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That Works posted:Read the Greg Bear, Frank Herbert ones already. I haven't read the Algebraist or House of Suns yet though so thanks for that! Other Space Opera series I have enjoyed: Gary Gibson's Shoal Sequence series: Stealing Light, Nova War, Empire of Light and Marauder. The last one is not directly connected to the original trilogy. Mysterious ancient races, a search for the ultimate weapon, a female protagonist that kicks lots of rear end, some really cool planetary settings. Tobias Buckell's Xenowealth series: Crystal Rain, Ragamuffin, Sly Mongoose, The Apocalypse Ocean and Xenowealth: A Collection, which is a short story collection set in the Xenowealth universe. A pretty drat neat series with a bad rear end protagonist, plenty of different planets and aliens. Neal Asher's Polity series, which is really 3 different series set in the Polity universe: Agent Cormac, Spatterjay and the new Transformation series, where only 2 books are out yet. Check the titles here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Asher
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Apr 27, 2016 22:55
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Yeah House of Suns is amazing. I probably read it three or four times in the first year because it was just so compelling and fun all the way through.
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Apr 28, 2016 00:23
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I'll second the Tchaikovsky recommendation, Children of Time is a blast. On top of all the stellar books that've already been mentioned: CJ Cherryh CJ Cherryh CJ Cherryh! Wrt space opera there's the Chanur novels, which are great, but moving from Downbelow Station into Cyteen was an absolute sci-fi extravaganza for me. It made me read 27 of her novels last year.
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Apr 28, 2016 01:58
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Cherryh's really fantastic. Vinge, too. A. A. Attanasio's Radix book 4, The Last Legends of the Earth, is pretty loving baller. It's part of a series, not narrative, but thematic or whatever. It's standalone. The Dragon Never Sleeps by Glen Cook helps to separate the men from the boys when it comes to sci-fi. It's one of the ballingest. Ryk E. Spoor's Grand Central Arena books are good, actiony fun. They're more towards the Neal Asher side of Sci-fi. Julie Czerneda and Sheri Tepper both have written some really good stuff. The Forever War. Joan Vinge's Snow Queen/Summer Queen series. Hot drat. John Wright's Golden Age series. Sure he's a dick, but the series was really neat with a super cool setting. Tony Daniel's Metaplanetary series is really good. I liked it. Have you guys read any of the Liaden series by Sharon Miller? Are they any good? I'm definitely checking out Tchaikovsky. Is that the same one who wrote all those Shadow of the Asp fantasy books?
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Apr 28, 2016 04:11
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I just picked up Pride of Chanur a few days ago and started on it yesterday. It's a bit hard to swallow at first as she dives headlong into using many different names and elements of language describing the aliens that makes it hard to follow. It reminded me a lot of reading the 1st chapters of Anathem but after the action started up it's gone rather well and I'm starting to enjoy it.
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Apr 28, 2016 12:09
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Just finished Westerfeld's Risen Empire books (The Risen Empire and The Killing of Worlds. Those were some solid, well-written space opera and I enjoyed the poo poo out of them. He's an awful tease, though. You find out that this world-shaking secret exists in the first few pages of the first book; the protagonists don't find out what it is until nearly the end of the second book, and even then the reader is left hanging for another few subchapters! That Works posted:I just picked up Pride of Chanur a few days ago and started on it yesterday. It's a bit hard to swallow at first as she dives headlong into using many different names and elements of language describing the aliens that makes it hard to follow. It reminded me a lot of reading the 1st chapters of Anathem but after the action started up it's gone rather well and I'm starting to enjoy it. Cherryh.  The Pride of Chanur is largely responsible for getting me into SF. And yeah, Cherryh doesn't usually spend much time slowing down or explaining things; she tosses you right in and expects you to pick things up on your own. It's one of the things I like about her books.
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Apr 28, 2016 18:05
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mcustic posted:Greg Bear's The Forge of God/Anvil of Stars is an extremely depressing duology that is also his best work IMO. The less I tell you about it, the more you'll enjoy reading it. I just finished the second book and I didn't find it all that depressing in the larger sense. It's implied that there are quite a few surviving and thriving interstellar societies, even ones involving multiple races. It just sucks for the folks living near the bad part of the stellar neighborhood.
