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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Right. So the progression goes → Khajiit has wares if you have coin.
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Jan 22, 2019 20:25
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StrixNebulosa posted:Except that they like their soft husbands and learn to bring them into space with them. Chanur's Legacy is so sweet about this. What I'm hearing is that there's a paper to be written on the progressing gender politics of cat people in SF
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Jan 22, 2019 20:27
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:What I'm hearing is that there's a paper to be written on the progressing gender politics of cat people in SF A fine addition to the circulating toxoplasmosis literature.
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Jan 22, 2019 20:30
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I’m fairly sure there’s something on this in chinks in the world machine
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Jan 22, 2019 20:32
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StrixNebulosa posted:Except that they like their soft husbands and learn to bring them into space with them. Chanur's Legacy is so sweet about this. The epilogue of Chanur's Homecoming foreshadows this and is also like rolling around in a giant pile of  . I reread it at least once a year even if I don't have time to read the whole series.
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Jan 22, 2019 20:33
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General Battuta posted:A fine addition to the circulating toxoplasmosis literature. There's not enough dog people in SF, come to think of it First thing I did when I played Spore was I made a race of awesome pawsome happy dog people then they couldn't fly spaceships with their paws so I made a race of awesome pawsome happy dog people with hands that was kinda weird, admittedly, but I got to make a lot of buildings shaped like bones and hydrants after that I felt I'd won Spore and stopped playing anyway that is my story
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Jan 22, 2019 20:39
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:and stopped playing This is how you win Spore
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Jan 22, 2019 20:42
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My last big order of books from xmas is here and it's a doozy: That's Assassin's Apprentice - Robin Hobb, three Nalini Singhs, Cybernetic Samurai by Victor Milan, and A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James. I'm probably only going to slot in the Nalini Singhs at the moment for reading as I'm currently enjoying Ken MacLeod's Corporation Wars, Greg Bear's WAR DOGS, and Empire in Black and Gold by the Children of Time dude. Lots of mildly heavy stuff, I need some comic relief for a break. e: If Corporation Wars is bad I haven't seen it yet - so far I am completely loving the dead people living in a simulation getting ready to fight a robot war. I want more books about this concept, please. StrixNebulosa fucked around with this message at 21:28 on Jan 22, 2019 |
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Jan 22, 2019 21:24
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StrixNebulosa posted:My last big order of books from xmas is here and it's a doozy: God drat that Marlon James book is so good. He has a new book series beginning nex month that is being described as an "African Game of Thrones"
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Jan 22, 2019 22:24
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Cardiac posted:Wasn’t EON that book that started with as a nice Cold War history and then went into strange places in the latter parts? Yeah; huge spoilers: Big Dumb Object enters Earth orbit during a tense and dangerous time in the Near-Future Cold War. Turns out to be an STL colony ship/habitat. But it's abandoned and/or mothballed. But it's not alien, it's human from the future. And it's full of advanced tech. And there's lots of history stuff about a catastrophic WW3 that's due to happen RIGHT ABOUT NOW. But there's something really weird because it's larger on the inside than the outside. In fact it goes on forever, in an extradimensional tunnel that has exits into other universes and stuff. And the humans who used to live there went down that tunnel. And their civilization is still very much alive and well. But they're not exactly "human" anymore. And there are really alien aliens further down the infinite tunnel. And the present-day/near-future humans try their best to prevent WW3 but it happens anyway. And so on. It was all pretty neat.
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Jan 22, 2019 23:11
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XBenedict posted:God drat that Marlon James book is so good. He has a new book series beginning nex month that is being described as an "African Game of Thrones" I've preordered it! I'm not going to be able to read Seven Killings before it arrives, but screw it, life's too short. Buy all books now, read with an eye on the next book in the stack.
