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Biplane posted:Thank you friend. And yeah that bit was great. There's also a great part in one of the later books where he goes into excruciating detail on how the marines fill a spacecraft with sand and accelerate it to like .5 lightspeed and fling the load of sand into an enemy planet. My favorite was early in the 2nd book(?). The marines build a makeshift railgun from a radio telescope on Europa(I think...it was one of the ice moons), and the only ammunition they have is the contraband beer one of the Lance Corporals smuggled with him.
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Feb 12, 2017 15:57
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flosofl posted:My favorite was early in the 2nd book(?). The marines build a makeshift railgun from a radio telescope on Europa(I think...it was one of the ice moons), and the only ammunition they have is the contraband beer one of the Lance Corporals smuggled with him. You're combining like three different things. In book one, on Mars, they toss the smuggled beer cans out of an unarmed lander module, because when they hit the ground they explode with foam everywhere and it scares the crap out of the EU soldiers before they realize it's just beer.
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Feb 12, 2017 18:02
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Internet Wizard posted:You're combining like three different things. You're right, it's been years since I read it. And now that I think about it, the 3rd book was on Europa. I seem to remember them being pretty fun, I may have to do a re-read. EDIT: I may be mixing up books, but I seem to recall the Chinese pulling off the fanciest trick shot. They launched a new ship off to empty space and then a huge fusion explosion is registered. Everyone writes it off as a weapons test, but it was simply to cover the EM signature of multiple rail-gun launches at Europa. The shots take weeks (months?) to arrive, but are more or less on target. Proteus Jones fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Feb 12, 2017 |
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Feb 12, 2017 18:46
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flosofl posted:You're right, it's been years since I read it. And now that I think about it, the 3rd book was on Europa. Yeah that's in 3 as well. There wasn't a radio telescope involved that I remember though.
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Feb 12, 2017 20:19
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StrixNebulosa posted:If you don't mind inverting your request, CJ Cherryh's Foreigner series is all about this - aliens land on a planet, aiming to make a colony as they can't get back to their home planet, and their society is totally incompatible with ours -- Cherryh does lots of first-contact stuff, but I think Foreigner is the only series that focuses on the long-term ramifications afterwards. In the Compact Space books, contact with humans is still so limited by the end of Chanur's Legacy that we're not really seeing how it affects the Compact (and we never see the human perspective), and most of her other work that involves human-alien interaction either just covers the first contact event (Cuckoo's Egg, Voyager in Night, Forty Thousand in Gehenna) or is set long after the species involved have developed a working relationship (Hestia, The Faded Sun, Serpent's Reach, Wave Without a Shore). Books that start with first contact but continue to show the long-term sociopolitical impact of that contact seem to be comparatively rare. Apart from Cherryh, I can think of Ringo (Legacy of the Aldenata) and Weber (Empire from the Ashes), and both of those are much more focused on the military side of things. The fantasy equivalent would probably be books set in contemporary Earth where the "secret world" of magic is suddenly revealed to the world at large in a way impossible to ignore and the fallout from that is then dealt with, but IME it's similarly rare there; stuff tends to end with the revelation, promising a future in which everything changes without needing to show it (e.g. Revisionary). Stross's Laundry series is the only one I can think of offhand where it looks like it'll keep going for a while after the lid comes off.  I actually really like books where the protagonists are secret wizards/aliens/space pirates/whatever and find themselves needing to reveal their secret identity to mere mortals™ and enlist their help, but they aren't terribly common (protagonist being a mere mortal and stumbling in a nest of space wizards seems to be a more popular setup) and they pretty much never answer the "so what happens when this ends up on the 5pm news" question.
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Feb 13, 2017 16:13
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ToxicFrog posted:The fantasy equivalent would probably be books set in contemporary Earth where the "secret world" of magic is suddenly revealed to the world at large in a way impossible to ignore and the fallout from that is then dealt with, but IME it's similarly rare there; stuff tends to end with the revelation, promising a future in which everything changes without needing to show it (e.g. Revisionary). Stross's Laundry series is the only one I can think of offhand where it looks like it'll keep going for a while after the lid comes off. There's also Kim Harrison's Hollows series (romancey as they can get, complete with cringey sex sometimes), which eschews showing the reveal and the state before, and is set entirely after the revelation.
