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I just reread Shadows Linger to read a good Black Company book and it is still so good. The book would have been fine without the last act, but that part just takes it a completely different level.
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Oct 20, 2018 07:25
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feedmegin posted:That's my point though. There is zero magic in Merchant Princes except the dimensional travelling (which in itself isn't something beyond the ken of science, in the setting). Recent sequel spoiler: The trait itself is established definitively to be the result of some slick genetic engineering and nanotechnology, presumably originating in one of the extremely scary advanced timelines.
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Oct 20, 2018 10:25
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So is Scalzi's The Consuming Fire as poo poo as I suspect it is?
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Oct 20, 2018 17:16
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It's pretty decent if you liked the first one. It's a bit climate changey, with a dash of brexit flavouring the political reactions.
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Oct 20, 2018 19:35
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I'm certain i read the first but i can remember almost nothing about it except the very broad plot with subspace or whatever he called it. Even then it felt very "paint by numbers". It feels like he lost the passion somewhere along the line, and he's just cranking them out for a buck. Locked in and that detective short story that I forget the name of was clearly of better quality.
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Oct 21, 2018 06:15
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Finished up Rejoice, a knife to the heart by Steven Erikson and holy poo poo I'm like 90% positive he started writing this the picosecond that Trump won the election. Dude does not like republicans. There's quite a few characters that are TOTALLY NOT THE KOCH BROS and TOTALLY NOT RUPERT MURDOCH and basically holy poo poo this book is not what I was expecting in the least. That being said, if you can handle it being sort of a political screed it is pretty enjoyable just for the plot of "super advanced ai shows up has to decide if earth lives or humanity survives".
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Oct 21, 2018 10:35
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Finished up Rejoice, a knife to the heart by Steven Erikson and holy poo poo I'm like 90% positive he started writing this the picosecond that Trump won the election. Dude does not like republicans. There's quite a few characters that are TOTALLY NOT THE KOCH BROS and TOTALLY NOT RUPERT MURDOCH and basically holy poo poo this book is not what I was expecting in the least. Hell, it's good to see science fiction keeping up with the pressing political issues of our time, like republicans being bad guys.
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Oct 21, 2018 14:05
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Quakeland kept mentioning the New Madrid 1811-1812 fault line earthquakes which got me interested enough to read When the Mississippi Ran Backwards by Jay Feldman. When the Mississippi Ran Backwards covered the lead-up, events of, and aftermath of the three biggest New Madrid fault line earthquakes, with estimated magnitudes of 7-8 on the Richter scale. The book was kinda scattershot, but it did cover how the series of earthquakes over 1811 + 1812 affected the war of 1812*, affected the 1st modern steamboat which was figuratively scifi technology back in 1811**, preserved evidence of a murder that two of Thomas Jefferson's inbred nephews committed***, helped kick off the Indian wars that would end in the trail of tears, cleared the waterways of the Mississippi River for the rise of steamboats****, and also covered the effects of another magnitude 7+ New Madrid fault line earthquake******. *The earthquakes displaced lots of people in the america south, rebuilding industries wrecked by the earthquakes made international trade more important, etc. And also contributed heavily to the rise of Andrew Jackson in american culture. **The 1st modern steamship in the world was named the New Orleans and survived the New Madrid earthquake affects on the Mississippi River with no problems. And it's design and construction was like the space shuttle compared to the normal rowboats/sailboats/pole-driven rafts on the Mississippi River in 1811. ***Thomas Jefferson's extended family tree was a pretty much a hedgerow, lots of first cousins intermarrying. The nephews murdered a black slave, and the earthquakes preserved evidence (the body) that nephews tried burning. ****Literally. *****Most of the gulf of mexico coastline near the mississippi river + the lower half of the states bordering the mississippi river would be effected badly
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Oct 21, 2018 20:26
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I just finished C.J. Cherryh's The Pride of Chanur and realized how much I love retro sci-fi stuff. CW from 1981, so the retro is built-in, but I love space stuff from before people envisioned things like Drones or secure wireless tech. These guys are carrying around tape data discs and pagers and it's awesome. I also love how different sci-fi series have done their FTL travel, so this was fun. Great book, by the way. I splurged on 3-4 Cherryh books, and this was the first I read.
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Oct 22, 2018 16:11
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robotsinmyhead posted:I just finished C.J. Cherryh's The Pride of Chanur and realized how much I love retro sci-fi stuff. CW from 1981, so the retro is built-in, but I love space stuff from before people envisioned things like Drones or secure wireless tech. These guys are carrying around tape data discs and pagers and it's awesome.  Excellent!! It's one of my favorites by her - the Chanur sequels are excellent, and she's written so much sci-fi and most of it is good, so have fun! What else did you buy from her?
