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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. 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. I was enjoying the Golden Oecumene books but part-way through I realized it was basically post-singularity Ayn Rand. there's a hegemonizing swarm as a stand in for Communism. he was an athiest back then. now I think he's an extremely hardcore right wing Catholic.
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Jan 6, 2017 06:45
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Subjunctive posted:Is there a good collection of Retief out there? Kindle appears under equipped. Have you checked the Baen webstore? http://www.baen.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=Laumer+Keith+Retief+7&dir=desc&order=relevance Laumer had a bad stroke in the 1970s, and couldn't write for a while. Retief stories from the 1980s-onward tend to be remixes of earlier stories, and are skippable. Besides that, used bookstores specializing in scifi or ebay/amazon marketplace are your best chances fpr collecting Retief books. If you're in the MA/CT/RI area, the Niantic CT Book Barn is definitely worth checking out.
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Jan 6, 2017 06:49
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:If you're in the MA/CT/RI area, the Niantic CT Book Barn is definitely worth checking out. It's worth checking out in general.
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Jan 6, 2017 06:54
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uber_stoat posted:I was enjoying the Golden Oecumene books but part-way through I realized it was basically post-singularity Ayn Rand. there's a hegemonizing swarm as a stand in for Communism. I just started reading the first one and I enjoy it so far. I gotta say I really enjoy his stuff and I'm just learning to ignore his bullshit. But the Count to Eschaton series has heavy gender role poo poo written in, and also it's very pro-monogamy and anti-divorce. The main character is Wright's personal Mary Sue who is a not-quite-ugly, brusque, Catholic ultra-genius who is surviving millennia of human history and outsmarting post-singularity AIs to reunite with his lady. Christ
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Jan 6, 2017 08:09
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n4 posted:But the Count to Eschaton series has heavy gender role poo poo written in, and also it's very pro-monogamy and anti-divorce. The main character is Wright's personal Mary Sue who is a not-quite-ugly, brusque, Catholic ultra-genius who is surviving millennia of human history and outsmarting post-singularity AIs to reunite with his lady. Christ Um, when the character is male it's called a "Marty Stu", thanks.
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Jan 6, 2017 08:42
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I've always preferred Gary Sue, myself.
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Jan 6, 2017 09:44
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ulmont posted:Baen will happily send a .mobi over to your kindle email address for you: NoNostalgia4Grover posted:Have you checked the Baen webstore? Thank you both! I am unfortunately not in the same country as Niantic, but if I find myself thereabouts...
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Jan 6, 2017 10:21
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Inspector_666 posted:Wait are there people here who aren't critical of John loving Ringo? Sure just look at the Amazon reviews of Ghost. Tons of 5 star reviews talking about how funny the quips are, well-plotted the action is, and hot and steamy the sex is. They conveniently forget to mention how much of the sex is with a child prostitute, though.
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Jan 6, 2017 15:13
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Internet Wizard posted:Sure just look at the Amazon reviews of Ghost. Tons of 5 star reviews talking about how funny the quips are, well-plotted the action is, and hot and steamy the sex is. They conveniently forget to mention how much of the sex is with a child prostitute, though. Yeah but I meant in this thread/forum.
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Jan 6, 2017 15:43
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Internet Wizard posted:Sure just look at the Amazon reviews of Ghost. Tons of 5 star reviews talking about how funny the quips are, well-plotted the action is, and hot and steamy the sex is. They conveniently forget to mention how much of the sex is with a child prostitute, though. I believe the child prostitute thing is in later books not book 1. Book 1 is Bin Ladin, and the coeds on the boat and the BDSM call to the girls mom with a talk on safety on getting on a weird dudes boat. So book one can have reviews where you don't have to talk about child prostitutes.
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Jan 6, 2017 16:39
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Nah he rapes a child in the first book, it's after bin/laden and bdsm yacht, before he chats about cruxshadows in france. help me Edit: I have only read Ghost once. 90s Cringe Rock fucked around with this message at 17:01 on Jan 6, 2017 |
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Jan 6, 2017 16:58
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90s Cringe Rock posted:Nah he rapes a child in the first book, it's after bin/laden and bdsm yacht, before he chats about cruxshadows in france. Welp you are right it was a three part book I forgot about part 3 Mike Douchealo European nuke wrangler/brothel test and standards examiner
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Jan 6, 2017 17:04
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Inspector_666 posted:Yeah but I meant in this thread/forum. I've probably talked about my opinion that the first couple Empire of Man books are decent explosion porn?
