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 I finished blindsight. Again, thanks for recommending it. A really fresh approach to First Contact... and I really missed reading a good story about that. Still not sure about the vampire thing. I mean, I understand it is a way to introduce a weird alien character in the crew, and to push the conclusion somehow. I definitely do not like the ending, mostly because I was pretty sure during the reading that those guys were going to take over, in one form or another. Bringing back an extint super-predator race stronger and smarter than humans that just did not exterminate us because of a weird psychoneural issue, and giving them the cure at the same time... What could be wrong with that?. Now I will read echopraxia... after a little bit of rest. And that rest have taken the form of Seveneves. Great set up, big history... and bland resolution. I'm at the third part, and I'm really getting tired of 10 pages infodumps, followed by 20 pages of chit-chat about some absolutely irrelevant issue.
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Apr 30, 2016 17:46
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Amberskin posted:
For more on the vampires in Blindsight: http://www.rifters.com/blindsight/vampires.htm While you're right, note that Watts is definitely heavily influenced by cyberpunk so the events regarding these vampires and the circumstances of their creation are pretty consistent with the operators in the world he's created.
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Apr 30, 2016 19:41
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I really could not get into Blindsight. I think I got maybe 20% in and I just wasn't enjoying it at all so far. I mean some things were well written and some interesting ideas but it just didn't click with me  I'm reading Ancillary Justice right now though and that's quite good so far and I'm quite digging that.
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Apr 30, 2016 19:59
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Watts has a particular prose style that won't appeal to everyone. He's looking down his long academic nose (seriously he's got a big loving nose) at you while he lectures you in a nasal voice about some aspect of human biology he's found fascinating that week, informed partly by articles he's read in some crap like new scientist. Despite that I think he's cool and interesting and occasionally pretty funny (he makes some good cracks in the speeches he gives), but not liking his style is quite understandable. Check out the Island though, it's good: http://www.rifters.com/real/shorts/PeterWatts_TheIsland.pdf
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Apr 30, 2016 20:13
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So the vampires are magic autists? I was gonna read the book at some point but that's a bit...  Almost makes me wish he'd just gone with magic psychopaths like everyone else Fake edit: wait no the video just got to the bit where they're psychopaths too 
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Apr 30, 2016 20:38
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Strategic Tea posted:So the vampires are magic autists? I was gonna read the book at some point but that's a bit... 
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Apr 30, 2016 20:40
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Strategic Tea posted:So the vampires are magic autists? I was gonna read the book at some point but that's a bit... Go for it. The vampire is no so important (it's more like a plot device), and the discussion about self-conciousness and intelligence is a real intellectual treat. As I wrote before, it's not a light read, but worth the time and the effort.
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Apr 30, 2016 21:53
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Strategic Tea posted:So the vampires are magic autists? I was gonna read the book at some point but that's a bit... loving lmao
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Apr 30, 2016 21:57
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The "Blindsight has vampires? Not reading that trash  " attitude is as misinformed and idiotic as "A Deepness in the Sky has spiders driving cars? How ridiculous "Like are you really expecting one character to be Edward Cullen? Or the Count from Sesame Street? Read the goddamn loving book.
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Apr 30, 2016 22:44
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http://www.rifters.com/blindsight/vampires.htm I'm responding to the video here, where they specifically say they did gene editing on a guy with autism and he turned into a literal pale, fanged vampire with no empathy. It's not like spiders driving cars because there's a difference between -sci fi device- making you tall and willowy and -sci fi device- giving you pointed ears, a genetic love of harp music and a burning desire to sail into the West E: Actually thinking about it it wouldn't really bother me if he'd just said hey vampires were some genetic bogeyman hiding among us all along, which is what I'd always assumed hearing about the book. Strategic Tea fucked around with this message at 00:00 on May 1, 2016 |
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Apr 30, 2016 23:44
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Yeah, I always felt like Blindsight would have been just as good a novel if the vampire thing had been dropped and the vampire character had been replaced with a more generic ‘genetically engineered superman we built to win some war.’ The vampires almost feel like a side-idea that sort of clutters things, though I still really enjoyed the book. And the vampire has some cool moments. And oddly one thing that made me really love Blindsight was that I felt like I wasn’t being lectured to the way I feel like reading other hard sci-fi novels. Most of the time Watts just throws this blizzard of terms and ideas at you, and if you’re actually curious you can always go look them up. It’s a breath of fresh air compared to something clunky and exposition-heavy like Seveneves.
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May 1, 2016 06:55
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The point of the vampires was that humans were on their way to non-sapience until the crucifix glitch caused their extinction. Making them genetically engineered super soldiers would've defeated the purpose.
