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Doorknob Slobber posted:i read the gone world based on someone here saying it was like true detective + spaceships and I really liked it all the way through up until the last page where the so far independent strong woman main character's happy ending version of herself is getting pregnant at 16 and being oh so excited for child bearing and having a husband to take care of her The epilogue was totally unnecessary and kind of a bummer, but I don’t think it was intended to be the main character’s version of a happy ending. It’s not like she knew she would turn into her mother, and she didn’t really have much of a choice at the end. It at least implies that some version of her is journeying the timelines and keeping an eye on things. Plus there is nothing stopping the Navy from finding that planet again or one like it, anyway. I did have one big question at the end: Why are they so insistent that the alternate timelines end as soon as the traveler leaves? Is there anything that actually proves this to be the case? Tiny Timbs fucked around with this message at 01:53 on Sep 17, 2019 |
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Sep 17, 2019 01:35
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Wolpertinger posted:I read the first book and was waiting for the third to read the whole thing (i hate being stuck on the middle book in the trilogy) and now looking at amazon, the release dates are confusing me - it says the third book came out in august, but only in paperback, and is 'not available' on paperback, with the other formats not even being selectable, and the release date for book 2 was in january on paperback and sept 17th on kindle. Is there some weird regional release thing going on? must be, as an australian i cop this kind of thing a bit.
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Sep 17, 2019 03:22
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BananaNutkins posted:I've only read one thing by John Barnes--a short story called Martian Heart. It's really good. Anyone got opinions of what his best novel is? John Barnes is uh very special. Short stories keep Barnes focused, in Barnes's longer work, sometimes he's really good, other times he's horrifying. Like the contents of Barnes's Kaleidoscope Century, horrific poo poo like "Serbing" is mixed with intriguing ideas like a forever Balkan War Earth driven by Artifical Intelligences that spread via meme's + run off of/in human brains and limited immortality and quasi-time travel. The Kaleidoscope Century setting has a YA prequel + 2 scifi sequels that further explore the setting Kaleidoscope Century setting, but thankfully the horrific main character of Kaleidoscope Century never appears again in Barne's work (to my knowledge). Google search this thread for Serbing, I explained it once earlier and it's unsettling enough that I really don't want to explain Serbing a 2nd time. Barne's other non mil-scifi that's the least cringy is his Thousand Culture series, with the main character acting as a Dominic Flandry style secret agent going from his early twenties to late forties. Thousand Cultures series is a weird mix of wish-fullfillment, galactic adventure and thinly fictionalized author mid-life crisis/divorce/erectile disfunction/2nd midlife crisis.
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Sep 17, 2019 04:01
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Fallom posted:The epilogue was totally unnecessary and kind of a bummer, but I don’t think it was intended to be the main character’s version of a happy ending. It’s not like she knew she would turn into her mother, and she didn’t really have much of a choice at the end. It at least implies that some version of her is journeying the timelines and keeping an eye on things. Like Captain Remarque, Moss goes into the ending knowing she's going to sacrifice herself to save humanity. The novel also spends a lot of time establishing that Courtney's death was what motivated her to become a space detective, and I'm pretty sure she specifically reviews in her mind that Terra Firma is before Courtney's murder. She achieves what she wants personally and for the world, but it comes at a price. There's definitely dramatic irony at the end, where the reader knows what she's given up and that by her own future self's reasoning (and the knowledge we have by not being 16) that she's probably going to end up working in a call center struggling to get by as a single mother. But at the same time we also know she probably won't sacrifice her body and lifetime traveling to disposable futures and hell earth driven by the memory of all the innocents she couldn't save.
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Sep 17, 2019 07:57
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:John Barnes is uh very special. The Serbing thing (horrific as it is) could have been kicked out of the book without any impact of the storyline. It is the same edginess that plagues Prince of Thorns, where the author puts in edginess for its own sake. It is not like the protagonists in either case is a good guy. Without it, I would have rated the book a whole lot better, although it is sort of a more modern version of All my sins remembered.
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Sep 17, 2019 08:49
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Dark Forge is ace. I was a little worried the novels would be too like the Red Knight series, but Miles Cameron is ace. I have some of his histoical stuff on my to read list next.
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Sep 17, 2019 10:24
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“Of course I’m willing, and the princess is gracious,” he said, “but I didn’t get to be cavalier primary due to being the best with a rapier. I’m cavalier primary only because my adept is also my wife. I suppose you could say that I—ha, ha—cavalier primarried!” ow
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Sep 17, 2019 12:42
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Magnus is just trying his (very bad) best, leave him alone. 
