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Loutre posted:So in the last year I've read all of: Heritage Universe by Charles Sheffield? Summertide, Divergence, Transcendence, Convergence, Resurgence. I read the first four, don't know if I ever got to the last one (which I think was a posthumous completion?).
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Jan 1, 2017 18:13
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Elyv posted:Sounds like The Last Angel; not sure if it ever finished, I stopped reading it a long time ago. Or, at least, it's a very fanficcy gimmick. Mars4523 fucked around with this message at 23:27 on Jan 1, 2017 |
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Jan 1, 2017 23:23
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Another series that is alright (admittedly I picked up the first book or two when they were self published) is the Frontlines books by Marko Kloos, it scratches the kind of schlocky Starship Troopers Mil-Scifi itch without the guy being a facist shithead like others in the genre. They aren't the best sci-fi I have read, however it is entertaining enough and he writes some decent action scenes. Also he pulled his work out of Hugo nomination because he didn't like the Sad Puppies idiots supporting his work.
Jack2142 fucked around with this message at 01:17 on Jan 2, 2017 |
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Jan 2, 2017 01:09
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Loutre posted:So in the last year I've read all of: Yet another series worth checking out is the Xenowealth series by Tobias Buckell: Crystal Rain, Ragamuffin, Sly Mongoose, The Apocalypse Ocean and a shortstory collection set in the universe, Xenowealth: A Collection.
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Jan 2, 2017 02:10
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I just finished The Vindication of Man. I like it, but man it's dense sometimes. I've given up on remembering every planet and human subspecies that he's listed. I do really enjoy the overall story though. Also, I learned recently John C. Wright has some weird, regressive and rigid attitudes about all sorts of poo poo. It's hard to read his books now and not catch him inserting his ultra-conservative ideas in it, even when talking about strange human offshoots 70,000 years in the future. 
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Jan 4, 2017 07:58
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I just finished the last of the STEN series books...ugh. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sten_Chronicles Written by two Vietnam War vets, it was a 1980s milfiction series about a galactic empire, a un-corruptable main character, and how the main character joined the military/became a elite galactic SpecOps warrior/worked directly for the eternal emperor/put down coups/became a rebel/killed the eternal emperor. Lots of pastiches of 1980s politicians & celebrities, and the main character himself was pretty boring. I gutted out the series for the eternal emperor segments. Overall, about the same quality as 1980s David Drake or Julian May. Nowhere as bad as John RIngo or David Webber.
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Jan 4, 2017 09:15
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If people are reading Ringo and Weber and all that poo poo, they may as well just cut out the middleman and go straight to the source...Warhammer 40k.
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Jan 4, 2017 11:44
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I've never read any 40k with detailed descriptions of how busty a 14 year old is, which will be a deal breaker for Ringo fans.
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Jan 4, 2017 14:37
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Will you settle for space marines farting on each other? I mean, it's no sexy teenager, but it's pretty funny.
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Jan 4, 2017 15:28
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Drifter posted:If people are reading Ringo and Weber and all that poo poo, they may as well just cut out the middleman and go straight to the source...Warhammer 40k. Funnily, WarHammer 40k came out midway through the Sten series, with it's own spin on an eternal emperor & infinite alien wars. Keith Laumer's Bolo series is a much better take on eternal war, and predates W40k by about 20 years. I've found that a good test for detecting lovely scifi or milfiction is seeing how many times the author has adapted/rewritten Xenophon's Ten Thousand march story. The Ten Thousand story is like catnip to lovely scifi/mil writers, adapting it once is ok....adapting it multiple times is a huge "AVOID THIS AUTHOR" warning sign. Guess which two authors have adapted it multiple times, as co-writers & as standalone series. Hint...their last names are Weber & Ringo.
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Jan 4, 2017 15:35
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40K adapted Anabasis. Well, it used The Warriors as an inspiration for Necromunda.
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Jan 4, 2017 17:32
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:Funnily, WarHammer 40k came out midway through the Sten series, with it's own spin on an eternal emperor & infinite alien wars. Yeah I read the Last Centurion years ago, don't read it and don't support Ringo. It has some decent action sequences but 90% of the book is "DEM EVIL INCOMPETENT LIBERALS UNDER TOTALLY NOT Hillary ruin America"!!!
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Jan 4, 2017 20:07
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John Ringo, Neal Asher, & Hannu Rajaniemi are the rare authors who make me hate that I am literate. Weber pretty much created/owns the modern "battle damage report porn" subgenre of milfiction. Thinking it's time for a personal re-read of one the earliest scifi stories ever written. It's got gods, space travel, aliens, interstellar warfare, and isn't badly written. Predates the scifi/fantasy genre by oh, 18 or 19 ......centuries. True History by Lucian
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Jan 5, 2017 07:43
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:John Ringo, Neal Asher, & Hannu Rajaniemi are the rare authors who make me hate that I am literate. Okay, Ringo is pretty self explanatory, but Asher and Rajamiemi?