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Jan 6, 2017 18:34
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Patrick Spens posted:I've probably talked about my opinion that the first couple Empire of Man books are decent explosion porn? Yeah, I actually enjoyed March Upcountry/to the Sea/to the Stars and the first few Legacy of the Aldenata books. They're basically a non-stop chorus of HUMANITY, gently caress YEAH while a crying bald eagle shits antimatter munitions in the background, but sometimes that's what I'm in the mood for. (Also, to Ringo's credit, he at least knows and openly acknowledges that Ghost is deeply hosed up rather than trying to hold it and/or its characters up as something noble and worthy of imitation.)
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Jan 6, 2017 19:30
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The problem I have with ninety percent of mil SF even in the explosion porn category is the lack of interesting adversaries. For a bunch of writers who fetishize Rommel and Yamamoto and all those "honorable" foes, they don't seem to get that a hero is only as credible as their antagonist.
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Jan 6, 2017 19:47
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General Battuta posted:The problem I have with ninety percent of mil SF even in the explosion porn category is the lack of interesting adversaries. For a bunch of writers who fetishize Rommel and Yamamoto and all those "honorable" foes, they don't seem to get that a hero is only as credible as their antagonist. Fair. Empire of Man is basically the book equivalent of games like Crimsonland or Zombie Shooter, with a dozen or so far-future supersoldiers and a few hundred(?) low-tech friendlies they're giving tactical and technological assistance to versus tens of thousands of weak, functionally mindless enemies that are a threat only because of overwhelming numbers. But then, sometimes I'm in the mood to fire up Zombie Shooter and play a few levels, too. The Aldenata books are a bit more interesting, since the Posleen have numerical parity and technological superiority but less experience at actual warfare, meaning the human forces have to rely heavily on trickery to defeat them (and the Posleen in turn learn from that and adapt, even as the humans start gaining ground technologically thanks to their alien allies). There's no central opposing figures among the Posleen or the real antagonists the Darhel, though -- they're more interesting and credible foes mechanically than the thousands of screaming barbarians, but no better realized or characterized. (Which, in the game analogy, would make the Aldenata books Total Annihilation or something. Which honestly sounds about right.)
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Jan 6, 2017 20:05
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General Battuta posted:The problem I have with ninety percent of mil SF even in the explosion porn category is the lack of interesting adversaries. For a bunch of writers who fetishize Rommel and Yamamoto and all those "honorable" foes, they don't seem to get that a hero is only as credible as their antagonist. This is why I can't handle the Dread Empire Falls books. The entire premise of the series is that the protagonists are the only thinking people in the universe. Way to build up the tension, Walter!
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Jan 6, 2017 20:10
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Velius posted:This is why I can't handle the Dread Empire Falls books. The entire premise of the series is that the protagonists are the only thinking people in the universe. Way to build up the tension, Walter! The Dread Empire's Fall books never give a reason to actually care about or root for their protagonists, either. They're just aristocrats (and someone pretending to be) trying to get themselves more power. Nothing likeable between them.
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Jan 6, 2017 21:20
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General Battuta posted:The problem I have with ninety percent of mil SF even in the explosion porn category is the lack of interesting adversaries. For a bunch of writers who fetishize Rommel and Yamamoto and all those "honorable" foes, they don't seem to get that a hero is only as credible as their antagonist. Yeah that's a pretty good point. Something I noticed through my recent audiobook tour through the Honorverse was how often the villains end up being pants-wetting cowards when faced with Honor's righteous fury at the end of any given book. If an antagonist was somehow worth a drat, you could bet they would switch sides to join Honor in some future book. 
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Jan 6, 2017 21:26
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jng2058 posted:Yeah that's a pretty good point. Something I noticed through my recent audiobook tour through the Honorverse was how often the villains end up being pants-wetting cowards when faced with Honor's righteous fury at the end of any given book. If an antagonist was somehow worth a drat, you could bet they would switch sides to join Honor in some future book. Weber made some of the Havenite antagonists into real people but then he made them good guys too, lol.
