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coyo7e posted:I would go against PoT because it's kind of like saying "okay cool I heard about crime drama so I'm gonna marathon Breaking Bad start to finish". It starts rough, and then just rapidly gets uglier and uglier. I never got to book 3 so though just like finishing the last season of BB within 2 years of first watching it thought so.. Maybe ya'll wanna start with 48 Hours or Police Academy or Kuffs or something first, ya know? PoT gets progressively worse during the series. The first book is all about the protagonist being over the top evil, which I just couldn't take seriously the way it was written. At least the first book was kinda original in this way and when Jorg stops being evil the series loses what little it had and ends up as medieval Fallout with magic.
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Aug 11, 2016 07:35
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mdemone posted:They've been a guilty pleasure for years, but I lost my paperbacks. Glad to hear they're in ebook format now, I'd never been able to track down a decent electronic copy. Say what you want but the last one stayed in my heart since I read it at fourteen years old - I still remember the absolutely batshit setting stuff and the sweet relationship between the two marines and the oh my god I am going to buy these right now.
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Aug 11, 2016 15:53
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Dragged The Big Book of Science Fiction home from the post office. After I nearly killed a small child with it by accident I set it down on my table and started reading. It's a colossal effort in every way and it even has two different stories named The Star (one by Wells, one by Clarke). I'd recommend the e-book. It's even more ginormous than my Zones of Thought duology. I think the only other book I own that comes close is written by Eric Hobsbawm.
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Aug 11, 2016 16:49
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chrisoya posted:Just read this instead. And that's coming from someone who owns the METAL GEAR SOLID novelization.
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Aug 11, 2016 16:54
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Aug 11, 2016 17:49
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Antti posted:Dragged The Big Book of Science Fiction home from the post office. After I nearly killed a small child with it by accident I set it down on my table and started reading. I'm a bit of the way through it now (into the 1950s; the stories are sorten chronologically) and it's great. Almost died laughing at the end of that Edmond Hamilton story. Huge space opera thing set hundreds of thousands of years into the future, one of the characters is a female navigator -- incredibly progressive for a story from 1929, the only way you'd notice is by the use of female pronouns, she's just as competent and tough as the men and as effective at fighting intergalactic tentacle monsters. But when the enemy is beaten and it's time for R&R she naturally heads off to a beatuy salon, AS is ever the way of her gender.
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Aug 11, 2016 21:27
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Groke posted:I'm a bit of the way through it now (into the 1950s; the stories are sorten chronologically) and it's great. This is how Theodore Sturgeon stories make me feel. Dames still love their crazy hairdryers!
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Aug 12, 2016 01:06
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Are you saying women aren't allowed to like going to beauty salons? That military women must be butch or something? Disgusting
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Aug 12, 2016 02:54
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WarLocke posted:I googled those books because I'm with this guy, 'Harry Dresden but a woman' was enough to sell me. Tried the first few after reading the praise here, and while most of the thread says "Nah, it's not that bad", I found it to be pretty much unbearable. He's every terrible alpha were-beast cliche rolled into one and their whole relationship makes the series pretty dreadful. It's a shame, too, because the world is great and the lead character is solid except for the horrible 'mate of the alpha-super-lion' bullshit. Literally everything about the lion guy is bad trashy paranormal romance stuff, and if you cut him the books would be so much better(and also about 50% shorter). Returned for a refund. Blech.
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Aug 12, 2016 05:53
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the_homemaster posted:Are you saying women aren't allowed to like going to beauty salons? That military women must be butch or something? To explain the joke, it was funny because it was presented in the author's voice as something all women naturally do even hundreds of thousands of years in the future, regardless of how much human culture might otherwise have changed. Just a one-sentence concentration of  outta nowhere.
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Aug 12, 2016 13:53
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the_homemaster posted:Are you saying women aren't allowed to like going to beauty salons? That military women must be butch or something? Actually I'm saying that
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Aug 12, 2016 14:19
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So I'm like halfway through the second Laundry book, and I'm enjoying it. However, I feel like I'm not...nerdy enough? To get half the poo poo they talk about.
