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Last week's This American Life did a long segment about that kid who ran away to live with Piers Anthony. I had heard about it before but never in the depth laid out in the show.
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Mar 24, 2016 14:56
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The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu was terrific. Death's End comes out in August?
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Mar 24, 2016 17:13
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All The Birds in the Sky was alright, but that cover quote it got from Chabon probably raised my expectations for it higher than they should have been. Declare was awesome, I really need to read some more Powers.
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Mar 24, 2016 17:42
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holocaust bloopers posted:The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu was terrific. Death's End comes out in August? October in the UK.
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Mar 24, 2016 19:03
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drat, much longer wait between books. Although I much preferred the translation for Three Body, so the wait is probably worth it.
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Mar 24, 2016 19:12
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the trump tutelage posted:Are there any good sci-fi books that take place at a time when humans have colonized the solar system but haven't yet spread beyond it? Comedy option: the 'Bio of a Space Tyrant' series by our good old friend Piers Anthony take place in/around Saturn (They're pretty bad though)
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Mar 24, 2016 20:02
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holocaust bloopers posted:The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu was terrific. Three Body was pretty good though.
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Mar 24, 2016 20:07
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the trump tutelage posted:Are there any good sci-fi books that take place at a time when humans have colonized the solar system but haven't yet spread beyond it? Destination: Void. Then read the Pandora Sequence for the full 
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Mar 24, 2016 20:16
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tooterfish posted:It's a deeply flawed, meandering mess of a book? Nah. It was great. Sorry you didn't like it.
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Mar 24, 2016 20:19
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holocaust bloopers posted:Nah. It was great. Sorry you didn't like it. A lot of the plot threads don't make any sense (e.g. the wallfacer/wallbreaker stuff. The wallbreakers actually helped humanity three out of four times!), some of them peter out to nothing leaving me wondering why they were even in at all (e.g. the assassin virus), and the ending is very anti-climatic. tooterfish fucked around with this message at 20:33 on Mar 24, 2016 |
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Mar 24, 2016 20:26
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tooterfish posted:I just think it's massively overrated. I'd stretch to okay, but I certainly wouldn't call it terrific by any means, it has far too many issues for that. I found the most egregious flaws to be with the mostly barebones character development. Difficult to invest into the emotional component of the book, although the dope sci fi stuff was strong enough to carry the story. I thought it was a more enjoyable read than Three Body.
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Mar 24, 2016 20:33
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So one type of book that always works for me is ones in which a normal person from the modern day gets caught up in some circumstance that results in them traveling farther and farther into the future (such as the original Time Machine story, or books like The World at the End of Time or Tomorrow and Tomorrow). These types of plots don't seem to be very common, though. Other than the above, I think Frederik Pohl's Other End of Time was somewhat similar, and some of Greg Bear's Manifold books touched on the theme, but I've got a hankering to read more like this and would appreciate suggestions.
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Mar 24, 2016 20:45
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WarLocke posted:I've got a hankering to read more like this and would appreciate suggestions. 
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Mar 24, 2016 20:55
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WarLocke posted:So one type of book that always works for me is ones in which a normal person from the modern day gets caught up in some circumstance that results in them traveling farther and farther into the future (such as the original Time Machine story, or books like The World at the End of Time or Tomorrow and Tomorrow). Stephen Baxter's The Time Ships is a really fun book that is set up as a direct sequel to the original Time Machine. It goes both into the distant future and distant past and loops back around in true time machine fashion.
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Mar 24, 2016 20:55
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Just finished re-reading Karl Schroeder's Sun of Suns and Queen of Candesce and UGH they are so under-rated. Brilliant, genius stuff that perfectly balances an insanely high-concept setting with real and excellently fleshed-out characters. ...if memory serves, things don't get better after the 3rd book, but for an incredibly inventive sci-fi author I feel like I never hear about him, probably since he hasn't put out a lot of really stellar work since then.
