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C.M. Kruger
Oct 28, 2013

occamsnailfile posted:

I guess I would argue Moon’s Sassinak space marine stuff to be in that vein/at that level though it’s more space Vietnam rather than Hornblower. Also never got as popular so had fewer sequels.

Also Rachel Bach for female milSF though her Paradox trilogy is often billed as romance there’s a lot more space fites than smooching.

I finished the first one of the Paradox books a few years back and it felt like there wasn't much romance in it at all, but I didn't continue reading the series because of the thermite sword. It just felt silly, the stuff basically turns into liquid slag when you set it on fire, so you turn on your sword and end up with a bunch of red-hot liquid metal all over your hands. Or pretending that it didn't do that, when you hit something it'd be like hitting it with a tube of water and instead of cutting it'd splash everywhere.

It's just pedantry and it's a silly reason to not read a book, but still, it was like having a popcorn hull stuck between the teeth.

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Patrick Spens
Jul 21, 2006

"Every quarterback says they've got guts, But how many have actually seen 'em?"
Pillbug

Kesper North posted:

Karen Traviss wrote the X-Wing series, does that count as milSF? I haven't read it, just know it exists and has been spoken of favorably by people in my range of hearing.

The X-Wing series could make an argument for milSF, but Travis didn't write them. They were split between Michael A. Stackpole and Aaron Allston.

pseudanonymous
Aug 30, 2008

When you make the second entry and the debits and credits balance, and you blow them to hell.

C.M. Kruger posted:

I finished the first one of the Paradox books a few years back and it felt like there wasn't much romance in it at all, but I didn't continue reading the series because of the thermite sword. It just felt silly, the stuff basically turns into liquid slag when you set it on fire, so you turn on your sword and end up with a bunch of red-hot liquid metal all over your hands. Or pretending that it didn't do that, when you hit something it'd be like hitting it with a tube of water and instead of cutting it'd splash everywhere.

It's just pedantry and it's a silly reason to not read a book, but still, it was like having a popcorn hull stuck between the teeth.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that criticism to be honest if people want to use pseudo-science they should actually use it, or just make something up. When you use something real it has properties, those should be its properties.

A human heart
Oct 10, 2012

mllaneza posted:

James Joyce just sat up in his grave and reached for a pen,

Joyce didn't write any books that were one sentence or less.

occamsnailfile
Nov 4, 2007



zamtrios so lonely
Grimey Drawer

C.M. Kruger posted:

I finished the first one of the Paradox books a few years back and it felt like there wasn't much romance in it at all, but I didn't continue reading the series because of the thermite sword. It just felt silly, the stuff basically turns into liquid slag when you set it on fire, so you turn on your sword and end up with a bunch of red-hot liquid metal all over your hands. Or pretending that it didn't do that, when you hit something it'd be like hitting it with a tube of water and instead of cutting it'd splash everywhere.

It's just pedantry and it's a silly reason to not read a book, but still, it was like having a popcorn hull stuck between the teeth.

I actually get this—we all have our things that just shatter immersion. For me it’s generally white guys writing about Asia, especially Japan, which made Bridge of Birds very startling.

mllaneza
Apr 28, 2007

Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1993-1952




occamsnailfile posted:

Susan R. Mathews

I'm in the middle of a re-read of her Jurisdiction series and I have to say it's a really solid series. I wouldn't have expected a series about a self-loathing inquisitor who really loves the actual torture parts of his job to be my thing, but Matthews sets it up as an interesting moral and ethical dilemma. Jurisdiction is an interesting setting. There is no executive branch. There is no legislature nor any representative democracy at all. There is only Fleet and the Bench. The Bench decided to formalize torture as both punishment, deterrent and inquiry. Fleet actually controls the inquisitors because they are all resources assigned to capital ships as Chief Medical Officer. This sets up some interesting political conflicts and ethical dilemmas.

