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Darth Walrus posted: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 04:07
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xian posted:Pattern Recognition was great. Excited to read the rest of the trilogy. I started to read that after reading The Peripheral, and I couldn't make it more than halfway. So I re-read The Peripheral instead and moved on.
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Mar 26, 2016 05:05
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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). A World Out of Time by Niven sort of fits this description.
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Mar 26, 2016 05:48
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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? Meta-Planetary, by Tony Daniel, and its sequel are really neat. I liked them. I like that goodreads page because many of the negative reviews are either low-rated because it's the first book of a duology and they couldn't get the second book or whatever (kind of understandable, but hey), or else they're super sperglord crazies upset that the 'science' isn't real or somesuch.  Good books. It's a solar system civil war, though, so if you don't want war-y stuff it may not be for you. Drifter fucked around with this message at 07:03 on Mar 26, 2016 |
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Mar 26, 2016 06:59
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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? Gateway by Frederik Pohl features humanity on multiple planets (I know Venus for sure, maybe Mars too?) and while they've done weird stuff in other areas of space it's not really spread beyond the solar system. I guess it's more "on the cusp of spreading beyond" but not quite there.
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Mar 26, 2016 07:46
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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? That was me, and it wasn't full-bore misogynistic, more like super goony. Wang muses on how beautiful and elegant Yang Dong is, and in the next scene she's dead. Even her boyfriend says she's like a cold star. Shen Yufei is a recluse who barely talks and is also plotting to exterminate humans. Wang's wife is written out of the book. Shao Lin (Ye's mum) is a hypocrite who'll do anything to survive - compare the her to her husband, whose death scene is almost a martyrdom. Ye Wenjie is such a cold fish she feels nothing when she murders her husband. By themselves, none of these is a big deal, and lots are understandable - Shao is trying to survive, the Cultural Revolution was a poo poo time, and Ye is the novel's most interesting character. But compare them to the men, who are amost universally more vibrant, likeable, and positively presented... it's hardly the book's biggest problem, but it's an unpleasant pattern. tooterfish posted:I see. I didn't get it either because I know how to pronounce "Cixin Liu".
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Mar 26, 2016 08:32
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What's the correct pronunciation? Isn't it closer to See-shin Loo? I just finished the first book of Southern Reach. Annihilation just seems like someone's drug-addled camping diary. Is its popularity something to do with the sequels? Does it turn into X-FIles/X-Com?
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Mar 26, 2016 12:25
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House Louse posted:That was me, and it wasn't full-bore misogynistic, more like super goony. Wang muses on how beautiful and elegant Yang Dong is, and in the next scene she's dead. Even her boyfriend says she's like a cold star. Shen Yufei is a recluse who barely talks and is also plotting to exterminate humans. Wang's wife is written out of the book. Shao Lin (Ye's mum) is a hypocrite who'll do anything to survive - compare the her to her husband, whose death scene is almost a martyrdom. Ye Wenjie is such a cold fish she feels nothing when she murders her husband. That's an alright assessment. I thought that Ye Wenjie, in retrospect, was the only three-dimensional character in the book, but I liked her arc and the presentation of the book's concept enough to put it at the top of my ballot. The reason I've put off reading The Dark Forest for so long is the realization that, with the best character's story pretty much done by now, it might not have anything compelling enough to replace that.
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Mar 26, 2016 12:27
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It suffers from a lack of focus more than anything else in my opinion. Also, if you thought the first one was super goony.... there's an actual honest to god loving waifu in Dark Forest. Still worth a read though, the core premise is decent.
