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StrixNebulosa posted:Where's the best place to start with Ian Mcdonald? I got halfway through Luna: New Moon before the library wanted it back, and instead of buying it I realized he's got a pretty big catalog. I'm leaning towards River of Gods, but sci-fi set in South Africa also sounds compelling. River of Gods is A+ good stuff, his African stuff is a little rougher but also a little older. It's also standalone.
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Mar 10, 2017 02:44
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occamsnailfile posted:River of Gods is A+ good stuff, his African stuff is a little rougher but also a little older. It's also standalone. Then that's the one I'm getting, thanks! I'll get to his African stuff once I'm through all 500+(!) pages of it~ (ahhh, a 500+ sci-fi novel that doesn't have a sequel, that isn't part of a sequence or trilogy....)
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Mar 10, 2017 02:46
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VagueRant posted:When KJ Parker was recommended I checked out samples of Sharps and The Folding Knife (they seemed to come up highly rated and standalone) and liked both. Plus I heard there was some link between the two (that I think I caught) and I'm curious about that. Most of his books do seem to be set in the same world, but it's about on the same level as some dude writing one book set in Rome during the last days of the Republic, another book in a frontier province of the Roman Empire featuring some early oppression of Christians as a minor side plot, and a third book in colonial era South America with a Roman Catholic priest as one of the main characters. The spread is about that big in terms of geography and history and the connections are about that tenuous.
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Mar 10, 2017 13:04
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StrixNebulosa posted:Where's the best place to start with Ian Mcdonald? I got halfway through Luna: New Moon before the library wanted it back, and instead of buying it I realized he's got a pretty big catalog. I'm leaning towards River of Gods, but sci-fi set in South Africa also sounds compelling. River of Gods is a good one. Brasyl and The Dervish House are other good options. His novels are more or less stand-alone, so it doesn't matter where you start.
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Mar 10, 2017 13:15
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StrixNebulosa posted:(ahhh, a 500+ sci-fi novel that doesn't have a sequel, that isn't part of a sequence or trilogy....) The stories in there are mostly pretty great though. Honestly the only two of his books I'd stay away from are Desolation Road and Ares Express, but that's because they're fairly boring compared to his stuff based on actual cultures. They're still not bad, just not that interesting.
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Mar 10, 2017 13:50
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anilEhilated posted:Well, if you're talking River of Gods there, I've got some news for you and it's called Cyberabad Days... Huh, I read Desolation Road way back when it came out and thought it was pretty cool.
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Mar 10, 2017 14:31
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anilEhilated posted:The stories in there are mostly pretty great though. Honestly the only two of his books I'd stay away from are Desolation Road and Ares Express, but that's because they're fairly boring compared to his stuff based on actual cultures. They're still not bad, just not that interesting. For another opinion, I think Desolation Road and Ares Express are far and away the best things he's written. Desolation Road is a great Weird Mars version of 100 Years of Solitude.
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Mar 10, 2017 16:12
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Hello all, I've got a huge problem in that I just read Blindsight and Echopraxia, now everything else seems dumb, hacky, and trivial. Sucks as I was enjoying reading SF again recently. Can anybody help me? Yes, I do have Bridge of Birds on the way.
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Mar 10, 2017 21:23
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Embassytown? It is clever SF but the science is not what you'd expect.
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Mar 10, 2017 21:26
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Remulak posted:Hello all, CJ Cherryh's Cyteen! She's my favorite author for a reason, please treat yourself!
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Mar 10, 2017 21:32
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Remulak posted:I've got a huge problem in that I just read Blindsight and Echopraxia, now everything else seems dumb, hacky, and trivial. I haven't finished it yet, but "The Stars are Legion" is neither dumb, hacky, or trivial.