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Jan 22, 2019 23:16
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StrixNebulosa posted:I've preordered it! I'm not going to be able to read Seven Killings before it arrives, but screw it, life's too short. Buy all books now, read with an eye on the next book in the stack. Seven Killings will have literally nothing to do with the next series, and it can be quite a chew anyway. Read that when you have time to digest it properly. There are a lot of moving parts.
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Jan 22, 2019 23:18
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I tried reading the first War Dogs book a while back and couldn't get into it due to the style. Felt like it was trying too hard to do a "oorah fellow devil dogs" narrator-voice IIRC. And that's my Greg Bear story.Fallom posted:Eon is so cool. Has anyone recently done a good long-form take on the 'big dumb object' theme? Blindsight is probably the most recent one I can think of that was any good, and it obviously had so much more to it. Check out Tsutomu Nihei's Blame.  Girls Last Tour is more recent and is sort of a "On The Beach" style thing set in the ruins of a massive city after humanity managed to entirely destroy the biosphere. 
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Jan 23, 2019 08:38
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Fallom posted:Eon is so cool. Has anyone recently done a good long-form take on the 'big dumb object' theme? Blindsight is probably the most recent one I can think of that was any good, and it obviously had so much more to it. They're not very recent, but there's Chaga and Kirinya by Ian McDonald. (IIRC the US version of Chaga is called Evolution's Shore). They're about what happens when a BDO lands on earth.
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Jan 23, 2019 08:39
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Conrad_Birdie posted:I read Gnomon on recommendation from many people in this thread and....c'mon guys....it was an overlong chore that thought it was five times as smart as it actually was, but felt confident in pointing out its own cleverness, and had an embarrassing grasp on the "metatextual." How y'all gonna defend that "breakdown" chapter, especially the paragraph that is literally the word "pain" written 100 times in a row, with one "Gnomon" in the middle?? I was cringing reading so much of it. That being said, a lot of you seemed really enthusiastic about it, and I'd like to be illuminated to what worth you found in it, sincerely. I finished Gnomon a couple of days ago, so here goes. Gnomon is as good as genre fiction gets after Lem and a couple of other old guys died. That being said, it’s not very good. I am sorry you thought the book was a chore since I still found it entertaining for two reasons. In the first place, the stories within the story were pretty good, especially the Greek banker one. That character had a consistent and convincing voice all the way through. The prose was pretty good at moments, although cringeworthy at times - I couldn’t roll my eyes hard enough during the gibberish chapter. But my main gripe is about how unconvincing and weak the investigator is as a character. That and the ending - it would’ve been much better if there were more loose ends left to question the nature of what is presented as the base reality. I can really count only one - how did the shark get the guy in the road tunnel? I don’t mind the attempt at metatextuality - I’d rather see genre authors try and fail at doing something interesting than churn out the same cookie cutter crap they seem to do nowadays. In conclusion, if you’re going to read one genre novel this year, it might as well be Gnomon. Oh, and Diana Hunter is a terrible character name. If I wrote a novel, I’d name the main character Algomes Frescante.