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Oct 22, 2018 16:18
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StrixNebulosa posted:
Rimrunners (just started) and Cyteen. I think I meant to get Downbelow Station, but I couldn't find it when I did my buy. Not sure I'll get to Cyteen as I've got 4 other books I want to get to soon - Revenant Gun, The Monster Baru Cormorant, Sapiens (non-fic), and a beer brewing book, so it's not high on my list. robotsinmyhead fucked around with this message at 16:29 on Oct 22, 2018 |
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Oct 22, 2018 16:22
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robotsinmyhead posted:Rimrunners (just started) and Cyteen. I think I meant to get Downbelow Station, but I couldn't find it when I did my buy. Ha, wow. I've actually never read Rimrunners, so let me know how it goes!
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Oct 22, 2018 16:26
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Wherein I'm debating buying a book because it's a sci-fi that got a review like this.quote:“I make nothing new, create nothing: I’m a sort of mad journalist,” Kathy Acker writes in 1989, on Empire of the Senseless, her fifth book from a major publisher and first venture into the realm of science fiction. At first glance, journalism seems an odd analogy for this work, an obscene and mind-bending saga set in the shadow of Reagan’s presidency and told from the alternating perspectives of Thivai, a pirate, and his intermittent lover, a half-human, half-robot woman named Abhor. But even as the novel extends into a speculative near future—where Paris has been overrun by Algerian rebels and the CIA conducts clandestine operations to turn this chaos to their strategic advantage—it remains insolently rooted in the world in which we belong, anchored by Acker’s stubborn commitment to rendering visible the sexist, racist, capitalistic, father-loving societal ego of her time—and of our own. Kathy Acker is a muckraker in the original sense, one who dredges up the dirt and puts it on display to the delight and horror of the reading public. Like, what the heck, who brought this literature into my genre fiction?
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Oct 22, 2018 17:24
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robotsinmyhead posted:Rimrunners (just started) and Cyteen. I think I meant to get Downbelow Station, but I couldn't find it when I did my buy. Downbelow Station is a pretty hard read and, IMO, is best left towards the end of your A-U reading anyways. Cyteen is a surprisingly smooth read for its side, and gives you a look at the Union perspective that's mostly absent from the A-U books. I remember liking Rimrunners, but don't remember much about it otherwise -- but it's a quick read, and if you like it you should check out the other Merchanter books (Merchanter's Luck, Finity's End, and Tripoint). And yeah, if you liked The Pride of Chanur definitely check out the sequels. Be aware that the middle three books are one overarching story, though; the first two don't end neatly the way Pride does.
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Oct 22, 2018 19:04
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Thoughts on Faithful and the Fallen? I'm a big fan of zero to hero powertrip fantasy and had heard this was good. I was pretty disappointed, though I did like the religious aspects to the story (not just in the prophecy sense but like the literal angels vs. demon swordfights (spoiler)), but 4 books was just way too long. I really feel like the author could have cut half that poo poo out and would have been better off. I've read most of whats available in the farmboy/zero to hero powertrip fantasy subgenre, but if anyone has suggestions I'd be interested to hear them
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Oct 23, 2018 03:25
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I liked it overall, but yeah it was super wordy. At times it also felt like Gwynne was sitting there with an epic fantasy checklist and just putting stuff in the story so he could mark things off of that list.
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Oct 23, 2018 03:34
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Thanks to everyone who suggested the Divine Cities, I'm half way through City of Stairs and already love it
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Oct 23, 2018 03:37
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Edit: mobile error!
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Oct 23, 2018 05:35
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So Richard K Morgan has a new book out, Thin Air, description says noir detective type story set on Mars. Anyone read or heard anything about it yet?
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Oct 23, 2018 21:23
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I'm a bit over halfway through Suldrun's Garden by Jack Vance. I've started this book on numerous occasions and put it down because the bit at the start with Suldrun growing up dragged. I'm glad I finally made it through - it's entertaining in the same vein as The Dying Earth. However... drat, is the world bleak, even moreso than in Cugel's Saga. Three quarters of the people met are or would-be thieves, rapists and murderers. If not for Vance's prose and the fantastic world giving it all a whimsical picaresque feel it would be crushing, rather than by turns uncomfortable and amusing.