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May 1, 2016 07:09
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Strategic Tea posted:E: Actually thinking about it it wouldn't really bother me if he'd just said hey vampires were some genetic bogeyman hiding among us all along, which is what I'd always assumed hearing about the book. The little talk on vampires at the end of the book says just that (they were hiding in the genes of autists).
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May 1, 2016 08:53
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pseudorandom name posted:The point of the vampires was that humans were on their way to non-sapience until the crucifix glitch caused their extinction. You mean "non-sentience", don't you? If I have understood, the point is sapience (as in being able to make things and learn about the universe/environment/whatever) is different from "sentience" (as in being aware of one's existence).
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May 1, 2016 09:41
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Xaris posted:I really could not get into Blindsight. I think I got maybe 20% in and I just wasn't enjoying it at all so far. I mean some things were well written and some interesting ideas but it just didn't click with me I tried reading Blindsight recently, though I was reading other books (The Traitor Baru Cormorant and one other, IIRC) at the same time. I gave up pretty early, and I'm gonna try again when I can give it my undivided attention.
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May 1, 2016 10:08
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Kesper North posted:And aren't all those critters centaurs who are big-tittied ladies from the waist up or something equally retarded? And this was nearly 40 years ago.
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May 1, 2016 13:28
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Neurosis posted:For more on the vampires in Blindsight: http://www.rifters.com/blindsight/vampires.htm
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May 1, 2016 13:45
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Amberskin posted:You mean "non-sentience", don't you? If I have understood, the point is sapience (as in being able to make things and learn about the universe/environment/whatever) is different from "sentience" (as in being aware of one's existence). Probably. I always get them confused.
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May 1, 2016 16:58
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mystes posted:Actually for more on the vampires in Blindsight: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie. Interesting. But I'd say "physicalists" tend to not give a gently caress about metaphysics reasoning. Specially in a world where Immanuel Kant did exist and wrote what he wrote. Returning to SF, I definitely don't like Seveneves. I amb about 10% off finishing the book, and unless there is a brutal and awesome final plot twist, the book is dull. Starts with an explosion (almost literally), entangles itself into an almost unsolvable situation and then it develops an unbelievable (in the bad sense of that expression) world, which the author tries to patch using pages and pages of boring and nonsensical infodump. I'm curious about the computations that predict the "white sky" and "hard rain". Has anybody tried to actually go through the numbers? Intuition says mos of the debris would be orbiting at moon distance, with just a small % falling down to Earth; I guess Stephenson himself had to introduce an additional body to "stir the waters" and trigger the event, but even this seems unplausible.
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May 1, 2016 17:42
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People who recommended Stormdancer (it's on sale for $2.99 right now): do the next books in the series get less cliche or at least less predictable? I like the author's voice, and he writes well, but oh my god the plot of this book is the least inspired thing ever.
Coldforge fucked around with this message at 04:22 on May 2, 2016 |
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May 2, 2016 04:19
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Coldforge posted:People who recommended Stormdancer (it's on sale for $2.99 right now): do the next books in the series get less cliche or at least less predictable? I like the author's voice, and he writes well, but oh my god the plot of this book is the least inspired thing ever. I liked the other two Lotus War books, although certain characters die that I wish didn't. And the Japanese honorifics still remain an annoying gimmick. I'm looking forward to his next book (Fantasy Roman Republic, orphan joins assassin boarding school?) because it looks like it'll have Kristoff's strengths without the misused Japanese words shoved in every other sentence..
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May 2, 2016 06:05
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Hedrigall posted:Are we really doing this again? I do have to laugh really hard at all the stuff about biology and then smack in the middle is "wizard saliva."
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May 2, 2016 13:07
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So,a well-meaning friend of mine just got me The Dinosaur Lords. Apparently it's crap? If it is,I'll just take it to the used bookstore by my place.
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May 2, 2016 14:11
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gently caress me dead Varley's an uneven author. I'd somehow purged all that centaur sex poo poo from my mind. I feel like he spent the 1970s high as a kite, having amazing personal experiences which translated into rambling batshit novels, and then he sobered up in the '80s and eventually started writing fantastic science fiction in the 1990s. Seriously, everyone should read The Golden Globe.
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May 2, 2016 14:17
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VolticSurge posted:So,a well-meaning friend of mine just got me The Dinosaur Lords. Apparently it's crap? If it is,I'll just take it to the used bookstore by my place. It doesn't live up to the tremendously awesome cover art.