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Sep 17, 2019 12:52
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:John Barnes is uh very special. There's a character in Candle that might be the protagonist from Kaleidoscope Century (there's not really enough info) on his new timeline who one of the (non-total piece of poo poo) main characters remembers killing as he screamed about the conspiracy he served. I like to think it was the Kaleidoscope Century guy.
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Sep 17, 2019 13:10
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90s Cringe Rock posted:“Of course I’m willing, and the princess is gracious,” he said, “but I didn’t get to be cavalier primary due to being the best with a rapier. I’m cavalier primary only because my adept is also my wife. I suppose you could say that I—ha, ha—cavalier primarried!” If you don't appreciate Magnus's dad jokes, you can just leave  .
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Sep 17, 2019 13:44
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I can appreciate things that physically pain me.
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Sep 17, 2019 13:45
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Neurosis posted:There's a character in Candle that might be the protagonist from Kaleidoscope Century (there's not really enough info) on his new timeline who one of the (non-total piece of poo poo) main characters remembers killing as he screamed about the conspiracy he served. I like to think it was the Kaleidoscope Century guy. Right. I think we discussed this the last time Candle came up in this thread. I like to think KC guy in one of his new timeline loops was killed off by at least one or both of the leads of Candle. Candle eased off on the physical degradation porn from KC but went full-bore on mental rape/mindwiping/fake memories/brainwashing instead. Definitely think Candle had a Total Recall style ending...was the Retsuna copy just feeding 3Curr/Curry what he wanted to hear in a fake memory or was Retsuna/OneTrue AI going to do the needful?. quantumfoam fucked around with this message at 14:02 on Sep 17, 2019 |
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Sep 17, 2019 13:52
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90s Cringe Rock posted:“Of course I’m willing, and the princess is gracious,” he said, “but I didn’t get to be cavalier primary due to being the best with a rapier. I’m cavalier primary only because my adept is also my wife. I suppose you could say that I—ha, ha—cavalier primarried!”
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Sep 17, 2019 16:03
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I saw someone on twitter describe Gideon the Ninth as "Shadow of the Torturer meets Fleabag" which now has me imagining Gideon's snarky asides as being delivered in 4th-wall-breaking look-at-the-camera style... Agree that Magnus's dad jokes are wonderful, as are the awful/loathsome/terrible teens' reactions.
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Sep 17, 2019 16:45
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90s Cringe Rock posted:“Of course I’m willing, and the princess is gracious,” he said, “but I didn’t get to be cavalier primary due to being the best with a rapier. I’m cavalier primary only because my adept is also my wife. I suppose you could say that I—ha, ha—cavalier primarried!” I didn't get this one, I understand it's a play on words but don't see what words are being played on other than "married" english is a 2nd language to me, though, so...
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Sep 17, 2019 18:26
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Doctor Jeep posted:I didn't get this one, I understand it's a play on words but don't see what words are being played on other than "married" That's pretty much it. It's a lame Dad joke, like: Character1: I'm annoyed. Character2: Hello Annoyed, I'm Dad.
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Sep 17, 2019 18:29
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Doctor Jeep posted:I didn't get this one, I understand it's a play on words but don't see what words are being played on other than "married" He became the cavalier primary through marriage.
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Sep 17, 2019 19:53
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guhhh I somehow forgot that they weren't cavaliers, they were cavalier primaries
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Sep 17, 2019 21:12
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I just read Foreigner. I liked it a lot. Everybody is always talking about aliens that are really "alien", making crazy bug monsters or weird languages that don't work like human languages, Cherryh just makes aliens that literally can not understand the concept of friendship, boom done, totally completely alien thought processes that make understanding between us and them almost impossible. Great. Are the sequels any good?
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Sep 18, 2019 03:37
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branedotorg posted:I have three books in the series on my Kindle. Looks like a bonus book for you this week! Though it required navigation of the treacherous waters of the Farre Offe Lande of the Engles, I do indeed get a bonus book.
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Sep 18, 2019 04:03
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apropos of nothing but was thinking of getting the Gideon audiobook, did a name search of the narrator because the name looked familiar, and it turns out she used to be the host of Nickelodeon GUTS.