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Mar 24, 2016 21:13
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Shab posted:Stephen Baxter's The Time Ships is a really fun book that is set up as a direct sequel to the original Time Machine. It goes both into the distant future and distant past and loops back around in true time machine fashion. And on top of all that, about a third of the book is set in an alternate 1938 inspired by the hypothetical WWII HG Wells came up with for The Shape of Things to Come, i.e. the only part of that book that's at all interesting to a modern audience.
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Mar 24, 2016 21:17
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Thanks guys, I will track those down. And I just found out while googling those and going off on a tangent, that Sean Mcmullen's Souls in the Great Machine actually has two sequels. It's been a few years since I read it, but I'd definitely consider it a science-fantasy epic. You've got everything from Librarians being the conservators of knowledge and having duels in the street Wild West style, to one character re-inventing the computer by having hundreds of inmates doing math by hand in parallel, mind-controlling mutant dolphins and even still-active ancient AIs of mass destruction.
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Mar 24, 2016 22:07
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WarLocke posted:So one type of book that always works for me is ones in which a normal person from the modern day gets caught up in some circumstance that results in them traveling farther and farther into the future (such as the original Time Machine story, or books like The World at the End of Time or Tomorrow and Tomorrow). The Forever War isn't exactly that, but close. I don't recommend the sequel, Forever Free, though - it feels like a totally unrelated (and less good) book that got awkwardly shoehorned into being a sequel to a perfectly good standalone story.
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Mar 24, 2016 22:35
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Darth Walrus posted:I don't recommend the sequel, Forever Free, though - it feels like a totally unrelated (and less good) book that got awkwardly shoehorned into being a sequel to a perfectly good standalone story. Although speaking of Joe Haldeman's non-Forever War books I'm reading All My Sins Remembered and it's a pretty okay read so far 3/4s of the way through. Nothing too phenomenal, but about a guy who works as a government agent that gets hypnotically programmed with other people's identities to investigate interstellar plots undercover. It's broken up into vignettes of different jobs so doesn't really have much of a big plot other than the agent getting slightly fed up with the gig (and being Haldeman he's a Buddhist whose been programmed to kill). Picked it up as an Amazon Kindle daily deal so it's worth the $2 I have into it. darnon fucked around with this message at 22:52 on Mar 24, 2016 |
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Mar 24, 2016 22:42
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Combed Thunderclap posted:Just finished re-reading Karl Schroeder's Sun of Suns and Queen of Candesce and UGH they are so under-rated. Brilliant, genius stuff that perfectly balances an insanely high-concept setting with real and excellently fleshed-out characters. Are those his Virga books? I remember those as being fun adventures with a really neat setting, but not genius by a long shot. tooterfish posted:It's a deeply flawed, meandering mess of a book? The Three-Body Problem was interesting but bad, and had a terrible attitude towards women. The translation made some pretty odd choices, too. Overall it's embarrassing it won a Hugo. Thanks Vox Day! I'm the Book Barn IK. Feel free to PM me or email bookbarnsecretsanta@gmail.com if I can help you with anything.
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Mar 25, 2016 02:26
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WarLocke posted:I've got a hankering to read more like this and would appreciate suggestions. http://www.tor.com/2010/08/05/divided-by-infinity/
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Mar 25, 2016 04:02
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Darth Walrus posted:The Forever War isn't exactly that, but close. I don't recommend the sequel, Forever Free, though - it feels like a totally unrelated (and less good) book that got awkwardly shoehorned into being a sequel to a perfectly good standalone story. Haldeman also wrote The Accidental Time Machine a few years back, which is about a guy who accidentally creates a time machine that can only go into the future by ever-increasing leaps. It's not a great book, but it's fun and a quick read.
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Mar 25, 2016 07:57
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I really like Robert Charles Wilson and had never read that before. Awesome short story. Thanks.
