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pseudorandom name posted:Bob is dead and possessing his own corpse. Irene evicted his soul from his body so they’d have an empty vessel to summon the Eater of Souls except the Eater of Souls was already summoned and bound to a body (Angleton), and they hosed up the scripting in their invocation so the uninitialized variable that should’ve referenced the Eater of Souls ended up referencing Bob. 
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Aug 7, 2019 00:12
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DACK FAYDEN posted:Just got around to the latest Laundry book and it's been a while, but something stood out to me and I think I have some backstory wrong. Spoilers. There's been a bit of retconning going on. If you reread them all you'll notice some things. But none are really that blatant or bad.
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Aug 7, 2019 00:25
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wizzardstaff posted:
Thanks everyone for the suggestions! “Competency porn” is a great term.
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Aug 7, 2019 09:21
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:
periodically i remember that there was a time in the mid-late oughts when John C. Wright was regarded as a promising up-and-comer. Each of these recollections is like a fever dream. i think he got memory-holed partially because he got struck by lightning or whatever and from regular libertarian to some sort of berserk Vatican II-rejecting TradCath but also partially because people like rajaniemi and schroeder came along and started using most of the same conceits to better effect. hell, you could say something like clarke's The City and the Stars was using some of that same furniture in like 1955
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Aug 7, 2019 10:05
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The first image of him on a GIS he's literally doing the "M'lady hat tip" Edit: It gets better, it's also the picture on his Wikipedia page. Deptfordx fucked around with this message at 15:27 on Aug 7, 2019 |
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Aug 7, 2019 15:24
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This is the guy who fantasized out loud about wanting to punch Terry Pratchett. gently caress that guy.
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Aug 7, 2019 15:45
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Groke posted:This is the guy who fantasized out loud about wanting to punch Terry Pratchett. After Pterry was diagnosed with PCA, no less.
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Aug 7, 2019 17:59
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Jedit posted:After Pterry was diagnosed with PCA, no less. I think it was specifically because of that actually, because Pterry wanted assisted suicide to be legal.
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Aug 7, 2019 18:42
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Deptfordx posted:The first image of him on a GIS he's literally doing the "M'lady hat tip" His wikipedia page is like a glowing self-bio and then the talk page is 4x as long and discusses homophobic blog posts he wrote. Wikipedia is poo poo
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Aug 7, 2019 19:11
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He didn't fantasise about punching P.Terry you dummies. He regretted not punching P.Terry when they met! Which means as well as being an utter oval office he's also a loving coward.
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Aug 7, 2019 20:28
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Deptfordx posted:The first image of him on a GIS he's literally doing the "M'lady hat tip" His Livejournal is a shitshow that even most Freepers would think was extreme. 
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Aug 8, 2019 23:05
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XBenedict posted:His Livejournal is a shitshow that even most Freepers would think was extreme. Wow, I read that uh...rant? about birth control. That guy is a loving lunatic.
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Aug 8, 2019 23:14
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transitioning from a vociferous libertarian atheist to a he-man woman hater tradcath is the ultimate lovely Life Journey. he's a malignant cartoon character of a human being. the sad rabid puppies love him of course.
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Aug 8, 2019 23:31
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pseudanonymous posted:Wow, I read that uh...rant? about birth control. That guy is a loving lunatic. He's also well known for losing his poo poo over a couple of girls holding hands at the end of Legend of Korra.
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Aug 9, 2019 01:16
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Selachian posted:He's also well known for losing his poo poo over a couple of girls holding hands at the end of Legend of Korra. It's not so much what he was saying, which of course was all backed at least by some kind of pseudo-science, as the way he goes about saying it. Reminded me of when I used to work with the mentally ill.
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Aug 9, 2019 01:41
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Wright hasn't actually changed. When he was a libertarian atheist, his views were unquestionably correct because they were backed by Logic and Science. Now his views are exactly the same but backed by his god. Because God loves everything Wright loves, hates everything (and everyone) Wright hates, and has the exact same opinions he does on absolutely everything. John C. Wright literally worships himself, and doesn't have the self-awareness to realize it.
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Aug 9, 2019 02:38
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Wright also made an idiot of himself by offering to give people ebooks of his newly published novels in exchange for donations. No wonder he has to publish with Castalia House now. E: Ash is really good and it's a terrible shame it lost a major award (BSFA?) to Perdido Street Station. E2: Oh yeah, the Clarke. Thanks! Safety Biscuits fucked around with this message at 06:11 on Aug 9, 2019 |
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Aug 9, 2019 06:03
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It was the Clarke Award iirc e: it actually won the BSFA
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Aug 9, 2019 06:06
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Is Ash the one where Burgundy and Carthage are still around? That was wild, and very good.