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Mar 10, 2017 21:47
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StrixNebulosa posted:CJ Cherryh's Cyteen! She's my favorite author for a reason, please treat yourself! I just finished 4 of the "The Company Wars" books recently. Downbelow Station and Merchanter's Luck were both great but I kind of bounced off Heavy Time and Hellburner. Seriously, how many times can the main character get a head injury and have to recover in the hospital? Overall though, I really liked the world building and her writing style. Any recommendations on what to read next in that setting? edit - I guess I could just go with Cyteen like your post says. I was more wondering if there's something recommended to read after The Company Wars. johnsonrod fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Mar 10, 2017 |
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Mar 10, 2017 21:52
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StrixNebulosa posted:CJ Cherryh's Cyteen! She's my favorite author for a reason, please treat yourself! fritz posted:I haven't finished it yet, but "The Stars are Legion" is neither dumb, hacky, or trivial. anilEhilated posted:Embassytown? It is clever SF but the science is not what you'd expect.
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Mar 10, 2017 22:10
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Remulak posted:Hello all, I can't, but maybe Charles Stross can. How about Accelerando?
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Mar 10, 2017 22:42
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Remulak posted:Hello all, The Quantum Thief trilogy (Quantum Thief, Fractal Prince, Causal Angel) by Hannu Rajaniemii? I found it to be fun, smart, well written, post-singularity scifi. The last book wasn't quite as good as the first two but still worth a read. Snuffman fucked around with this message at 22:46 on Mar 10, 2017 |
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Mar 10, 2017 22:44
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johnsonrod posted:I just finished 4 of the "The Company Wars" books recently. Downbelow Station and Merchanter's Luck were both great but I kind of bounced off Heavy Time and Hellburner. Seriously, how many times can the main character get a head injury and have to recover in the hospital? Merchanter's Luck is part of a set of four books set in Alliance space after the Treaty of Pell; the other three are Tripoint, Rimrunners, and Finity's End. You can read them in any order, and they're all fairly short. Cyteen is a nice look at the Union side of things. It's long but a fairly sedate and relaxing read. It has a sequel, Regenesis, but while it isn't bad per se, it doesn't live up to its predecessor and doesn't answer any of the big questions Cyteen raised, just the small ones. Cyteen contains references to the Gehenna Project, a clandestine Union colony; 40,000 In Gehenna tells that story. That's about it for stuff in A-U space at the same era as the Treaty. Most of her SF is in that same universe but so long after the Treaty or so far away from Alliance-Union space that it doesn't matter. Of those, the Compact Space books (first book The Pride of Chanur) are set on the other side of Earth, and cover Earth Company's first contact with aliens from the alien perspective at (IIRC) around the same time, while Serpent's Reach, Cuckoo's Egg, and the Faded Sun trilogy take place some distance in the future; if you liked the Company Wars books you'll probably like these as well. And if you like cosmic horror and/or the sensation of your brain being slowly pressed through a fine wire mesh while something with six mouths sings an atonal melody you can almost but not quite understand, check out Voyager in Night.
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Mar 10, 2017 23:00
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johnsonrod posted:I just finished 4 of the "The Company Wars" books recently. Downbelow Station and Merchanter's Luck were both great but I kind of bounced off Heavy Time and Hellburner. Seriously, how many times can the main character get a head injury and have to recover in the hospital? To be honest I haven't been through Heavy Time or Hellburner yet - but I agree, Merchanter's Luck is great. Downbelow Station's okay, but she's done better. For more Alliance stuff, read Rimrunners, Tripoint, and my personal favorite of the alliance stuff, Finity's End. It is a bit "grow up kid" as the protagonist is, well, a kid, but it's a great depiction of the ships that make up the bulk of the merchant fleet in that 'verse. (It's also a good human story about finding family, which appeals to me.) For the other side of the war, you want Cyteen. It's the best of her Union stuff, and probably her best book, period, although I will always have a softer spot for the Chanur series. Cyteen gets into the politics that shape why and how they left Earth behind, why azis are great (or not!) and all of that good stuff that goes into cloning a living person so that the clone turns out to be as accurate as possible. ... You won't want to read Regenesis. It's a decent sequel, but it feels very different and might tweak some noses given how....much lighter it is? I don't know. I liked it, but it's not the masterpiece Cyteen is. Beyond that - Faded Sun is super dark but interesting - it's early Cherryh, technically part of the Alliance 'verse but...not really? Still worth a gander, if just so you can see the regul in all of their majestic glory.  And finally you move into the rest of her stuff - other sci-fi I haven't read yet, other fantasy, and that good ol' Foreigner series which really marks the transition from the best Cherryh to her softer modern style. It's still good, but it's not as bleak or sharp? ... I'm still gonna read the latest book when it drops because I love seeing how cultures can impact each other. tl;dr read Cyteen or Finity's End! e: I FORGOT ABOUT 40K IN GEHENNA. A great generational story that makes the jump from sci-fi to fantasy in styling to sci-fi again, absolutely worth reading! Keep in mind it's more Unionside than Alliance, though!
