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Number Ten Cocks posted:The cost of not doing AI crewed ships is you lose to anyone who uses AI ships, though. Just in case people don't want the ending spoiled: they will always decide to smash you up.
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May 30, 2016 00:43
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Eh. You could have limited AI control during battle, or mind-melded human/AI hybrids like the early Polity Dreadnoughts, or any number of other things to match an AI driven ship. Upload a captain's consciousness into the ship, Altered Carbon style. Whatever. Once you've created a strong AI for the world, none of this kind of stuff is really pushing any boundaries. The real advantage the zero-crew ship has is that it can handle acceleration forces that would kill meatbags.
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May 30, 2016 01:47
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HUMAN FISH posted:Thanks for the McDevitt recommendation whoever you were! Read the first two already and it's exactly what I was looking for. I've completed the whole Priscilla Hutchins series and I've found it to be really good, specially if you want to depart from the usual pew-pew space opera. In my opinion, the strongest books of the series are Chindi (#3) and Engines of God (#1). Odissey (#5) is quite bland and predictable. Cauldron (#6) has tons of unexploited potential and Skyhawk (#7) was not really needed in any way. I'd prefer to read about the first days of FTL, specially about the Nok discovery rather to follow a young and cute Hutch in her first missions. One of the things I've liked most (apart from the scenography) is the Earth in that book is easily credible. It is neither a Star Trek post-scarcity utopia, nor a depressing Watts style distopya. People has similar motivations than ourselves, politicians are... well, politicians, and the debate about the convenience of going to the stars is just the same we have today about going back to the moon. So, what changes introduced FTL into everyones life? Just a few. Khizan posted:
The counterpart is an AI can be hacked and subverted. Specially if tou own magical Jain technology. Amberskin fucked around with this message at 14:11 on May 30, 2016 |
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May 30, 2016 14:09
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Amberskin posted:The counterpart is an AI can be hacked and subverted. Specially if tou own magical Jain technology. Or you are Penny Royal. Actually, AIs are not really subverted/hacked by Jain since they usually commit suicide before that happens. Khizan posted:Eh. You could have limited AI control during battle, or mind-melded human/AI hybrids like the early Polity Dreadnoughts, or any number of other things to match an AI driven ship. Upload a captain's consciousness into the ship, Altered Carbon style. Whatever. Once you've created a strong AI for the world, none of this kind of stuff Just being an AI is not an autowin in space combats, at least in the Polity universe and the Prador-Polity conflict.
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May 30, 2016 14:26
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Cardiac posted:Or you are Penny Royal. I actually started a re-read of the Ian Cormac books. It's been years since I last read Gridlinked. I've always loved the AIs in Asher's books. And Mr. Crane. An android stolen off the processing line and driven psychotic by having it's AI experience mind recordings of insane criminals. Mr. Crane is the best.
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May 30, 2016 15:20
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Cardiac posted:Or you are Penny Royal. I vaguely remember a bad, bad novel by Norman Spinrad in which the humans are losing a galactic war because their AIs are inferior to the attacking counterparts so they lose all the engagements, until someone comes with the solution of puting humans at the wheel again. What was that? The solarians? And yes, Mr. Crane is a blast.
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May 30, 2016 18:37
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There's a great Isaac Asimov story about the idea.
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May 30, 2016 23:37
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flosofl posted:I actually started a re-read of the Ian Cormac books. It's been years since I last read Gridlinked. Just started the Cormac series thanks to the thread, definitely neat stuff (just a bit into book 2 at this point). Gotta agree with the Mr. Crane love so far (though less for his violence so much as his weirdness), though for true magnificent bastard status Dragon seems like the champ. To paraphrase that old line about knowing someone is lying because their lips are moving, you know Dragon is manipulating the hell out of things just by merely EXISTING in the story. I assume he split into four parts just to spread the bastard-ness across the galaxy. Guessing he's going to be important to the whole story, so nice to have an intriguing antagonist who can barely even be pinned down as such (and might end up not being one in the end, for all I know, though the "human lives mean nothing to him" still makes me think he's a dick).
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May 31, 2016 03:46
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flosofl posted:I actually started a re-read of the Ian Cormac books. It's been years since I last read Gridlinked. I have always found Sniper to be the best AI/war drone.
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May 31, 2016 13:48
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Cardiac posted:I have always found Sniper to be the best AI/war drone. Skaffen-Amtiskaw (drone, destructive) 4lyfe!
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May 31, 2016 14:51
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I just finished The Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet, which I picked up due to a recommendation here (or possibly in the space opera thread), and holy poo poo I loved it. Best book of the year so far, I think. It actually reminded me a lot of The Goblin Emperor in that it's much more character-driven than plot-driven; not a lot happens, but you get to spend 300 pages chilling out with some really neat characters and learning about them. It also generated a lot of warm fuzzies for me.  Apparently she's writing a sequel, A Closed and Common Orbit; that's going to be a release day purchase for me.