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Jan 5, 2017 07:52
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:John Ringo, Neal Asher, & Hannu Rajaniemi are the rare authors who make me hate that I am literate. I'll even grant you Asher is pretty problematic, especially lately, but seriously, the gently caress did Rajaniemi ever do?
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Jan 5, 2017 09:35
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I got bored of Asher halfway through the first book. My imagination must be on the fritz
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Jan 5, 2017 10:37
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Chairman Capone posted:On the topic of Alastair Reynolds, is the collaboration he recently did with Stephen Baxter that's the sequel to Clarke's Meeting with Medusa any good? I read it, it was pretty good. Nothing to write home about, but decent Baxter. Though I get the impression that this thread doesn't really like Baxter, so take it as you may.
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Jan 5, 2017 10:51
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Speaking of Baxter, I recently read the first book of his collaboration with Pratchett: The Long Earth, upon recommendation by somebody and found it particularly disappointing. I even went so far as to read the second instalment and the quality was even less than that of the first. As someone, who wherein the child part of me thoroughly enjoys such things as Star Wars, spaceships and lasers and such, while the adult part of me has very little patience for formulaic pulpy dreck, I sometimes wish to read something a bit lighter and less demanding than my usual fare, however have yet to find something that carries enough nous to entertain me. Any recommendations space opera thread??? Thanks
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Jan 5, 2017 11:19
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fridge corn posted:Speaking of Baxter, I recently read the first book of his collaboration with Pratchett: The Long Earth, upon recommendation by somebody and found it particularly disappointing. I even went so far as to read the second instalment and the quality was even less than that of the first. I just gave out a bunch of copies of the sequel to Admiral by Sean Danker. I don't know what people are saying about the new one, but people liked the first one.
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Jan 5, 2017 14:24
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Khizan posted:Okay, Ringo is pretty self explanatory, but Asher and Rajamiemi? Asher's latest books are a gigantic steaming Randian turd, maybe they haven't read/didn't like his earlier stuff? Rocksicles posted:I got bored of Asher halfway through the first book. My imagination must be on the fritz Gridlinked is, honestly, kind of boring. I probably wouldn't have made it through it if I hadn't read Cowl and The Line of Polity first. This is why people generally recommend starting with the Spatterjay books. I'm actually planning to reread the Agent Cormac books this year, but I'll probably skip Gridlinked when I do.
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Jan 5, 2017 14:31
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I'm about a quarter of the way through Neal Asher's The Skinner and I'm flat out bored. There are hints at an interesting universe but Very Strong Fishermen as a topic doesn't do much for me. Is it worth pushing through?
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Jan 5, 2017 15:14
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Shab posted:I'm about a quarter of the way through Neal Asher's The Skinner and I'm flat out bored. There are hints at an interesting universe but Very Strong Fishermen as a topic doesn't do much for me. Is it worth pushing through? I finished it, but was not really impressed, didn't think it had any particularly interesting finish, and didn't continue with the series. I had previously tried to read Gridlinked and couldn't finish it. Just not my thing, I guess.
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Jan 5, 2017 17:47
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Danknificent posted:I just gave out a bunch of copies of the sequel to Admiral by Sean Danker. I don't know what people are saying about the new one, but people liked the first one. I got one of those copies, actually. It was decent enough for what it was, but having not read the preceding book I lacked some context. I was also surprised how narrow it was, in that the book only covers a few hours. The protagonist gets kidnapped in chapter two and the book is one long chase until he's rescued/arrested by the space cops at the end. Perfectly good at being what it was, but what that was wasn't what I'd been expecting.
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Jan 5, 2017 18:06
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Shab posted:I'm about a quarter of the way through Neal Asher's The Skinner and I'm flat out bored. There are hints at an interesting universe but Very Strong Fishermen as a topic doesn't do much for me. Is it worth pushing through? If the world isn't doing it for you, well, that's about the best UKIP M Banks has written. Maybe give the planet a little longer to grab you, then move on.
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Jan 5, 2017 18:28
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FWIW I liked the post-Gridlinked Cormac books more than I did the Spatterjay books, but I still enjoyed the latter, so if you don't like Spatterjay at all, Cormac may not be enough better to be worth reading.
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Jan 5, 2017 18:38
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Jack2142 posted:Yeah I read the Last Centurion years ago, don't read it and don't support Ringo. It has some decent action sequences but 90% of the book is "DEM EVIL INCOMPETENT LIBERALS UNDER TOTALLY NOT Hillary ruin America"!!! I read that shortly after it came out, I was genuinally puzzled that it had been published. Even by Baen. It was just one long livejournal (circa 2006) rant with the thinnest possible gloss of story tacked on.
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Jan 5, 2017 18:49
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Kesper North posted:I'll even grant you Asher is pretty problematic, especially lately, but seriously, the gently caress did Rajaniemi ever do? Rajaniemi made me feel dumb, which I thought was quite rude of him.
