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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:Strap in for lots of Locke + Hume then. Wait, you guys were warning them off of that? The way you were describing it made it sound really good, if dark...
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Jan 14, 2019 00:52
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A whole lot of rape (physical + mental) goes down in that book. Luckily, none of the books in that universe follow that main character again.
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Jan 14, 2019 01:00
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General Battuta posted:It's definitely wonky and probably not well explained. I was trying to keep it REALLY simple, because people will throw up their hands and quit the moment they see more than the most basic toy economics. Basically it's supposed to work like this: The Masquerade wants to suck all the hard coin/gem currency out of Taranoke and replace it with fiat notes. So they buy high with fiat notes (hey, I'll give you a LOT of this fiat money for your telescope) and sell low for coins/gems (hey, I'll give you a wool discount if you pay in hard money). I think I see, but what would the value of the fiat currency relative to the gold coins be in this case? If you can sell your glass gizmos for 100 gold coins or 120 masque dollars, then buy the masque pants for 100 gold coins or 120 masque dollars wouldn't that just make a gold coin effectively worth 1.2 masque dollars? So if you still could insist on getting the gold for your glass thingy you wouldn't really be worse off than if you had taken the paper? Are there other trade partners that give different prices? Thank's for the clarification, I really should finish the book before I start needling the author for explanations.
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Jan 14, 2019 01:10
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StrixNebulosa posted:Wait, you guys were warning them off of that? The way you were describing it made it sound really good, if dark... it is a book of many contrasts. quote:Writer Jo Walton declared: "Kaleidoscope Century is one of the most unpleasant books I’ve ever read, I can hardly believe I’ve read it again. All the same it's a major work and very nearly a masterpiece... This is the most unsuitable book for children in the history of the universe... But despite making no sense, rape, murder, and a very unpleasant future, it's still an excellently written and vastly ambitious book, with a scope both science fictional and literary. That's what ultimately makes it a good book, though I do not like it."
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Jan 14, 2019 01:17
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A friend once bought me Kaleidoscope Century (along with a pile of other books) for my birthday. I haven't read it yet, because I'm really bad at reading, but it's making me look at my friend in a new light now. e: Keep in mind that these kinds of comments are making me want to go dig it out and read it right now. If sci-fi is good I will go into the dark.
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Jan 14, 2019 01:24
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genericnick posted:The only thing I read by Greg Bear was Darwin's Radio and I remember it as a cool idea but rather boring in execution. Maybe I should give him another go? I think that just about sums up his works. He was a good mainstream author of his time, and his work are good examples of the positive and negative aspects of that 'style' of sci-fi. If you want to go back and read some older hard sci-fi, then he is a decent choice.
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Jan 14, 2019 02:48
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StrixNebulosa posted:Wait, you guys were warning them off of that? The way you were describing it made it sound really good, if dark... no, i really like it. it's just a book full of horrible people doing appalling things. part of a series about a group mind taking over earth and various human resistance. i'd recommend all of them. john barnes' short story collection is good too if you can find it https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1416709.Apocalypses_and_Apostrophes
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Jan 14, 2019 07:40
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genericnick posted:I think I see, but what would the value of the fiat currency relative to the gold coins be in this case? If you can sell your glass gizmos for 100 gold coins or 120 masque dollars, then buy the masque pants for 100 gold coins or 120 masque dollars wouldn't that just make a gold coin effectively worth 1.2 masque dollars? So if you still could insist on getting the gold for your glass thingy you wouldn't really be worse off than if you had taken the paper? Are there other trade partners that give different prices? it's an entire system, and has been used with brutal effect in real life Bhodi fucked around with this message at 08:32 on Jan 14, 2019 |
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Jan 14, 2019 08:14
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StrixNebulosa posted:Hmmm. I'm going to keep the order, because at this point despite the warnings I am really, really curious. (And I haven't read anything by him before, so again, nothing to compare it to.) Oh, no, Ken MacLeod has always been a tankie, he just used to write good books. Now he’s broken and doesn’t.
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Jan 14, 2019 08:22
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so seeing an author realize just how bad capitalism is... I am very, very curious about this.