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Feb 13, 2017 20:28
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I really like Lem's take on first contact. His writes about how humans deal with aliens showing up, but with the caveat that aliens are really weird. Absurdly, unknowably weird.
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Feb 13, 2017 21:23
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Nippashish posted:I really like Lem's take on first contact. His writes about how humans deal with aliens showing up, but with the caveat that aliens are really weird. Absurdly, unknowably weird. Cavitation of the alien moon was bad rear end.
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Feb 13, 2017 22:15
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NinjaDebugger posted:There's also Kim Harrison's Hollows series (romancey as they can get, complete with cringey sex sometimes), which eschews showing the reveal and the state before, and is set entirely after the revelation. Now that you mention it, that's also something I hardly ever see: settings based on Earth where magic once was hidden, but is now widely known. Generally either the revelation never happens in the first place (the vast majority of urban fantasy series), or magic has always been a part of the world, such that there was no cataclysmic revelation and the setting is just different from the word go (Three Parts Dead).
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Feb 14, 2017 02:18
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ToxicFrog posted:The fantasy equivalent would probably be books set in contemporary Earth where the "secret world" of magic is suddenly revealed to the world at large in a way impossible to ignore and the fallout from that is then dealt with, but IME it's similarly rare there; stuff tends to end with the revelation, promising a future in which everything changes without needing to show it (e.g. Revisionary). Stross's Laundry series is the only one I can think of offhand where it looks like it'll keep going for a while after the lid comes off. S.Andrew Swann had a couple books that were set several years post-contact, and also the Bordertown books might count (Emma Bull's "Finder" is by far the best)
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Feb 14, 2017 02:38
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Hey look what showed up today.
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Feb 14, 2017 02:56
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ToxicFrog posted:Now that you mention it, that's also something I hardly ever see: settings based on Earth where magic once was hidden, but is now widely known. Generally either the revelation never happens in the first place (the vast majority of urban fantasy series), or magic has always been a part of the world, such that there was no cataclysmic revelation and the setting is just different from the word go (Three Parts Dead). Jim Hines' Magic Ex Libris series explicitly deals with that in the latter few books. So does Myke Cole's Shadow Ops series.
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Feb 14, 2017 02:56
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navyjack posted:Jim Hines' Magic Ex Libris series explicitly deals with that in the latter few books. So does Myke Cole's Shadow Ops series. I mentioned Magic Ex Libris earlier, and it really doesn't; the last book ends with the beginnings of magic being revealed to the world, but we never see how it works out long-term. I may check out Shadow Ops.
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Feb 14, 2017 03:10
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Elizabeth Moon's "Remnant Population" is an excellent first contact story. The protagonist is an old grandma lady who stays behind when the colony is abandoned because she'd rather chill out and tend her garden for the time she has left then start over somewhere else. The plot is largely driven by her being grumpy and tired of your poo poo. Then, the locals turn up.
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Feb 14, 2017 03:44
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ToxicFrog posted:I mentioned Magic Ex Libris earlier, and it really doesn't; the last book ends with the beginnings of magic being revealed to the world, but we never see how it works out long-term. Shadow Ops is...I like them but I won't say they're good. They are very popcorn. The author though, in a nice switch from most military sci-fi/fantasy is a big ol' ex-military liberal, so the bad guys aren't mooselambs and democucks.
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Feb 14, 2017 06:30
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ToxicFrog posted:Now that you mention it, that's also something I hardly ever see: settings based on Earth where magic once was hidden, but is now widely known. Generally either the revelation never happens in the first place (the vast majority of urban fantasy series), or magic has always been a part of the world, such that there was no cataclysmic revelation and the setting is just different from the word go (Three Parts Dead). Can't really recommend them as anything other than teenage years guilty pleasures but the setting you are describing is Shadowrun.
