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Am I the only person who thought that, in The Time Machine, the ending sequence of the Time Traveler going so far into the future that new, monstrous animals have taken over from humanity was more interesting than everything with the Eloi and Morlocks?
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Feb 24, 2017 09:06
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General Battuta posted:Yours in posting heresy, Don't sign your posts.
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Feb 24, 2017 11:29
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Solitair posted:Am I the only person who thought that, in The Time Machine, the ending sequence of the Time Traveler going so far into the future that new, monstrous animals have taken over from humanity was more interesting than everything with the Eloi and Morlocks?
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Feb 24, 2017 11:51
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Just finished Empire's End (the last of the star wars trilogy that explains what happens to the empire after Yavin), and it kinda pissed me off. I just, I kept waiting for it to get GOOD. It never did. Basically the entire trilogy is the origin story of that fat dude from Heroes who played an xwing pilot in TFA. It does explain why there's so much poo poo on Jakku that's wrecked, but like... you could just say "Oh, yea, there was a big fight there and poo poo landed on the planet". I'd just avoid it. Even the weird ending which I will spoil here THE EMPEROR SET UP SOME PLANNED poo poo TO HAPPEN IN CASE HE DIED CAUSE HE WAS A GENIUS AND DIDN'T WANT ANYONE ELSE TO RULE and also he almost blew up Jakku because gently caress, why not, and now there's a few imperial yachts filled with brainwashed kids all heading out to the unknown regions past ALL KINDS OF COOL ALIEN CREATURES AND poo poo WE WON'T DISCUSS CAUSE GOD FORBID SOMETHING INTERESTING HAPPENS was annoying as gently caress too. I guess if you are a MASSIVE fan of that dude from Heroes, you should read it. If you aren't though, you can safely ignore it.
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Feb 24, 2017 13:07
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Uh, why are you expecting Star Wars books to get good?
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Feb 24, 2017 14:28
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anilEhilated posted:Uh, why are you expecting Star Wars books to get good? I think Stupid_Sexy_Flander is literally running out of things to read. He's a madman.
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Feb 24, 2017 15:11
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Solitair posted:Am I the only person who thought that, in The Time Machine, the ending sequence of the Time Traveler going so far into the future that new, monstrous animals have taken over from humanity was more interesting than everything with the Eloi and Morlocks? Have you read The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter? It's set up as a direct sequel to the original Time Machine but it goes completely off the rails.
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Feb 24, 2017 15:20
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Shab posted:Have you read The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter? It's set up as a direct sequel to the original Time Machine but it goes completely off the rails. It's on my sci-fi list, but next I'll be reading some A.E. van Vogt.
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Feb 24, 2017 18:04
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I don't think racists not being evil caricatures is needs ~psychological science~ to back it up. Racists aren't so divorced from us that we have to rely on science just to get some idea of what it feels like to be one. It's just a question of the author relating to human beings and how they think about the world.
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Feb 24, 2017 18:31
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To be fair, some of the star wars books were actually pretty good. Some, like these, were crap though. Seems like way more of em are turning out to be crap. Dammit. WHY IS IT SO GOD DAMNED HARD TO WRITE A BOOK WHERE COOL poo poo HAPPENS AND IT EXPLAINS MINOR BULLSHIT ONLY TURBONERDS CARE ABOUT? We could get something like "Oh, yea Endor got clusterfucked by the falling Death Star 2 pieces, so we had to move the ewoks to another planet and set up another temp government there, and also oh yea big loving sky battle over that dusty loving planet no one cares about, and oh, before I forget, here's Luke wandering around the universe looking for Force poo poo because he's literally the reason 90% of us bother to watch the loving movie". I dunno man, I just, stupidly (and I admit, very stupidly) had high hopes for the series to get into the nitty gritty about why/how the empire fell and how they had major space battles and poo poo went down, and instead I got a series about OMG A GAY CHARACTER IN STAR WARS and OMG SWEET gently caress ALL REALLY HAPPENS, and it just pissed me off. gently caress, someone get a winch and pull KJA's head out of his rear end, and have him write a new trilogy about some jedi poo poo please.
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Feb 24, 2017 19:25
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:To be fair, some of the star wars books were actually pretty good. Not really, Star Wars books are consistently shameful and terrible. The last one I checked out of morbid curiosity featured the author opening the story by unironically rewriting the classic If All Stories Were Written Like Science Fiction Stories.