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Jan 23, 2019 09:23
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:then they couldn't fly spaceships with their paws so I made a race of awesome pawsome happy dog people with hands 
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Jan 23, 2019 14:02
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Over a year ago I bought a paperback copy of Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light because of this thread and loved it, and it came to my attention that an ebook version was released and it’s cheap at $3.35 right now, linked in case others here haven’t read it yet: https://www.amazon.com/Lord-Light-Roger-Zelazny-ebook/dp/B07MSJZDFX
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Jan 24, 2019 05:00
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Take the plunge! Okay! posted:I finished Gnomon a couple of days ago, so here goes. Gnomon is as good as genre fiction gets after Lem and a couple of other old guys died. Re: your unanswered question - my understanding of the ending was that Neith's reality is every bit as fictional as the other protagonists, and the shark attack is simply magic in the same way as Bekele teleporting out of prison and the Greek guy's clairvoyance with the stock market. It's a neat sleight of hand, but it did feel like a way to excuse her plotline as feeling like a fairly rote detective story. I'm always a bit wary of 'no you see they were deliberately written badly' but I do think Neith is meant to be somewhat flat compared to the others since she's literally a detective archetype inserted into someone else's narrative, and an idealised avatar of the System as its supporters envision it. I really enjoyed the book overall but can see where the criticism's coming from. The prose does disappear up its arse at times, and once you start noticing the words he really likes (etiolated, involuted etc) it started feeling a bit overwrought. My main issue was that the System is meant to be self-evidently dystopian, but because it's only ever presented through the eyes of someone who idealises it, we don't really get enough time to see its broader ramifications for society, and just as it starts to get more sinister the inspector presses the magic button which makes her immune to it, which felt a bit cheap. Also yes Diana Hunter is a bad name
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Jan 24, 2019 09:11
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PlushCow posted:Over a year ago I bought a paperback copy of Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light because of this thread and loved it, and it came to my attention that an ebook version was released and it’s cheap at $3.35 right now, linked in case others here haven’t read it yet: https://www.amazon.com/Lord-Light-Roger-Zelazny-ebook/dp/B07MSJZDFX I tried to read this and hated it, I don’t think I could follow what was going on? Is that a common reaction to this book?
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Jan 24, 2019 21:41
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mewse posted:I tried to read this and hated it, I don’t think I could follow what was going on? Is that a common reaction to this book? It’s a thread favorite. It helps to have a little bit of background knowledge about Hinduism and Buddhism. It is also good to be aware the novel is about a colony planet on which the original spaceship crew gave themselves godlike powers and created a caste society with themselves as Hindu deities on top. The demons are native species of aliens.
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Jan 24, 2019 21:48
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Thread title is not wrong. Bridge of Birds was a delightful rollercoaster.
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Jan 24, 2019 21:54
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mewse posted:I tried to read this and hated it, I don’t think I could follow what was going on? Is that a common reaction to this book? It's kinda confusing for sure, especially the first chapter. Throws you right in with no context. I haven't reread it yet but I think it will be better the second time. I did quite like it the first time tho.
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Jan 24, 2019 22:01
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mewse posted:I tried to read this and hated it, I don’t think I could follow what was going on? Is that a common reaction to this book? Lord of light is the best sci-fi book of the 1960s. But yeah took me a go or two. Helps to realise that the first chapter is chronologically the penultimate one. Every read through will bring more joy out of it though, it is an impeccable near perfect book.
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Jan 24, 2019 22:51
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On the subject of incomprehensibility some time I need to try book of the new sun again
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Jan 25, 2019 07:20
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tokenbrownguy posted:Thread title is not wrong. Bridge of Birds was a delightful rollercoaster. is it available as an ebook anywhere?
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Jan 25, 2019 07:52
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lenoon posted:Lord of light is the best sci-fi book of the 1960s. It's got the best fight scene ever described in prose.
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Jan 25, 2019 08:14
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Finished the Monster Baru book and now I desperately need something fluffier. I loved it, and yet at the same time existed in a constant state of covering my face from the tension.
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Jan 25, 2019 08:27
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awesmoe posted:is it available as an ebook anywhere? Not on its own, but Subterranean Press has an omnibus of all three books, also sold through other sources.
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Jan 25, 2019 09:43
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coolusername posted:Finished the Monster Baru book and now I desperately need something fluffier. I loved it, and yet at the same time existed in a constant state of covering my face from the tension. Try the Last Policeman trilogy. It has a cute little dog in it.
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Jan 25, 2019 14:21
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coolusername posted:Finished the Monster Baru book and now I desperately need something fluffier. I loved it, and yet at the same time existed in a constant state of covering my face from the tension. Goblin Emperor IMO
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Jan 25, 2019 14:25
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Drone Jett posted:Try the Last Policeman trilogy. It has a cute little dog in it. 