It's also not an Earth-derived setting, these people are on a base-8 system and it shows very much in little things like timekeeping and ratios. An hour is an eight, an eighth is 8 minutes, a shift is eight hours of 64 minutes, and an octave is 80 years (they don't use the century of course). This maintains a sense of difference and distance to what can be a setting almost as bad as a straight take on WK40K is. There are other indications this is an alien society not related to us; when an injection is required a "dose" is "put through",

The prose is solid, themes of morality, ethics, trust, forgiveness, duty, compassion, and respect are worthwhile; the setting is interesting, and it's absolutely not boo hoo hoo, my mega-rich father made me go to Fleet to be a torturer - which I thoroughly enjoy and hate myself for loving it - all the time. There are whole novels where Andrej barely appears, and more than one where he isn't the main character.

The series is also pro-LGBTQ, although there are no trans characters (medical technology is advanced enough that gender dysphoria should be easily treatable). I'm not saying all the non-straight characters are positive role models mind you, but it's a society that accepts all sexual orientations as normal. The author herself was a proud participant in one of the very first gay marriages in Portland.

A lot of people are going to bounce very hard off of these books. Some people will enjoy them very much. Baen has eBook onmibusses available. Maybe try one.

C.M. Kruger
Oct 28, 2013

pseudanonymous posted:

I don't think there's anything wrong with that criticism to be honest if people want to use pseudo-science they should actually use it, or just make something up. When you use something real it has properties, those should be its properties.

Narratively it served the purpose of giving the protaganist a lightsaber that only worked for a couple minutes, so once she turned it on she had to end the fight or end up weaponless. But that could also be done by saying your sword that's a magnetically compressed tube of superheated plasma burns through batteries/compressed gas quickly.

Hell I think David Drake did exactly that in that series he did about Sir Francis Drake In Space, the characters had "cutting bars" that were basically chainsword sabers and they had to replace the batteries on them occasionally.

occamsnailfile posted:

I actually get this—we all have our things that just shatter immersion. For me it’s generally white guys writing about Asia, especially Japan, which made Bridge of Birds very startling.

"Genre medievalist" stuff similarly annoys me, where you've got fantasy authors trying to do the typical "Western European medieval pastiche" but they've clearly never read anything about the period beyond other genre fiction or maybe bad pop history books like "A World lit only by Fire" and have no actual understanding of the feudal system or life in the middle ages and so on. I tried the first Rirya book by Michael J. Sullivan a while back after somebody recommended it as "good high fantasy" and returned it to the library after hitting some bit in the opening section about how anybody going on the streets near a castle at night would be shot by bowmen.

Likewise somebody on here recommended Sebastien deCastell's Greatcoats series a while back, but it's pages were numbered when the author used droit du seigneur as a plot point in the first book, and then ran out when the author fridge'd the protaganist's wife a few pages later.

PupsOfWar
Dec 6, 2013

im Disgruntled
yall motherfuckers had a whole multi-page conversation about women writing MilSF and nobody led with In Conquest Born

PupsOfWar fucked around with this message at 17:45 on Mar 14, 2019

Groke
Jul 27, 2007
New Adventures In Mom Strength

Kestral posted:

On a related note, Vorkosigan Saga goons, if I’m not feeling Shards of Honor by about two-thirds through the book, should I skip to Warrior’s Apprentice or quit? The issues I’m having are that the setting seems unremarkable, essentially a thin veneer of Space Words over a romance story that could be set in any time or place. Stories about loving families and fast friends are great, but I have a low tolerance for The Destined Cishet Couple narrative at the moment. In fairness to Bujold, I'm coming off of reading Titus Groan and the difference in prose quality may be making me judge Vorkosigan more harshly than I otherwise would, but I'm struggling to stay interested.

You have two pretty much equally-good options at this point:

1. Soldier on through the last third of the book (not THAT many pages, and the ending is pretty cool), go on to read Barrayar which is the second half of the Cordelia & Aral pre-Miles story. Then proceed to the proper Miles books (Warrior's Apprentice etc.). The advantage of this is that Barrayar is way more awesome and the writing is also more polished (Shards is a first novel and the sequel was written like five years later).

2. Skip to Miles himself, then go back and fill in with Barrayar a bit later if and when you get hooked (certainly before you get to A Civil Campaign). The first handful of Miles books are fairly lighthearted adventure stories; the serious feels are dialed in more a bit later in the story.