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Mar 26, 2016 12:44
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WarLocke posted: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. Marooned in Realtime, by Vernor Vinge
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Mar 26, 2016 13:11
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Nullkigan posted:What's the correct pronunciation? Isn't it closer to See-shin Loo? Nah, Annihilation was pretty well received and popular(at least in TBB and other book sites I frequent) before anyone had read the sequels. Also, Vandemeer's a big name and influential in the genre field/online, so anything he releases at this point in his career is going to be popular and get a good amount of hype right off the rip
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Mar 26, 2016 13:33
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Nullkigan posted:I just finished the first book of Southern Reach. Annihilation just seems like someone's drug-addled camping diary. Is its popularity something to do with the sequels? Does it turn into X-FIles/X-Com? In some ways it does. I wasn't that impressed by the series mostly since I felt that the concept wasnt that new. Both Lovecraft ( the labyrinth as example ) and King have touched upon similar concepts, and for sure a lot of other scifi authors. The writing style is also kinda slow and meandering. Decent read but hardly amazing.
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Mar 26, 2016 14:02
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Solitair posted:That's an alright assessment. I thought that Ye Wenjie, in retrospect, was the only three-dimensional character in the book, but I liked her arc and the presentation of the book's concept enough to put it at the top of my ballot. The reason I've put off reading The Dark Forest for so long is the realization that, with the best character's story pretty much done by now, it might not have anything compelling enough to replace that. Even so, Ye just isn't an interesting enough character to hang a novel on. On the other hand the trilogy's premise of a war 450 years in the making, and the (apparently totally unconscious) social commentary are intriging enough to make me read the rest. I'm not in it for the characterisation. Nullkigan posted:What's the correct pronunciation? Isn't it closer to See-shin Loo? Not unlike "Tsuhsheen Lee-o".
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Mar 26, 2016 14:33
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House Louse posted:I didn't get it either because I know how to pronounce "Cixin Liu". No, uh, Cixin Liu is the author, fourth wall jokes involve acknowledgment of the audience/fictional nature of the narrative. It's not a pronunciation pun.
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Mar 26, 2016 15:15
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Three Bodies would have been more interesting if the alien cult leader and ultimate betrayer of humanity had remained the elderly Chinese lady rather than a random American billionaire. I wondered when I read it if he was brought in political reasons or if the novel risked being censored otherwise.
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Mar 26, 2016 15:21
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computer parts posted:A World Out of Time by Niven sort of fits this description. The synopsis for that sounds eerily like a short story I read once. I remember the guy forcing the ship's AI to do a slingshot around the galactic core to escape prosecution from Earth, it wants him to go into suspended animation but he doesn't because he thinks it'll rewrite his brain in there, then when he finally gets back to Earth as an old man he stumbles into a booth that treats him so he starts to grow younger or something. It's been a good while.
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Mar 27, 2016 00:05
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If you're on twitter don't follow Mark Lawrence's page unless you're a puppy or gamergater. tia
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Mar 27, 2016 00:42
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coyo7e posted:If you're on twitter don't follow Mark Lawrence's page unless you're a puppy or gamergater. tia Did he delete some tweets or something, because I just looked and it was mostly just boring stuff. My prior belief based on what I'd heard about his books is that he's not the kind of person I'm interested in (or expect to be decent), and some googling led to: quote:But, major roles for female characters in every single book, no matter what it's about, no matter what the scope, or the length of the book? Then you lose me. If you replace 'female' with 'male' in the argument I'll object just the same. Does a book covering a day or week on a WWII submarine need a major role for a female character? Must a murder-mystery in a nunnery require the insertion of a man to keep everyone happy?
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Mar 27, 2016 01:09
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coyo7e posted:If you're on twitter don't follow Mark Lawrence's page unless you're a puppy or gamergater. tia Are you talking about a fan page or something? Because nearly all of what he posts is mostly asking people to buy/rate/review his books, promoting whatever contest he's currently running on his blog, or linking to something he's involved in (interviews, AMAs, the self-published writer thing, etc.).
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Mar 27, 2016 01:10
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No idea what coyo7e is talking about, but there are some funny posts where someone asks him to stop using the word "fat" to describe characters in his books and he's a bit flabbergasted. I mean he could be a gamergate/puppy douche (in which case gently caress him) but I'm kind of on his side here, with the whole "fat being a generic adjective not a loaded hate speech word" thing.