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Jan 6, 2017 22:28
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ToxicFrog posted:The Aldenata books are a bit more interesting, since the Posleen have numerical parity and technological superiority but less experience at actual warfare, meaning the human forces have to rely heavily on trickery to defeat them (and the Posleen in turn learn from that and adapt, even as the humans start gaining ground technologically thanks to their alien allies). There's no central opposing figures among the Posleen or the real antagonists the Darhel, though -- they're more interesting and credible foes mechanically than the thousands of screaming barbarians, but no better realized or characterized. (Which, in the game analogy, would make the Aldenata books Total Annihilation or something. Which honestly sounds about right.) For all practical purposes the Posleen are just a reskinned zerg/tyranid swarm. Massed numbers, no strategy, and unless you're the
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Jan 6, 2017 23:31
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I'm reading Pandora's Star right now and as bad as the writing can be, the editor really stands out as doing a bad job. I hope it gets better
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Jan 7, 2017 00:51
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General Battuta posted:The problem I have with ninety percent of mil SF even in the explosion porn category is the lack of interesting adversaries. For a bunch of writers who fetishize Rommel and Yamamoto and all those "honorable" foes, they don't seem to get that a hero is only as credible as their antagonist. EE Smith's Skylark of Space series handles this right. The heroes are humorless self righteous dicks, the series villain is just trying to pay off his college loans, then gets ANGRY at the heroes for stealing his inventions. The villain is the reason to read the books after all the explosion porn. Series ends with a entire galaxy supernovaed after teleporting away the GOOD races. If you do try to read the series, be aware that EE Smith was a product of his time (1920-1950s pulp scifi) & really close with Heinlein. quantumfoam fucked around with this message at 03:18 on Jan 7, 2017 |
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Jan 7, 2017 02:42
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General Battuta posted:The problem I have with ninety percent of mil SF even in the explosion porn category is the lack of interesting adversaries. For a bunch of writers who fetishize Rommel and Yamamoto and all those "honorable" foes, they don't seem to get that a hero is only as credible as their antagonist. But how could any decent and honorable person ever oppose Mary Sue von Bestateverything? 
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Jan 7, 2017 04:44
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FuturePastNow posted:Weber made some of the Havenite antagonists into real people but then he made them good guys too, lol. Eric Flint did most of that lifting, and what's funny is that in part, by Flint trying to write something less ... one-sided, say, he sorta torpedoed Weber's overall timeline and plan for the series future. I uh, don't hold this against Flint whatsoever. also I finished the last Safehold book and it feels like he skipped a book to cap the series, almost. There's a ton of things which are written as established fact or just not explained which pass without much comment - they just are, and it's up to you to figure out what happened between 8 and 9. This isn't inherently bad. I've complained about him explaining everything in stupid levels of detail before. But it was very unexpected from Weber. I can't decide if it was intentional (and just sort of roughly executed) or if it was him just deciding to forge ahead and drop plot threads just to get something to an endpoint. My guess is the second one - I imagine there was a big ticking deadline clock and he just had to sit down and make it happen, no matter what.
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Jan 7, 2017 06:16
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I still stand by Flint and Drake being the best of the Baen author cohorts.
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Jan 7, 2017 19:37
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Jack2142 posted:I still stand by Flint and Drake being the best of the Baen author cohorts. Bujold. Flint is good and I've been meaning to check out Drake as his reputation is fine, but there's only one Bujold. I also quite like Ryk Spoor.
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Jan 7, 2017 20:01
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Bujold is the only reason I know what Baen is.
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Jan 7, 2017 20:05
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Psion posted:Eric Flint did most of that lifting, and what's funny is that in part, by Flint trying to write something less ... one-sided, say, he sorta torpedoed Weber's overall timeline and plan for the series future. I uh, don't hold this against Flint whatsoever. Wasn't Flint ruining Weber's timeline the thing that kept Honor Harrington from getting killed off 2 or 3 books ago? I thought I read that, but I could be wrong. Relevant to the thread: I'm reading through House of Steel right now. I'm mostly enjoying it; the novella included is pretty standard Weber, but full of little easter eggs and nods/winks about future characters (it takes place 60 years before for the main Honor novels). But goddamn, does every chapter have to start with the protagonists yammering about how great it would be if they could kill off anyone who disagrees with them? "Parliament won't increase the Navy budget! Argh!" "Maybe we should kill Parliamentary members." "Haha, we can't do that....can we? haha more jokes about murdering elected officials." Danknificent posted:Bujold is the only reason I know what Baen is. Laumer's the reason I first started looking at publisher tags on books. I got a deal on some of Baen's Retief prints from the late 80s/early 90s when I was but a wee lad. Made the mistake of letting Baen = Worth Reading in my brain for a long time. I'm a little pickier now. But not too much? See my reading on House of Steel above. It's me, the guy who likes the Honorverse. Cascade Jones fucked around with this message at 20:44 on Jan 7, 2017 |
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Jan 7, 2017 20:40
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I will say this for Baen: They were the first SF publishing house to double down hardcore on ebooks at a time when no one else would consider it. It led to me reading a lot of regrettable poo poo, but it worked.
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Jan 8, 2017 01:05
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Kesper North posted:I will say this for Baen: They were the first SF publishing house to double down hardcore on ebooks at a time when no one else would consider it. It led to me reading a lot of regrettable poo poo, but it worked. Eric Flint was behind that as well. He convinced Jim Baen to not only offer DRM-free ebooks at a time when everyone was locking them up, but he also got a "Free Library" going there. Basically, the earlier works or the first in a series were offered free to get people to buy ebooks from them.