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Oct 24, 2018 03:47
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Scalzi's new book, The Consuming Fire, is really pissing me off. If you're going to make the bad guys get their way chapter after chapter, you don't also have to directly tell us that before each chapter starts. I hate it when authors tell you something that can only be bad "if the good guy does this.." at the end of a chapter, then opens the next chapter with page after page of "good guy does this." Doing that multiple chapters in a row makes me wonder how long I'm willing to wait for anything good to happen without a "but wait! They're all going to get hosed over by this thing in a while"
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Oct 24, 2018 04:35
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Loutre posted:Scalzi's new book, The Consuming Fire, is really pissing me off. If you're going to make the bad guys get their way chapter after chapter, you don't also have to directly tell us that before each chapter starts. LOL. Thank you for saving me money on buying the sequel. I have no beef with Scalzi, I can just so easily imagine what you mean that I'm already sighing.
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Oct 24, 2018 07:29
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Kesper North posted:LOL. Thank you for saving me money on buying the sequel. I'm sure it'll get on the Hugo ballot and then I will visit the library and die for this thread's sins.
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Oct 24, 2018 08:31
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Solitair posted:I'm sure it'll get on the Hugo ballot and then I will visit the library and die for this thread's sins. Hopefully Jemisin also publishes something this year, so at least Scalzi doesn't win.
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Oct 24, 2018 08:39
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Kesper North posted:LOL. Thank you for saving me money on buying the sequel. I never had any beef with him either. I get the vibe that this series is a half-assed attempt at a sci-fi Game of Thrones, and that's definitely not his arena. Hence dipping in to the weakest ways possible to make things "depressing" like that. And it being a political intrigue with houses and varying viewpoints. I'd have been much happier if he'd stuck with stuff like The Android's Dream.
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Oct 25, 2018 03:23
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Everyone and their brother wanted to be the SF version of Game of Thrones, and claimed to be it's succesor on their front covers. Any read Luna: New Moon by Ian Mcdonald?
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Oct 25, 2018 03:51
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Yeah, thought it was pretty good. Never seen/read GoT so no idea how close they are. But it keeps you engaged and has you rooting for mostly every character/faction, and against the political system they live in (and perpetuate to various degrees). Holding off on the sequel until the third one is out, then I'll probably blitz through them all in a week.
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Oct 25, 2018 04:24
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Prolonged Priapism posted:Yeah, thought it was pretty good. Never seen/read GoT so no idea how close they are. But it keeps you engaged and has you rooting for mostly every character/faction, and against the political system they live in (and perpetuate to various degrees). Scalzi's or Luna? I'm trying to decide if I pick up Luna next.
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Oct 25, 2018 05:24
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Kesper North posted:LOL. Thank you for saving me money on buying the sequel. I don’t have a beef with him either but I wonder if he’s improved his writing at all in the last few years. I enjoyed Old Man’s War but couldn’t appreciate anything he’s written since. On the positive side, I think Death’s End marks the first time I’ve ever so satisfied with the third book in a trilogy. It makes up for everything I disliked about the previous two. Tiny Timbs fucked around with this message at 05:46 on Oct 25, 2018 |
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Oct 25, 2018 05:27
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The first one was Foundation and Sexhavers; is the second not Foundation, Empire, and More Peeps What Get Freaky?
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Oct 25, 2018 06:18
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A Proper Uppercut posted:So Richard K Morgan has a new book out, Thin Air, description says noir detective type story set on Mars. Anyone read or heard anything about it yet? I'm in the middle of it and I like it so far. As far as it goes, it's a standard Richard K Morgan book. Over the top alpha-male protagonist, dystopian setting, needlessly graphic sex scenes, well done action scenes. It's on Mars in the same setting as Thirteen, with COLIN and the lottery for passage back to Earth and such, but it's not actually related to Thirteen storywise and doesn't seem to share any characters. If you liked Morgan's other books, then it's more of the same. If you didn't like his other books, then well. It's still more of the same.
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Oct 25, 2018 08:56
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BananaNutkins posted:Everyone and their brother wanted to be the SF version of Game of Thrones, and claimed to be it's succesor on their front covers. Any read Luna: New Moon by Ian Mcdonald? It's a blast, and the book after is also excellent. Third is coming out next year I believe. Read it! Also thank you to everyone who recommended Aurora, I loved it.