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Apr 29, 2016 02:18
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Buca di Bepis posted:I just finished the second book and I didn't find it all that depressing in the larger sense. It's implied that there are quite a few surviving and thriving interstellar societies, even ones involving multiple races. It just sucks for the folks living near the bad part of the stellar neighborhood. And, given the effort the Killers do to hide themselves, it looks like the Benefactors are actually winning the war.
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Apr 30, 2016 17:56
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I found those books depressing mainly because of the gently caress women to set them straight attitude and the sleep rape.
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Apr 30, 2016 18:02
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Reason posted:I found those books depressing mainly because of the gently caress women to set them straight attitude and the sleep rape. IIRC that was a very specific character attitude, which is frowned upon by most of the kids, including the main POV character, and it backfires at the end. I considered that an illustration of the extremely weird situation in which those kids find themselves, basically being raised by alien robots and not having real ethical/moral references other than their first few years before the facts in "Forge of God" and the tales/literature/moves/whatever they carry in their ship.
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Apr 30, 2016 18:09
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Amberskin posted:IIRC that was a very specific character attitude, which is frowned upon by most of the kids, including the main POV character, and it backfires at the end. I considered that an illustration of the extremely weird situation in which those kids find themselves, basically being raised by alien robots and not having real ethical/moral references other than their first few years before the facts in "Forge of God" and the tales/literature/moves/whatever they carry in their ship. Yeah, I got the impression the Dawn Treader's society was very deliberately meant to be incredibly disturbing to the reader. These people think of themselves as kids and have cutesy names for everything, but it's an incredibly violent and hosed-up society they've built.
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Apr 30, 2016 23:41
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Hi hello, I was redirected here from the sci fi / fantasy thread. They already gave me some recommendations that I've been looking into, but I thought I'd ask here as well. I'm looking for cool Space Navy books. The more space and navy the better, anything involving space politics would be cool too. I'm not at all familiar with space opera or sci-fi books in general, I've read Ender's Game and Starship Troopers and that's about it. I'm really just looking for cool descriptions of big space battles and life aboard a military space ship / station. In terms of how "heavy" the science needs to be, well, not very. I don't know anything about space physics and don't really care that much either, if it serves a cool plot element I don't mind reading about temporal relativism or whatever, but if it's just there, page up and page down, to be faithful to Neil Degrasse Tyson then I'm probably gonna lose interest. E: actually I might have been a little too rigid in my phrasing, it doesn't HAVE to be military, I wouldn't mind reading about junkers cutting up shipwrecks for scrap or asteroid miners or whatever. I just really wanna read about ships flying around in space doing space things and not ever doing boring planet stuff. Trier fucked around with this message at 10:29 on May 16, 2016 |
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May 16, 2016 10:26
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Trier posted:Hi hello, I was redirected here from the sci fi / fantasy thread. They already gave me some recommendations that I've been looking into, but I thought I'd ask here as well. Here's something for you: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24292492-warship If you fancy a story about an alcoholic captain with the least desirable command in our galaxy getting a chance to prove his mettle, that is. No planet stuff. No redshirt teams beaming down to the surface. Some intrigue.
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May 16, 2016 10:55
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mcustic posted:If you fancy a story about an alcoholic captain with the least desirable command in our galaxy getting a chance to prove his mettle That sounds absolutely wonderful. Thanks
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May 16, 2016 11:24
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The most recent mil-ish space opera-ish books I read were Risen Empire/Killing of Worlds by Scott Westerfeld. They're pretty cool and came recommended by some heavy-hitting posters here as well IIRC.
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May 16, 2016 13:12
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I did as much in the SF thread but you probably meant GeneralBattuta instead of me. 
