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Groke posted:
The Lord Weird Slough Feg took their name from the main villain of the comic book Slaine. There's a possible recommendation for you, MockingQuantum, if comic books are your thing. Quite over the top and metal-y.
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Jun 11, 2019 22:25
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ShinsoBEAM! posted:I think this was the first time(and only) I was actively hoping at every moment starting somewhere in the 3rd book that the author would fridge a character, jesus christ, if they ever got better let me know because I liked those books at some point. C.M. Kruger posted:Patrick Rothfus would totally be some symphonic metal group that's way too full of themselves, Nightwish or something.  but Nightwish actually did a song based on his stuff.Anyhow, no metal/fantasy discussion can be complete without me linking The Fall of Melnibone. Give it about 1:36 seconds at least. Turns out Elric actually is really good metal soundtrack material.
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Jun 11, 2019 22:53
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IYKK posted:The Lord Weird Slough Feg took their name from the main villain of the comic book Slaine. There's a possible recommendation for you, MockingQuantum, if comic books are your thing. Quite over the top and metal-y. There's about fifteen volumes of it now, though, and while I do not think it too many the ones after the first sequence aren't numbered.
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Jun 11, 2019 22:57
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ShinsoBEAM! posted:I think this was the first time(and only) I was actively hoping at every moment starting somewhere in the 3rd book that the author would fridge a character, jesus christ, if they ever got better let me know because I liked those books at some point. It gets more if anything. I read them all to see if they got better but they sort of plateau at the third book level. He has a new series out but it's also not great? A mob enforcer who is also a secret magician gets coerced into breaking into a magical oil tanker that travels around the world stealing children. It's mostly about her leveling up with by fighting different kinds of mutant crabs and ignoring the Cretan black ships thing he set up.
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Jun 11, 2019 23:09
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Slough Feg has a song about The Stars My Destination too. They are nerds and they rule and I love them. Cough has a song called Shadow of the Torturer which I suspect must be a Gene Wolfe homage. Lots of metal about sff yeah those are just two o my faves
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Jun 11, 2019 23:18
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my bony fealty posted:Slough Feg has a song about The Stars My Destination too. They are nerds and they rule and I love them. The Blue Oyster Cult has lots and lots of sci-fi/fantasy influences
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Jun 11, 2019 23:27
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navyjack posted:The Blue Oyster Cult has lots and lots of sci-fi/fantasy influences Led Zeppelin also has some songs about.. hobbits I do believe.
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Jun 12, 2019 00:22
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all metal bands are sci-fi/fantasy nerds, this is a rabbit hole that'll go on forever if you let it i once encountered a whole concept album based on the Hyperion series C.M. Kruger posted:About half of the first Ninefox book is military SF stuff about capturing a space fortress, the rest of the series is more space opera themed. I keep meaning to post about Spiral Wars in the kindle unlimited thread
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Jun 12, 2019 01:53
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You motherfuckers just ain't serious about Elric.
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Jun 12, 2019 02:08
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StrixNebulosa posted:
I have bad news for you about Warhammer 40K
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Jun 12, 2019 02:19
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NoneMoreNegative posted:Mil-scifi, about the only troop-perspective series I ever got along with was Kloos’ Frontlines books, and I’m still only three books into it. They turn up on the cheap kindle lists pretty regular if you wanted to give them a look-over. Germline by TC McCarthy is the gold standard imo
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Jun 12, 2019 02:24
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John Lee posted:I have bad news for you about Warhammer 40K Haha, yeah I know. But 40k actually has room to explore this! The demons from hell have interesting motives/means, and the Imperium's stifling of civil liberties / scientific advancement has understandable histories behind them. There's more nuance there than you'd expect. I do enjoy media that wrestles with democracy vs anything else, usually dictatorships - because having strong centralized authority is a huge boon during wartime. And 40k is a setting eternally at war so there's never really room for the Imperium to try anything else. Lost opportunity or perk of the setting? You decide.
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Jun 12, 2019 02:52
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pseudanonymous posted:Led Zeppelin also has some songs about.. hobbits I do believe. I will never forgive them for their blatant error in Ramble On. Probably put it in for name recognition.
