|
PlushCow posted:How does Look to Windward compare to the other Culture novels? I think it’s the only one I haven’t read.
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2019 15:16
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 22, 2024 12:55 |
|
|
GreyjoyBastard posted:i'm like 20% in and while it's good i'd definitely not describe it that way I wouldn't have described it that way either. It just keeps getting better, in my opinion.
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2019 17:15
|
|
|
PlushCow posted:How does Look to Windward compare to the other Culture novels? I think it’s the only one I haven’t read. Could be my favorite Culture book. It has everything that makes them good, including the ethically questionable interventionism. 
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2019 18:05
|
|
|
PlushCow posted:How does Look to Windward compare to the other Culture novels? I think it’s the only one I haven’t read. You know how a lot of Culture books have this pattern of, "well written travelogues of the people being hauled around by Special Circumstances / a Mind, while the Minds solve everything trivially at the last minute without any meaningful interaction by the ostensible protagonists" ? Look to Windward is perhaps the pinnacle of this. It's great if you're interested in an extended look at what life as a Culture citizen is like, but not if you're looking for last-minute escapes from self-destructing Orbitals - or, really, for anything actually happening. Windward is like Banks' attempt to write a Becky Chambers novel. It is the Coziest Culture Book, and whether you'll enjoy it depends strongly on your taste for that sort of thing. Kestral fucked around with this message at 18:42 on Jun 22, 2019 |
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2019 18:38
|
|
|
Look to Windward has a lot of neat sometimes subtle reflecting on how the Idiran war impacted the Culture and is the most melancholy of the series. It's good! The big floating island guy is my favorite part.
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2019 18:51
|
|
|
I think it’s my fav too. It’s so bittersweet. The revenge weapon is also one of the sharper bits of text for arguments over Banks’ attitude towards violence and the ‘goodness’ of the Culture, which I enjoy.
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2019 19:25
|
|
|
Yeah I’m not sure a book whose denouement is a Mind committing suicide over its war guilt and ptsd really fits the “cozy” descriptor but it is quite good
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2019 20:09
|
|
|
I just located 1634 + 1635 in my hoard of books. Is it worthwhile to find the first ones in the set and read 'em all?
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2019 20:33
|
|
|
StrixNebulosa posted:I just located 1634 + 1635 in my hoard of books. Is it worthwhile to find the first ones in the set and read 'em all? 1632 is available for free as an ebook if you want to check out the first one and see what you think: https://www.baen.com/1632.html
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2019 21:51
|
|
|
ulmont posted:1632 is available for free as an ebook if you want to check out the first one and see what you think: Oh huh. Convenient, thank you!
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2019 22:20
|
|
|
StrixNebulosa posted:Oh huh. Convenient, thank you! 1632 is much rougher than the later ones in the series I think--Eric Flint's real talent is as a collaborator rather than a writer in his own right. He's managed to assemble a lot of interesting historical writers to build the Ring of Fire universe but what I've read of his own prose was fairly weak, with some Baen-typical black and white heroes and villains type plotting. I still like and read the RoF books as a guilty pleasure though, since they're ultimately about building a society and making it better for everyone.
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2019 22:30
|
|
|
occamsnailfile posted:1632 is much rougher than the later ones in the series I think--Eric Flint's real talent is as a collaborator rather than a writer in his own right. He's managed to assemble a lot of interesting historical writers to build the Ring of Fire universe but what I've read of his own prose was fairly weak, with some Baen-typical black and white heroes and villains type plotting. I still like and read the RoF books as a guilty pleasure though, since they're ultimately about building a society and making it better for everyone. That sounds like the best kind of comfort reading. The closest I can think of off the top of my head is the Foreigner series by Cherryh, as that's also about similar goals.