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Sep 18, 2019 04:47
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McClellan launched a kickstarter for his sequel to uncanny collateral
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Sep 18, 2019 04:50
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Gripweed posted:I just read Foreigner. I liked it a lot. Everybody is always talking about aliens that are really "alien", making crazy bug monsters or weird languages that don't work like human languages, Cherryh just makes aliens that literally can not understand the concept of friendship, boom done, totally completely alien thought processes that make understanding between us and them almost impossible. Great. they get kinda boring after book #12, very very slow and yes, cherryh's aliens are great, check out the chanur novels and "cuckoo's egg" as well
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Sep 18, 2019 05:00
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Gripweed posted:I just read Foreigner. I liked it a lot. Everybody is always talking about aliens that are really "alien", making crazy bug monsters or weird languages that don't work like human languages, Cherryh just makes aliens that literally can not understand the concept of friendship, boom done, totally completely alien thought processes that make understanding between us and them almost impossible. Great. They eventually fall into a rut. I'd say keep reading them until you get to one you don't like.
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Sep 18, 2019 05:17
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Dragonlance books + Larry Niven stories hit me way before I knew C.J. Cherryh existed. Always thought and viewed/still view Cherryh's Foreigner books as her working out her fetish for the High Ogres from the Dragonlance universe with a gary stu human lead in print. And Cherryh's Chanur series always reminded me of neutered Kzinti from Larry Niven's Known Space/Kzin Wars. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3185806-police-patrol Mack Reynolds Police Patrol: 2000 A.D., original 1977 paperback with the not-Judge Dredd cover is up next on my reading list. According to the internet + wikipedia, ironically the first Judge Dredd stories + this fix-up novel were published around the same time. Expecting typical Mack Reynoldisms like UBI and flying hovercrafts and criminals/undercover cops cosplaying with albinizing/melanizing drugs inside Police Patrol: 2000 A.D..
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Sep 18, 2019 05:52
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Gripweed posted:I just read Foreigner. I liked it a lot. Everybody is always talking about aliens that are really "alien", making crazy bug monsters or weird languages that don't work like human languages, Cherryh just makes aliens that literally can not understand the concept of friendship, boom done, totally completely alien thought processes that make understanding between us and them almost impossible. Great. I got old copies of Heavy Time and Cyteen at fire sales. Haven't read Cyteen yet, but I'm looking forward to it. Heavy Time is a decent enough tale about corporations screwing over workers, but in space, and also the earliest book in her universe's timeline, probably before first contact.
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Sep 18, 2019 06:30
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Nthing Gideon the Ninth. I basically use every free moment throughout the day to sneak another page or chapter in, it was that fun.
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Sep 18, 2019 08:48
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I've nearly finished reading Michael Flynn's Eifelheim and I like it a lot. Basically: interdimensional aliens that look like monstrous grasshoppers and have a violently hierarchical society crash in the forest near a 14th century German village. It's one of the best first contact books I've read in the way that - even though the aliens have a language translator MacGuffin - it deals with the problem of conveying meaning beyond the base word. In some ways the aliens are closer to the reader, because we know all about space travel and physics and distant planets, whereas the medieval human characters are operating on a totally different wavelength to either the aliens or to the 21st century reader. There's a great bit where they're asking the village priest about his conception of "everything that is," and if he knows that there are worlds beyond that (ie not just other stars but other dimensions), and the priest naturally starts talking about heaven and Jesus and how he will return one day, and so the aliens start to think that Jesus was an alien - maybe one of their own species - who, if he returns soon, may be able to help them. Put like that it sounds like a joke but the whole book is really one of the most honestly sweet, earnest and sincere things I've read all year. It's also a great book set in the Middle Ages which doesn't present its broader cast as superstitious dumb-as-rocks peasants for the modern reader to roll their eyes at, but as human beings who are drawing the best conclusions they can with the information they have and are as fundamentally shrewd, intelligent, and wise as you or I. It's really good stuff.
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Sep 18, 2019 10:18
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This sounds very good, actually. I'll check it out.
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Sep 18, 2019 11:04
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I'm only like a third of the way through it, but so far I regret to inform you that, despite the fantastic premise, The Hero And His Elf Bride Open A Pizza Parlor In Another World is a terrible book
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Sep 18, 2019 15:38
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Such is the isekai way. The isekay.
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Sep 18, 2019 15:49
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90s Cringe Rock posted:Such is the isekai way. The isekay. I still want to read the Restaurant To Another World novels, because I really liked the show. Modern day cooking in a fantasy setting is absolutely a premise that can work, even if The Hero And His Elf Bride Open A Pizza Parlor In Another World is garbage.