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Feb 14, 2017 07:13
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ToxicFrog posted:I mentioned Magic Ex Libris earlier, and it really doesn't; the last book ends with the beginnings of magic being revealed to the world, but we never see how it works out long-term. Sure you have read the latest book Revisionary? Because it takes place a year after the reveal and deals for a large part with the fallout of the reveal, like setting up a center for magic healing and worldwide security against magical threats and governments struggling to get to grips with this newly revealed threats/weapons, like the genocidal extermination of the vampire settlement from a few books before or Guantanamo for supernatural threats/recruitments center for potential (slave) assets. Also, I am pretty sure we will see more books in the series still. Decius fucked around with this message at 08:26 on Feb 14, 2017 |
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Feb 14, 2017 08:21
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ToxicFrog posted:Now that you mention it, that's also something I hardly ever see: settings based on Earth where magic once was hidden, but is now widely known. Generally either the revelation never happens in the first place (the vast majority of urban fantasy series), or magic has always been a part of the world, such that there was no cataclysmic revelation and the setting is just different from the word go (Three Parts Dead). "The aftermath of the sudden revelation of the supernatural" is a perfect description of the Southern Vampire Mysteries, better known to most as the source material for True Blood. Turtledove's World War series and its sequels begin with first contact. The original run is war-based, but Colonisation is much less so and the coda novel is close to conflict free.
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Feb 14, 2017 10:39
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Ornamented Death posted:Hey look what showed up today.
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Feb 14, 2017 14:39
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DACK FAYDEN posted:Well, don't leave us hanging, how is it? Man I can't read things that fast. It's next on my TBR pile, though, so I'll post some thoughts once I'm done with it.
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Feb 14, 2017 15:41
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Decius posted:Magic Ex Libris: Yes, and I mentioned Revisionary by name in my earlier post! By "long term" here I'm talking 5-10 years; things are still only just getting started in Revisionary. I definitely hope to see more books in that series.
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Feb 14, 2017 15:50
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navyjack posted:Shadow Ops is...I like them but I won't say they're good. They are very popcorn. The author though, in a nice switch from most military sci-fi/fantasy is a big ol' ex-military liberal, so the bad guys aren't mooselambs and democucks. Well, he's ex-Coast Guard, I wouldn't say he's ex-military. I read the first couple, and the basic army stuff he gets laughably wrong was part of the reason I stopped. He does play a tough guy on Twitter, though.
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Feb 14, 2017 17:48
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andrew smash posted:Can't really recommend them as anything other than teenage years guilty pleasures but the setting you are describing is Shadowrun. I was going to ask if there were any Shadowrun novels worth reading (I assume they exist in the first place given the absurd amount of Warhammer fiction.)
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Feb 14, 2017 18:11
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I finally made it through the first 1/3 of Anathem by Neal Stephenson--it's been tough sledding because I have a 9-month old, and reading long books is hard when you're falling asleep and waking yourself up when the book falls over in your hands and hits you in the face. Anyway, it seems like the plot is FINALLY starting to ramp up a little, but OH MY GOD it's so slow! Does it continue to be a philosophy textbook, or does it start moving anytime soon? Because honestly, I just don't have time right now to slog through it, or I will have only read 3 books so far this year.
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Feb 14, 2017 18:13
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Nippashish posted:I really like Lem's take on first contact. His writes about how humans deal with aliens showing up, but with the caveat that aliens are really weird. Absurdly, unknowably weird.
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Feb 14, 2017 18:18
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Number Ten Cocks posted:Well, he's ex-Coast Guard, I wouldn't say he's ex-military. I read the first couple, and the basic army stuff he gets laughably wrong was part of the reason I stopped. He does play a tough guy on Twitter, though. 
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Feb 14, 2017 18:18
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darthbob88 posted:The USCG is part of the United States Armed Forces, and the fifth side on the Pentagon. Coasties are absolutely military. Someone touch a tender spot pumpkin?