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Jun 12, 2019 04:35
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Darth Walrus posted:I feel the Malazan series might work quite well with that sort of thing. It rather does. For example, this is a little song about the T'lan Imass: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_pMHKTLBlg
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Jun 12, 2019 05:20
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I finished Guy Gavriel Kay's newest novel A Brightness Long Ago, and really enjoyed it. If you have read any of Kay's novels, yes, it follows the same bittersweet story beats as his others; this may be good or bad for you. It takes place in the same world as some of his other novels (Children of Earth and Sky, Sarantine Mosaic novels, Lions of Al Rassan etc). I found his last one, Children of Earth and Sky disappointing by the end, I thought it had more story to tell. A Brightness Long Ago was much more satisfying. This one takes place in not-Italy and the city states there, with two feuding mercenary commanders who are city-lords themselves and a young man and woman who find themselves involved with these forceful commanders by choice or otherwise. If you are one who enjoys Kay's novels I think you'd be happy with this one as well.
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Jun 12, 2019 05:23
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I would have bought those when they came out a few months back (at a much lower price) except I really hate all the later Elric stories and constant re-editing Moorcock did to the series to make it all fit continuity.
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Jun 12, 2019 08:00
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Yeah, no Elric story past the 70's is worth bothering with.
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Jun 12, 2019 09:29
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Fallom posted:Germline by TC McCarthy is the gold standard imo And oh god, speaking as a guy who's a retired Army broadcaster and journalist, it's just ridiculously spot-on. I was shocked when I found out he hadn't directly served (IIRC)
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Jun 12, 2019 14:14
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There's a Humble Science Fiction Bundle up for the next week at https://www.humblebundle.com/books/science-fiction-start-books so I thought I'd mark the occasion by posting my thoughts on the books I've read from a different humble science fiction bundle I bought back in 2017. I haven't read anything from the current bundle, but if the previous one is anything to go by there will be a few amazing books, a bunch of OK ones, a couple that are fun to read but have odious politics, and nothing that is truly terrible. A Woman of the Iron People, by Eleanor Arnason, 1991 5/5 One of the first sub-light speed interstellar voyages encounters sentient aliens living in a nomadic pre-industrial society. Tells the story of a scientist that lives with the aliens to study them. Believable telling of humans trying to learn how an alien society works. Expendable, by James Alan Gardner, 1997 4/5 In a utopian future where little goes wrong and super powerful aliens enforce the peace people who don't fit in are given the role of Explorer and sent to investigate the edges of civilization. Funny in a Douglas Adams sort of way. Jaran, by Kate Elliott, 1992 5/5 Humans have become a vassal race to aliens with more advanced technology. Most of the book is about a young relative of the most politically powerful human travelling with a nomadic human tribe that are unaware of the aliens and advanced technology. Great characters, interesting politics. Vacuum Flowers, by Michael Swanwick, 1987 4/5 Neuromancer in space with more sex. Explores the ramifications of technology that allows people to buy/rent skill and personality changes. The Genome, by Sergei Lukyanenko, 1999 2/5 In the future some people have been genetically altered to give them abilities that make them good for a particular profession. First 2/3rds is a science fiction book exploring that technology, then it takes a hard turn into Sherlock Holmes in space. Every female character wants to screw the protagonist, including the 14 year old he meets in the opening chapter. 