Side note: The series as a whole is not as monotonously cishet as you may suspect. Especially for something starting out being written in the 1980s.

ToxicFrog
Apr 26, 2008


PupsOfWar posted:

im Disgruntled
yall motherfuckers had a whole multi-page conversation about women writing MilSF and nobody lead with In Conquest Born

In Conquest Born is pretty great, but while it is about two people on opposite sides of a war I'm not sure I'd call it MilSF.

occamsnailfile posted:

Also Rachel Bach for female milSF though her Paradox trilogy is often billed as romance there’s a lot more space fites than smooching.

Of note is that "Rachel Bach" is a pen name of Rachel Aaron, who also wrote the Eli Monpress books (about a thief and con man in a world where every rock and stream has a mind of its own and one of the gods is insane and everything outside the atmosphere is ravenous space demons) and Heartstrikers (about a clandestine war between extradimensional refugee dragons and the personification of the Great Lakes), both of which I liked more. AFAIK Paradox is her only dip into SF, though.

C.M. Kruger posted:

I finished the first one of the Paradox books a few years back and it felt like there wasn't much romance in it at all, but I didn't continue reading the series because of the thermite sword. It just felt silly, the stuff basically turns into liquid slag when you set it on fire, so you turn on your sword and end up with a bunch of red-hot liquid metal all over your hands. Or pretending that it didn't do that, when you hit something it'd be like hitting it with a tube of water and instead of cutting it'd splash everywhere.

It's just pedantry and it's a silly reason to not read a book, but still, it was like having a popcorn hull stuck between the teeth.

It's been a while since I read them, but IIRC the romance subplot really kicks off in book 2, and I hated it for the same reason I hate "traditional" romance, i.e. people doing lovely and/or idiotic things that the narrative presents as good. In Paradox, for example, the love interest decides that he's ~too dangerous~ for the protagonist to fall in love with, so rather than, say, talking to her about this, he instead secretly erases her memories of the last few months so she won't remember getting close to him, and resolves to act like an rear end in a top hat to her from then onwards so it doesn't happen again. This is presented as wonderfully romantic sacrifice rather than the dump truck full of red flags it actually is.

That said, I thought the books were otherwise fun, even the "thermite swords", which I just modeled as some futuristic refinement of the thermal lance -- it wouldn't be the first time the name of a specific material or technology has been genericized to uselessness.


Eh, I think if C.J. Cherryh counts (for Devil to the Belt and Rimrunners, I guess?) then Ann Leckie should for Ancillary Justice, but personally I wouldn't call either "military SF" despite the fact that they're SF and most of the characters are military personnel.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

occamsnailfile posted:

I actually get this—we all have our things that just shatter immersion. For me it’s generally white guys writing about Asia, especially Japan, which made Bridge of Birds very startling.

Startling good or startling bad?

That's always my one qualm about recommending Bridge of Birds to people -- end of the day it's a white American dude writing chinoiserie, and for a certain percentage of people that's going to work a raw nerve no matter how well it's done. Yet somehow BoB never seems to get nailed with that particular line of criticism. I'm not sure if it's because it's so obviously a love letter or if it's just that the people who would dislike it see "Bridge of Birds by . .. Barry Hughart?" and don't pick up the book in the first place.

StashAugustine
Mar 24, 2013

Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

Patrick Spens posted:

The X-Wing series could make an argument for milSF, but Travis didn't write them. They were split between Michael A. Stackpole and Aaron Allston.

Travis did write a bunch of stuff both star wars and not that counts as milsf. I mean it was mostly loving terrible but it counts.

StrixNebulosa
Feb 14, 2012

You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Has William Gibson ever written anything bad? Every page in Pattern Recognition is a delight and I think it might be time to reread the Sprawl trilogy.

mewse
May 2, 2006

StrixNebulosa posted:

Has William Gibson ever written anything bad? Every page in Pattern Recognition is a delight and I think it might be time to reread the Sprawl trilogy.

