy is pretty good. He spends a lot of time with the aliens and their society, which is always nice.
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Jan 23, 2016 20:50
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I don't think I ever finished the Revelation Space books because I remember being told the last one really poo poo the bed. Is that true?
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Jan 23, 2016 21:34
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pugnax posted:I don't think I ever finished the Revelation Space books because I remember being told the last one really poo poo the bed. Is that true? If you are thinking about "Absolution Gap", it is not at level with the other two books in the story arc (Revelation Space and Redemption Ark), but I would not say it is poo poo. Its definitely the weakest of the series, but it is still readable.
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Jan 23, 2016 22:22
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chrisoya posted:
Yeah, all of the side stuff is iffy (the Cally's War stuff is ripe with PTSD, general gently caress-uped-ness, and there's that weird undercover coerced bondage sex right at the beginning of the first book), but WotR is the worst of them. Ringo is a weird author; I'm almost convinced that he's not a freak himself (or if he is, he can control it) because some of his series are really hosed up and others are almost normal in comparison. It's like he's trying to write for completely different audiences. Kratman though (who 'co-wrote' WotR) can just gently caress off however.
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Jan 23, 2016 22:44
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Amberskin posted:If you are thinking about "Absolution Gap", it is not at level with the other two books in the story arc (Revelation Space and Redemption Ark), but I would not say it is poo poo. Its definitely the weakest of the series, but it is still readable. It's pretty bad. It's the rare book that retroactively makes the earlier books worse, like Endymion. Reynolds spends books one and two creating an amazing hard-ish science fiction setting with a bunch of cool mysteries, and answers many of them very poorly in Absolution Gap. He also randomly shits all over the hard Sci-fi rules he'd earlier established without much explanation.
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Jan 24, 2016 01:48
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Velius posted:It's pretty bad. It's the rare book that retroactively makes the earlier books worse, like Endymion. Reynolds spends books one and two creating an amazing hard-ish science fiction setting with a bunch of cool mysteries, and answers many of them very poorly in Absolution Gap. He also randomly shits all over the hard Sci-fi rules he'd earlier established without much explanation. This is what I've heard from a few people and why I've never read it. I really like a lot of his other books (both in and out of that world). At this point I'd probably want to reread the first two anyway. Sort of space opera-YA-ish but has anybody read the Red Rising books? It really scratches all my itches for military scifi with a school for badass youngsters and noble houses slugging it out for control of the solar system.
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Jan 24, 2016 03:10
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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 enjoyable enough, not deep and pretty pulpy though.
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Jan 24, 2016 04:32
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Long Way to a Small Planet's a really fun book. It hits some emotional points and is mostly has an attitude not unlike Indiana Jones or Firefly or something. It's got a nice group story. I enjoyed the hell out of it and will definitely read the forthcoming sequel. It's not Also sprach Zarathustra or anything, but not every book has to be.pugnax posted:Sort of space opera-YA-ish but has anybody read the Red Rising books? It really scratches all my itches for military scifi with a school for badass youngsters and noble houses slugging it out for control of the solar system. People have been pretty positive about the series from what I've seen. Despite that, I've always dismissed them as yetanotherHungerGamesTwilightYAteenbullshitfantasycumromance but maybe I'll check out the first book at some point. Drifter fucked around with this message at 11:03 on Jan 24, 2016 |
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Jan 24, 2016 11:01
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Edmond Dantes posted:Between Star Wars and The Martian I'm in the mood for some space stuff. Checked the first few pages of the thread and will probably be getting Relevation Space; but while I'm combing through the rest of the rather extensive thread, I thought I'd ask for recommendations. I'd also suggest you try "Lieutenant Leary Commanding", by David Drake. Yes, that's the second book of the series, but if you like it then go back and read the first (some stuff got changed around between the first and second books, and Drake re-explains who the characters are in every book anyway.)
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Jan 24, 2016 18:33
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Miss-Bomarc posted:I'd also suggest you try "Lieutenant Leary Commanding", by David Drake. Yes, that's the second book of the series, but if you like it then go back and read the first (some stuff got changed around between the first and second books, and Drake re-explains who the characters are in every book anyway.) These books are basically Aubrey and Maturin in spaaaaaaaaaace, if that's your kind of thing.
