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While the discourse on SA is mostly a American/UK liberal one, I don't see why he can't critique someone for indulging in some typically liberal memes/patterns without immediately becoming a white supremacist. I don't think mandating that someone be 100% woke before they post here is a great idea. We did just talk about how Sherri Tepper was kinda crazy, and her crazy had a distinct left/liberal tinge, so I guess we might all be Woksdaejjugend now?
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Nov 20, 2016 14:56
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Megazver posted:While the discourse on SA is mostly a American/UK liberal one, I don't see why he can't critique someone for indulging in some typically liberal memes/patterns without immediately becoming a white supremacist. I don't think mandating that someone be 100% woke before they post here is a great idea. Not sure what you are talking about since I didn't refer to white supremacy at all! My point is that the Sad Puppy-ish  SJWs!!! isn't going to find much of a sympathetic audience here
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Nov 20, 2016 17:04
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uberkeyzer posted:Not sure what you are talking about since I didn't refer to white supremacy at all! My point is that the Sad Puppy-ish So what? It's not going to find zero sympathetic audience. And the sympathy of an audience has zero relevance for the truth or value of the argument being made.
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Nov 20, 2016 18:07
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BotL is a habitual troll.
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Nov 20, 2016 19:12
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uberkeyzer posted:Did you mean to post this in Vox Day's comment section? I don't think your...uh...perspective is going to find much of an audience in this thread. I actually went ahead and finished THTK today, and its New Age-y triumph-of-paganism-over-Abrahamic-religion story is very, very silly. Like I said, it's wrapped up in liberal cliches. The depictions of inequality and fundamentalism are silly and inauthentic because Jemisin can't cover for their cartoonishness (not to mention the copious undercurrents of gently caress YOU DAD). I could also call it a duller version of The King of Elfland's Daughter. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 21:57 on Nov 20, 2016 |
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Nov 20, 2016 19:40
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I'm fairly bad at articulating things, but the last three science fiction stories i've read (and watched) sure all deal with the phenomena of first contact with alien intelligence in different ways. Those three being: Three Body Problem (and sequels), the Expanse books (I'm only 1 and 3/4 of the way into them), and the Arrival (film). But one thing that springs immediately to mind is from Banks' Culture novels though; specifically the Outside Context Problem (OCP), the kind of problem "most civilizations would encounter just once, and which they tended to encounter rather in the same way a sentence encountered a full stop." First Contact stories are a staple of scifi of course, but i love how very differently each can play out compared to others. Especially considering Liu's Dark Forest Theory of the universe compared to...well many many others.
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Nov 20, 2016 19:47
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This has almost certainly been mentioned in this thread, but I can't find it here or elsewhere. So, here goes... Does anyone know who it was (originally, at least) who talked about how characters in science fiction shouldn't be awkwardly commenting on the amazing technology they're using? I want to say that the paradigmatic example used is Kirk and Spock stopping and talking about the automatic doors in TOS. The idea behind it isn't "don't do awkward info dumps," but rather, "if you're not doing an awkward info dump, don't awkwardly shove it into the dialogue." Is this just a truism, or is there an actual quote somewhere? (Apologies for the vagueness; it's probably why I can't find it.)
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Nov 20, 2016 21:49
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That reminds me of Mark Rosenfelder's send-up of bad science fiction:Mark Rosenfelder posted:If all stories were written like science fiction stories
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Nov 21, 2016 04:51
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That's my now favorite thing ever, or at least today.
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Nov 21, 2016 04:58
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I like how it belittles Ann.
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Nov 21, 2016 05:39
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DirtyRobot posted:This has almost certainly been mentioned in this thread, but I can't find it here or elsewhere. So, here goes... There's probably a ton of quotes about it, as this is a central technical problem for sf. If there's a specific quotation you're thinking of, it might be Heinlein, the guy who wrote "The door irised open". You should also try searching for "Jo Walton incluing".
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Nov 21, 2016 05:40
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I love this, but I remember once reading a version of it where it explicitly mentioned the Bernoulli Principle in casual conversation while they looked out the window at the wing, anyone know where it is?
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Nov 21, 2016 05:43
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I could swear there's another version where, after a paragraph of description lavished on the bodacious, tightly-clothed woman, the man is "dressed in pants and a shirt".
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Nov 21, 2016 05:50
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It's more author-specific, but How David Weber orders a pizza is pretty good. Don't forget to scroll down for part 2!
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Nov 21, 2016 09:38
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Magic Hate Ball posted:I like how it belittles Ann. What do you mean? How can read this as anything other than a compliment? quote:A game girl, and intelligent as well!