I think The Peripheral is the weakest of his books I’ve read but I still enjoyed it

quantumfoam
Dec 25, 2003

I never really got deep into the Vorkosigan books so I have no idea what "cishet destiny" in them is about.
Read Shards +Barrayar, they were ok....found child Miles annoying rather than amazing though.

Then since none of the early Miles adventure books were available via local library systems, read one of the later Vorkosigan books which featured the clone brother Mark? as a main character, whose internal monologue was in-book backstory about being tortured/mentally broken/raped? to act as Miles's body double then things got worse for him in-book as the star of a degradation/bdsm/gluttony/??/etc cam-show and then being rescued/forced to live with the people he was trained/mentally programmed to fear beyond death. Uh...yeah..and this book won awards and is raved about by fans? loving hard pass on the entire series.


Totally off-topic, and mostly because I refuse to post in GBS, Frank Herbert's Dune series really draws on Frank Herbert's entire series of work.

Like the Bene Gesserit....arguably got their social powerhouse start in The White Plague , published just before the final two Dune books Heretics/Chapterhouse.
Also definitely feel that Hellstrom's Hive is the Tleilaxu's secret origin story, complete with proto-Axlotl tanks.

The Green Brain with it's symbosis + colony lifeforms stuff :Children of Dune Leto 2's evolution.

PupsOfWar
Dec 6, 2013

NoNostalgia4Grover posted:

I never really got deep into the Vorkosigan books so I have no idea what "cishet destiny" in them is about.


since they're not far enough in to've read any of miles' romantic escapades, i figure (not trying to speak for anyone, just surmising) they mean the way Aral's bisexuality sorta stops being a factor after a while

& use of the decadent sinister bisexual trope w/ vorrutyer and serg

which is fair

of course by the end of the series we find out aral had a wholesome poly thing going with his chief of staff all along, but that's retroactive and doesn't help if you were bothered by the brief treatment of his sexuality & non-het sexuality in general in the earlier books

PupsOfWar fucked around with this message at 17:56 on Mar 14, 2019

Kestral
Nov 24, 2000

Forum Veteran

NoNostalgia4Grover posted:

I never really got deep into the Vorkosigan books so I have no idea what "cishet destiny" in them is about.

What I mean by that term is that what drives Shards of Honor (and, from the sound of it, later books) is the same thing that drives countless other books: man and woman from very different worlds meet in time of personal crisis, fall instantly in love/lust despite having every reason to hate one another but deny it for an extended period, slowly admit their feelings to themselves even as circumstances conspire to keep them apart, and eventually end up together. It's one of the oldest stories humanity has, and at least for me, there's no dramatic tension left in it. If the worldbuilding were sufficiently compelling I'd soldier on, but I suspect the Vorkosigan series just isn't for me.

And yes, as PupsofWar mentions, I struggled not to immediately drop the book at Vice Admiral TortureRape being the Sinister Bisexual who had seduced our wholesome Aral as a youth. Get outta here with that poo poo, 1980s.

These days, I find myself more interested in stories where the relationship that drives people has no romantic component: deep platonic friendships ala Frodo and Sam, parents and their children, siblings, etc. Unfortunately, we don't see those too often in genre literature.

MockingQuantum
Jan 20, 2012



Kestral posted:

These days, I find myself more interested in stories where the relationship that drives people has no romantic component: deep platonic friendships ala Frodo and Sam, parents and their children, siblings, etc. Unfortunately, we don't see those too often in genre literature.

The non-romantic relationships in the Broken Earth trilogy definitely drove the plot a lot of the time and were absolutely some of my favorite parts of the books. I'd love to see more of that.

Kestral
Nov 24, 2000

Forum Veteran

MockingQuantum posted:

The non-romantic relationships in the Broken Earth trilogy definitely drove the plot a lot of the time and were absolutely some of my favorite parts of the books. I'd love to see more of that.