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Mar 25, 2016 09:32
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savinhill posted:Yeah, I've read his The Gospel of Z, which was one of the most entertaining and original zombie novels I've ever read, and I'm currently reading his All the Beautiful Sinners, which is a weird noir crime novel. He's a talented and diverse writer, he writes across many different genres and styles, and he also has a ton of short stories, one of my favorites of which is When Swords Had Names. It's a very dark, grim and strange fantasy story with a lot of horror elements and can be read free at this link: http://thedarkmagazine.com/swords-names/ Thanks for tips! Edit: Hahahahahahaha someone said three body problem didn't deserve the Hugo No If you don't like cixin please stop reading, you suck the_homemaster fucked around with this message at 10:36 on Mar 25, 2016 |
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Mar 25, 2016 10:31
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I just finished The Dark Forest and I thought both it and Three Body were really great. Yes, the attitude toward women in Three Body was poo poo, but that's because the attitude toward women in that era in China was poo poo. The Wallfacer/Wallbreaker stuff was good. I kept waiting for someone to show up as the 4th wallbreaker.
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Mar 25, 2016 14:22
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Phummus posted:I just finished The Dark Forest and I thought both it and Three Body were really great. Yes, the attitude toward women in Three Body was poo poo, but that's because the attitude toward women in that era in China was poo poo. What's this got to do with anything? You know the book was written in 2006 and set (mostly) in the future, right?
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Mar 25, 2016 15:48
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Phummus posted:I kept waiting for someone to show up as the 4th wallbreaker.
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Mar 25, 2016 18:30
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tooterfish posted:I'm not sure why? He'd be Cixin Liu
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Mar 25, 2016 18:51
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Pattern Recognition was great. Excited to read the rest of the trilogy.
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Mar 25, 2016 19:01
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WarLocke posted:Thanks guys, I will track those down. And a dude that fucks almost every woman he meets. The sequels are good, second great and third ok, but not great. Second book contains knights doing duels in small airplanes and third connects book 1 and 3. The most interesting part of the series is how all civilizations have abandoned the sea and that society is regularly paralyzed by periods when something called the call makes everyone mindless. It is an interesting version of post apocalyptic earth.
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Mar 25, 2016 19:38
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General Battuta posted:He'd be Cixin Liu Thank you for getting it.
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Mar 25, 2016 20:10
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I still don't get it. 
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Mar 25, 2016 22:17
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tooterfish posted:I still don't get it. fourth wall seeing you
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Mar 25, 2016 22:22
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I see. That's almost as bad as Dark Forest's gaping plot holes! 
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Mar 25, 2016 22:24
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lol plot holes
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Mar 25, 2016 23:56
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the_homemaster posted:lol plot holes
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Mar 26, 2016 00:05
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Phummus posted:I just finished The Dark Forest and I thought both it and Three Body were really great. Yes, the attitude toward women in Three Body was poo poo, but that's because the attitude toward women in that era in China was poo poo. It's been a long time since I read Three Body. Can someone remind me how that book was apparently lovely to women?
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Mar 26, 2016 02:09
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Solitair posted:It's been a long time since I read Three Body. Can someone remind me how that book was apparently lovely to women? I was going to ask the same, but decided to say gently caress it instead. I vaguely remember a female scientist being quite bright and not being respected or valued, but I thought it was pretty clear that it was unfair treatment of her, not something the author condoned. It was a very "big ideas" book like old school sci fi, so I can't say I remember much about the characters.
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Mar 26, 2016 02:55
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There are some serious issues with the The Three Body Problem and the Dark Forest. I mean, the future virus stuff, and the perfect girlfriend were really dumb, in fact most of the future stuff was bad, but I still though they were awesome. I think it was really unique sci-fi and had some big ideas that it actually delivered on. I thought the ending was pretty awesome in the Dark Forest. I know a lot of people disagree, but I can't help but thinking it is an awesome series. I can't wait for the third.
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Mar 26, 2016 03:32
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the_homemaster posted:Thanks for tips! Eh, despite the puppying, there was decent competition that year. Can't speak for Ancillary Sword, but while The Goblin Emperor didn't have TBP's eye-popping Big Ideas, it was significantly more human and satisfying as a story.
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Mar 26, 2016 03:39
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