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Aug 15, 2016 00:07
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A Proper Uppercut posted:So I'm like halfway through the second Laundry book, and I'm enjoying it. However, I feel like I'm not...nerdy enough? To get half the poo poo they talk about. Google stuff that confuses you and chase down references? It's not too late to nerd out!
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Aug 15, 2016 04:50
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It's not just that they make a lot of nerdy references (although being a major and varied nerd does help), it's that the tone of the first two Laundry books are almost unbearably nerdy in tone. It's not helped by the second book being the weakest in the series, in my opinion. Anyway I'm not an ubernerd when it comes to tech stuff, so a lot of that and some of the british colloquialisms are lost on me. Assuming you've read the first book, which is good, I'd advise sticking it out until at least the third book, Fuller Memorandum, which I think is the series's high mark (having not read the new one yet). That's when poo poo really starts to go down. I'd probably rate the series like this: Atrocity Archives- Good, great if only for the novelty of the whole concept Jennifer Morgue- Bad Fuller Memorandum- Great Apocalypse Codex- Good, with some shades of greatness in there Rhesus Chart- Good Annihilation Score- OK Nightmare Stacks- TBD Side note: I didn't particularly care for any of the side stories except for Equoid, which is some of the best writing he's done in the series.
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Aug 15, 2016 09:10
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A Proper Uppercut posted:So I'm like halfway through the second Laundry book, and I'm enjoying it. However, I feel like I'm not...nerdy enough? To get half the poo poo they talk about. You may have already done this but if you like what Stross is doing with horror read his novella A Colder War. It doesn't have any of the humour, but hits all the same horror notes. I don't particularly like Stross, having read 3 Laundry Files books and Iron Sunrise, and tried Glasshouse, finding them at best kind of vaguely enjoyable, but A Colder War is flat out brilliant and one of the greatest cosmic horror works out there.
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Aug 15, 2016 13:48
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I'd also recommend his short story "Missile Gap" which isn't as focused on horror but is really loving weird, especially when you consider the implications of what's revealed towards the end of the story.
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Aug 15, 2016 14:23
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Like much of genre fiction, his writing works better for me in shorter formats yeah.
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Aug 15, 2016 14:41
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Finished Dark Orbit last night by Carolyn Ives Gilman. Really enjoyed it. Reminded me of Blindsight in some ways (though without the constant looming cosmic horror). In particular, there's a long passage about sight and how much our brains do to 'invent' what we 'see' and how that alters our approach to how reality can be known in a fundamental way, despite sight being mostly an illusion.
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Aug 15, 2016 14:55
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I'm a third of the way through Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie. It's loving awesome. And Amazon shipped out my copy of The Obelisk Gate today.
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Aug 15, 2016 15:05
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Neurosis posted:You may have already done this but if you like what Stross is doing with horror read his novella A Colder War. It doesn't have any of the humour, but hits all the same horror notes. I don't particularly like Stross, having read 3 Laundry Files books and Iron Sunrise, and tried Glasshouse, finding them at best kind of vaguely enjoyable, but A Colder War is flat out brilliant and one of the greatest cosmic horror works out there. I read A Colder War a few months ago, and while good, I wouldn't say it was anything spectacular. Drip fed just enough information that I kept on reading but then never expanded on any of it.
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Aug 15, 2016 17:13
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Started reading Peter F. Hamilton's latest - 'The Abyss Beyond Dreams', which is continuing the Commonwealth / Void series. The mystery is causing me to turn pages, but I really struggled through the Void trilogy. And the characters introduced so far apparently subscribe to the 'Prometheus' school of scientific exploration. "What's this? Better stick my face in it." Pandora's Star & Judas Unchained are some of my favorite 'new space opera', but anything he's written since then hasn't really worked for me.
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Aug 15, 2016 18:22
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e:NM
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Aug 15, 2016 18:49
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Been reading Allen Steele's Coyote again, forgot how much I liked the series. The political stuff and stuff like "the Starship USS Jesse Helms" is hilarious to me, and it really isn't in your face past the initial opening of the first book.. And since there's a few dozen light years between earth and the planet Coyote, every time there's contact between the two planets, the government has completely flipped around again over the previous 100-200 years so you never know what to expect.
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Aug 15, 2016 19:28
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Someone read this and tell us all about it.
