|
uber_stoat posted:Watt's Firefall and Rifters books all take place during a slow motion collapse of human civilization so I guess they might work. I think the Rifters trilogy especially fits the bill as the main protagonist is basically a walking apocalypse
|
#
?
Aug 26, 2020 17:23
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 20, 2024 12:54 |
|
|
Old Man's War by John Scalzi - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000SEIK2S/ The Forge of God by Greg Bear - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J52FOHI/
|
|
#
?
Aug 26, 2020 22:10
|
|
|
Also worth a mention: Count Zero (Sprawl Trilogy Book 2) by William Gibson - $0.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000PDYVZM
|
|
#
?
Aug 26, 2020 22:44
|
|
|
I remember hearing about Old Man's War, but I can't recall what I heard. Is it good?
|
|
#
?
Aug 26, 2020 23:30
|
|
|
Black Griffon posted:I remember hearing about Old Man's War, but I can't recall what I heard. Is it good? It was fun. A bit campy, sex, but fun. It was the book that got me back in to sci-fi, when it came out.
|
|
#
?
Aug 26, 2020 23:40
|
|
|
Black Griffon posted:I remember hearing about Old Man's War, but I can't recall what I heard. Is it good? i didnt like it at all (but I also didnt care enough about it to hate it) the author basically forgot about the central conceit (these are old people) after halfway through the first act and the characters became generic uber-competent warbook protagonists, and so it was just by-the-numbers after that read something good instead
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2020 00:23
|
|
|
General Battuta posted:It is? The president is an idiot, the military is helpless, nothing can be done. That’s not very American. I actually thought the president was drawn quite well in Forge of God. He's a genuine believer of a Christian, and when confronted with something as confronting and upsetting as an alien herald proclaiming the end of the world, he falls back on his faith. Given his framework of belief it's a reasonable reaction and I didn't feel like the author was mocking of it, either. Also, the president speaking to the alien includes the only piece of dialogue I remember from the book: "Do you believe in God?" "I believe in punishment."
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2020 00:24
|
|
|
awesmoe posted:i didnt like it at all (but I also didnt care enough about it to hate it) Yeah it's mostly forgettable. It's fine, but it bugged me how all the characters had exactly the same rhythm of speech... not Whedonesque, exactly, but definitely something drawn from a deadpan quippy internet forum sort of talk.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2020 00:27
|
|
|
oof, sounds like a skip, thanks
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2020 00:32
|
|
|
freebooter posted:Yeah it's mostly forgettable. It's fine, but it bugged me how all the characters had exactly the same rhythm of speech... not Whedonesque, exactly, but definitely something drawn from a deadpan quippy internet forum sort of talk. yeah exactly, which...whatever, quippy dialog is fine i guess - except the whole thing is that they're meant to be old people! but they're old people who dont talk like old people, or think like old people, or act like old people, so whats the point?
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2020 00:48
|
|
|
awesmoe posted:yeah exactly, which...whatever, quippy dialog is fine i guess - except the whole thing is that they're meant to be old people! but they're old people who dont talk like old people, or think like old people, or act like old people, so whats the point? 1. For the opening sentences "I did two things on my seventy-fifth birthday. I visited my wife's grave. Then I joined the army." 2. The old people, as you note, fully expected to be rejuvenated at some point, or something to happen anyway. You are correct that after about 1/4 of the book they are all just super-soldiers. 3. It sets up the actual fundamental conflict of the series: The Colonial Union is run by a bunch of dicks exploiting Earthlings without providing all the good tech that could solve problems on Earth, most obviously the rejuvenation technology.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2020 02:37
|
|
|
ulmont posted:3. It sets up the actual fundamental conflict of the series: The Colonial Union is run by a bunch of dicks exploiting Earthlings without providing all the good tech that could solve problems on Earth, most obviously the rejuvenation technology. Also, the CU is aggressively expansionistic and opposed to the Space UN.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2020 03:12
|
|
|
Steerswoman books: very good. The only problem is that I don’t want to finish the fourth one knowing that it’s the last one left :/ E: if there are any books with similar vibes I’d love to know! tildes fucked around with this message at 06:22 on Aug 27, 2020 |
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2020 03:37
|
|
|
