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Trasson posted:No, it's legitimately worse here. The more recent books were like a twenty something odd season with a bunch of filler episodes and five or six actual plot episodes distributed thereout. Shadow of Victory is like that, but the five plot episodes are now the previous season's filler, and the old filler episodes are just the Star Wars Holiday Special from different angles over and over. Cranking out literary garbage while on week long speed benders is a kind of life but not one I'm sure I'd like to live.
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Nov 5, 2016 08:32
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Zorak of Michigan posted:I'm still reading it but 45% in and it's definitely 1 star. Whole crapload of new characters who I couldn't care less about, talking to each other about exactly the same crap over and over again. Same. Well, maybe 2 stars because I can think of stuff that I would want to be able to rate under Shadow of Victory, but not much. It feels like a compilation of subplots and scenes that were cut from the original telling of this story. And probably cut because they don't actually add anything; it basically comes down to "same problem, same build-up, just different planets."
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Nov 5, 2016 09:47
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Washout posted:Cranking out literary garbage while on week long speed benders is a kind of life but not one I'm sure I'd like to live.
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Nov 5, 2016 11:19
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So I've been listening to the Honor books on CD, and its clicked what pisses me of about the series. It's not just that Honor's a Mary Sue of the first order. I mean yes, it does bug me that she's simultaneously a natural shot, a record setting pilot, a master swordswoman, and a natural tactician and strategist able to win the loyalty of even the most hard bitten of crews. All of that is bad enough. No, what's really getting on my nerves as I trudge through "Echoes of Honor" is how much everyone in the loving universe loves and/or respects Honor loving Harrington. Everyone knows she's the hottest poo poo in the galaxy, and that would be bad enough too but they SAY so all the loving time. Not a single internal monologue goes by without someone referencing how awesome Honor did something or how she's a example to all space navies, or how if Honor does it its the right way to do it, and on and on and on. The only exceptions are the people who hate her who, nearly universally, are portrayed as the worst humanity has to offer. To not love Honor Harrington is to be a sadist, pedophile, or coward, and often more than one of these things. Its getting to the point that I'm yelling "Oh gently caress OFF!" at my car's CD player when yet another character fawns over how great HH is. 
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Nov 6, 2016 08:24
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And somehow he's still better than Kevin J. Anderson.
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Nov 6, 2016 08:36
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The Honorverse readers are engaged in a real life 50 Shades of Grey relationship with that series.
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Nov 6, 2016 08:37
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jng2058 posted:So I've been listening to the Honor books on CD, and its clicked what pisses me of about the series. It's not just that Honor's a Mary Sue of the first order. I mean yes, it does bug me that she's simultaneously a natural shot, a record setting pilot, a master swordswoman, and a natural tactician and strategist able to win the loyalty of even the most hard bitten of crews. All of that is bad enough. It's not just Honor, every protagonist-character somehow always has the best grades in everything or are masters in their given field and Weber is telling us all about it in great detail. That one guy who was secretly a master hacker in one of the earlier books was Weber at his most restraint. In the later books it gets worse and worse until Honor ceases to look like a Mary Sue just because most of the people around her are also the manifestation of pure awesomeness. Chances are, when Weber introduces a new character and it's a good guy, he will spend a paragraph or two telling us about how Mr. Super-Good was at the top of his class, is seen as brilliant in X and awesome in Y until your eyes fall out because of all that rolling they'll do. Edit: In the beginning Honor sometimes mentioned how she felt she was bad at astro navigation and nearly failed out of the academy because of this. Somehow this and other weaknesses either never become relevant, or are forgotten throughout the series. Libluini fucked around with this message at 14:18 on Nov 6, 2016 |
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Nov 6, 2016 14:12