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Jan 8, 2017 01:11
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Subjunctive posted:Thank you both! I am unfortunately not in the same country as Niantic, but if I find myself thereabouts... You might also be interested in Poul Anderson's Flandry series. It's less about dealing with bureaucractic idiots-in-charge, and more about trying to hold together a human interstellar empire during it's twilight years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominic_Flandry Mack Reynolds is good too, if you can stand his, uhh, 1960's "woke" writing style. It's not a slam, on Mack Reynolds,just that 90% of his scifi stuff isn't about technology or explosions or aliens, but breakdowns of utopian societies, universal basic income societies, and what if's about the USSR being exactly what the USSR's propoganda said it was. Technically, he's the superior scifi Reynolds author.
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Jan 8, 2017 08:03
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flosofl posted:Eric Flint was behind that as well. He convinced Jim Baen to not only offer DRM-free ebooks at a time when everyone was locking them up, but he also got a "Free Library" going there. Basically, the earlier works or the first in a series were offered free to get people to buy ebooks from them. Those two things caused me to spend way, way, way more at Baen Books than I ever would otherwise. Smart move.
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Jan 8, 2017 09:19
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Baen included a CD with ebook versions of the entire Vorkosigan Saga in with Cryoburn hardbacks, with explicit permission to make and give away copies. You used to be able to download it from some guy's web site, but Baen politely asked him to take it down when they realized their mistake and he was kind enough to comply.
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Jan 8, 2017 09:35
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pseudorandom name posted:Baen included a CD with ebook versions of the entire Vorkosigan Saga in with Cryoburn hardbacks, with explicit permission to make and give away copies. The Fifth Imperium still hosts all the ones that Baen hasn't withdrawn from circulation.
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Jan 8, 2017 15:42
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Ringo's Posleen war series gets more ridiculous once you realize what Ringo ripped off the idea from.
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Jan 8, 2017 23:44
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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"!!! Last Centurion is especially bad though. If you strip out his political views and the rape, the milporn is entertaining in most of his books, but LC had nothing redeeming about it. I liked his zombie books and Empire of Man. ToxicFrog posted:Fair. Empire of Man is basically the book equivalent of games like Crimsonland or Zombie Shooter, with a dozen or so far-future supersoldiers and a few hundred(?) low-tech friendlies they're giving tactical and technological assistance to versus tens of thousands of weak, functionally mindless enemies that are a threat only because of overwhelming numbers. But then, sometimes I'm in the mood to fire up Zombie Shooter and play a few levels, too. The Posleen have overwhelming numerical superiority too, not sure what you mean about parity. There were also some recurring Posleen characters, some of which were quite interesting and eventually leave earth and head on a quest to discover more about their origins and the Aldenata. I don't know the backstory of the Zerg or whatever else they might have been influenced by, but the Posleen are kind of interesting in that they're a galactic menace that don't particularly want to be one - they were just so hosed about with genetically and culturally that they seem to have become one by accident.
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Jan 9, 2017 14:28
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:Ringo's Posleen war series gets more ridiculous once you realize what Ringo ripped off the idea from. Oh? Darkrenown posted:The Posleen have overwhelming numerical superiority too, not sure what you mean about parity. There were also some recurring Posleen characters, some of which were quite interesting and eventually leave earth and head on a quest to discover more about their origins and the Aldenata. I don't know the backstory of the Zerg or whatever else they might have been influenced by, but the Posleen are kind of interesting in that they're a galactic menace that don't particularly want to be one - they were just so hosed about with genetically and culturally that they seem to have become one by accident. I don't remember any "omg we're hugely outnumbered" battles like in March Upcountry, but it has been quite a while since I read it. I don't think I got far enough into it to encounter any recurring Posleen characters, or the Posleen heading out to research the Aldenata -- I only read the first 3? books and there's, what, 8 now? (Zerg spoilers in case anyone cares about spoilers from a 20 year old RTS: the Zerg were created by a Vanished Precursor Race™ as part of their ongoing project to create the perfect lifeform. They ended up with an aggressive, parasitic hivemind that can both infect and control any chordate, and absorb the genetic code of any species it encounters to use as the basis of new creatures the hivemind creates. The first thing they did was control and absorb the precursors that created them. Unlike the Posleen, they're completely non-technological.)
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Jan 9, 2017 15:56
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The Posleen are the lizard people invaders from the 1983 tv series "V" Only this time the humans fought back & won thanks to the magic of "GUNS & BIGGER GUNS". quantumfoam fucked around with this message at 17:48 on Jan 9, 2017 |
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Jan 9, 2017 17:45
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Psion posted:
I still can hardly believe post 2010 Weber actually managed to wrap a story up, however imperfectly, and finish a series.
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