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Jan 24, 2016 19:38
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Khizan posted:These books are basically Aubrey and Maturin in spaaaaaaaaaace, if that's your kind of thing. e: gently caress that's weber
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Jan 24, 2016 20:40
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FuturePastNow posted:Zahn's Conqueror's trilogy is pretty good. He spends a lot of time with the aliens and their society, which is always nice. On the hand, I just quit reading the first book half way through. Starts out with a brief space battle then all that is thrown out the window and you just follow one family about as they do dull stuff. Sure, only of them is hanging out with the aliens, but they aren't very interesting or alien. I was so bored. It felt like I was reading a low budget BBC sci-fi show where they'd spend their entire budget on that first battle and then shot the rest of the season with just people in silver jumpsuits talking in various rooms.
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Jan 24, 2016 22:01
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Darkrenown posted:On the hand, I just quit reading the first book half way through. Starts out with a brief space battle then all that is thrown out the window and you just follow one family about as they do dull stuff. Sure, only of them is hanging out with the aliens, but they aren't very interesting or alien. I was so bored. It felt like I was reading a low budget BBC sci-fi show where they'd spend their entire budget on that first battle and then shot the rest of the season with just people in silver jumpsuits talking in various rooms. I started with the second book, which is entirely from the alien POV, and liked it quite a bit. But I was about 12, I don't know how well it's aged.
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Jan 24, 2016 22:14
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Edmond Dantes posted:Between Star Wars and The Martian I'm in the mood for some space stuff. Checked the first few pages of the thread and will probably be getting Relevation Space; but while I'm combing through the rest of the rather extensive thread, I thought I'd ask for recommendations. If you're still looking for recommendations, I'd take a look at Joel Shepherd's Spiral War series. They feel very much like a Mass Effect setting. Books one (Renegade) and two (Drysine Legacy) are out, and the third is due out hopefully later this year. Quick background to the series: Earth gets blown up, nearly bringing humanity to extinction in an attempt to break us. In return, we completely exterminate the aliens that did it. Not long after, humanity and some friends go to war against the "peace-keeping" race that almost let us get exterminated. The first book begins at the end of that second war, and things are just getting started. There's some friction gathering between the two human factions; Spacers, who have the fleets and political decision making towards the other races in the galaxy, and Worlders, who have the economy, industry and the massive majority of the population. There's also growing shadows of an ancient race of malignant AI that used to rule the galaxy over twenty thousand years ago. Joel's other sci-fi series, the two Cassandra Kresnov trilogies, doesn't quite fit what you're asking for. If you like the Spiral Wars books I'd still say give them a look, they're pretty excellent. Cassandra Kresnov is a synthetic human with super human capabilities. She was created to be a commander of a black ops squad, but she decides she doesn't like the side she's fighting for and tries to hide and live a civilian life amongst the people she had been fighting against. Half a chapter into the first book things go to poo poo, with some well written body horror in my opinion, and she winds up helping the security forces of Callay, the planet she was hiding on. It's also got my favorite romance I've come across in sci-fi, in that finally there really isn't one even though Cassandra has a heavy appetite for sex. (I'm personally tired of every female main character in the fiction series I've read needing to have a boyfriend/husband or girlfriend/wife.) She has a boyfriend in the third book, but they've broken up for realistic reasons by the fourth. Instead she becomes a guardian for three street kids, in what I think is a very well written manner. Joel has admitted that Ghost on the Shell's Motoko Kusanagi was an inspiration behind Cassandra, if that's a selling point for you. If being tangentially related to anime/manga is the opposite of a selling point, ignore it since the series isn't at all like the main reasons people don't like that stuff, just a little bit of Cassandra's character and some of the tech stuff in the universe. --- Speaking of female characters in sci-fi, does anyone have any good recommendations of series/books with a female main character that doesn't wind up in a long-term relationship? I'm tired of coming across it, but haven't had much luck finding anything in my admittedly very limited attempts of looking. Onean fucked around with this message at 02:39 on Jan 25, 2016 |
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Jan 25, 2016 02:33
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