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I read so many mediocre to bad SF space operas over last summer - it's such a welcome change from my academic reading lists during the semester. Is there any good naval SF which does not involve an alien race/splinter empire that destroys/threatens Terra and the only hope being an unlikely captain who may or may not be an alcoholic or in love with his XO, commanding an old (but hardy) ship with a crew of misfits (who all have a heart of gold, except for one bad apple) ? By band 2 the main character has fought several battles which he won, despite being badly outnumbered. A semi-important side character and friend usually died by then and there's the obligatory 5th column among the fleet (or politicians) trying to sabotage the hero. Recent reading list: The Ember War (some cliche, but a couple of surprising turns and likable characters - the best read of the bunch) Castle Federation saga (okish, but way too many Deus ex Machina moments) A Hymn before Battle (ugh...just ugh...it's one of the series which adds the shape and form of their breasts to the description of female characters). Frontlines series (not insultingly bad, but not outstanding in any way) Terran Fleet Command saga (first 2 books were decent naval SF, but book 3 was terrible babble and it was obvious the author just wanted to fill pages with letters) Galactic Empire Wars saga (strong first book, drops off later on) Lost Colonies Trilogy (a few interesting ideas, but characters you want to drop into a black hole) So I realize that most of this is trash, but I enjoy stuff like this on rainy days and save my Heinlein and Scalzi novels for the beach. But is there anything which is not quite that terrible but still has plenty of fleet action and laser pew-pew ? Hammerstein fucked around with this message at 23:41 on Nov 6, 2016 |
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Nov 6, 2016 23:37
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Hammerstein posted:So I realize that most of this is trash, but I enjoy stuff like this on rainy days and save my Heinlein and Scalzi novels for the beach. But is there anything which is not quite that terrible but still has plenty of fleet action and laser pew-pew ? I'm so sorry, this is going to fit most of the tropes you just described, but I really enjoyed this series of decent-if-not-great space opera: The Lost Fleet by Jack Campbell. The main hero is a little bit of a gary stu, but in this indulgent way where he wins fights by using actual strategy and teamwork with methods that have in-universe been killed out of the current generation of spacers due to everlasting war (TM). If you like the first book, the next five are more of the same, and the sequels after that go into some interesting directions with other factions and stuff. I don't have anything else to read as the only other sci-fi I've been reading lately is CJ Cherryh and while she does fantastic starship battles there's usually only one or two per book and they're very small-scale engagements.
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Nov 7, 2016 01:11
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Hah, I actually thought he was describing The Lost Fleet at first.
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Nov 7, 2016 02:50
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Lost Fleet is formula, but it's good formula. Drake's "Leary" series is pretty good ongoing space-adventure stuff. Drake tends to lock the camera pretty hard on the main characters (to the point where the galactic war ends between books and we only hear that because of the characters bitching that they can't find jobs without a war to fight in) but they're good books with plenty of action.
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Nov 7, 2016 07:09
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Miss-Bomarc posted:Lost Fleet is formula, but it's good formula. Seconding this, the "Leary"-series had space battles actually feel like space battles. The books feel also a lot more human and less sterile than other military SF, if that makes sense.
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Nov 7, 2016 13:51
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The first book for Leary is also free on Kindle so it should be worth checking out (which I will do promptly) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B4HAI2I/ref=series_rw_dp_sw
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Nov 7, 2016 14:25
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Hammerstein posted:I read so many mediocre to bad SF space operas over last summer - it's such a welcome change from my academic reading lists during the semester. I'm just gonna shamelessly plug my own novel series here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VVU7164 It's basically Tom Clancy does Space Opera before he went crazy. So you have spaceships that are essentially submarines IN SPACE, spies doing spy stuff, cold wars GOING HOT, tank battles ON MARS, spec ops operators operating ON THE MOON (high speed, zero drag environment) etc. It does do the whole "Unlikely hero in an old ship with a crew of misfits", but that is just one character among many (too many, really, the first book suffers from severe "Meanwhile..." syndrome in certain parts). And I never described the shape of a female character's breast.