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Tokamak posted:I think that just about sums up his works. He was a good mainstream author of his time, and his work are good examples of the positive and negative aspects of that 'style' of sci-fi. If you want to go back and read some older hard sci-fi, then he is a decent choice. I really liked Slant, personally, though I enjoyed Darwin's Radio also.
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Jan 14, 2019 12:54
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pseudanonymous posted:I really liked Slant, personally, though I enjoyed Darwin's Radio also. Eon was my primary gateway into grown-up English-language SF. I was 13, had just about run out of nerd-genre books to read in my native Norwegian language (there was way less of that stuff available back in the 80s), and was consequently forced into reading English... randomly picked up that book and was blown away. Elevator pitch: A few decades in the future from when it was written, the Cold War continues as everyone thought it inevitably would so everyone is going to get nuked any day. Then a huge hollowed-out asteroid (obviously modified) enters orbit around the Earth. Explorers enter; inside is a huge abandoned/mothballed colony habitat. But it's not alien. It's human. From the future. And things get weirder from there. Reading experience possibly enhanced by having personally lived through the "we're all going to get nuked" years.
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Jan 14, 2019 13:09
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Eon is still one of my favorite Sci fi books.
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Jan 14, 2019 13:10
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Groke posted:Eon was my primary gateway into grown-up English-language SF. I was 13, had just about run out of nerd-genre books to read in my native Norwegian language (there was way less of that stuff available back in the 80s), and was consequently forced into reading English... randomly picked up that book and was blown away. I bought Eon roughly the week after Christmas and it's sitting and waiting for me to touch it. It's intimidating though, it's so thick... Also while I know what you mean, as I was born in '91 and missed the "we're gonna get nuked by Russia" years, I'm alive now and "we're gonna get nuked by North Korea" so that's still a pretty potent fear. 
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Jan 14, 2019 13:13
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Bhodi posted:It's been a while so I can't remember specifically how much is laid out in the book, but in general your comments work on an individual basis with small vendors but these tactics are often coupled with lines of credit (in foreign currency only) to the larger economic powers, which can be repaid in (better rated) local coin. With physical currency and enough of an economic imbalance, you can literally drain a country of the coinage. Add the introduction of addictive and luxury products that can only be bought with local funds (or foreign, if you've switched to marginalization), dumping and undercutting of all kinds, bank suppression, plus abuse of lines of credit to farmers for regulation of seed crop (trade harvest for seed crop at a discount yearly to discourage keeping multiple years worth of seed crop in reserve; give them credit and let them overextend until there's a few years of drought and then when they can't pay you buy the land out from underneath them) A lot of this comes up later in the northern province. I have no problems with extending loans in fiat and taking gold in payment, running an overall trade surplus (or rather pushing the terms of trade towards trade surplus) and going the opium way all makes perfect sense to me. It's just that the part at the start read to me like the Masque guys were simultaneously pushing their currency up and down? But I think I'll wait till I have finished before I nail my theses about fantasy currency exchange to a church door.
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Jan 14, 2019 13:20
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StrixNebulosa posted:Also while I know what you mean, as I was born in '91 and missed the "we're gonna get nuked by Russia" years, I'm alive now and "we're gonna get nuked by North Korea" so that's still a pretty potent fear. Fears are more nebulous these days. Terrorist this, rogue nation with a few nukes that, inevitable slow environmental disaster the other. Back in my day we knew it was only a matter of time before thousands of nukes flew in every direction (probably with approximately zero warning) and the surviving minority would envy the dead. See "Threads" for example, that was the sort of thing we were expecting.
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Jan 14, 2019 13:22
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Anyone read the new Alastair Reynolds?
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Jan 14, 2019 15:17
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Just to contribute to the general Greg Bear chat, I haven't hit many of his big ones, but if you like horror sci-fi at all, Hull Zero Three is pretty danged good, and there aren't many books that do both well. As just a sci-fi novel it does a few interesting things but isn't a huge standout title in that regard. Forge of God and Anvil of the Stars, imo, both have a few interesting ideas, but not enough to justify some very blase characters and dialog, and both overstay their welcome somewhat. I can't remember which one is which off the top of my head, but the second book is definitely weaker than the first. Regardless, I'd say they can be safely skipped without missing anything notable.