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Mar 10, 2017 23:07
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ringu0 posted:I can't, but maybe Charles Stross can. How about Accelerando? NEXT! Snuffman posted:The Quantum Thief trilogy (Quantum Thief, Fractal Prince, Causal Angel) by Hannu Rajaniemii?
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Mar 10, 2017 23:12
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anilEhilated posted:Well, if you're talking River of Gods there, I've got some news for you and it's called Cyberabad Days... Ahaha, well, it's still nice to pick up a giant sci-fi book that I can read all of and be done with, if I want to be done. (Shout-out to both Malazan and the Foreigner series for being both good and freaking long!) Hopefully I won't want to be done, though! His writing style really works for me. ShutteredIn posted:For another opinion, I think Desolation Road and Ares Express are far and away the best things he's written. Desolation Road is a great Weird Mars version of 100 Years of Solitude. Whoa, that's a great way to rec a book. I'll give those a gander after River of Gods, hopefully through the library in case I don't like 'em. StrixNebulosa fucked around with this message at 23:44 on Mar 10, 2017 |
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Mar 10, 2017 23:22
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Remulak posted:Hello all, Iain M Banks - maybe start with Excession.
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Mar 11, 2017 00:26
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For Big Ideas™ scifi, try Ted Chiang's short stories, or Greg Egan's post-singularity stuff - Diaspora, then maybe Schild's Ladder, or Permutation City (which I haven't read) if you still want more.
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Mar 11, 2017 00:49
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I recently remembered a series I read a bunch of years ago, at least 10, which I got from these forums. It was science fiction and I think maybe the author was a goon? I seem to remember that there banner ads for the books on the site at least, but gently caress me if I can remember the name. I'm pretty sure it was "near-future scifi", and the books were kinda weird. It was a trilogy I'm pretty sure and I think they were color coded maybe, and there were these symbols scattered throughout the books some way tied in with some of the characters. Some of it takes place in south america and also in space where some space station is infiltrated by corporate black ops or something. It's driving me crazy that I can't remember the name of the books or the author. Do my vague memories ring a bell with anyone?
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Mar 11, 2017 11:52
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Biplane posted:I recently remembered a series I read a bunch of years ago, at least 10, which I got from these forums. It was science fiction and I think maybe the author was a goon? I seem to remember that there banner ads for the books on the site at least, but gently caress me if I can remember the name. I'm pretty sure it was "near-future scifi", and the books were kinda weird. It was a trilogy I'm pretty sure and I think they were color coded maybe, and there were these symbols scattered throughout the books some way tied in with some of the characters. Some of it takes place in south america and also in space where some space station is infiltrated by corporate black ops or something. It's driving me crazy that I can't remember the name of the books or the author. Do my vague memories ring a bell with anyone? Not me, but you might want to try the book identification thread as well.
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Mar 11, 2017 12:12
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ToxicFrog posted:Not me, but you might want to try the book identification thread as well. Thank you kindly my friend.
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Mar 11, 2017 12:16
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Biplane posted:I recently remembered a series I read a bunch of years ago, at least 10, which I got from these forums. It was science fiction and I think maybe the author was a goon? I seem to remember that there banner ads for the books on the site at least, but gently caress me if I can remember the name. I'm pretty sure it was "near-future scifi", and the books were kinda weird. It was a trilogy I'm pretty sure and I think they were color coded maybe, and there were these symbols scattered throughout the books some way tied in with some of the characters. Some of it takes place in south america and also in space where some space station is infiltrated by corporate black ops or something. It's driving me crazy that I can't remember the name of the books or the author. Do my vague memories ring a bell with anyone? "Hieroglyphs for characters" makes me think maybe it's the Mirrored Heavens series by David J. Williams.