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Nov 7, 2016 19:13
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ArchangeI posted:It's basically Tom Clancy does Space Opera before he went crazy. So you have spaceships that are essentially submarines IN SPACE, spies doing spy stuff, cold wars GOING HOT, tank battles ON MARS, spec ops operators operating ON THE MOON (high speed, zero drag environment) etc. It does do the whole "Unlikely hero in an old ship with a crew of misfits", but that is just one character among many (too many, really, the first book suffers from severe "Meanwhile..." syndrome in certain parts). And I never described the shape of a female character's breast. Why isn't that the actual Amazon teaser/"about this book"?  I'll give it a look! Edit: Got a copy. BadOptics fucked around with this message at 06:12 on Nov 8, 2016 |
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Nov 8, 2016 01:03
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ArchangeI posted:I'm just gonna shamelessly plug my own novel series here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VVU7164 Hey cool I just picked up a copy. I saw this guys stuff linked either off of an SA ad or by someone on SA a couple years back: https://www.amazon.com/Casey-Calouette/e/B004IWHH8O/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1478565468&sr=1-2-ent Pretty sure I discussed him so far but for "space battle" stuff he gives it a really good run. I'd guess the author is a Navy man given the way he writes about the ships, overall combat and other things. The "star too far" series is particularly what I mean. I think the 1st book "Trial by Ice" is free. It gets a little plodding but picks up and the 2nd and 3rd book in the series do well. Definitely more focus on the actual battles themselves / tactics the ships use to protect themselves from damage, using momentum against each other etc.
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Nov 8, 2016 01:42
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Zorak of Michigan posted:I'm still reading it but 45% in and it's definitely 1 star. Whole crapload of new characters who I couldn't care less about, talking to each other about exactly the same crap over and over again. Also, how many times do people say "X doesn't know how to pour piss out of a boot"? like 10 different people over the course of the book. How often does piss actually get in boots? I've never seen it happen. But what would be the correct way to pour it out? Backwards over the heel I would think, dont want to get piss on the laces...
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Nov 15, 2016 21:59
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ianmacdo posted:But what would be the correct way to pour it out? Backwards over the heel I would think, dont want to get piss on the laces... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEqVkJiYJ80 Just finished the latest Safehold book and it's really confusing as to whether he's continuing the series or not. It's written like a 1 season tv show that doesn't know if it'll get renewed.
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Nov 15, 2016 22:15
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Libluini posted:It's not just Honor, every protagonist-character somehow always has the best grades in everything or are masters in their given field and Weber is telling us all about it in great detail. That one guy who was secretly a master hacker in one of the earlier books was Weber at his most restraint. In the later books it gets worse and worse until Honor ceases to look like a Mary Sue just because most of the people around her are also the manifestation of pure awesomeness. As I think on it, you're absolutely right. Honor's mom? Best geneticist around, able to figure out a problem for the Graysons that goes back centuries after only a few weeks on planet. Honor's dad? Best neurosurgeon anywhere. Scotty Tremaine? Best natural pilot in the Star Kingdom (except for Honor, of course). Earl White Haven? Best strategist in the galaxy (except for Honor). Now that I'm looking for it, it's everywhere in the books, and it's nauseating. 
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Nov 15, 2016 22:35
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ArchangeI posted:I'm just gonna shamelessly plug my own novel series here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VVU7164 This sounds pretty cool, adding in the queue. At the moment I'm fully occupied reading Liaden Universe and A Closed And Common Orbit, though.
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Nov 16, 2016 00:16
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ArchangeI posted:I'm just gonna shamelessly plug my own novel series here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VVU7164 Bought, looking forward to this. E: Also, just finished the latest Safehold book by Weber. It's...pretty good? As in, stuff happens, plot moves forward, some mysteries resolved. Enjoyed it. I now want some political sci fi where there's no grand conspiracy, just lots of people pursuing their own agendas and loving everything up, preferably with a flora poste style character who comes in and sorts it all out. I've read the expanse. Any thoughts? Beefeater1980 fucked around with this message at 09:22 on Nov 16, 2016 |
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Nov 16, 2016 09:17
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Beefeater1980 posted:Bought, looking forward to this. Yeah it even had an ending of sorts. Although there's enough dangling plot threads for a sequel assuming Weber lives that long. Although it does suffer from the same boring invincible tech wizards problems pretty much all of the books in the series since the first one have. Not to mention how said ending felt really rushed like for some reason it was going to be cut for time and repackaged as another book.