Yes! This is precisely the sort of thing I want more of in genre fiction. In a similar vein, A Wizard of Earthsea, Ender's Game, Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Talisman -- come to think of it, most of the examples I can think of have either young protagonists or are meant for younger readers, because our culture has decided that childhood is the only period in our lives when our non-romantic relationships are meant to be as important, or more important than, our romantic ones.

quantumfoam
Dec 25, 2003

Ok, I remember the hemaphrodite character from that later Vorkosigan series book....which is apparently is Mirror Dance.
It was mentioned in that book, and cloneBro Mark was all confused about "are Miles + this person lovers?"

Anyway I was serious about the Frank Herbert stuff in my earlier post.
Green Brain is dated as hell, but the insect-colony lifeforms was drat cool, as was the insectile heart symbosis the main character got at the end of the book.
It was very Leto 2 merging with the sandtrout + Leto's late stage symbosis in God-Emperor of Dune.

Hellstrom's Hive is extremely weird. There's the "oh it's just a cult" beginning that goes very horror-movie like, one of the side characters is literally hosed to death, the very creepy + definitely someones fetish proto--Axlotl tanks, and the entire hive thing I'm trying not spoil.

Jack2142
Jul 17, 2014

Shitposting in Seattle

Thanks for the update on woman military sci-fi authors as mentioned there are more than I realized. I have been on a non-fiction kick lately so the only fantasy book I have started to read so far this year is Foundryside from the Tor free book list I believe. It is okay the concept of the scriving magic in the setting is neat and pretty creative, but the rest of the book and also setting is kinda ~meh~ at the halfway point.

ToxicFrog
Apr 26, 2008


Kestral posted:

Yes! This is precisely the sort of thing I want more of in genre fiction. In a similar vein, A Wizard of Earthsea, Ender's Game, Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Talisman -- come to think of it, most of the examples I can think of have either young protagonists or are meant for younger readers, because our culture has decided that childhood is the only period in our lives when our non-romantic relationships are meant to be as important, or more important than, our romantic ones.

You should read some Becky Chambers.

Nikaer Drekin
Oct 11, 2012

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2020

StashAugustine posted:

Travis did write a bunch of stuff both star wars and not that counts as milsf. I mean it was mostly loving terrible but it counts.

Yeah, from what I remember she did a bunch of Republic Commando books, which is probably as military-focused as you can get with Star Wars.

Kestral
Nov 24, 2000

Forum Veteran

ToxicFrog posted:

You should read some Becky Chambers.

I've been gunshy about Chambers due to her (possibly undeserved?) reputation for books where nothing happens except getting to watch people live their lives, but In The Future. I'm curious how her books line up with, for example, Look to Windward, where we spend hundreds of pages following people living in the Culture and very little else, but where there is obviously something happening in the background and events with meaningful stakes are unfolding around us by the end. Thoughts?

Edit: On an unrelated note, apparently N.K. Jemisin has a Twitch channel, and it looks delightful.

Kestral fucked around with this message at 20:41 on Mar 14, 2019

StrixNebulosa
Feb 14, 2012

You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Kestral posted:

I've been gunshy about Chambers due to her (possibly undeserved?) reputation for books where nothing happens except getting to watch people live their lives, but In The Future. I'm curious how her books line up with, for example, Look to Windward, where we spend hundreds of pages following people living in the Culture and very little else, but where there is obviously something happening in the background and events with meaningful stakes are unfolding around us by the end. Thoughts?

What will it cost you to try one of her books?

Obliterati
Nov 13, 2012

Pain is inevitable.
Suffering is optional.
Thunderdome is forever.

Kestral posted:

I've been gunshy about Chambers due to her (possibly undeserved?) reputation for books where nothing happens except getting to watch people live their lives, but In The Future. I'm curious how her books line up with, for example, Look to Windward, where we spend hundreds of pages following people living in the Culture and very little else, but where there is obviously something happening in the background and events with meaningful stakes are unfolding around us by the end. Thoughts?

You have just described the works of Becky Chambers

mllaneza
Apr 28, 2007

Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1993-1952




NoNostalgia4Grover posted:

Hellstrom's Hive is extremely weird. There's the "oh it's just a cult" beginning that goes very horror-movie like, one of the side characters is literally hosed to death, the very creepy + definitely someones fetish proto--Axlotl tanks, and the entire hive thing I'm trying not spoil.