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Mar 11, 2017 19:18
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C.M. Kruger posted:"Hieroglyphs for characters" makes me think maybe it's the Mirrored Heavens series by David J. Williams. Holy poo poo you did it! That's the one! I seem to remember liking it back in the day but I can't for the life of me remember much more. Totally gonna rebuy that poo poo soon as I finish reading Malazan.
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Mar 11, 2017 21:44
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Finally started reading the Powder Mage series a few days ago and it's so good.
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Mar 11, 2017 23:25
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VagueRant posted:When KJ Parker was recommended I checked out samples of Sharps and The Folding Knife (they seemed to come up highly rated and standalone) and liked both. Plus I heard there was some link between the two (that I think I caught) and I'm curious about that. His books are connected in that they're all happening in the same world at different times and locations (historical scale - decades and centuries apart). This guy said it best: Groke posted:Most of his books do seem to be set in the same world, but it's about on the same level as some dude writing one book set in Rome during the last days of the Republic, another book in a frontier province of the Roman Empire featuring some early oppression of Christians as a minor side plot, and a third book in colonial era South America with a Roman Catholic priest as one of the main characters. The spread is about that big in terms of geography and history and the connections are about that tenuous. Personally I like the standalones and the Engineer trilogy most. Fencer and Scavenger both had points where I was too disgusted to continue (which, strangely, I consider positive - after all, the point of a piece of art is to affect you in some way). The Two of Swords is interesting but I'd wait until it's done if I were you, or maybe buy the collected editions if they come out.
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Mar 12, 2017 02:47
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Evil Fluffy posted:Finally started reading the Powder Mage series a few days ago and it's so good. I got real tired of the cocaine analogs in powder mage after a while.
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Mar 12, 2017 02:57
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I like them both; they hit different notes despite the similarities but yea I liked Wexler more. New Powder Mage book out soon (or within the past month). I think he's got a lot of potential for growth as a writer so looking forward to it
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Mar 12, 2017 03:15
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Powder Mage fell apart in the second book for me. That general's son and his waifu are basically so overpowered that the end of the second book is something like "And then these two dudes killed this army 2v10000 and none of them stood a chance because she had like thousands of loving voodoo dolls and made them all kill each other and there wasn't anything they could do about it because this chick is so awesome gently caress yeah.
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Mar 12, 2017 04:44
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Khizan posted:Powder Mage fell apart in the second book for me. That general's son and his waifu are basically so overpowered that the end of the second book is something like "And then these two dudes killed this army 2v10000 and none of them stood a chance because she had like thousands of loving voodoo dolls and made them all kill each other and there wasn't anything they could do about it because this chick is so awesome gently caress yeah. Also when I noticed that he is jumping all over his timeline in terms of novels I kinda got sick of it, I was like "I'm kind of tired of this world, and now it's steampunk? Yeah, no more for me."
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Mar 12, 2017 04:54
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coyo7e posted:Also at one point there is a like three stooges or whatever scene where two people who feel each other's pain want to stab themselves in anger. That's a pretty freaky coincidence; Kiznaiver came out a month after A Gathering of Shadows.
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Mar 12, 2017 10:24
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My biggest issue with Powder Mage is that it's basically Sanderson-lite: lots of magic system rules lawyering with a barely passable plot and characterization as afterthought.
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Mar 12, 2017 13:25
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World Building~~~~
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Mar 12, 2017 14:29
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So this is the cover for John Scalzi's latest novel: And this is the cover for The Corroding Empire, first novel by the 'Finland's hottest author Johan Kalsi', edited by Vox Day: 
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Mar 12, 2017 14:35
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An interstellar science fiction epic in space! SPACE!
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Mar 12, 2017 14:37
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Megazver posted:So this is the cover for John Scalzi's latest novel: Imagine getting this butthurt.
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Mar 12, 2017 14:48
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Vox day is such a little bitch lol
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Mar 12, 2017 15:57
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Megazver posted:So this is the cover for John Scalzi's latest novel: The quote below the title is pretty great.
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