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Jan 25, 2019 14:29
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coolusername posted:Finished the Monster Baru book and now I desperately need something fluffier. I loved it, and yet at the same time existed in a constant state of covering my face from the tension. Murderbot or Bridge of Birds
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Jan 25, 2019 14:31
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coolusername posted:Finished the Monster Baru book and now I desperately need something fluffier. I loved it, and yet at the same time existed in a constant state of covering my face from the tension. Magic 2.0 Series. Hard to get fluffier than that.
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Jan 25, 2019 16:08
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Drone Jett posted:Try the Last Policeman trilogy. It has a cute little dog in it. You’re a goddamn monster
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Jan 25, 2019 18:39
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There's a bunch of Stanislaw Lem ebooks on sale at amazon's kindle storefront. "fluffy" novel: try one of Pratchett's witches books. Failure really isn't a option in the Pratchett Witch books, at least for the good guys.
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Jan 25, 2019 20:22
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Good guys? The Witches aren't good, they're right. There's a difference!
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Jan 25, 2019 20:51
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pseudorandom name posted:Oh, no, Ken MacLeod has always been a tankie, he just used to write good books. Now he’s broken and doesn’t. ...I'm fairly sure he's a Trot, actually, insofar as he's anything specific on that spectrum.
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Jan 25, 2019 22:00
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feedmegin posted:...I'm fairly sure he's a Trot, actually, insofar as he's anything specific on that spectrum. he used to describe himself as such... these days he's really into vaper's rights.
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Jan 25, 2019 22:07
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Whatever Ken Macleod is, Corporation Wars 1 was really dang good. I loved the concept and the execution of it. The characters were a little flat, but it more than made up for it with such wild stuff - AI-run corporations, criminals trapped in a simulation and forced to fight, the way the robots obeyed the legal system, etc etc. On goodreads I'm giving it a 3/5 and I'll write up a review later, but yeah! Good book, glad I picked it up! Looking forward to more but I gotta finish Wardogs first.
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Jan 25, 2019 22:15
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Corp War 1 started off good but had a very shoehorned ending. Corp War 2 is where most of the interesting things + characters from Corp War 1 get abandoned, and stuff doesn't really make sense because MacLeod went off his meds and reverted back to Trotsky class warfare writing. The editor who took all of book 2 off finally gets back from vacation for Corp War 3, but is only able to get MacLeod to insert maybe 30-40 pages of robot on robot/corp on corp/legalistic politicking warfare that the series (The Corporation Wars) is nominally about into Corp War 3. e: MacLeod had a engaging "worn-down used up Earth/subtle Trotksy class war" writing style for his first 3 or so books(the Fall Revolution series) that explored the possible "what if ?" factors of a long-term slow burning Trotsky class warfare struggle. Star Fraction was MacLeod's first book and was angry as hell. It sort of pictured Brexit but with Soviet/USA intervention on the British Isles, an Independent Scotland (ha in retrospect given MacLeods Scottish Independence vote), Balkanized London, and a Free England movement based around an quasi V for Vendetta faction called the Star Fraction. Would be giving away too much if I described anymore of it. Stone Canal was MacLeod's 2nd book, and it is uh, weird, and telling to almost to the extent of James Gunns KAMPUS. Two friends, shared early background, then things changed. One of the characters gets constantly owned throughout the book to the point of the other main character building/owning a DNA-identical sexbot of the 1st characters wife.....yeah. Stone Canal also features the precursor of what MacLeod would do with simulated VR worlds + captured mind states Cassini Division was MacLeod's 3rd book, and it featured a future where Socialism won, and Capitalists either fled the star system through a wormhole or live as luddites on Earth. Features uplifted post-human entities living in Jupiter, wormholes, fullbore communism, wormhole travel, a planet of evil capitalist scum, a rightful main character + her fighter-bomber crew, etc. Sky Road was MacLeod's 4th book, and seems totally unrelated to the other books. But it is, alternate reality if different actions had gone down in Stone Canal. quantumfoam fucked around with this message at 01:19 on Jan 26, 2019 |
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Jan 26, 2019 00:37
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