The Hive is really loving creepy. That'd be a good place to use a nuke, never mind having to explain it.

Terrific book, highly recommended.

anilEhilated
Feb 17, 2014

But I say fuck the rain.

Grimey Drawer

Kestral posted:

Edit: On an unrelated note, apparently N.K. Jemisin has a Twitch channel, and it looks delightful.
Honestly I believe her gaming commentary is way more fun than anything she wrote.

darthbob88
Oct 13, 2011

YOSPOS

Kestral posted:

I've been gunshy about Chambers due to her (possibly undeserved?) reputation for books where nothing happens except getting to watch people live their lives, but In The Future. I'm curious how her books line up with, for example, Look to Windward, where we spend hundreds of pages following people living in the Culture and very little else, but where there is obviously something happening in the background and events with meaningful stakes are unfolding around us by the end. Thoughts?
Speaking as somebody who likes her books, yeah that's accurate, and that's what I love about them.

MockingQuantum
Jan 20, 2012



I've only read A Long Way etc etc Planet, but since it was the original impetus for the discussion, it's worth mentioning that at least half of the major plot threads do sort of center around romantic relationships between characters. They're well handled and not your standard-fare sci fi shipping, for the most part, but they're still firmly romantically motivated. And personally the characters I liked the most (well, one I didn't "like" per se but that's sort of the point) and the storylines I enjoyed the most were the ones that didn't have any romantic component to them.

Rosalie_A
Oct 30, 2011

Kestral posted:

It's one of the few books I've ever flat-out given up on reading. For a concept with that much potential, the execution falls desperately short.

On a related note, Vorkosigan Saga goons, if I’m not feeling Shards of Honor by about two-thirds through the book, should I skip to Warrior’s Apprentice or quit? The issues I’m having are that the setting seems unremarkable, essentially a thin veneer of Space Words over a romance story that could be set in any time or place. Stories about loving families and fast friends are great, but I have a low tolerance for The Destined Cishet Couple narrative at the moment. In fairness to Bujold, I'm coming off of reading Titus Groan and the difference in prose quality may be making me judge Vorkosigan more harshly than I otherwise would, but I'm struggling to stay interested.

The nice thing about the Vorkosigan books is that there's like a dozen good entry points, with only a few that I'd say you really need to wait until later (Mirror Dance really needs to be read after Brothers in Arms, A Civil Campaign really needs to be after Komarr, and Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen needs to be after Shards, Barrayar, Mirror Dance, Cryoburn, and really everything).

The romance in Shards is really more about culture clash than anything: both characters want qualities in a partner that their home cultures don't especially value. If you're not feeling it though you're probably not feeling it, and that's fine!

What Bujold does best is tackle themes that most in the genre don't really look at: Barrayar is about parenthood, Mirror Dance is about PTSD, Memory is about a mid life crisis, A Civil Campaign is about lighthearted romance, and Gentleman Joly and the Red Queen is about grief and loss. It's not really coincidental that the least liked books in the series tend to be the more straightforward mysteries as opposed to addressing some theme.

So here's what you can do. Either you can skip to Barrayar if you want to see how Bujold tells a story about these characters and the world you've gotten to know once she's gotten some experience, or you can just pick something else out and see how you like it. To which I direct you to The Mountains of Mourning, a Miles novella. It's shorter so if you end up not enjoying it then you've lost less of your time. It's not tied to any larger plot and was designed as a standalone experience without requiring prior knowledge, so you don't have the "I feel like I'd like this if I knew who and what was going on" feeling you might get from, say, A Civil Campaign or Komarr. Finally, it's honestly pretty drat good. If you don't like The Mountains of Mourning, it's highly likely you won't enjoy anything else in the series.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

Kestral posted:

I've been gunshy about Chambers due to her (possibly undeserved?) reputation for books where nothing happens except getting to watch people live their lives, but In The Future. I'm curious how her books line up with, for example, Look to Windward, where we spend hundreds of pages following people living in the Culture and very little else, but where there is obviously something happening in the background and events with meaningful stakes are unfolding around us by the end. Thoughts?