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May 16, 2016 13:21
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Trier posted:Hi hello, I was redirected here from the sci fi / fantasy thread. They already gave me some recommendations that I've been looking into, but I thought I'd ask here as well. I actually ran into this guys books on an ad from SA a year or two back, I guess it's a goon author? Casey Calouette's A Star too Far trilogy. Not as great writing as other space opera I've read but still good. The best parts of it were the space battles / naval-like aspect of it. There's less of that in the 1st book but much more in the next two. https://smile.amazon.com/Trial-Ice-...casey+calouette
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May 16, 2016 14:17
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Antti posted:I did as much in the SF thread but you probably meant GeneralBattuta instead of me. So I saw! My remark applies very much to you as well then 
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May 16, 2016 15:12
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Vatta's War by Elizabeth Moon is pretty good mil-sf, although the titular Vatta isn't actually part of a Space Navy until later in the series. There's also the Kris Longknife series by Mike Shepherd which is nowhere near as good, but at the very least it's not another lovely Hoo Rah Space America gently caress Yeah! MilSF with the virtuous white American men fighting off hordes of evil Europeans and brown people. Mars4523 fucked around with this message at 21:20 on May 16, 2016 |
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May 16, 2016 21:17
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Trier posted:Hi hello, I was redirected here from the sci fi / fantasy thread. They already gave me some recommendations that I've been looking into, but I thought I'd ask here as well. The EXPANSE series is exactly what you are looking for. I got hooked after watching the SciFy pilot and powered through six books in two weeks. They are tremendously entertaining pulp.
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May 17, 2016 00:46
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Paddyo posted:The EXPANSE series is exactly what you are looking for. I got hooked after watching the SciFy pilot and powered through six books in two weeks. They are tremendously entertaining pulp. Oh yeah I was meaning to watch that show. I'll read the books instead, though, as I'm really bad at sticking with TV shows.
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May 17, 2016 08:20
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The books and the show are *mostly* cool and good.
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May 17, 2016 14:02
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I started reading Bowl of Heaven by Larry Niven and Gregory Benford a few days ago, after having had a copy for a year or more. I'm about a quarter of the way in, and so far it definitely feels like the literary equivalent of a movie reboot. The setting's similarities to Ringworld are really unavoidable, especially given there are clear concepts from the first three Ringworld novels (as well as bits from A Gift from Earth and Legacy of Heorot, as well as what I think is a nod to Star-Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers' own Ringworld reference). But even more than that, the "Bowl of Heave" itself doesn't really differ enough conceptually from the Ringworld to feel like a different setting. With just a few changes it could be about one of the early ramscoop crews from Niven's early Known Space stuff stumbling across the Ringworld (or a different Ringworld) and it would fit in perfectly. That being said, it's not bad at all so far. I'm all for Niven basically teaming up with Benford to do a re-take on his most famous work. It may reuse the setting but given that the aliens have just shown up, it seems like the stuff from their POV is going to be interesting. And Benford at least seems to have mollified late-stage Niven's conservatism at least once, so there's that.
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May 18, 2016 19:25
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Chairman Capone posted:That being said, it's not bad at all so far. I'm all for Niven basically teaming up with Benford to do a re-take on his most famous work. It may reuse the setting but given that the aliens have just shown up, it seems like the stuff from their POV is going to be interesting. And Benford at least seems to have mollified late-stage Niven's conservatism at least once, so there's that. There is a difference between Bowl of Stars (and the sequel/second part) and Ringworld/Rama. You'll find it along the read, and it makes a lot of sense. Basically, the Bowl is NOT an abandoned object; it has a purpose, and their "commanders" are active and managing it. And they are not who the reader is driven to believe..
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May 18, 2016 23:00
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mcustic posted:Here's something for you: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24292492-warship Oooh, I'll make a note of that one. And now to recommend Passage at Arms for spaceship milsf again. It's Das Boot in space, and one of the better space combat novels ever written.
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May 19, 2016 00:51
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Trier posted:I'm looking for cool Space Navy books. The more space and navy the better, anything involving space politics would be cool too.
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May 19, 2016 05:51
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Amberskin posted:There is a difference between Bowl of Stars (and the sequel/second part) and Ringworld/Rama. You'll find it along the read, and it makes a lot of sense. So I just got to the part where the Bird Folk are revealed to be the descendants of the dinosaurs who instead of being killed by a comet, turned the Sun's binary star into the bowl ship and flew off. I like that twist. Interestingly I think it's a recycling of an old Niven proposal he made for some failed sequel to the 1980s V miniseries, where he wanted to reveal that the Visitors were actually the dinosaurs and that was why they wanted to specifically return to Earth. He talked about it in one of his short story collections, either N-Space or Playgrounds of the Mind. Also, it made me wish it was set in Known Space, because then it would mean that the humans are really aliens (descended from the Pak) and the "aliens" are the real Earth natives.