4 stars if you are willing to overlook the statutory rape. Encounter with Tiber, by Buzz Aldrin and John Barnes, 1996 4/5 Humans recieve an alien transmission that tells them where to find alien artifacts, then go looking for the aliens. Lots of hard details about space-faring technology and NASA bureaucracy, interesting characters. Orbital Decay, by Allen M. Steele, 1989 3/5 A big construction project in space has attracted the kinds of workers that work on big construction projects on Earth: the mentally ill and Grateful Dead fans. Fun enough read but would probably work better for people old enough to remember who the Grateful Dead are. Accurately predicts the NSA taps everyone's phone some 25 years before that became public knowledge. Midshipman's Hope, by David Feintuch, 1994 3/5 Interstellar spaceships are all run by the Navy and you have to join as a 12 year old or you get space cancer. Mil-scifi in which every conversation the protagonist has is foreshadowing the events of the next chapter. Right wing political views abound. A Choice of Treasons, by J.L. Doty, 2009 4/5 Somewhere between military space opera and mil-scifi. Protagonist is a navy officer/marine with a lot of combat experience and they have the kind of adventures that description implies. Right wing but not in your face about it. Interesting political setup where there are a lot of incompetent heriditary officers but the people at the very top are mastermind schemers. Echoes of Earth, by Sean Williams and Shane Dix, 2001 4/5 Uploaded minds explore the galaxy and find more than they bargained for. Fun read but clearly a setup for a series that I'm not invested enough to read the rest of. The Shockwave Rider, by John Brunner, 1975 4/5 This is an ideas book about the effect on society of widespread Internet access and the surveillance technology it allows. The plot and characters are OK, the ideas are amazing. I read this thinking it was clearly inspired by Snow Crash then after I finished found out it was published in 1975 and somehow predicted everything other than mobile phones. The Forge of God, by Greg Bear, 1987 3/5 Aliens come to Earth to tell us that they are too late to stop the Earth being destroyed by other aliens. This book is aggresively American. If this book were a 90s movie it would star Harrison Ford. Playing God, by Sarah Zettel, 1998 5/5 An alien race contracts a human company to use the human's advanced biotechnology to clean up the alien planet. Incredible technology meets strange biology meets corporate dystopia. The Icerigger Trilogy, by Alan Dean Foster, 1995 2/5 Some humans crash land on an alien iceworld, meet the locals, and have adventures. Both female characters want to immediately screw the protagonist. The adventures are fun enough to read if you can overlook the "strong manly-man saves the day with his superior strength and intellect" aspects of the writing. Orion Shall Rise, by Poul Anderson, 1983 3/5 Post-post apocalyptic setting where society has mostly restablished and is looking for ways to reattain the heights of technology known to have existed before the war. Fun to try to work out how all the place names derive from present day place names, but the plot and characters are a bit tedious. Interesting politics and society as each country has distinct politics and none of them are shown as being the perfect one. There's a few more books from that bundle that I haven't read yet, I'll try to post about them as I read them instead of dumping them all months after the fact. Urcher fucked around with this message at 14:21 on Jun 12, 2019 |
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Jun 12, 2019 14:19
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Urcher posted:A Woman of the Iron People, by Eleanor Arnason, 1991 5/5 One of the first sub-light speed interstellar voyages encounters sentient aliens living in a nomadic pre-industrial society. Tells the story of a scientist that lives with the aliens to study them. Believable telling of humans trying to learn how an alien society works. Ah, I have this as part of my Anthropological Sci-Fi shelf. It's good, but I liked Arnason's Ring of Swords much more. In a similar vein, I recommend Mary Gentle's Orthe duology, particularly the first one Golden Witchbreed.
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Jun 12, 2019 15:07
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Weird question: can anyone think of stories about robotics where AI either doesnt exist or is not a factor in the story? The one example I can think of is There Will Come Soft Rains. Blindsight sort of fits (ai exists but its weird and alien, and the story is mostly about post-humanity)
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Jun 12, 2019 16:20
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Urcher posted:There's a Humble Science Fiction Bundle up for the next week at https://www.humblebundle.com/books/science-fiction-start-books so I thought I'd mark the occasion by posting my thoughts on the books I've read from a different humble science fiction bundle I bought back in 2017. I haven't read anything from the current bundle, but if the previous one is anything to go by there will be a few amazing books, a bunch of OK ones, a couple that are fun to read but have odious politics, and nothing that is truly terrible. The Martha Wells book in the current Humble Bundle sci-fi/fantasy are good/pretty much can be described as 'MurderBot set in Jack Vance's Dying Earth'. Of the 2017 bundle books you posted about, Shockwave Rider is probably the standout best book. Neal Stephenson like Greg Bear can never be called original visionaries, because paraphrasing Isaac Newton famous quote "If [they] have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants."