Edit: On an unrelated note, apparently N.K. Jemisin has a Twitch channel, and it looks delightful.

I recently read the three Long Way / Small Planet books and liked them for exactly that reason, yeah, they're just slice-of-life stories, which is fine.

They reminded me a lot of Lawrence Watt-Evans' Ethshar books, especially The Misenchanted Sword and Ithnalin's Restoration, which are similarly slice-of-life stories but in fantasy settings.

quantumfoam
Dec 25, 2003

Read Ann Leckie's The Raven Tower.
Not bad, the 2nd person narrative wasn't too annoying. Did detect lots of subtle seventh-person "I" drops, which were explained near the ending of the book, then outright stated again at the very end for readers/editors with zero short term memory.

quantumfoam fucked around with this message at 01:15 on Mar 15, 2019

Goatse James Bond
Mar 28, 2010

If you see me posting please remind me that I have Charlie Work in the reports forum to do instead

MockingQuantum posted:

I've only read A Long Way etc etc Planet, but since it was the original impetus for the discussion, it's worth mentioning that at least half of the major plot threads do sort of center around romantic relationships between characters. They're well handled and not your standard-fare sci fi shipping, for the most part, but they're still firmly romantically motivated. And personally the characters I liked the most (well, one I didn't "like" per se but that's sort of the point) and the storylines I enjoyed the most were the ones that didn't have any romantic component to them.

what sort of utter monster wouldn't like doctor chef

wizzardstaff
Apr 6, 2018

Zorch! Splat! Pow!

Kestral posted:

I've been gunshy about Chambers due to her (possibly undeserved?) reputation for books where nothing happens except getting to watch people live their lives, but In The Future. I'm curious how her books line up with, for example, Look to Windward, where we spend hundreds of pages following people living in the Culture and very little else, but where there is obviously something happening in the background and events with meaningful stakes are unfolding around us by the end. Thoughts?
While other people have confirmed that this reputation is in fact deserved, I'll throw out the opinion that

a) it's much stronger in the first book. The later books, while still very slice-of-life, have plots that serve to do more than string together scenes of character development.

b) you can skip and read the books in any order. The premise of book 2 has spoilers for a climax in book 1, and major characters in some books have bit parts in others, but that's about it as far as connections go. Mostly they just inhabit a shared setting.

mllaneza
Apr 28, 2007

Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1993-1952




Trasson posted:

To which I direct you to The Mountains of Mourning, a Miles novella. It's shorter so if you end up not enjoying it then you've lost less of your time. It's not tied to any larger plot and was designed as a standalone experience without requiring prior knowledge, so you don't have the "I feel like I'd like this if I knew who and what was going on" feeling you might get from, say, A Civil Campaign or Komarr. Finally, it's honestly pretty drat good. If you don't like The Mountains of Mourning, it's highly likely you won't enjoy anything else in the series.

That's an excellent suggestion, Mountains of Mourning. It's in a novel-sized collection with two other first-rate novellas - Borders of Infinity. Borders was, for me at least, the high point of the series for quite some time, probably until Mirror Dance.

MockingQuantum
Jan 20, 2012



GreyjoyBastard posted:

what sort of utter monster wouldn't like doctor chef

Nah I meant the algae scientist guy, who is intended to be, if not disliked, at least viewed differently than the rest of the crew. Even that serves his story in the end though.

Unless I'm particularly thick and that's :thejoke:

mdemone
Mar 14, 2001

NoNostalgia4Grover posted:

Did detect lots of subtle seventh-person "I" drops

wat

MockingQuantum
Jan 20, 2012



What's a good intro to Samuel Delaney? I tried reading Dhalgren in my freshman year of college and I remember it being fascinating but also just a bit impenetrable.

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my bony fealty
Oct 1, 2008

MockingQuantum posted:

What's a good intro to Samuel Delaney? I tried reading Dhalgren in my freshman year of college and I remember it being fascinating but also just a bit impenetrable.

Hogg

but really probably Babel-17 or Nova

has anyone read Return to Neveryon? Delaney doing sword & sorcery sounds really cool

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