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Mar 27, 2016 01:13
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fritz posted:Did he delete some tweets or something, because I just looked and it was mostly just boring stuff. My prior belief based on what I'd heard about his books is that he's not the kind of person I'm interested in (or expect to be decent), and some googling led to: It'd be useful to link to the whole blog post on that since just using that quote may lead people to think he's arguing a point that he's not. http://mark---lawrence.blogspot.de/2014/12/the-big-three-oh-oh-oh-oh.html
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Mar 27, 2016 01:19
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It'd be useful to link to the whole blog post on that since just using that quote may lead people to think he's arguing a point that he's not. http://mark---lawrence.blogspot.de/2014/12/the-big-three-oh-oh-oh-oh.html [/quote] I guess if his argument boils down to 'this is a short period told entirely from the perspective of the young lead man Jorg and he just doesn't interact with women really' my response is 'well thank you for your time I have other books to read'. And always the whining aboutt 'why must every book feature women', like they're not 50% of the population even in wartime.
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Mar 27, 2016 02:10
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Seems like some good old TBB knee jerking here, though we're not to the 'I will never read this shitlord's books again!' point yet.
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Mar 27, 2016 02:20
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Neurosis posted:Seems like some good old TBB knee jerking here, though we're not to the 'I will never read this shitlord's books again!' point yet. Maybe we can re-start the Grand List of Problematic Authors.
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Mar 27, 2016 02:26
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Patrick Spens posted:Maybe we can re-start the Grand List of Problematic Authors. Crimes, that was a thing? I suppose it would be an easy way to make sure my ignore filter is up to date.
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Mar 27, 2016 02:30
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Neurosis posted:Seems like some good old TBB knee jerking here, though we're not to the 'I will never read this shitlord's books again!' point yet. Every description of the book makes it sound gross and all grim-porny.
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Mar 27, 2016 02:40
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This is the same dude who wrote a book that kicks off with a teenager main character raping and killing 2 girls and includes the phrase "I don't like getting angry, it makes me angry" (paraphrasing). Why in the poo poo would you expect the author or the series to be one that has strong female leads or any sort of progressive message after reading something like that? That's like being surprised that a John Ringo book doesn't treat women well, or that the billionaire who's into the pregnant chick in a romance novel is "swarthy".
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Mar 27, 2016 02:58
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Ceebees posted:I remember this now. This is the one where the one PoV woman terraforms a place, then has to flee because of a military 'intervention' by 'her' side and falls in with the (now former) locals. Then she helps terraform the colony they land at, before they have to flee from another invasion, at which point she and her new cast of rejects go on to terraform yet another new home. Then in the sequel, she terraforms like five more goddamn habitats, each time because she had to flee from the last one before someone came and shot them. I'll agree that terraforming is a major theme throughout the book but it's pretty unfair to say that's all it's about. The Quiet War and it's sequel take you on a tour of the outer solar system and the descriptions and world building for them were done really well. The specific POV was just one of a few and most of the others don't really get involved in what your talking about at all. It's not an amazing series by any means and the third book goes off the loving rails. Overall though for someone looking for sci fi that takes place in the solar system and doesn't mind some biology infodumping, I'd definitely recommend it.
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Mar 27, 2016 03:31
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occamsnailfile posted:I guess if his argument boils down to 'this is a short period told entirely from the perspective of the young lead man Jorg and he just doesn't interact with women really' my response is 'well thank you for your time I have other books to read'. And always the whining aboutt 'why must every book feature women', like they're not 50% of the population even in wartime. To your first point, that's exactly what he's arguing. To your second, I think the point he's getting at is that reducing the presence of women (or any minority) to a check box on a list is missing the forest for the trees. Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Why in the poo poo would you expect the author or the series to be one that has strong female leads or any sort of progressive message after reading something like that? His next series features a female lead  .
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Mar 27, 2016 03:36
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Ornamented Death posted:To your first point, that's exactly what he's arguing. To your second, I think the point he's getting at is that reducing the presence of women (or any minority) to a check box on a list is missing the forest for the trees. I guess I don't generally buy the argument that male power fantasy stories are just ruined if they can't rape and kill women and still be considered the hero of the story. The 'checkbox' argument is a constant misapprehension of the actual desire: To have female characters who are an integrated part of the world, in all the places where they can exist, which is basically all of them. It's not even asking for special or unusual representation generally, if one looks at actual history. Authors who act like they are being tasked with an impossible burden when asked to maybe think about women being in the world are basically being lazy jerks.