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Feb 24, 2017 21:01
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Not really, Star Wars books are consistently shameful and terrible. The only ones I've read were that Thrawn trilogy and Truce at Bakura, and even teenage me (with less than discerning taste) thought they were middling at best. Matthew Woodring Stover is a genuinely good author, though, and I hear his SW novels are pretty good. The rest are by mediocre-to-trash authors.
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Feb 25, 2017 01:14
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I finished Full Fathom Five. Somehow that was heavier than the one about ritual sacrifice. Good stuff, though. I look forward to starting the next one.
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Feb 25, 2017 01:27
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ToxicFrog posted:It's the book equivalent of sitting down with a cup of tea and a large cat and doing nothing but sipping tea and petting cat for an hour. If you're not in the mood for that you will be bored out of your skull, and if you are it's really relaxing even if the most exciting that happens in that hour is that the cat rolls over.
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Feb 25, 2017 02:04
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Strategic Tea posted:I don't think racists not being evil caricatures is needs ~psychological science~ to back it up. I agree, and think it's a pretty gross simplification to simply think that all such people are fundamentally evil, but the political tone of the forums can sometimes be such I thought leavening the post with a reference to some evidence wasn't the worst thing.
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Feb 25, 2017 02:08
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Yeah, I'm partway into book 2 and it's far from clear that character will turn out to be an uncomplicated bad guy.
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Feb 25, 2017 02:21
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Insert name here posted:On this note anyone got any recommendations for more of these types of books? I've already read A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet and consider it in the same catageoy as The Goblin Emperor as far as chill-out and relax books ago if that helps. The Dubious Hills?
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Feb 25, 2017 02:43
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Corvinus posted:The only ones I've read were that Thrawn trilogy and Truce at Bakura, and even teenage me (with less than discerning taste) thought they were middling at best.
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Feb 25, 2017 03:26
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coyo7e posted:Yeah I consistently hear that Stover's star wars novels are the top of the pile when it comes to an enormous pile of mostly boring dross. I care about Star Wars slightly more than Star Trek - which is to say very little indeed - but if I ever had a gun held to my head and was forced to read a star wars novel, It'd be Stover. Zahn also fine if a bit pulpy.
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Feb 25, 2017 03:32
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Insert name here posted:On this note anyone got any recommendations for more of these types of books? I've already read A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet and consider it in the same catageoy as The Goblin Emperor as far as chill-out and relax books ago if that helps.
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Feb 25, 2017 05:24
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Insert name here posted:On this note anyone got any recommendations for more of these types of books? I've already read A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet and consider it in the same catageoy as The Goblin Emperor as far as chill-out and relax books ago if that helps. Hellspark by Janet Kagan is a pretty chill book about communication, respecting other people, the nature of sapience, and having a cool AI buddy. It's a sci-fi murder mystery, but for me the main focus was the various character interactions. Several characters think other characters are assholes, but the main character spends a lot of time going over how that's mainly because of miscommunication and eveyone is actually really trying to be nice and polite in their own cultural framework.
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Feb 25, 2017 08:51
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Tales of the Bounty Hunters was actually the best Star Wars book although I read it when I was like 12 and I'm not game to give it another look as an adult.
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Feb 25, 2017 09:25
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Insert name here posted:On this note anyone got any recommendations for more of these types of books? I've already read A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet and consider it in the same catageoy as The Goblin Emperor as far as chill-out and relax books ago if that helps. Nathan Lowell's Solar Clipper books are about a young guy who signs up to work on a trading spaceship. They're the closest thing you'll find to ALWTASAP. Bujold's first two Chalion books have a lot of similarities to TGE, now that I think of it.. (The third one was a bit too romancey for me.) Most of The Golem and the Jinni is rather slice-of-life, even if it does have a few tense bits. It's also probably the best written thing in this post. In an odd way, Mother of Learning works, I think, on an emotional level. What's more chill than being able to do things over and over again, with the safety net of the time loop reset, until you get it right?
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Feb 25, 2017 10:20
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I've never read the Thrawn books but I thought Zahn's series about ninjas vs aliens was entertaining.
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Feb 25, 2017 10:32
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Megazver posted:In an odd way, Mother of Learning works, I think, on an emotional level. What's more chill than being able to do things over and over again, with the safety net of the time loop reset, until you get it right? yeah groundhog day was mediocre 20-something years ago
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Feb 25, 2017 13:55
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Neurosis posted:yeah groundhog day was mediocre 20-something years ago Oh, you. 