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Jun 12, 2019 16:36
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Urcher posted:The Forge of God, by Greg Bear, 1987 3/5 Aliens come to Earth to tell us that they are too late to stop the Earth being destroyed by other aliens. This book is aggresively American. If this book were a 90s movie it would star Harrison Ford.  , but the first book itself is fine too.e: totally forgot what I actually came in to post, Children of Ruin was really good but suffered from the same problem the first one did, in that I wanted to know more about the aliens that were not focused on and didn't care as much about, you know, the people. Less so than the first one for obvious reasons. Also, the epilogue was great but didn't seem to leave room for much more to be written in the same universe which was a shame cause it introduced at least one sweet new idea. DACK FAYDEN fucked around with this message at 16:39 on Jun 12, 2019 |
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Jun 12, 2019 16:36
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Borg? More like bored.
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Jun 12, 2019 17:25
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Urcher posted:The Genome, by Sergei Lukyanenko, 1999 2/5 In the future some people have been genetically altered to give them abilities that make them good for a particular profession. First 2/3rds is a science fiction book exploring that technology, then it takes a hard turn into Sherlock Holmes in space. Every female character wants to screw the protagonist, including the 14 year old he meets in the opening chapter. 4 stars if you are willing to overlook the statutory rape.
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Jun 12, 2019 17:42
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thetechnoloser posted:And oh god, speaking as a guy who's a retired Army broadcaster and journalist, it's just ridiculously spot-on. Germline's interesting. As I've said before, the first book gets a bit too anime for its own good with the sexy tragic all-female Jem'Hadar, but otherwise serves as some very good milSF in the vein of actual military autobiographies like The Yellow Birds. The second two get a bit less uncomfortably fetishistic about the clone-soldiers, but I felt that they maybe leant a bit too far into the macho crap that the first book did such an excellent job tearing down.
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Jun 12, 2019 18:14
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DACK FAYDEN posted:I'll stand up for this one, mostly because the sequel is Ugh, just the hardcover leafnotes for the sequel were enough to spoil everything in the dumbest + trite way. Of loving course all the Peters and Wendy's keeping the Earth generation ship society in stasis were going to have to grow up and WarCrime Away (In Revengeance). For me, the biggest twist in Anvil of Stars was the Genocide_Is_The_Only_Cide/First_Blood_Drawn villains being Precursor style patrons of an entire gaggle of Alien civilizations + lifeforms. Firmly believe that Greg Bear watched Hook the movie(1991) the weekend his book agent suggested a follow-up to Forge of God. Got 1/3 through a re-read of Philip K Dick's Galactic Pot Healer before giving up. The first few chapters felt like PKD originally planned for the book to be a sequel to his Man in the High Castle(1962) before getting sidetracked into what it became.
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Jun 12, 2019 18:15
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anilEhilated posted:Welcome to any Lukyanenko ever. I don't recall any of that in the Watch series.
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Jun 12, 2019 19:07
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Reading Nightrider by David Mace: I've never read a sci-fi novel that featured orbital mechanics in any detail before. Most sci-fi either simplifies it - "we're in a stable orbit now" or gives ships magic tech that makes it a non-factor. Instead this book is making me feel like Kerbal Space Program - nudge your ship by degrees, burn in small, small amounts as they orbit around this alien world.