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Nov 17, 2016 20:09
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Huh. The latest Safehold book actually wrapped things up and mostly moved at a decent pace. I still hate how every battle needs to start with a chapter about some throwaway characters getting shanked, and despite having read some of the previous books 2-3 times the huge cast and made up names still makes it pretty hard for me to know who the hell the current viewpoint is or even what side they're on until several pages into their chapter, but at least stuff happened even if it all ended rather abruptly. And we never found out what was under the temple or what the arch angels return was all about. I'd be surprised if more books pick up at the same point, so I dunno how this will ever be revealed. I would not mind seeing a Safehold WWII level unification war, and later a war against the aliens, provided they aren't as horribly drawn out as Safehold became. It feels like it could have been 3-6 books rather than 9, but he got a 9 book contract, said "Oh poo poo, how do I drag this out to 9 books?" and went into maximum-padding mode. Then, he finished book 8, realised he only had one book left to wrap everything up, and slammed out a monster book 9. Darkrenown fucked around with this message at 12:28 on Nov 29, 2016 |
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Nov 25, 2016 12:18
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Wait, Safehold is over? I seriously didn't think this was possible.
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Nov 25, 2016 19:15
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Libluini posted:Wait, Safehold is over? I seriously didn't think this was possible. To an extent. There's still the aftermath to deal with: Unifying the planet and massively ramping up R&D for tech advances. And for the end-game, there's still the existential threat in the alien race that caused them to ditch all tech and hide in the first place.
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Nov 25, 2016 19:20
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At least it's got an ending, apparently, instead of just petering out like the Honor Harrington stuff seems to be doing. I'm about halfway through At the Sign of Triumph myself, and even though there's been some hinting about the series approaching an end (the discussion of the 'true' reason for the King Haarahld-class ships, the frank talk about what the plans for dealing with the temple are, etc) I still wasn't expecting the second half of the book to wrap up everything. You dicks ruined it for me. Also I think I missed something somewhere, because there's been several mentions of some Grimaldi fellow who seems to have been yet another agitator against the Church and/or someone else clued in on the truth, by the context but the name is just thrown out there with no explanation (that I remember, anyway) 
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Nov 25, 2016 19:25
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I finished reading the Ancillary Justice trilogy this morning, and all things considered I think it's a decent but unexceptional series. There's a couple of potentially very interesting ideas at work with regards to the protagonist, and it's certainly a different sci-fi human society than usual, but the plot through the trilogy feels meandering and kind of pointless. The protagonist admits that she pulled the victory in the third book out of a hat at the last second, and you never really learn anything about any of the characters or setting elements beyond the protagonist's monologues about the nature of AIs.
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Nov 26, 2016 14:05
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Cythereal posted:I finished reading the Ancillary Justice trilogy this morning, and all things considered I think it's a decent but unexceptional series. There's a couple of potentially very interesting ideas at work with regards to the protagonist, and it's certainly a different sci-fi human society than usual, but the plot through the trilogy feels meandering and kind of pointless. The protagonist admits that she pulled the victory in the third book out of a hat at the last second, and you never really learn anything about any of the characters or setting elements beyond the protagonist's monologues about the nature of AIs. Yup. Never really came together and never understood how it got a Hugo
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Nov 26, 2016 14:11
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That Works posted:Yup. Never really came together and never understood how it got a Hugo
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Nov 27, 2016 20:03
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Miss-Bomarc posted:This could be a fun conversation but we probably shouldn't have it. Totally fine with that.
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Nov 27, 2016 20:32
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Cythereal posted:I finished reading the Ancillary Justice trilogy this morning, and all things considered I think it's a decent but unexceptional series. There's a couple of potentially very interesting ideas at work with regards to the protagonist, and it's certainly a different sci-fi human society than usual, but the plot through the trilogy feels meandering and kind of pointless. The protagonist admits that she pulled the victory in the third book out of a hat at the last second, and you never really learn anything about any of the characters or setting elements beyond the protagonist's monologues about the nature of AIs. I don't think I've ever felt a greater letdown between the first and last books of a series than I did with Ancillary Nouns. First book was wonderful, tons of interesting new(ish) concepts introduced, and the second and third books do just fuckall with them. I rarely do not finish a book but I put the third one down about a hundred pages in because nothing was happening and I just didn't care anymore.
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Nov 27, 2016 22:38
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First book was great. Then the series became about tea.
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Nov 27, 2016 22:55
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Maybe it just wasn't your cup.