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Jan 5, 2017 21:45
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Deptfordx posted:I read that shortly after it came out, I was genuinally puzzled that it had been published. Even by Baen. It was just one long livejournal (circa 2006) rant with the thinnest possible gloss of story tacked on. Seriously that was the book was my trigger that made me really hate conservative viewpoints on a personal level from simply disagreeing with them ideologically the book was just utterly irredeemably unpleasant and bitchy.
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Jan 5, 2017 21:49
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Rocksicles posted:I got bored of Asher halfway through the first book. My imagination must be on the fritz I liked the Agent Cormac novels for the most part, but the entire Polity setting is such a blatant and unabashed rip-off of The Culture, just teched down a bit so he can write about stuff like Spatterjay. For fucks sake the existential threat the Polity faced way back when was from an implacably hostile crab race how unsubtle can you be? Inspector_666 fucked around with this message at 23:30 on Jan 5, 2017 |
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Jan 5, 2017 22:10
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Danknificent posted:I just gave out a bunch of copies of the sequel to Admiral by Sean Danker. I don't know what people are saying about the new one, but people liked the first one. Yeah but is it any good?
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Jan 5, 2017 23:29
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Khizan posted:Okay, Ringo is pretty self explanatory, but Asher and Rajamiemi? Kesper North posted:I'll even grant you Asher is pretty problematic, especially lately, but seriously, the gently caress did Rajaniemi ever do? Hannu Rajaniemi: I read the Quantum Thief & 2 pages of his Invisible planets short story before bailing. Hannu frontloads futuristic terms like cryptoDNA, quantum sickle cells, and proceeds to tell stories that don't live up to the dustjacket blurbs. I don't know, something about his writing style actively hurts my brain & each time I try to re-read some of his work, I crash into the same annoyance brickwall. Neal Asher: I read Gridlinked, The Line of Polity & The Skinner. The two agent Cormac books were weak & compared badly to another special agent type series(for me). As in, I kept on reading the Cormac books hoping for any kind of nuance besides "Cormac=awesome", but didn't find anything else in the 2 books I read. Basically, I was looking for something in line of Keith Laumer's Retief series, and ended up massively dissapointed in the Agent Cormac books. The Skinner was a enjoyable book while I kept my brain turned off. Anytime I took a break from reading it, questions & thoughts like "is everyone in this book retarded?....wow this guy really likes describing body horror" kept bubbling up. My best summary of the Skinner is "fisherman cenobite torture porn", and I felt actively stupider after finishing it. I checked wikipedia for summaries of the followup books, and gently caress no, I refuse to read anymore Neal Asher. tldr summary: I read Rajaniemi & Asher, and massively regret doing so. Retief series might interest people.
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Jan 5, 2017 23:39
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I don't think Rajamiemi is a smart as people like to make out (or at least The Quantum Thief wasn't (that said I don't regret reading it)) but yeah, Asher writes airport novel sci-fi that he really, really wants to be taken seriously. I read the first book of Asher's newest series too, because I was jonesing for some space opera and holy poo poo it's bad. This is why I just re-read Banks so much.
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Jan 6, 2017 00:26
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fridge corn posted:Yeah but is it any good? I've heard good things edit: and though penguin random calls it mil sf, i understand it's unconventional for the genre. This guy is not the first to say something like this: jng2058 posted:wasn't what I'd been expecting. I bring this up because there are people in here who seem critical of Ringo, and this author is very, very not Ringo. Danknificent fucked around with this message at 01:43 on Jan 6, 2017 |
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Jan 6, 2017 01:25
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:Neal Asher: Retief owns bones, but is really a completely different kind of book (and character). He's more about, well, actual diplomacy and spycraft, while Cormac is more about hitting things until they break.
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Jan 6, 2017 02:09
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n4 posted:Also, I learned recently John C. Wright has some weird, regressive and rigid attitudes about all sorts of poo poo. NoNostalgia4Grover posted:I just finished the last of the STEN series books...ugh.
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Jan 6, 2017 03:19
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Agreed, the STEN books were adequate, total ripoff-clones of other stuff. As I said before, the eternal emperor was the best thing in that series. Not Marc DuQuesne level interesting, but interesting enough for $1 priced paperbacks. A couple of Robert Forward & James E. Gunn books (& the novelization of ZARDOZ) are next in my scifi reading pile.
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Jan 6, 2017 03:47
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:A couple of Robert Forward & James E. Gunn books (& the novelization of ZARDOZ) are next in my scifi reading pile. I used to love Forward. He was always good for some far-out hard SF ideas.
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Jan 6, 2017 04:05
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Is there a good collection of Retief out there? Kindle appears under equipped.
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Jan 6, 2017 05:36
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Danknificent posted:I bring this up because there are people in here who seem critical of Ringo, and this author is very, very not Ringo. Wait are there people here who aren't critical of John loving Ringo?
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Jan 6, 2017 05:47
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Subjunctive posted:Is there a good collection of Retief out there? Kindle appears under equipped. Baen will happily send a .mobi over to your kindle email address for you: http://www.baen.com/retief.html
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Jan 6, 2017 06:40
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