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Aug 15, 2016 19:32
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Why the gently caress does the cover have a comma in it. And it's even in the wrong part of the name. Is his middle name "Wesley,"?
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Aug 15, 2016 19:47
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Antti posted:Why the gently caress does the cover have a comma in it. And it's even in the wrong part of the name. Is his middle name "Wesley,"? I'm not spending $4 on this book because it's corrupting my Amazon history enough just looking at the link, but I'm sure somebody will bite.
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Aug 15, 2016 19:56
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Antti posted:Why the gently caress does the cover have a comma in it. And it's even in the wrong part of the name. Is his middle name "Wesley,"? Wikipedia posted:On his book covers, in his signature, on his checks, in his blog, and as his legal name, he presents his name as "James Wesley, Rawles", using a comma to distinguish between his given and family names.
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Aug 15, 2016 19:58
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I love the endorsement from Bill B, ZeroGov forum member. I also love the concept of establishing a state with no taxes, no ID of any kind, and no army, in vicinity of South Sudan
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Aug 15, 2016 20:04
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Nakar posted:I am almost certain if you dig enough this is one of those Sovereign Citizen things like YOUR NAME IN ALL CAPS that somehow distinguishes you from the fake legal identity established by the federal government for you or whatever the gently caress. Probably read as something like "James Wesley, [of the family] Rawles," to distinguish him from "JAMES WESLEY RAWLES, federal government collateral for all the gold owed to China." In other words, 99.99999% chance of super duper crazy.  v and has a foreword by this guy whose self-bio claims he's "published in many places such as lewrockwell.com", said website has some great headlines, I haven't found one this weird since clashdaily.com
coyo7e fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Aug 15, 2016 |
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Aug 15, 2016 20:24
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Holy poo poo it is a SovCit thing isn't it.
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Aug 15, 2016 20:28
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definitely, these guys literally claim they're the libertarians other libertarians are too cowardly to be
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Aug 15, 2016 20:46
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coyo7e posted:it's free with kindle unlimited v Lew Rockwell's site is ultra-libertarian. Like I consider my libertarian leaning but that site is way beyond what I consider rational.
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Aug 15, 2016 20:51
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I'm tempted to get unlimited so I can read these without giving him money. Or maybe paying him US currency via Amazon would be joke's on him Reminds me of the group trying to build their own sovereign citadel; complete with mspaint, home brew rpg style map: http://iiicitadel.com/about.html
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Aug 15, 2016 21:11
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They literally expect the liberals to come after them with torches and pitchforks and decided to build a castle? Holy poo poo
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Aug 15, 2016 21:17
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coyo7e posted:Been reading Allen Steele's Coyote again, forgot how much I liked the series. The political stuff and stuff like "the Starship USS Jesse Helms" is hilarious to me, and it really isn't in your face past the initial opening of the first book.. And since there's a few dozen light years between earth and the planet Coyote, every time there's contact between the two planets, the government has completely flipped around again over the previous 100-200 years so you never know what to expect. That's one of my favorite series. By the time I discovered it, the second and third book had come out. I was only halfway through Coyote before going out and buying them both. The subsidiary novels are pretty good, too.
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Aug 15, 2016 21:49
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FastestGunAlive posted:Reminds me of the group trying to build their own sovereign citadel; complete with mspaint, home brew rpg style map: http://iiicitadel.com/about.html Certainly got their priorities straightened out there.
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Aug 15, 2016 21:55
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tooterfish posted:I like how there's no hospital marked on that map, but they made sure to make space for an arms factory and firearms museum. The important thing to note is that their children will be educated not indoctrinated. 
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Aug 15, 2016 22:04
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tooterfish posted:I like how there's no hospital marked on that map, but they made sure to make space for an arms factory and firearms museum. I love that there's a Firearms Museum and a reflecting pool.. Like, Dude really wants to go look at some guns and then go outside and think on those guns good and hard for a while
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Aug 15, 2016 22:09
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Holy poo poo... quote:About the Author We've hit near peak crazy and that is just from the "about the author" section on the amazon page.
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Aug 15, 2016 22:12
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I'll... try. I'm not promising how far I'll get... but drat it SA, I'll be your canary. what have I done 
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