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May 28, 2016 00:20
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mcustic posted:Here's something for you: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24292492-warship Read this whole trilogy over last weekend. Pretty good! I liked it mcustic posted:Greg Bear's The Forge of God/Anvil of Stars is an extremely depressing duology that is also his best work IMO. The less I tell you about it, the more you'll enjoy reading it. Read these two, Anvil of Stars is much better than Forge of God. I was expecting more of a connection between the two books, not sure how though. And, yes, they were 'cutesy' names for very serious things on board that ship.
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May 29, 2016 13:26
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Thanks to this thread I just finished the 1st 3 Chanur novels from CJ Cherryh. It started out kinda rough but I really enjoyed it by the middle of the 2nd book. Do we ever get a backstory on who Tully is exactly? Anyway, thanks to the thread. She has an interesting style. What other series of hers would you recommend next? I'm starting on the 4th book after a long timeskip right now where Hilfy is now a captain of her own ship.
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May 29, 2016 14:29
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That Works posted:CJ Cherryh Honestly, I'm having a hard time coming up with anything of hers that isn't good. Read it all.
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May 29, 2016 14:37
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That Works posted:Thanks to this thread I just finished the 1st 3 Chanur novels from CJ Cherryh. It started out kinda rough but I really enjoyed it by the middle of the 2nd book. Do we ever get a backstory on who Tully is exactly?  There are five Chanur books, and Chanur's Legacy is the fifth one, so you've skipped a book somewhere. If the one you skipped was the first one, The Pride of Chanur, that would explain why you have no idea who Tully is.You should go read The Pride of Chanur, but the TL;DR is: (first few chapters of Pride spoilers) he was crew on a deep-space exploration ship, probably from Cherryh's Alliance-Union setting, that blundered into Knnn and then Kif space; the ship was boarded by the Kif and all the crew taken as captives. The others were tortured to death after refusing to help the Kif build Kifish<->Terran translation tapes and astrogation charts leading to human space. Tully escaped before meeting the same fate and took refuge on the Pride. Pyanfar refuses to hand him over after realizing that he's intelligent and not just an exotic pet, angering the Kif greatly. (ending of Pride spoilers) This culminates in a throwdown between the Kif and Hani fleets; it ends when the Knnn find another, much larger human ship and force-jump it into the middle of the battle, taking the Kif flagship in exchange. The ship is never seen again, and neither is its captain, Akukkakk; this creates the power vacuum that Akkhtimakt is moving into at the start of Chanur's Venture, and also explains how Tully makes it back to human space between Pride and Venture. WarLocke posted:Honestly, I'm having a hard time coming up with anything of hers that isn't good. Read it all. Her fantasy is pretty bad, IMO. But apart from that, yeah, read everything. The Chanur series is probably her most "space-operatic" work, but apart from that: - The Merchanter books (Rimrunners, Tripoint, Finity's End, and Merchanter's Luck; each one is a standalone) and Belter books (Heavy Time and Hellburner; read in order) for stuff similar to Chanur but set in human space - Cyteen and Regenesis for lots of political machinations - Downbelow Station is probably her most lauded work, and explains what happens between the Belter books and Cyteen/the Merchanter books to create the Merchanter Alliance, but is also extremely dense; I think it works best after reading the other books in that setting. - The Faded Sun trilogy, Serpent's Reach, and Cuckoo's Egg for single-human-among-aliens stories - Foreigner (a long-running and still ongoing series, but each trilogy stands more or less on its own) for humans and aliens trying to coexist long term Which basically boils down to recommending everything she's written, but hopefully this gives you some direction as to which ones you're most in the mood for.
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May 29, 2016 15:44
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ToxicFrog posted:
Ah, I miscounted, I read 4. I started with Pride of Chanur. It mentioned how Tully came into the story, but very little about who he is / his past. Only later finding out about different human factions etc. I was more curious if they ever said more about who he was before he met the Hani etc at any point.
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May 29, 2016 18:55
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If you're up from something a tiny bit darker than the Chanur novels, go for Heavy Time or Rimrunners for a 'mature' introduction to the A/U universe. If you're cool with claustrophobic scifi that is I loved them both.