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Jun 1, 2016 03:06
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Long Way is fantastic, and yeah I group it with Goblin Emperor too because they're both so optimistic and full of decent people who want to get along with other people. It's such an antidote to the currently prevalent grimdark and cynical genre fiction. Great world building too. I loved all the encyclopedia entries and news headlines throughout. A Closed and Common Orbit is a semi-sequel. It follows (maybe a spoiler about where two characters end up after book one) Pepper and Lovey after the events of the first book. I'm looking forward to it but I'll miss Sissix and Rosemary (and all the rest).
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Jun 1, 2016 04:06
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Just finished the first book in Viriconium series, The Pastel City. Not sure what to think. I think I liked it, but I get the feeling I'll appreciate it a lot more if I read more from the series; the world and characters are pretty neat but it's too short to really go into much depth with them. Luckily I've got the second one too so going to start that next.
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Jun 1, 2016 04:46
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my bony fealty posted:Just finished the first book in Viriconium series, The Pastel City. Not sure what to think. I think I liked it, but I get the feeling I'll appreciate it a lot more if I read more from the series; the world and characters are pretty neat but it's too short to really go into much depth with them. Luckily I've got the second one too so going to start that next. The rest of the viriconium material is not going to be what you expect, regardless of what your expectations are. Whether you end up pleasantly surprised or disappointed or horrified is not something you will know up front. What i will say is that the pastel city is the weakest of the three novels IMO. Possibly unfortunately, it's also the most straightforwardly fun to read. Personally I really loved all three books but they are each very different and if you are hoping for additional world building you are going to be pretty sorely let down.
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Jun 1, 2016 06:19
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Well, you'll definitely see more of the world if that's what you mean by worldbuilding. Do you have a complete edition with the short stories included as well?
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Jun 1, 2016 08:20
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Just finished up Day of the Dragonking : The Last American Wizard by Edward Irving, and it was surprisingly good. It's on kindle unlimited if you want to give it a whirl.
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Jun 1, 2016 14:04
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Just finished up Day of the Dragonking : The Last American Wizard by Edward Irving, and it was surprisingly good. From the Blurb posted:... transforming Democrats into potbellied elves, Republicans into cantankerous dwarves, and Tea Party members into trolls...
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Jun 1, 2016 14:38
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Weirdly enough, it's not crazy political.
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Jun 1, 2016 14:50
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I've been reading Critical Failures 3 by Robert Bevan and this is just the funniest poo poo, fuckin love these books, whatever I read of it in the beginning of the day never fails to have a part that I'll think about later and put a smile on my face cuz it's just so outlandish, over the top and hilarious. I hope this dude just keeps pumping out more and more of these.
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Jun 1, 2016 15:09
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I just read my first KJ Parker book, The Company. Everything got worse. It was just an ongoing, endless clusterfuck. What the hell? I should read the other Parker book I've got.
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Jun 1, 2016 15:25
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Today I will start reading the Hugo voter packet I got. I'll let you know how it goes later.
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Jun 1, 2016 15:47
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chrisoya posted:I just read my first KJ Parker book, The Company. Everything got worse. It was just an ongoing, endless clusterfuck. What the hell? Haha yes, welcome to KJ Parker, enjoy your stay. Coincidentally, I just finished The Folding Knife. Thankfully not as brutal as The Belly of the Bow, but still, oof. Basso must be the nicest protagonist Parker's written, I think.
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Jun 1, 2016 16:26
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Just finished up Day of the Dragonking : The Last American Wizard by Edward Irving, and it was surprisingly good. It's also free if you don't have kindle unlimited, which is convenient and nice.
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Jun 1, 2016 17:33
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taser rates posted:Haha yes, welcome to KJ Parker, enjoy your stay.
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Jun 1, 2016 17:46
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This blog is an utter delight: http://goofusandmuaddib.tumblr.com/
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Jun 1, 2016 19:17
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Hedrigall posted:Long Way is fantastic, and yeah I group it with Goblin Emperor too because they're both so optimistic and full of decent people who want to get along with other people. It's such an antidote to the currently prevalent grimdark and cynical genre fiction. The contrast was especially apparent since I read it immediately after the Shoal trilogy, which is entirely about people constantly backstabbing each other and the ensuing gigadeaths. For that matter, I read Goblin Emperor immediately after Traitor Baru and that had pretty much the same effect (although Baru was a much better book than Shoal). I want more things like Long Way to read but I'm not sure where to start looking. (I'm actually kind of unsure what to read next. I blasted through The Annihilation Score after finishing Long Way, but there's no more Laundry coming out for a while. Right now I'm thinking either check out Jack McDevitt, or read some of Seanan McGuire's stuff that she's written under her own name.) quote:Great world building too. I loved all the encyclopedia entries and news headlines throughout. Yeah, I'm also looking forward to it but I would be lying if I didn't say I was a bit disappointed it's not more about the Wayfarer's crew. Also, I spent basically the entire book shipping Rosemary/Sissix and apparently so did the author  and I want to see where that goes, dammit.