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Feb 14, 2017 18:23
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Kalenn Istarion posted:Someone touch a tender spot pumpkin? This is kind of a weird response TBH
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Feb 14, 2017 18:26
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tonytheshoes posted:I finally made it through the first 1/3 of Anathem by Neal Stephenson--it's been tough sledding because I have a 9-month old, and reading long books is hard when you're falling asleep and waking yourself up when the book falls over in your hands and hits you in the face. Anyway, it seems like the plot is FINALLY starting to ramp up a little, but OH MY GOD it's so slow! Does it continue to be a philosophy textbook, or does it start moving anytime soon? Because honestly, I just don't have time right now to slog through it, or I will have only read 3 books so far this year. It gradually accelerates, but it doesn't really "start moving" until quite near the end, which is also where (in typical Stephenson fashion) it goes completely off the rails, bursts into flames, crashes, and sinks into the swamp. I enjoyed it a lot, but the good parts are (IMO) the parts where it is at its most "philosophical musings and a leisurely tour through an alien culture".
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Feb 14, 2017 18:31
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Number Ten Cocks posted:Well, he's ex-Coast Guard, I wouldn't say he's ex-military. I read the first couple, and the basic army stuff he gets laughably wrong was part of the reason I stopped. He does play a tough guy on Twitter, though. No, he was a shooter in Iraq/Afghanistan doing some nasty poo poo (I think with a PMC). Coast Guard later. He's a really good principled guy, though ironically he's now on a reality show called Hunted tracking down people who try to hide. Bad timing with that one, Myke!
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Feb 14, 2017 19:17
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Ornamented Death posted:Man I can't read things that fast. It's next on my TBR pile, though, so I'll post some thoughts once I'm done with it.  (although, you know, whip crack, get reading!)
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Feb 14, 2017 19:31
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darthbob88 posted:The USCG is part of the United States Armed Forces, and the fifth side on the Pentagon. Coasties are absolutely military. Coast Guard is DHS, so it's just the Border Patrol on boats
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Feb 14, 2017 21:07
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 NK Jemisin is streaming Skyrim on Twitch, if anyone is easily amused. "Why the gently caress am I in Markarth?!?" https://www.twitch.tv/nkjemisin
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Feb 14, 2017 21:09
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Internet Wizard posted:Coast Guard is DHS, so it's just the Border Patrol on boats
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Feb 14, 2017 21:27
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Internet Wizard posted:Coast Guard is DHS, so it's just the Border Patrol on boats Except when operating in service of the Navy, which is what Myke was doing 
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Feb 14, 2017 21:44
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Chairchucker posted:This is kind of a weird response TBH I was trying to make a joke about his defensive response to someone calling the coastguard not a real military but it was late and I whiffed
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Feb 14, 2017 22:16
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Coast Guard are literally the only branch of the american military who actually protect and save american lives on the reg and they deserve your respect unlike the rest of the armed forces.
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Feb 14, 2017 22:38
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Inspector_666 posted:I was going to ask if there were any Shadowrun novels worth reading (I assume they exist in the first place given the absurd amount of Warhammer fiction.) There are plenty of them, they are comparable in quality to other licensed property novels like d&d and star wars.
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Feb 14, 2017 22:50
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darthbob88 posted:The USCG is part of the United States Armed Forces, and the fifth side on the Pentagon. Coasties are absolutely military. The Air Force is also not a military organization, as the more honest members will admit. General Battuta posted:No, he was a shooter in Iraq/Afghanistan doing some nasty poo poo (I think with a PMC). Coast Guard later. He's a really good principled guy, though ironically he's now on a reality show called Hunted tracking down people who try to hide. Bad timing with that one, Myke! With a PMC and defenses of his Coast Guard days are not convincing me his actual mistakes about the Army in his first couple of books are less cringeworthy. Number Ten Cocks fucked around with this message at 00:01 on Feb 15, 2017 |
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Feb 14, 2017 23:58
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andrew smash posted:There are plenty of them, they are comparable in quality to other licensed property novels like d&d and star wars. My dad had dozens of them when I was a kid. I only got around to reading five before he sold them off. 
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