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May 2, 2016 14:38
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freebooter posted:gently caress me dead Varley's an uneven author. I'd somehow purged all that centaur sex poo poo from my mind. I feel like he spent the 1970s high as a kite, having amazing personal experiences which translated into rambling batshit novels, and then he sobered up in the '80s and eventually started writing fantastic science fiction in the 1990s. Seriously, everyone should read The Golden Globe. I see it's part of a series. Does it matter if I read just The Golden Globe?
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May 2, 2016 14:52
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VolticSurge posted:So,a well-meaning friend of mine just got me The Dinosaur Lords. Apparently it's crap? If it is,I'll just take it to the used bookstore by my place. It's mildly entertaining crap. It's worth reading once if you don't mind pulp. I keep my copy for the cover art, not because I plan to read it again.
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May 2, 2016 15:47
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VolticSurge posted:So,a well-meaning friend of mine just got me The Dinosaur Lords. Apparently it's crap? If it is,I'll just take it to the used bookstore by my place. It's crap. Lemme put it this way. It's got a 3-star rating on Amazon and something like 45% of its total reviews are 1-2 stars.
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May 2, 2016 15:58
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Ah,I see. Time to put my spare Bad Rats gift copy to good use. 
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May 2, 2016 17:39
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VolticSurge posted:So,a well-meaning friend of mine just got me The Dinosaur Lords. Apparently it's crap? If it is,I'll just take it to the used bookstore by my place. I found it almost unreadable. Just utter crap. And I so wanted it to be good.
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May 2, 2016 21:09
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mcustic posted:I see it's part of a series. Does it matter if I read just The Golden Globe? Nah, it's a series in about the same way the Culture books are a series.
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May 2, 2016 21:36
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freebooter posted:gently caress me dead Varley's an uneven author. I'd somehow purged all that centaur sex poo poo from my mind. I feel like he spent the 1970s high as a kite, having amazing personal experiences which translated into rambling batshit novels, and then he sobered up in the '80s and eventually started writing fantastic science fiction in the 1990s. Seriously, everyone should read The Golden Globe. Steel Beach is my favorite Varley book. And it has weird sex poo poo in it, too.
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May 2, 2016 22:45
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Mister Kingdom posted:Steel Beach is my favorite Varley book. And it has weird sex poo poo in it, too. One of the finest opening lines of all time, quoting from memory: "In five years the penis will be obsolete," said the salesman.
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May 2, 2016 22:53
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mcustic posted:I see it's part of a series. Does it matter if I read just The Golden Globe? Nope. It has loose roots in his book the Ophiuchi Hotline in the 70s, but he sort of rebooted the world in the 90s with Steel Beach and The Golden Globe. They're both standalone books set in the same universe. Although you may as well read Steel Beach, I liked it quite a bit, just not as much as TGG.
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May 2, 2016 22:57
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Welp. Black Gate has declined their Hugo nomination because they don't want to be associated with Vox Day. Good call.
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May 2, 2016 22:57
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Groke posted:One of the finest opening lines of all time, quoting from memory: And The Golden Globe's: "I once played Romeo and Juliet as a one-man show," I said.
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May 2, 2016 22:58
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XBenedict posted:Welp. Black Gate has declined their Hugo nomination because they don't want to be associated with Vox Day. Good on them, but I can't help but feel a little sad for them. This is the 2nd year in a row they've bowed out on principle. And despite that, they run the risk in the future of being forever linked to Vox Day's brand of madness and never be a legitimate contender for the Hugo on their own merits.
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May 2, 2016 23:29
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freebooter posted:Nope. It has loose roots in his book the Ophiuchi Hotline in the 70s, but he sort of rebooted the world in the 90s with Steel Beach and The Golden Globe. They're both standalone books set in the same universe. Although you may as well read Steel Beach, I liked it quite a bit, just not as much as TGG. I'm already reading it. Looks like it's going to be quite a ride. Surprisingly funny and thankfully lacking in horse penises.
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May 2, 2016 23:37
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Mars4523 posted:It depends on how genre savvy you are. For the most part its a traditional fantasy dressed up in Fantasy Steampunk Japan. There's a twist in book 2 that's been done before (but then, what hasn't been?) and a reveal in book 3 that's kind of obvious. The books are still pretty decent. Thanks. This is why publishers pricing first-in-a-series books at $10-14 always baffles me. If I had paid full price for this one, I'd be pissed, and probably wouldn't risk a "new" author for quite a while. For $3, though? It was absolutely worth a shot.
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May 3, 2016 21:16
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freebooter posted:And The Golden Globe's: 
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