ToxicFrog fucked around with this message at 22:44 on Jun 1, 2016 |
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Jun 1, 2016 22:41
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ToxicFrog posted:I just finished The Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet [...] I started reading this yesterday, but I'm not going to continue doing so after getting some ways in and back-checking reviews, both good and bad.. Feel-good genre fiction can definitely be nice, but to me it looks like this book's got zero drive, zero tension, and no challenge whatsoever for the reader.
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Jun 2, 2016 02:22
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So hey Too Like the Lightning is frigging astonishing and you should all go read it.
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Jun 2, 2016 03:53
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Annihilation Score was such a disappointment. It started great: hey, this book isn't about Bob, it' about his scary smart wife who's armed with an undead bone violin that can shred the very fabric of reality. Then it turns into a critique of the British bureaucracy. And superheroes. And civil service meetings. drat.
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Jun 2, 2016 10:37
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I definitely didn't like the superhero element. It felt like the absolute clumsiest way to introduce the occult to the world (I know that was the point, but I still hated it).
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Jun 2, 2016 15:42
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I think Stross was trying to make some kind of point by making 90% of the book revolve around boring bureaucracy and office politics but "this would be super boring in real life" doesn't make for a particularly enthralling book.
RoboCicero fucked around with this message at 16:02 on Jun 2, 2016 |
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Jun 2, 2016 15:58
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I really liked City of Stairs and City of Blades. How are Robert Bennett's earlier books?
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Jun 2, 2016 16:14
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Phanatic posted:I really liked City of Stairs and City of Blades. How are Robert Bennett's earlier books? I really liked American Elsewhere, though it probably could have stood to have some more editing to get the length down a bit.
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Jun 2, 2016 17:01
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Phanatic posted:I really liked City of Stairs and City of Blades. How are Robert Bennett's earlier books?
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Jun 2, 2016 17:32
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anilEhilated posted:I read somewhere that one of them got him laughed off this website. That same book also won him a Shirley Jackson award, so take from that what you will.
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Jun 2, 2016 17:56
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Just finished TFS Theseus: The Terran Fleet Command Saga – Book 2 by Tori Harris. Just as strong as the first. He's currently writing book 3, and I'm bummed because I'd love to binge all of it if it were available. Lots of great first contact vs other first contact drama going on. Militarization has geared up to "gently caress both of you, bring it!" levels. Wannnnnt book 3!
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Jun 2, 2016 18:22
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ToxicFrog posted:(I'm actually kind of unsure what to read next. I blasted through The Annihilation Score after finishing Long Way, but there's no more Laundry coming out for a while. Right now I'm thinking either check out Jack McDevitt, or read some of Seanan McGuire's stuff that she's written under her own name.) The Nightmare Stacks is out at the end of the month. Alex the vampire as the Laundry's point-man against fairyland.
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Jun 2, 2016 20:55
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Patrick Spens posted:So hey Too Like the Lightning is frigging astonishing and you should all go read it. Agreed. Super cool. I also finished up Uprooted today and I gotta say it definitely earned that Hugo nod. RE: TLtL, that book has a whole lot of literary/philosophical allusion going on that I could tell was going way over my head, so anyone interested in the classics, including political philosophy will probably get stuff out of it that i missed.
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Jun 2, 2016 23:18
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Just started Seveneves. So far it reminds me of the Steven Soderbergh movie Contagion, which I found pretty fascinating. This book is doubly fascinating because I've never read any Stephenson outside of Snow Crash.
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Jun 2, 2016 23:25
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Philthy posted:Just finished TFS Theseus: The Terran Fleet Command Saga – Book 2 by Tori Harris. Just as strong as the first. He's currently writing book 3, and I'm bummed because I'd love to binge all of it if it were available. Lots of great first contact vs other first contact drama going on. Militarization has geared up to "gently caress both of you, bring it!" levels. Wannnnnt book 3! I read both of these last week and I also found that they were serviceable space opera with lots of tech and cool spaceship fights, etc. My only real problem with them was that they both end on cliffhangers; they're clearly not meant to be self-contained. On the plus side it looks like the author has a disciplined writing schedule, so hopefully we'll see the third one in September.
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