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2019 23:09
|
|
|
PlushCow posted:How does Look to Windward compare to the other Culture novels? I think it’s the only one I haven’t read. You spend time exploring an orbital and the psyche of a hub mind. It's fantastic imo but I guess it will depend on what you read the culture books for.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2019 04:32
|
|
|
Less Fat Luke posted:I think it's absolutely great, one of my favorites. GreyjoyBastard posted:Could be my favorite Culture book. It has everything that makes them good, including the ethically questionable interventionism. Kestral posted:You know how a lot of Culture books have this pattern of, "well written travelogues of the people being hauled around by Special Circumstances / a Mind, while the Minds solve everything trivially at the last minute without any meaningful interaction by the ostensible protagonists" ? my bony fealty posted:Look to Windward has a lot of neat sometimes subtle reflecting on how the Idiran war impacted the Culture and is the most melancholy of the series. It's good! The big floating island guy is my favorite part. General Battuta posted:I think it’s my fav too. It’s so bittersweet. The revenge weapon is also one of the sharper bits of text for arguments over Banks’ attitude towards violence and the ‘goodness’ of the Culture, which I enjoy. Xik posted:You spend time exploring an orbital and the psyche of a hub mind. It's fantastic imo but I guess it will depend on what you read the culture books for. Whoa lots of responses, thanks. I was convinced and bought it, it will be next on my to-read list. A slower/cozy/questionably ethical/bittersweet/Culture examination sounds good. I finished the latest Expanse book a week ago and that filled my space action quota for a while.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2019 04:59
|
|
|
Got very lucky and was able to grab hardcover copies of the Gardner Dozois edited [B}Year's Best Science Fiction[/b] 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th and 21st annual collections for free. Aka the 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, and 2003 Years Best SF editions. The 1990's Years Best SF editions had lots of authors whose names I've learned to dread, however the 2003 edition had a Vernor Vinge story The Cookie Monster about hidden messages in EMAIL headers that makes me want to revisit Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep just to re-examine the Beyond usenet posts. e: Think I mentioned the Vinge short story/A Fire Upon the Deep thing before in this thread a few years ago?; which makes that whole rediscovery of the 2003 Vinge short story very very meta. quantumfoam fucked around with this message at 05:16 on Jun 23, 2019 |
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2019 05:08
|
|
|
Phobeste posted:Yeah I’m not sure a book whose denouement is a Mind committing suicide over its war guilt and ptsd really fits the “cozy” descriptor but it is quite good Yeah, that's why I phrased it as Banks' attempt to write a Becky Chambers novel - it's definitely bittersweet. I'm not all that up on Banks as a person, but now I wonder, did he ever publicly acknowledge having depression or something along those lines? On reflection, it would fit with a lot of his work.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2019 07:57
|
|
|
Kestral posted:Yeah, that's why I phrased it as Banks' attempt to write a Becky Chambers novel - it's definitely bittersweet. I'm not all that up on Banks as a person, but now I wonder, did he ever publicly acknowledge having depression or something along those lines? On reflection, it would fit with a lot of his work. Don't know about depression but I've seen the spot he rolled his 911 after too many single malts. Especially in his earlier (non M) work there is a lot of alcohol and drug use, reflecting his life at the time.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2019 11:09
|
|
|
Finished Empress of Forever. It's honestly probably my least favorite Max Gladstone book (which means it's still pretty great).
|
|
#
?
Jun 24, 2019 03:39
|
|
|
I thought it was pretty good. Got sort of a "Quantum Thief if it was written by Max Gladstone" vibe from it.
|
|
#
?
Jun 24, 2019 03:57
|
|
|
Khizan posted:I thought it was pretty good. Got sort of a "Quantum Thief if it was written by Max Gladstone" vibe from it. So, it managed to be boring despite depicting fantastic high concept events and imagery? 
|
|
#
?
Jun 24, 2019 04:02
|
|
|
I just finished Velocity Weapon by Megan O'Keefe, per Yoon Ha Lee's recommendation. It's... alright? It has one of the best mid-book reveals I've read in a long time. But, it's very much "first book in a series", and it suffers because of it. One of the three POVs feels almost totally disconnected from the main plot, because it's clearly setting up to get involved in the main arc. It also hit one of my personal bugbears by having stupid sci-fi names for stuff. "SynthCrete", "FitFlex" et al.
|
|
#
?
Jun 24, 2019 11:23
|
|
|
The_White_Crane posted:"FitFlex"
|
|
#
?
Jun 24, 2019 11:31
|
|
|
Maybe 45% through the new Neal Stephenson and it's kinda getting a little too silly for me El Shepherd is going to be the big bad and he's pissed that Dodge is god in the new singularity -- why do all the souls have to share the same environment? Why doesn't El make his own non-dodge universe? El is happy about the giant hive mind and then pissed when Dodge obliterates it? What
|
|
#
?
Jun 24, 2019 15:32
|
|
|
Mike Shel's Aching God is pretty good classic quest fantasy. Fantastic, if you consider this is the first novel the author wrote.
|
|
#
?