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Nov 21, 2016 09:48
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Magic Hate Ball posted:I just finished and mostly enjoyed GRRM's Tuf Voyaging, are any of his other non-Game of Thrones books worth reading? Maybe check out the Dreamsongs books, a two volume short story anthology thing that I remember liking a lot. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000W918RI/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
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Nov 21, 2016 12:16
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DirtyRobot posted:This has almost certainly been mentioned in this thread, but I can't find it here or elsewhere. So, here goes... I'm reading the first book of the Lost Fleet and it's kind of ridiculous the amount of times the protagonist mentions how weird it is that he's watching things occurring far away in the system that already happened fifteen minutes ago and just generally stops to ponder relativistic effects despite being a super experienced space sailor captain.
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Nov 21, 2016 12:40
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Well, let me tell you about the advantages and disadvantages of battlecruisers....
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Nov 21, 2016 13:56
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90s Cringe Rock posted:It's more author-specific, but How David Weber orders a pizza is pretty good. Don't forget to scroll down for part 2! Oh wow, the straight dope boards, that takes me back.
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Nov 21, 2016 15:41
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I finally read Children of Time. Liked a lot of it especially the aw shucks that's nice ending.
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Nov 21, 2016 16:03
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The Everything Box by Richard Kadrey is on sale for 2.99 today on amazon. It's well worth it at that price. Give the sample a shot to see if you want to try it, it's a pretty big departure from the Sandman Slim series, but it's a pretty fun read.
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Nov 21, 2016 18:17
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Magic Hate Ball posted:That reminds me of Mark Rosenfelder's send-up of bad science fiction: This is great, a really good send-up.
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Nov 21, 2016 19:27
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I thought K.J. Parker's short stories were pretty entertaining; unfortunately the first book of the Engineer trilogy was a billion words about autists and whiners and autistic whiners and the armors and the lock plates, and the gently caress if I'm going to bother with a billion billion more words about their dumb fantasy lives. Are the other trilogies this bad, too? I was hoping I'd found some decent fantasy mush but that doesn't appear to be the case...
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Nov 21, 2016 20:54
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So I just finished Diamond Star by Catherine Asaro and I do believe this was the first time I've read a sci-fi book where the central plot is about an exiled prince becoming a holo-rock star, power ballads and all. And since my taste in music seems to be perennially stuck in the 80s, is there anything similar out there? The only other major use of music (like this, anyway) in sci-fi I can think of at the moment is from Macross/Robotech... VVV: Well, I was thinking more along the lines of stuff in book form, but that still looks pretty awesome and I need to see it now. WarLocke fucked around with this message at 21:42 on Nov 21, 2016 |
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Nov 21, 2016 21:06
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Daft Punk - Interstella 5555
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Nov 21, 2016 21:20
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idiotsavant posted:I thought K.J. Parker's short stories were pretty entertaining; unfortunately the first book of the Engineer trilogy was a billion words about autists and whiners and autistic whiners and the armors and the lock plates, and the gently caress if I'm going to bother with a billion billion more words about their dumb fantasy lives. A lot of people don't seem to like his first two trilogies. I did enjoy The Folding Knife, though, I think you'll like it if you liked the short stories. Maybe read the rest of his novels backwards, starting with the most recent ones.
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Nov 21, 2016 21:50
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WarLocke posted:So I just finished Diamond Star by Catherine Asaro and I do believe this was the first time I've read a sci-fi book where the central plot is about an exiled prince becoming a holo-rock star, power ballads and all. This is going even further off topic but if you want a cool synthwave band with an 80s sci fi vibe check out Gunship. The best songs are "The Mountain" and "Tech Noir".
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Nov 21, 2016 21:56
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Megazver posted:A lot of people don't seem to like his first two trilogies. I did enjoy The Folding Knife, though, I think you'll like it if you liked the short stories. Maybe read the rest of his novels backwards, starting with the most recent ones. His first trilogy is very good, but extremely brutal. Also has a lot of the technical detail you seem to dislike, though Parker uses it more as a metaphor for characterization than for its own sake, and the third book is definitely weaker than the other two, though still worth it for the ending. A certain event in the second book is probably one of the most hosed up things I've read in fiction in a long time. The Folding Knife though is a great standalone, very good place to start with Parker's novels.
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Nov 21, 2016 22:09
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My problem is that the technical detail gets tossed in there as a bunch of nerdout SCA stuff rather than anything that really has to do with the story or with good writing. Brian Jaques sperging out about food or Robert Jordan describing the 15 colors of ribbon on a dress. I don't know about the other trilogies, but the Engineer book could have been at least 200 pages shorter and would have been a far better story for it.
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Nov 21, 2016 22:24
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Sage Grimm posted:[spoiler]If you want to be introduced to Hamilton I'd argue The Commonwealth Saga is a better place to start I'll second this. I really enjoyed the technology in the series and the large amount of time it covers.