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Nov 28, 2016 16:25
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ArchangeI posted:I'm just gonna shamelessly plug my own novel series here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VVU7164 as a totally shameless Clancy-even-after-he-caught-light-crazy lover (ie I enjoyed Teeth of the Tiger even) I have also just bought your words. Currently reading the second book of Spineward Sectors but after that (there appears to be like, seventeen of them) I shall give yours a go and report back!
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Nov 28, 2016 23:38
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WarLocke posted:Also I think I missed something somewhere, because there's been several mentions of some Grimaldi fellow who seems to have been yet another agitator against the Church and/or someone else clued in on the truth, by the context but the name is just thrown out there with no explanation (that I remember, anyway) Grimaldi is the "fallen angel" of disease, who the church are worried about after the nanobots kill everyone in the prison in an unexplained way. Speaking of things thrown in with no explanation, I never saw a single hint until it happened that the head of the economy vicar's bodyguard, who was constantly portrayed as a hardcore church loyalist even in the internal monologues of people who knew the truth all along was actually an ultra-hardcore reformer who headed or was in an also never hinted at cabal of reformist army of god officers. Darkrenown fucked around with this message at 12:45 on Nov 29, 2016 |
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Nov 29, 2016 12:40
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Nippashish posted:First book was great. Then the series became about tea. Oh good, I was just thinking of asking somewhere if I should bother to read the third book after being disappointed by the second, and now I see I don't need to. I found the whole pronoun thing pretty interesting (and got to feel some good ol' gender-issues-guilt about which characters I found myself consistently assuming were male despite having no reason to think so) and really liked the gradual reveal of the world, and was really interested to see what more would happen. And then in the second book they just sit around in one place and drink tea while the world's most predictable plot plays out, with a brief interlude where we meet the single new character who is remotely interesting who then promply dies within about ten pages. Ugh.
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Dec 2, 2016 19:16
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Angepain posted:Oh good, I was just thinking of asking somewhere if I should bother to read the third book after being disappointed by the second, and now I see I don't need to. I found the whole pronoun thing pretty interesting (and got to feel some good ol' gender-issues-guilt about which characters I found myself consistently assuming were male despite having no reason to think so) and really liked the gradual reveal of the world, and was really interested to see what more would happen. And then in the second book they just sit around in one place and drink tea while the world's most predictable plot plays out, with a brief interlude where we meet the single new character who is remotely interesting who then promply dies within about ten pages. Ugh. Seconding the thanks. Finished reading Ancillary Justice a few days ago, and was wondering whether to continue the series. The book started off at a casual walk but then accelerated at the end with a bunch of action. I hoped that the next two books continued at that faster pace, but it doesn't sound like it. I really, really liked the parts dealing with issues around one consciousness/multiple bodies, but was less enthusiastic about the style. There were a lot of interjections where the main character would talk directly to the reader along the lines of "I felt an emotion, and thought I did a good job hiding it" or "what she said was an insult", sometimes in pretty much those exact words. Likewise, the "pronoun thing" was certainly different, but it turned out to be unnecessary for the main plot of the book. I'm interested in what happens next at the macro level, but not if I have to slog through some minor side story that has little to do with that. For contrast, I'm now 150 pages into Revelation Space, and I already feel that significantly more has happened. I can also mentally picture most of the characters, something I can't say for all but two or three of the ones in Ancillary Justice.
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Dec 2, 2016 20:39
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Angepain posted:I found the whole pronoun thing pretty interesting (and got to feel some good ol' gender-issues-guilt about which characters I found myself consistently assuming were male despite having no reason to think so) I'd strongly recommend you check out Ada Palmer's Too Like the Lightning. In addition to being a really good it plays similar tricks with gender pronouns, but does so thoughtfully and purposefully, rather than lazily and hackishly. That Works posted:Yup. Never really came together and never understood how it got a Hugo The Puppies have generally terrible taste, but they were not wrong that most Hugo voters weight cliquishness and having the right politics heavier than they should.
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Dec 4, 2016 22:41
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Patrick Spens posted:The Puppies have generally terrible taste
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Dec 7, 2016 06:12
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Patrick Spens posted:The Puppies have generally terrible taste, but they were not wrong that most Hugo voters weight cliquishness and having the right politics heavier than they should. As someone who's never paid attention to the Hugos, what are some other winners that might be attributed to this? I get it in terms of the Ancillary series.
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