Jun 24, 2019 16:08
|
|
|
occamsnailfile posted:1632 is much rougher than the later ones in the series I think--Eric Flint's real talent is as a collaborator rather than a writer in his own right. He's managed to assemble a lot of interesting historical writers to build the Ring of Fire universe but what I've read of his own prose was fairly weak, with some Baen-typical black and white heroes and villains type plotting. I still like and read the RoF books as a guilty pleasure though, since they're ultimately about building a society and making it better for everyone. I haven't read any of his books and it's the fault of Weber, because Crown of Souls was a really awful book that I despised from top to bottom and I couldn't be sure how much of that was Weber or Flint. Also sorry I've been slow and terrible making a MilScifi thread.
|
|
#
?
Jun 24, 2019 17:49
|
|
|
mewse posted:Maybe 45% through the new Neal Stephenson and it's kinda getting a little too silly for me The souls all share the environment because it's easier than bootstrapping themselves a whole new universe to fit the inputs their brain expects; it's a lot of work that Dodge already did. The souls that reincarnate don't remember anything about the world and are going to be drawn to the existing framework as the path of least resistance. Going in, El doesn't have any intention to create his own world even if he has this feeling that he should be running the show, so likewise he shows up and grabs on to what was already built. Living El liked the hive because it was people doing something different in the simulated environment that they hadn't done in 'reality', something beyond recreating the life they left behind. Harold Fjord fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Jun 24, 2019 |
|
#
?
Jun 24, 2019 18:15
|
|
|
Kchama posted:I haven't read any of his books and it's the fault of Weber, because Crown of Souls was a really awful book that I despised from top to bottom and I couldn't be sure how much of that was Weber or Flint. Just use that awesome phrase I dreamed up and populate the future MilScifi Thread with re-quotes from the past month of this thread for as long as you can tolerate it. Waiting until then to hash out why military fiction authors + military Scifi authors have 5 hr long erections about Belisarius, the winningest non-fictional general in recorded human history. mewse posted:Maybe 45% through the new Neal Stephenson and it's kinda getting a little too silly for me Just remember to CLANG away...and maybe pick an random page of the CYPHERNOMICON and read for a few paragraphs instead. Despite the title of the book, Stephenson had nothing to do with it.....yet it will feel very Stephenson'y CYPHERNOMICON was/is Neal Stephenson's idea bible for a first time reader.
|
|
#
?
Jun 24, 2019 20:07
|
|
|
Legend says that to get published by Baen you need to first write a 5 book science fiction adaption about either Belisarius or the Anabasis.
|
|
#
?
Jun 24, 2019 20:32
|
|
|
NoNostalgia4Grover posted:Just remember to CLANG away...and maybe pick an random page of the CYPHERNOMICON and read for a few paragraphs instead. God I just poked at that cyphernomicon and glanced at a couple sentences and I already noticed it says "phase change" which stephenson just explained in the book as something that really smart people get excited about 
|
|
#
?
Jun 24, 2019 20:42
|
|
|
Holy poo poo I just reached page 50-odd of Empress of Forever and it's Journey to the West in space. Zanj has been imprisoned in a furnace for ages, gets out, has a fillet on her head which compels obedience. Zanj is Wukong, Viv is Tripitaka, the Empress is presumably Guan Yin. Edit: Ah, we've met the White Dragon Horse (Xiara), and she is indeed the child of the Dragon King (or Queen), but I haven't yet got as far as finding out that she was under sentence of death or why that was so... The_White_Crane fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Jun 24, 2019 |
|
#
?
Jun 24, 2019 22:52
|
|
|
The_White_Crane posted:Holy poo poo I just reached page 50-odd of Empress of Forever and it's Journey to the West in space. Yeah, Gladstone mentions this explicitly in the acknowledgements at the end.
|
|
#
?
Jun 25, 2019 00:50
|
|
|
So I'm looking for some good cyberpunk. I've read Gibson and stuff and I'm currently enjoying Altered Carbon. Particularly interested in books with a focus on hacking/the net. Thanks!
|
|
#
?