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Nov 21, 2016 22:31
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I almost liked Parker's Engineer trilogy ( or was it just one book, I forget) but the third book in the Fencer trilogy is one of an incredibly small number of books I couldn't even be bothered to finish. Hated the characters, hated the setting, and really hated the second book's seemingly endless wargamelike "can a small trained group of bowmen defeat a larger group of halberdiers" I made it about quarter into the next book when I decided i was officially Done With KJ Parker. ymmv
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Nov 21, 2016 22:51
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idiotsavant posted:My problem is that the technical detail gets tossed in there as a bunch of nerdout SCA stuff rather than anything that really has to do with the story or with good writing. Brian Jaques sperging out about food or Robert Jordan describing the 15 colors of ribbon on a dress. I don't know about the other trilogies, but the Engineer book could have been at least 200 pages shorter and would have been a far better story for it. I haven't read that one, so you may be right. But in all of the Parker I have read, his usual style is to add in technical detail of craftsmanship as a layered metaphor for what's happening in the story, instead of being purely extraneous. He has moved away from that to an extent, especially in the shorter form writing, so those might be more up your alley. You can read most of those free online too, I'd personally recommend The Sun and I as his best.
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Nov 21, 2016 22:55
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WarLocke posted:So I just finished Diamond Star by Catherine Asaro and I do believe this was the first time I've read a sci-fi book where the central plot is about an exiled prince becoming a holo-rock star, power ballads and all. Listen to Rockwork. Or read it I guess, buy the audio is fun. A short story, but sounds like you'll like it.
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Nov 21, 2016 23:02
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a kitten posted:I made it about quarter into the next book when I decided i was officially Done With KJ Parker. This is a shame. Even people who like his other poo poo, are iffy on Engineer. If you do ever feel generosity move within you, check out his short story collection, Academic Exercises. Or just look up the short story titles in his Wikipedia article and google them, they're all available online. Heaven Thunders the Truth and A Rich, Full Week are both great, for example. He is very good.
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Nov 21, 2016 23:20
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WarLocke posted:So I just finished Diamond Star by Catherine Asaro and I do believe this was the first time I've read a sci-fi book where the central plot is about an exiled prince becoming a holo-rock star, power ballads and all. GRRM's The Armageddon Rag. Seriously, it's a good book.
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Nov 21, 2016 23:39
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Megazver posted:This is a shame. Even people who like his other poo poo, are iffy on Engineer. If you do ever feel generosity move within you, check out his short story collection, Academic Exercises. Or just look up the short story titles in his Wikipedia article and google them, they're all available online. Heaven Thunders the Truth and A Rich, Full Week are both great, for example. I'm a pretty forgiving reader, so I will probably do exactly that at some point.
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Nov 21, 2016 23:53
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idiotsavant posted:My problem is that the technical detail gets tossed in there as a bunch of nerdout SCA stuff rather than anything that really has to do with the story or with good writing. Brian Jaques sperging out about food or Robert Jordan describing the 15 colors of ribbon on a dress. I don't know about the other trilogies, but the Engineer book could have been at least 200 pages shorter and would have been a far better story for it. Honestly I would read an entire book of Brian Jaques sperging out about food if it came with recipes. Even the Redwall books that I didn't enjoy much as books were just so drat delicious sounding.
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Nov 22, 2016 00:41
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Take the plunge! Okay! posted:GRRM's The Armageddon Rag. Seriously, it's a good book. The Armageddon Rag has near-insufferable doses of peak boomer, but is a good book.
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Nov 22, 2016 00:56
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Megazver posted:This is a shame. Even people who like his other poo poo, are iffy on Engineer. If you do ever feel generosity move within you, check out his short story collection, Academic Exercises. Or just look up the short story titles in his Wikipedia article and google them, they're all available online. Heaven Thunders the Truth and A Rich, Full Week are both great, for example. Quoting this because Academic Exercises owns. There's a nice variety of tone (including some reasonably happy endings) and the overall other-Europe other-Byzantium setting is really cool and fascinating. The short story about the friends inventing the cult is particularly fun.
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Nov 22, 2016 13:57
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Finished Godspeed by Charles Sheffield. Enjoyed it. Nothing to write home about, in particular, but it had a sort of enjoyable "Heinlein without the baggage" feel. Specifically it felt like you took a Heinlein juvenile novel, expanded it a bit and removed all the awkward Heinleinian proselytizing. Is most of Sheffield's work like that? I know the dust-jacket author bio said he wrote a lot with his grandkids and young relatives in mind, as audience.
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Nov 23, 2016 07:02
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