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Mar 27, 2016 03:48
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occamsnailfile posted:I guess I don't generally buy the argument that male power fantasy stories are just ruined if they can't rape and kill women and still be considered the hero of the story. The 'checkbox' argument is a constant misapprehension of the actual desire: To have female characters who are an integrated part of the world, in all the places where they can exist, which is basically all of them. It's not even asking for special or unusual representation generally, if one looks at actual history. Authors who act like they are being tasked with an impossible burden when asked to maybe think about women being in the world are basically being lazy jerks. The aspect of this line of criticism Lawrence is tired of is that there are females in the world of his Broken Empire setting, and in all the appropriate places. Where they are not is in the band of murdering rapists the main character (who, I might add, Lawrence has been very clear that he doesn't expect anyone to like, only find interesting) roams around with. Jorg actually would not get a whole lot accomplished if it weren't for the numerous strong female characters in the story, but a disturbing number of his critics can't be bothered to read past the first chapter and just start throwing wild accusations around based on how they assume the story is going to play out, and anytime he tries to correct them, people say things like this quote:This is the same dude who wrote a book that kicks off with a teenager main character raping and killing 2 girls and includes the phrase "I don't like getting angry, it makes me angry" (paraphrasing).
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Mar 27, 2016 03:57
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Mark Lawrence has always seemed like a reasonable enough guy when I've read his posts online.
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Mar 27, 2016 03:58
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Is the community so massively starved for drama? What on earth is all this garbage?
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Mar 27, 2016 04:02
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TheWhiteNightmare posted:Is the community so massively starved for drama? What on earth is all this garbage? We have nothing else to do before the Hugo nominations are announced.
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Mar 27, 2016 04:04
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Ornamented Death posted:We have nothing else to do before the Hugo nominations are announced. We could talk about Chuck Tingle being on the rabid puppy slate.
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Mar 27, 2016 04:40
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fritz posted:We could talk about Chuck Tingle being on the rabid puppy slate. I suspect ol' Teddy got mad when it was shown that the absolute worst he can do is force a handful of "No Awards" because, ultimately, he and his little cabal are substantially outnumbered by people that will actually pony up for a WorldCon membership. Now he's just trolling everyone, even his own followers.
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Mar 27, 2016 04:46
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flosofl posted:Crimes, that was a thing? It was a goon project, so it never actually got off the ground, but it was seriously proposed during the last thread. TOOT BOOT posted:Mark Lawrence has always seemed like a reasonable enough guy when I've read his posts online. He has gotten into some remarkably stupid arguments on r/Fantasy, but everyone can have bad days.
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Mar 27, 2016 05:16
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I wonder if he had a like, an autistic sibling or something, how he'd feel about someone throwing "retard" around pell-mell. There are certainly other levels of descriptor we could use which are just what everybody's used forever http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/03/the-words-moron-imbecile-and-idiot-mean-different-things/
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Mar 27, 2016 07:07
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WarLocke posted:The synopsis for that sounds eerily like a short story I read once. I remember the guy forcing the ship's AI to do a slingshot around the galactic core to escape prosecution from Earth, it wants him to go into suspended animation but he doesn't because he thinks it'll rewrite his brain in there, then when he finally gets back to Earth as an old man he stumbles into a booth that treats him so he starts to grow younger or something. It's been a good while. Niven actually adapted it from a couple short stories he wrote (the first part up until he flies out into space I've read before).
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Mar 27, 2016 07:38
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coyo7e posted:I wonder if he had a like, an autistic sibling or something, how he'd feel about someone throwing "retard" around pell-mell. Not that I can speak for him but he does have a severely disabled daughter. I wouldn't say fat is equivalent to retard for that matter.
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Mar 27, 2016 08:46
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