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Aug 9, 2019 08:01
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That's the one! "Carthage is under the Doom."
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Aug 9, 2019 09:32
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:From what I recall John C. Wright's Golden Age series is hard SF, relatively little physics breaking, single solar system, BUT Wright is a massive chud lolbertarian. As already mentioned, he dropped the libertarianism for hardcore Catholicism after having a near-death experience. I think it did change his writing style a little. The Golden Age is more nuanced in its presentation of political stuff than the subsequent works. He gives some due to non-libertarian ways of organising societies, and in part you can read the Golden Age as showing conditions where libertarianism does make sense (tech-related changes in society leading to a point where it is somewhat plausible for the minimalist state to allow people at the bottom mobility/a decent existence, only after long periods where conditions led to other kinds of societies). Which isn't to say he doesn't present libertarian thinking as correct, of course, he does, just that it's not one-sided (except maybe one part in book 2 which is eyeroll-worthy). In later books he's less subtle. I still read his sci fi books because he has a really out-there imagination, turning ridiculous stuff from early-20th century pulp into creative hard science fiction. Count to Eschaton has absurdly grandiose events involving scientists manipulating different epochs to their preferred ideals in a battle of ideas and sapient galactic clusters who fight each other in non-FTL time frames. The politics is there but not in every book so vulgarly presented as to destroy the value of the work (the fantasy ones are worse about it), in my view anyway. I get people not wanting to consume the works of authors who they think are shitheads and all, just saying it's not totally meretricious.
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Aug 9, 2019 10:12
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Beefeater1980 posted:Is Ash the one where Burgundy and Carthage are still around? That was wild, and very good. Burgundy being around until 1477 is not unusual. Visigoth Carthage threatening to invade Italy with its war golems, that is a bit more odd.
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Aug 9, 2019 11:20
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Neurosis posted:Count to Eschaton has absurdly grandiose events involving scientists manipulating different epochs to their preferred ideals in a battle of ideas and sapient galactic clusters who fight each other in non-FTL time frames. e: completely misread Neurosis's post. Kalman fucked around with this message at 20:55 on Aug 9, 2019 |
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Aug 9, 2019 14:43
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Kalman posted:Oh so he ripped off Stross’s singularity books. Stross did not invent posthuman space opera.
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Aug 9, 2019 17:43
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Megazver posted:Stross did not invent posthuman space opera. The notion of entities using FTL to manipulate timeframes as a form of battle to set up their preferred conditions for the future e: HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH JOHN WRIGHT BUT I WANT TO READ IT IF SOMEONE ELSE DID IT. (Also, if someone else did that story theme - earlier or later - and isn’t a crazy tradcath I want to read it so ante up.) Kalman fucked around with this message at 20:55 on Aug 9, 2019 |
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Aug 9, 2019 17:46
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Kalman posted:The notion of entities using FTL to manipulate timeframes as a form of battle to set up their preferred conditions for the future suuuuuuure seems similar. Non FTL time frames. It's planetoids slowboating across the universe to exploit each other over millions of years AFAIK.
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Aug 9, 2019 17:54
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Wright is a guy who read The Night Land and thought the love story was well-written so that says about all you need to know about his attitude towards women
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Aug 9, 2019 18:08
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Sibling of TB posted:Non FTL time frames. It's planetoids slowboating across the universe to exploit each other over millions of years AFAIK. Ah my bad, completely misread the original summary.
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Aug 9, 2019 20:54
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Anyone have any favorites of Diana Wynne Jones they can recommend? I've read Dark Lord of Derkholm and Year of the Griffin, but she's written so many books I'm not sure where to look next.
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Aug 10, 2019 00:01
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Kalman posted:The notion of entities using FTL to manipulate timeframes as a form of battle to set up their preferred conditions for the future e: HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH JOHN WRIGHT BUT I WANT TO READ IT IF SOMEONE ELSE DID IT. Have you read Baxter’s Xeelee sequence? It is one of the rare hard sci-fi series with original ideas and a huge scope (literally the time span of the universe).
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Aug 10, 2019 00:17
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Oh dang. Apparently there's a TV series adaption of The Rook. I didn't know it was already out. Thought it was coming up next year sometime. Starz's history with adaptations is uh... perilous. I'm really glad the Noir adaptation is languishing in production hell because everything they've revealed about it makes me wonder why they bothered with the Noir license at all. Like sure, it's a story about a two-woman war against the mafia and that's cool. But it's specifically about a two-woman war against the mafia as they fall in love. As opposed to the documents Starz put out which indicated it was intended to be focused on two new characters, who are handlers of the titular assassin duo Noir. They don't exist in the original because it'd pretty much gently caress everything up if they had handlers. And the handlers are pretty obviously suppose to be their love interests and talked up as action heroes. The other character they bother talking up in the production notes was this random mafia head who got murdered immediately after he was introduced in the anime. Sorry this isn't about books directly, but it's a good example of what you're gonna get with the Rook adaptation. Also I hear it's by the person who produced Bones, which was another good premise ruined by insisting on making everything about sex.