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Sep 18, 2019 15:59
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Solitair posted:I got old copies of Heavy Time and Cyteen at fire sales. Haven't read Cyteen yet, but I'm looking forward to it. Heavy Time is a decent enough tale about corporations screwing over workers, but in space, and also the earliest book in her universe's timeline, probably before first contact. If you count the Hisa (the pretechnological natives of Pell's World), all of her books in that setting are post-first-contact, since that happens before the FTL drive is even invented. All the Company Wars/Merchanter books take place before any contact is made with other spacefarers, though. (Or at least, before such contact is widely known; it's implied that Tully in Pride came off an Earth Company ship exploring in a direction away from Union, probably after the Treaty of Pell.) Also, note that Heavy Time has a direct sequel, Hellburner (and there's an omnibus that collects both of them, Devil to the Belt). Most of her other books take place in the same setting, but either so far away from everything else (Chanur, Voyager in Night) or so long after the Treaty (basically everything else) that they don't really have any connection to the "main" A-U books. (It seems likely in Foreigner that the Phoenix was an A-U ship, but the drive malfunction stranded it so far away -- possibly in another universe -- that it hardly matters.) Gripweed posted:I just read Foreigner. I liked it a lot. Everybody is always talking about aliens that are really "alien", making crazy bug monsters or weird languages that don't work like human languages, Cherryh just makes aliens that literally can not understand the concept of friendship, boom done, totally completely alien thought processes that make understanding between us and them almost impossible. Great. They kind of get increasingly slow over time; I'm enjoying them, but there's a lot of "the entire book takes place over the course of like four days and 90% of it is spent on political discussions in this one building" and the like. That said, you should at least read the next two books, since they're written in groups of three, with each trilogy being one major story arc. If you're still enjoying it check out the next trilogy. (Also, IMO, the Atevi are not as alien as most of the Compact races, and nothing she's written measures up to the probe in Voyager.)
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Sep 18, 2019 16:43
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ToxicFrog posted:They kind of get increasingly slow over time; I'm enjoying them, but there's a lot of "the entire book takes place over the course of like four days and 90% of it is spent on political discussions in this one building" and the like. That's the first book too though. There's only some action in like the last 50 pages. I'm excited to see the series get more slow than Foreigner, considering that most of Foreigner was a dude in a big house without internet or indoor plumbing getting increasingly annoyed about being invited to breakfast with an old lady
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Sep 18, 2019 18:31
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Foreigner would be a good rec next time someone asks for cozy comfort-food books. There are a bunch of them, and after you read a couple you'll know that they all hit the same story beats and nothing truly horrible is going to happen to the main characters
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Sep 18, 2019 18:50
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Clark Nova posted:Foreigner would be a good rec next time someone asks for cozy comfort-food books. There are a bunch of them, and after you read a couple you'll know that they all hit the same story beats and nothing truly horrible is going to happen to the main characters The dude in Foreigner is brutally tortured, to the point where he's slipping in and out of lucidity for several days. During that time he also has an existential crisis when, during a mock execution, he realizes that he's lost connection to humanity but hasn't been able to connect with aliens, leaving him completely adrift with no one who actually cares about him or he can rely on.
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Sep 18, 2019 19:44
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Solitair posted:Heavy Time is ... also the earliest book in her universe's timeline The new one, 'Alliance Rising', is set earlier. (In HT/HB, the ftl routes to Sol already exist).
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Sep 18, 2019 20:39
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Gripweed posted:The dude in Foreigner is brutally tortured, to the point where he's slipping in and out of lucidity for several days. During that time he also has an existential crisis when, during a mock execution, he realizes that he's lost connection to humanity but hasn't been able to connect with aliens, leaving him completely adrift with no one who actually cares about him or he can rely on. Heh, maybe “cozy” isn’t the word for it, since the feeling of being trapped in a situation you barely understand and can’t control is much of the point of the series but after reading several it doesn’t feel like Bren or his bodyguards are ever in any real danger of dying anymore, and that first book is far and away the most gruesome
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Sep 19, 2019 03:23
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uber_stoat posted:apropos of nothing but was thinking of getting the Gideon audiobook, did a name search of the narrator because the name looked familiar, and it turns out she used to be the host of Nickelodeon GUTS. The audiobook is already great, and knowing this makes it even better. Seriously though, she's an excellent narrator and I highly recommend Gideon the Ninth in audio format, where the dialogue comes across better than it does on the page IMO. Does anyone else feel like Tamsyn Muir's authorial voice has a Terry Pratchett thing going on? Something about this book makes me feel like I'm reading one of the more serious Discworld novels; to be clear, that is a good thing.
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Sep 19, 2019 04:24
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Kestral posted:Does anyone else feel like Tamsyn Muir's authorial voice has a Terry Pratchett thing going on? Something about this book makes me feel like I'm reading one of the more serious Discworld novels; to be clear, that is a good thing. I've just barely started on it myself, but yeah, her authorial voice does seem to tickle a few of those same not-entirely-unkind-snark receptors. I like it.
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Sep 19, 2019 09:21
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