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Oct 25, 2018 11:59
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Khizan posted:I'm in the middle of it and I like it so far. As far as it goes, it's a standard Richard K Morgan book. Over the top alpha-male protagonist, dystopian setting, needlessly graphic sex scenes, well done action scenes. It's on Mars in the same setting as Thirteen, with COLIN and the lottery for passage back to Earth and such, but it's not actually related to Thirteen storywise and doesn't seem to share any characters. Nice! I love Morgan, although I agree he does have those issues you mention. I will say that the first two books in his fantasy trilogy were really enjoyable, and even have a Female protagonist... who is a lesbian and I’m not remotely qualified to say if she’s written as an alpha male with find/replace he -> she. On the other hand tons of (male on male) gay sex! Velius fucked around with this message at 12:38 on Oct 25, 2018 |
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Oct 25, 2018 12:34
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BananaNutkins posted:Everyone and their brother wanted to be the SF version of Game of Thrones, and claimed to be it's succesor on their front covers. Any read Luna: New Moon by Ian Mcdonald? It’s very clearly A Moon is a Harsh Mistress (moon as libertarian colony) meets Game of Thrones (warring dynastic houses with plenty of political scheming), written by someone more talented than either Heinlein or Martin, so if that appeals to you, you will enjoy this.
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Oct 25, 2018 15:13
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Stanislaw Lem's Peace on Earth is $1.99 on the kindle store, definitely worth grabbing at that price. Peace on Earth is the 1987 Stanislaw Lem novel about the nuclear arms race.....only it's drones, robots, and a robot arms race in the book, with cheap realtime telepresence drone costs, and the immense fuckery that happens worldwide when everyone has access to telepresence (non-war) drones. The real draw of Peace on Earth is that it's kinda like memento the movie, things are described in reverse as the main character regains his memory/recovers from the fuckery that happened when he came back from a UN mission to find out whats been happening on the Moon since 99% of warfare on Earth was moved to the Moon by the UN, to be managed by autonomous AIs programmed by each participating nation, and then everything was put under a total-kill, no communications deathzone. Scalzi chat: Personally think that Scalzi kinda aged out of his observational/snarky outsider vibe that made the first few Old Mans War books + Androids Dream good. AKA The industry recognition and awards Scalzi got + hitting middle age + the $3.4 million book contract to churn out books, to be more specific in "how Scalzi changed".
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Oct 25, 2018 16:14
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Khizan posted:I'm in the middle of it and I like it so far. As far as it goes, it's a standard Richard K Morgan book. Over the top alpha-male protagonist, dystopian setting, needlessly graphic sex scenes, well done action scenes. It's on Mars in the same setting as Thirteen, with COLIN and the lottery for passage back to Earth and such, but it's not actually related to Thirteen storywise and doesn't seem to share any characters. You mean the same setting as The Black Man for us non US readers. That sounds good, it is in my mail atm.
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Oct 25, 2018 20:19
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Read some Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser in the "Swords and Deviltry" collection. First story took a while to get into but I quite liked it once it got going. Recommend me your favorite sword n sorcery stories!
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Oct 25, 2018 22:49
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Fafhrd and the Mouser are great fun, although as they go along Leiber's dirty-old-man-ness gets more and more obtrusive. I'm quite fond of Karl Edward Wagner's "Kane" books and stories (not to be confused with REH's Solomon Kane). They're much more atmospheric than your standard barbarian hero fare. As a lifelong Michael Moorcock fanboy, I also have to put in a word for the Eternal Champion books, even if some of them were basically hacked out over a weekend to make rent money. On the more obscure front, I've always enjoyed J. F. Rivkin's "Silverglass" books, which are basically genderflipped versions of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser. The series (and Rivkin) disappeared without a trace after being published, but they're still good breezy fun.
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Oct 25, 2018 23:41
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I stumbled into Rejoice, A Knife to the Heart by Steven Erikson. I've barely read his fantasy stuff but this is a weird sorta cathartic read. If you've been reading the Trump thread too much might be worth a read.
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Oct 26, 2018 00:22
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my bony fealty posted:Read some Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser in the "Swords and Deviltry" collection. First story took a while to get into but I quite liked it once it got going. You can safely stop reading the Fafhrd & Gray Mouser stories once they finish their first adventure , Odin + Loki trying to kick off Ragnarok 2.0, on Rime Isle. Check out Clark Ashton Smith if you want good sword n sorcery style stories. The 133 story Clark Ashton Smith collection (ultimate weird tales collection) on the kindle storefront is both cheap ($1.99), and jampacked with good sword n sorcery slash gothic horror stories. CAS recycled one or three of his stories with new names/locations, but there is still over 100+ original interesting stories to read.
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Oct 26, 2018 02:59
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