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Jan 14, 2019 16:47
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branedotorg posted:no, i really like it. it's just a book full of horrible people doing appalling things. part of a series about a group mind taking over earth and various human resistance. This is also very accurate. Good short story collection too. Some authors can only handle writing characters allergic to asking questions(Greg Egan, Yoon Ha Lee), other authors are allergic to happiness in their stories(Stephen King). John Barnes writing style is usually a Venn diagram covering both elements. The backcover/leafcover text for Kaleidoscope Century is pretty accurate but also very sanitized. So sanitized it ended up in the teen sections in school/public libraries when it came out in 1995. Given the multiple rapes + serb'ings in it, not very teen/pre-teen appropriate reading material. ==leafcover text========= Joshua Ali Quare wakes in 2019 at the age of 140 in a strong youthful body with no memory of his past, to find he is at the center of a vast and deadly conspiracy. The only clues to his identity are the records he has left--messages from the man he once was... As Quare journeys through his past, he discovers he has been a key figure in the history of a turbulent, violent century--soldier, criminal, assassin, spy. A century filled with killing plagues and warring cults, ruthless corporations and dying nations. A century where treachery is often the only way to survive. Now someone is looking for him. Someone from his past. And Quare must learn the terrifying secret of his history before it unleashed devastating consequences for the future of the human race. ============ KC is an alternate reality where the Bosnian War escalated instead of ending, 9/11/2001 happened every three weeks globally until society broke down, then stuff got worse, much worse. Nothing really prepares the reader for the rapes in it or the serb'ings. Memes becoming self-aware/literal brainworms/group minds and fighting their OWN wars for survival was the best part of KC.
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Jan 14, 2019 16:54
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What the gently caress is a serbing?
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Jan 14, 2019 17:23
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Take the plunge! Okay! posted:What the gently caress is a serbing? It's the amount of food they expect you to eat in a single sitting
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Jan 14, 2019 18:31
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Take the plunge! Okay! posted:What the gently caress is a serbing?
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Jan 14, 2019 18:31
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Take the plunge! Okay! posted:What the gently caress is a serbing? You really don't want to know, read the spoiler tag for the sanitized explanation or just read Kaleidoscope Century and find out for yourself. Inspired by the Bosnian War of 1992-1995, "Serb-ing" is John Barnes in-book term for ethnic cleansing done the most degrading way. Barnes had the sociopathic main character of KC + his equally socipathic best buddy re-enact what some Serbian partisans supposedly did to Bosnian Muslims women during the Bosnian War. aka abduction repeated rape until the victim is pregnant with a non-Bosnian child. This is why I keep saying "thank god the main character of Kaleidoscope Century never appears again", and why John Barnes writing can be really good one second, then be absolutely horrifying the next second. None of Barnes other books hit that level, so something weird must have triggered/happened when Barnes was writing KC. quantumfoam fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Jan 14, 2019 |
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Jan 14, 2019 19:51
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:You really don't want to know, read the spoiler tag for the sanitized explanation or just read Kaleidoscope Century and find out for yourself. what the gently caress
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Jan 14, 2019 20:10
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StrixNebulosa posted:what the gently caress Yeah, that's a pretty appropriate reaction to Kaleidoscope Century. Well-written book but goddamn it wasn't very pleasant.
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Jan 14, 2019 20:19
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Burn the book Strix
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Jan 14, 2019 20:21
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Take the plunge! Okay! posted:Burn the book Strix Lets have a big bonfire of all the lovely books 
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Jan 14, 2019 20:35
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Its telling that many reviews for the book are something along the lines of "This book is horrible but also really good"
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Jan 14, 2019 20:38
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mewse posted:Lets have a big bonfire of all the lovely books You can't do that! I only own Baru Cormorant on Kindle!