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Aug 10, 2019 00:37
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Take the plunge! Okay! posted:Have you read Baxter’s Xeelee sequence? It is one of the rare hard sci-fi series with original ideas and a huge scope (literally the time span of the universe).
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Aug 10, 2019 00:38
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Recently finished Clarke-award-winner Dreaming in Smoke by Tricia Sullivan. Sort of an alien planet colonization set-up, but the colony has been abandoned when it was discovered the planet's atmosphere does not support humans. The planet is entirely water, so the abandoned colonists are living out of their space ship which is planted into the ocean floor. Kind of a Solaris vibe in terms of an unknowable planet, in this case a planet with a kind of living ecosystem--or is it all one organism? Also pretty interesting concept about the use of dreams for creativity and deep thinking, with people who specialize in monitoring, or riding "shotgun," in others' dreams and playing kind of a janitor role, keeping out the detritus. Opens with a quote from VALIS, so you know it is going to play with perception and reality. All that being said, I found the concepts more interesting than I found the book engaging. Some fun ideas and strong writing, but weak characters and not the highest plotting. I have seen the author had a recent book, Sweet Dreams, which sounds like it goes more into the dream monitoring concept. Would be interested to know if anyone has read that one or has any thoughts on the author.
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Aug 10, 2019 01:07
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A Proper Uppercut posted:Anyone have any favorites of Diana Wynne Jones they can recommend? I've read Dark Lord of Derkholm and Year of the Griffin, but she's written so many books I'm not sure where to look next. Howl’s Moving Castle obviously.
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Aug 10, 2019 02:32
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On episode 3 of The Rook and I'm kinda completely confused why they are even calling this The Rook cause there's like, 3 things from the book that's the same so far and the rest is just weird poo poo. It's really not a good series.
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Aug 10, 2019 02:43
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:On episode 3 of The Rook and I'm kinda completely confused why they are even calling this The Rook cause there's like, 3 things from the book that's the same so far and the rest is just weird poo poo. This is what my huge rant about what they did to Noir was about, yeah.
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Aug 10, 2019 03:04
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A Proper Uppercut posted:Anyone have any favorites of Diana Wynne Jones they can recommend? I've read Dark Lord of Derkholm and Year of the Griffin, but she's written so many books I'm not sure where to look next. I'd suggest Howl's Moving Castle, Archer's Goon, A Tough Guide to Fantasyland, and the Chrestomanci books myself.
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Aug 10, 2019 03:38
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Take the plunge! Okay! posted:Have you read Baxter’s Xeelee sequence? It is one of the rare hard sci-fi series with original ideas and a huge scope (literally the time span of the universe). I have (as well as his far inferior Manifold trilogy and actually most of his output at this point) and enjoyed it, and it’s not a bad recommendation in that vein though not quite the timeline engineering.
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Aug 10, 2019 04:30
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Beefeater1980 posted:Depressing to read about Eddings, I liked his stuff as a teen and it always seemed very innocent, standard fantasy stuff. What you're talking about isn't quite the core of the series, but Joel Rosenberg's Guardians of the Flame series is about a group of D&D players transported to their fantasy world (written in deadly earnest) who end up sticking around for the rest of their lives, establishing a settlement, trying to end slavery and kickstarting an industrial revolution. I haven't read them since high school but I remember liking them a lot, and I recently read his unrelated book D'shai which was pretty decent, so I suspect they hold up. Gotta get around to re-reading them myself one day when I can find them in the ten thousand boxes at the back of my dad's garage.
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Aug 10, 2019 05:26
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A Proper Uppercut posted:Anyone have any favorites of Diana Wynne Jones they can recommend? I've read Dark Lord of Derkholm and Year of the Griffin, but she's written so many books I'm not sure where to look next. Of the Chrestomanci books: Lives of Christopher Chant, Charmed Life, and Witch Week - Lives last, I think. It's more serious than the other two, and makes a good comparison to Charmed Life. Dalemark: Cart and Cwidder is weak, but The Spellcoats and Drowned Ammet are good. I didn't get into The Crown of Dalemark. Solos: The Ogre Downstairs (read the Greek), The Time of the Ghost, Fire and Hemlock, Hexwood, Dogsbody, Archer's Goon. And the recommendations you already got are good, too. She wrote a lot of great stuff. Also be sure to read this autobiographical essay: https://web.archive.org/web/20120522071720/http://www.leemac.freeserve.co.uk/autobiog.htm
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Aug 10, 2019 07:45
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