Jun 25, 2019 04:12
|
|
|
NoNostalgia4Grover posted:Just use that awesome phrase I dreamed up and populate the future MilScifi Thread with re-quotes from the past month of this thread for as long as you can tolerate it. Its okay, the new plan is to write a 956 page long screed of Nicephorus Phokas. He got the epithet "Pale death of the Saracens". He is much cooler than Belisarius because he kicked Muslim butt instead of silly Goth's. I already have John Ringo & Kratman as co-authors. Jack2142 fucked around with this message at 04:36 on Jun 25, 2019 |
|
#
?
Jun 25, 2019 04:34
|
|
|
Captain Theron posted:So I'm looking for some good cyberpunk. I've read Gibson and stuff and I'm currently enjoying Altered Carbon. Particularly interested in books with a focus on hacking/the net. Thanks! Bruce Sterling might do you, in particular Islands in the Net (which has aged remarkably well for a cyberpunk book written in 1988). John Brunner's The Shockwave Rider hasn't aged quite so well, but it's still a good read. There's also George Alec Effinger's Marid Audran books (When Gravity Fails, etc.) which don't have much hacking in them but are well-written and have an interesting North African setting that makes them a bit different from your typical cyberpunk.
|
|
#
?
Jun 25, 2019 05:46
|
|
|
Captain Theron posted:So I'm looking for some good cyberpunk. I've read Gibson and stuff and I'm currently enjoying Altered Carbon. Particularly interested in books with a focus on hacking/the net. Thanks! As I suggested to mewse, take a random poke at the CYPHERNOMICON a few times. Despite being literally a novel sized FAQ about a mailing list/private usenet server from the 1990s, CYPHERNOMICON is still bleeding edge cyberpunk. bitcoin, block-chain, hacking, the net/privacy, the ONE cool idea from Cryptonomicon*, and so much more, etc * no not the 52 or is it 54?! idiotic card deck cipher system. It's the stranger danger door-frame at the proto-PirateBay torrent server farmsite. aka an literal dead-man switch, especially for anyone with a pacemaker installed.
|
|
#
?
Jun 25, 2019 06:33
|
|
|
Captain Theron posted:So I'm looking for some good cyberpunk. I've read Gibson and stuff and I'm currently enjoying Altered Carbon. Particularly interested in books with a focus on hacking/the net. Thanks! McDonald does cyberpunk in different cultural settings. River of Gods or Brasyl are two good starts.
|
|
#
?
Jun 25, 2019 08:03
|
|
|
NoNostalgia4Grover posted:Just use that awesome phrase I dreamed up and populate the future MilScifi Thread with re-quotes from the past month of this thread for as long as you can tolerate it. suvorov erasure
|
|
#
?
Jun 25, 2019 08:11
|
|
|
Captain Theron posted:So I'm looking for some good cyberpunk. I've read Gibson and stuff and I'm currently enjoying Altered Carbon. Particularly interested in books with a focus on hacking/the net. Thanks! There's this list, I enjoyed the movies Akira and ghost in the shell (the new one with ScarJo, on 2nd viewing decided it was actually decent) I just re-read neuromancer and nothing really compares to it. The matrix movies ripped off a lot of the ideas but they're not cyberpunk. Keanu seems like he might be interested in the genre personally since he was in johnny mnemonic, the matrix movies, and now cyberpunk the game
|
|
#
?
Jun 25, 2019 08:38
|
|
|
Megazver posted:Mike Shel's Aching God is pretty good classic quest fantasy. Fantastic, if you consider this is the first novel the author wrote. The second isn't bad either, although he ramps up the scope a bit. I could see stuff coming a long way off but enjoyed the journey.
|
|
#
?
Jun 25, 2019 12:08
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 22, 2024 12:55 |
|
|
Captain Theron posted:So I'm looking for some good cyberpunk. I've read Gibson and stuff and I'm currently enjoying Altered Carbon. Particularly interested in books with a focus on hacking/the net. Thanks! Ignoring William Gibson Trouble and her friends Melissa scott Hardwired Walter Jon williams Mindplayers or tea from an empty cup pat cardigan Bruce sterling's mirrorshades anthology was seminal - or seemed that way to me and schismatrix plus Rudy Rucker wetware series (not my favourites) When gravity fails by effinger All those authors did loads of stuff around the time but those ones stand out in my mind. Other cyberpunkish stuff around the time I liked was Jack Womack, Joan Vinge, nancy kress maybe Michael swanwick? Eric nylund did one about a cryptographer and first contact but it's not cyberpunk.
|
|
#
?
Jun 25, 2019 12:35
|
|