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Jun 12, 2019 20:12
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DACK FAYDEN posted:I'll stand up for this one, mostly because the sequel is If probably have enjoyed it more if I was American, but I'm not so I have no intention of ever reading the sequel. Edit: The_White_Crane posted:Ah, I have this as part of my Anthropological Sci-Fi shelf. Jaran belongs on that shelf. Urcher fucked around with this message at 22:15 on Jun 12, 2019 |
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Jun 12, 2019 21:54
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:Ugh, just the hardcover leafnotes for the sequel were enough to spoil everything in the dumbest + trite way. like to the point that, for me, the entire book was a framing device for that moral dilemma so ignore all the kids loving and fighting and spooky mom robots and poo poo
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Jun 13, 2019 01:49
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DACK FAYDEN posted:Yeah, the best part was the decision of whether or not to annihilate this entire star system full of different types of synthetic life on the suspicion that the planet-annihilators had set up shop there previously and were the precursors and had left weapons behind that the current inhabitants may or may not have known about All this talk makes me realize Hull Zero Three was Greg Bear's second take on doing a generation ship story, and Hull Zero Three still failed to match up with Aldiss's first published novel/one-off story Non Stop (@1958). I will usually talk poo poo about Brian Aldiss's work, but Non Stop was legitimately good with a memorable plot twist ending. Vaguely recall Harry Harrison doing two takes on a generation ship story. One of them was serious with the cargo/future colonists having a composite Native American/Aztec/Mayan synthetic culture, while the jokey generation ship take was in a crappy Bill the Galactic hero sequel book that involved Nazis, Hippies, Time Travel, and a solar system composed of free-flowing Ethanol alcohol compounds. The best re-occurring character in the Bill book series, bgr the Chinger cosplayed in a G-man android body suit. The generation ships cargo/future colonists in the Bill book had a Native American/Aztec/Australian synthetic culture, while the generation ship crew were all gene-damaged mutants aka "moo-tants" who worshiped/served a command crew made up of dairy cows (mooo). Absolutely none of that Bill book stuff was made up.
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Jun 13, 2019 03:35
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anilEhilated posted:Not sure if not Hah. I should have known. Google says there's also a Nightwish spinoff band named after a character from the books.
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Jun 13, 2019 04:47
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Urcher posted:
Arnason is great, and I especially recommend her short stories. A little too obscure for my library to have sadly. Any thread thoughts on Ian McDonalds Luna: Wolf Moon? Found it pretty good (didn't read the first one).
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Jun 13, 2019 08:47
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Urcher posted:Jaran belongs on that shelf. I started Jaran but didn't get into it. Perhaps I just wasn't in the mood; I'll try it again some other time. Any thoughts on Maureen F. McHugh's Mission Child, if you've read it?
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Jun 13, 2019 10:25
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The_White_Crane posted:I started Jaran but didn't get into it. Perhaps I just wasn't in the mood; I'll try it again some other time. The first couple of chapters are setup, the anthropology doesn't start until the protagonist joins the horse tribe. I haven't read Mission Child.
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Jun 13, 2019 11:02
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:Vaguely recall Harry Harrison doing two takes on a generation ship story. One of them was serious with the cargo/future colonists having a composite Native American/Aztec/Mayan synthetic culture, while the jokey generation ship take was in a crappy Bill the Galactic hero sequel book that involved Nazis, Hippies, Time Travel, and a solar system composed of free-flowing Ethanol alcohol compounds. The best re-occurring character in the Bill book series, bgr the Chinger cosplayed in a G-man android body suit. The generation ships cargo/future colonists in the Bill book had a Native American/Aztec/Australian synthetic culture, while the generation ship crew were all gene-damaged mutants aka "moo-tants" who worshiped/served a command crew made up of dairy cows (mooo). Absolutely none of that Bill book stuff was made up. captive universe is the first one. it's a ya-ish classic scifi pulp that i really liked when i first read it as a teenager and i reread a few years back and still quite liked. holds up better than the eden books and transatlantic tunnel anyway.
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Jun 13, 2019 13:21
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Neal Stephenson's latest thing Fall; or, Dodge in Hell is a worse version of Greg Egan's works. The most laughable portion has been how societies problems are directly solved within tech conferences moderated by Stephen Pinker analogues. You'd think it's parody, except for the treatment.
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Jun 13, 2019 17:48
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papa horny michael posted:Neal Stephenson's latest thing Fall; or, Dodge in Hell is a worse version of Greg Egan's works. The most laughable portion has been how societies problems are directly solved within tech conferences moderated by Stephen Pinker analogues. You'd think it's parody, except for the treatment.
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Jun 13, 2019 17:50
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Definitely Anathem, but that may be it? After seveneves, dodo, mongoliad, and now this it is probably good to call it quits on any further works. There's plenty of other stuff to read.
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Jun 13, 2019 17:56
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