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Feb 25, 2017 15:09
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Yeah yeah I know I'm being reductionist as hell but the description was too easy to misinterpret in a snarky way
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Feb 25, 2017 15:55
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Goblin Emperor has a just rep for being pleasant and good-feeling, but nontheless has a nicely clear-sighted and realistic depiction of a coup attempt.
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Feb 25, 2017 15:57
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Corvinus posted:The only ones I've read were that Thrawn trilogy and Truce at Bakura, and even teenage me (with less than discerning taste) thought they were middling at best. I liked the Thrawn Trilogy except for the ending where it just kind of...was over. The biggest problem with the Expanded Universe novels was that they let people write about whatever. They had the big central database for "continuity" but it became Dragonball Z type BUT LOOK A SUPER DUPER SITH NOW! really fast. The EU comics were the best format for that stuff, not novels.
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Feb 25, 2017 15:59
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Dune. I know basically nothing about it (Sting and giant worms) but it's on sale right now and i'm thinking of buying at least the first book. Is the series any good? What books should I avoid? I see some titles by authors that aren't Frank Herbert. I don't normally go for science fiction, or fiction in general. I read a lot of Asimov when I was younger, and Otherland by Tad Williams is one of my favorite series, but that's about the extent of my sci-fi reading. Thanks for any advice you have.
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Feb 25, 2017 16:21
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Definitely read Dune. Then keep reading sequels until you get to one that feels meh. Then stop because they only get worse from there on out. This will happen before you get to the Brian Herbert prequels.
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Feb 25, 2017 16:25
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The Thrawn pentalogy? was pretty good. Hell, my favorite series was the Xwing series, especially after they moved away from the jedi dude and went with Wraith Squadron for a few books.
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Feb 25, 2017 20:25
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oh dope posted:Dune. I know basically nothing about it (Sting and giant worms) but it's on sale right now and i'm thinking of buying at least the first book. Is the series any good? What books should I avoid? I see some titles by authors that aren't Frank Herbert. The first book is a classic and worth reading. The sequels get progressively weirder. I'd also suggest Zelazny's Lord of Light.
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Feb 25, 2017 21:21
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oh dope posted:Dune. I know basically nothing about it (Sting and giant worms) but it's on sale right now and i'm thinking of buying at least the first book. Is the series any good? What books should I avoid? I see some titles by authors that aren't Frank Herbert. As said, definitely read Dune, but feel free to drop the sequels the moment they don't feel to be worth it. As to other classics, I'll throw Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man and Stars My Destination on the table any day. For 50s sci-fi they have held up really well, The Demolished Man in particular.
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Feb 25, 2017 22:12
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:top left corner says 2012 for last site modification. Yeah, the site says 2012, but the very first introductory page the author wants you to read says 1970. They've been at this for a while. It's an intriguing site, though. Weirdly enough, they're not the first person I've seen recommend R.A. Lafferty. Has anyone here had the fortune of reading Lafferty's books, and if so, are they really all that?
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Feb 25, 2017 23:15
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:The Thrawn pentalogy? was pretty good. Rogue squadron was the only EU I liked as well. It's held up okay but now I've noticed that Stackpole is kind of a dull writer and the combat scenes are fairly repetitive. The Wraith books were better I agree
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Feb 25, 2017 23:50
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Solitair posted:Yeah, the site says 2012, but the very first introductory page the author wants you to read says 1970. They've been at this for a while.
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Feb 25, 2017 23:50
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Are there many other sites for new SF/F short stories from current authors than Clarkesworld that you all would recommend? I realized I read 99% novels and 1% short stories and am looking for good sites to catch up on whatever it is I feel I've been missing.
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Feb 26, 2017 00:17
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Any opinions on A.E. van Vogt's Empire of the Atom? Apparently it's "I, Claudius in space" which I'm down with, worth reading?
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Feb 26, 2017 00:23
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Lunsku posted:As said, definitely read Dune, but feel free to drop the sequels the moment they don't feel to be worth it. Interesting. Any reason you suggest TDM over Stars my Destination? I recently finished both for the first time - both are clearly similar and great, but Stars felt much more alive and vibrant to me. Both are clearly products of their time (especially as relates to women in the novels) of course. Maybe I'm just a sucker for the Count of Monte Cristo.
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Feb 26, 2017 00:28
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