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May 30, 2016 01:18
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That Works posted:Ah, I miscounted, I read 4. I started with Pride of Chanur. It mentioned how Tully came into the story, but very little about who he is / his past. Only later finding out about different human factions etc. I was more curious if they ever said more about who he was before he met the Hani etc at any point. Aah. You never learn more about Tully specifically, but the A-U books have lots of background setting details that let you make some educated guesses. (The A-U timeline collects all of these, with citations, but is also full of spoilers.) At the time of Downbelow Station, Earth Company was working on a new fleet of warships. Following the Treaty of Pell, they found themselves with a bunch of mostly-finished carriers and no war to fight with them. With expansion rimward blocked by Union and the Treaty, they decided to repurpose those ships as exploration/colony ships and send them corewards (because setting up extrasolar colonies worked out so well for them last time). Tully is likely from one of these ships -- almost certainly from a rider or other auxiliary vessel rather than a carrier proper. Ulysses itself is likely one of these carriers.
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May 30, 2016 14:06
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While we're on the subject, is there any milSF that isn't written by some sort of vet, military historian, or neocon clearly jerking off about guns, wasting
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Jun 6, 2016 13:32
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...David Drake? He's clearly not jerking off about guns, genociding aliens, and making space great again. He's a vet, and published by Baen, but you really can't hold that against him.
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Jun 6, 2016 13:42
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indigi posted:While we're on the subject, is there any milSF that isn't written by some sort of vet, military historian, or neocon clearly jerking off about guns, wasting There's a series of books that got recommended here ages ago that you might like, I found them very entertaining, starting with Poor Man's Fight by Elliot Kay. And the ebook version is only $4. http://www.amazon.com/Poor-Mans-Fight-3-Book/dp/B01D06Y6PA/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1465221396&sr=8-4&keywords=poor+mans+fight Check out the Amazon description for the first one. Even the obligatory and often boring mil scifi boot camp section was good, though it does have a TERRIFYING DRILL SERGEANT as required.
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Jun 6, 2016 15:15
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chrisoya posted:...David Drake? He's clearly not jerking off about guns, genociding aliens, and making space great again. Yeah, this was gonna be my recommendation. Drake's a vet, but he's a Vietnam veteran who wrote his milSF as a sort of therapy to help with his PTSD. It's all about how hosed up war is and how much it fucks up the men who fight it. If you want to try him out, you can go to the Baen Free Library and download some of his early milSF as free ebooks. The Tank Lords and Redliners are the ones to look at there. Redliners is specifically about the difficulties of transitioning from the frontlines of war back into a 'normal' life. The Tank Lords is a bunch of connected short stories about a tank-based mercenary company, and they're pretty clearly stories dealing with his Vietnam experiences as an interrogator in an armored company. Khizan fucked around with this message at 16:23 on Jun 6, 2016 |
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Jun 6, 2016 16:20
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indigi posted:While we're on the subject, is there any milSF that isn't written by some sort of vet, military historian, or neocon clearly jerking off about guns, wasting I saw this advertised on the forums once and picked it up. It was decent enough. You can tell its a newer writer at points in the 1st book but mostly gets better as each book goes. http://www.amazon.com/Star-Too-Far-Book/dp/B00XJ00MYC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1465228843&sr=8-1&keywords=casey+calouette+a+star+too+far
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Jun 6, 2016 17:02
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indigi posted:While we're on the subject, is there any milSF that isn't written by some sort of vet, military historian, or neocon clearly jerking off about guns, wasting By far my favorite milSF is "The Prince" by S.M. Stirling and Jerry Pournelle. Pournelle is a Korean War vet and they're also both Baen authors, but like Drake don't hold that against them. The Prince is a compilation of four books that are prequels to Niven & Pournelle's "The Mote in God's Eye" and "The Gripping Hand" books. It describes a period in time when the Earth government (composed of a hegemony of the US and USSR) ruling a bunch of interstellar colonies was falling apart due to internal strife, and follows the life of a guy named Falkenburg who goes from new officer in the Marines to eventually being the colonel of a mercenary regiment fighting in multiple wars on different backwater planets. The stories are mostly about low-grade infantry combat on those planets - the rationale being, these are colony worlds where high technology is rare, locals are starting civil wars and independence movements, and the central government can't be depended on for help (since it's falling apart internally). In addition that, there are a series of spinoff books by different authors about a single planet that loses touch with the rest of the galaxy during the downfall of civilization and has a bunch of internal wars. I haven't read all of them, but the ones I've read so far are good to middling. Kinda like the spin off "Man/Kzin Wars" of Niven's Known Space. There's a pretty detailed breakdown on Wikipedia if you don't mind spoilers.
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