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Jan 14, 2019 20:39
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The mail's here!  Take the plunge! Okay! posted:Burn the book Strix I don't burn gifts from friends 
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Jan 14, 2019 20:44
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Telsa Cola posted:Its telling that many reviews for the book are something along the lines of "This book is horrible but also really good" I've definitely had that "this is a very skillful implementation of something that I completely hate, so, uh, well done I guess but also gently caress off forever" reaction to books before, although it sounds like KS takes it to the next level.
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Jan 14, 2019 20:45
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ToxicFrog posted:I've definitely had that "this is a very skillful implementation of something that I completely hate, so, uh, well done I guess but also gently caress off forever" reaction to books before, although it sounds like KS takes it to the next level. I cracked it open this morning and in the first twenty pages you learn that the protagonist's father was a drunkard who raped his wife weekly and then beat his teenage son (and possibly worse!) and y'know what I'm not going to read it today. Maybe when I'm in a mood for something profoundly awful, but definitely not today.
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Jan 14, 2019 20:52
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StrixNebulosa posted:Wait, you guys were warning them off of that? The way you were describing it made it sound really good, if dark... and just about 20 hrs later... StrixNebulosa posted:I cracked it open this morning and in the first twenty pages you learn that the protagonist's father was a drunkard who raped his wife weekly and then beat his teenage son (and possibly worse!) and y'know what We loving warned you. And you didn't listen. The book gets way worse. If you removed all the rape and awfulness from KC, it would be a tight 70-95 page read. quantumfoam fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Jan 14, 2019 |
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Jan 14, 2019 22:15
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:and just about 20 hrs later... You... got me good, I guess? Thanks for the warnings. 
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Jan 15, 2019 00:02
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Gonna be driving for about 10 hours over the next couple days and would like recommendations for audiobooks. On my last heavy travelling stint I listened to locke lamora (gentlemen bastards) #1 and 2 and they were very good. Also I could use recommendations for an iphone app that can load straight mp3s and will save my place in an audiobook, I used audible previously but it seems only good with their service.
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Jan 15, 2019 00:21
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Junkenstein posted:Anyone read the new Alastair Reynolds? The sequel to Revenger? I have it pre-ordered, and should arrive magically on my Kindle tomorrow.
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Jan 15, 2019 02:48
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StrixNebulosa posted:I cracked it open this morning and in the first twenty pages you learn that the protagonist's father was a drunkard who raped his wife weekly and then beat his teenage son (and possibly worse!) and y'know what read it then read the orbital resonance, candle and a sky so big and black. they fit together really well, and the others are different. or is about an escaping generation ship from the kc. sky is about uninfected humans on mars and candle is about an infected bounty hunter back on earth. https://www.tor.com/2010/02/22/growing-up-in-a-space-dystopia-john-barness-orbital-resonance/ jo walton at tor: Orbital Resonance (1991) is one of my favourite John Barnes novels, and I re-read it to take the taste of Kaleidoscope Century out of my brain. This didn’t work quite as well as I’d hoped. On the one hand, Orbital Resonance could be a Heinlein juvenile—it’s about kids growing up on a captured asteroid looping between Earth and Mars, about teenagers finding out they’ve been manipulated and taking control of their own destiny. On the other hand this really stood out: branedotorg fucked around with this message at 07:55 on Jan 15, 2019 |
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Jan 15, 2019 07:53
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Don't sleep on Vita Nostra by the Dyachenko's. It's great.
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Jan 15, 2019 09:05
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I wish John C. Wright weren’t such a total douchelord so I wouldn’t have to feel guilty about being entertained by his stories. His politics suck hardcore rear end but the man spins a good Hard SF yarn.
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Jan 15, 2019 10:38
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Just grabbed that one Kindle based on the Gravy Jones fucked around with this message at 11:28 on Jan 15, 2019 |
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Jan 15, 2019 11:25
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Applewhite posted:I wish John C. Wright weren’t such a total douchelord so I wouldn’t have to feel guilty about being entertained by his stories. His politics suck hardcore rear end but the man spins a good Hard SF yarn. i read and enjoyed the golden age trilogy back when they were new and enjoyed them but even the politics in those made me eye roll to near blindness. what else is worth reading? i see he co writes with larry corriea now.
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Jan 15, 2019 12:59
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