I hit 51% completion in the SFL Archives Vol 10 and I am extremely happy about that. Volume 10 is the longest of the 34 SFL Archives, everything after Volume 10 is going to be shorter and getting more interesting as the internet and new books/tv shows/movies/games come out and get discussed in the SFL mailing list. Just to put everything into perspective, before starting this project my previous gold-standard for "endless seeming read" was Timothy May's Cyphernomicon.txt FAQ file for the defunct Cypherpunks mailing list that Neal Stephenson got seemingly all hs ideas from. Cyphernomicon.txt - 161,129 words/1.1 mb raw text file SFL Volume 10.txt - 1,213,410 words/7.3 mb raw text file To put this into clearer terms, SFL Volume 10 has roughly 7x the content of the Cyphernomicon and 2.5x the word count of "War and Peace", and 3x or 4x more words than the Libertarian bible Atlas Shrugged. And sadly, this is really nothing.... one other mailing list of the 1980's -1990's I plan on (eventually) reading averaged 25mb yearly text file dumps. Let me repeat that, averaged 25mb text files. No fancy formatting, no html or anything, just ASCII text. e: One day I will tackle the real heavyweights of mailing lists. actual SFL Volume 10 content update 4(?) of ?? -more and more 1000+ word posts, you can tell who had the expensive Wangs and who didn't back in 1985. (that was a reference to the forgotten Wang Labs series of Wang computers/Wang computer terminals) -someone who missed out on the 6 solid months of SFL music chat back in 1982?/83? asked why no-one talks about music in the SFL mailing list, but it's cool because no one has mentioned filksongs in response...so far.  - Piers Anthony non-xanth and Orson Scott Card are frequent topics of discussion....back in 1985 both those authors hadn't become what they now are. Piers Anthony had the deep-seeming Avatars series while Enders Game was Card's biggest accomplishment to date -The Goonies, The Explorers, Cocoon, Lifeforce and Back to the Future 1 have come out. Weirdly, the goonies isn't being discussed much while the same grown-up people were falling over themselves crying discussing E.T. when it came out. -Disney animation movie the Black Cauldron is getting some chat, but mostly because it doesn''t follow the source material 100% which is an omnipresent hangup for certain SFF fans (this has happened many times, usually over arthurian mythos, and it will happen again). -An arthurian series focusing on Gawain using the Welsh spelling of his name comes out, and people mistake the Welsh spelling as being a new self-insert character into the Arthurian Mythos and got very angry. -more publisher hijinks/more author comments. Not going to repost this stuff unless requested. -Slams on Space 1999. The actors in it, the acting in Space 1999, the feasiblity, the introduction of the shape-shifting character in season 2, the time loop? -Zelazny's continuation of the Amber series book comes out, and 1985 SFL reaction is thirsty for more/drat you Zelazny write faster. This seques into Zelazny chat, which can be boring to discuss and recap. -Finally, Philip Jose Farmer. Even back in 1985, people were getting tired of PJF's role as self-appointed chronicler/perpetuator of a number of "mythologies" where PJF would write the imaginary books other authors referenced in their stories, like for example HP Lovecrafts Cryptonomicon and/or write completely unauthorized sequels/prequels to other authors books. In modern terms, this would be like PJF writing "Mithra the Sixth" in Tamsyn Muir's Gideon setting, or the Secret Annals of Baru Cormorant, or vulturing into N. K. Jemisin's work, etc. Back in 1985, SFL posters were groaning about how Philip Jose Farmer inserted sex-magic into the juvenile book series OZ via A Barnstormer In Oz. quantumfoam fucked around with this message at 16:47 on Aug 27, 2020 |
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2020 15:31
|
|
|
Quippy internet speak bad hey everybody read Murderbot!
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2020 17:29
|
|
|
Everybody should read Murderbot, yes.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2020 17:38
|
|
|
Anyone have any good cosmic horror or (even better) deep space horror that's not Blindsight, Revelation Space or Ship of Fools/Unto Leviathan? Similar vibes welcome, I'm looking for a nice break from 2020. Underwater horror that's not Rifters or The Deep (lol) also welcome.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2020 20:03
|
|
|
Finished Baru 3, dropped a review. Really good work, I felt like it did a great job tying together a lot of dangling threads and ideas from the previous books in a really satisfying way. I also enjoyed being kept guessing what characters true motivations and thoughts were, in a "do they really think that, do they want people to believe they think that, or do they only think that because they've been conditioned to do so?" Way.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2020 20:07
|
|
|
General Battuta posted:Anyone have any good cosmic horror or (even better) deep space horror that's not Blindsight, Revelation Space or Ship of Fools/Unto Leviathan? Similar vibes welcome, I'm looking for a nice break from 2020. Three Body Problem, maybe? It's a slow start, but a fairly satisfying trilogy.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2020 20:09
|
|
|
General Battuta posted:Anyone have any good cosmic horror or (even better) deep space horror that's not Blindsight, Revelation Space or Ship of Fools/Unto Leviathan? Similar vibes welcome, I'm looking for a nice break from 2020. William Gibson's short story Hinterlands, in the collection Burning Chrome might be up your alley. I haven't read any of the ones you listed so I don't know if it's similar or not, but I remember it creeping me right out.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2020 21:34
|
|
|
General Battuta posted:Anyone have any good cosmic horror or (even better) deep space horror that's not Blindsight, Revelation Space or Ship of Fools/Unto Leviathan? Similar vibes welcome, I'm looking for a nice break from 2020. Ever heard of this book, Sphere, they call it? Fun stuff, fun stuff.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2020 22:05
|
|
|
General Battuta posted:Anyone have any good cosmic horror or (even better) deep space horror that's not Blindsight, Revelation Space or Ship of Fools/Unto Leviathan? Similar vibes welcome, I'm looking for a nice break from 2020. Hull Zero/Three probably fits. Six Wakes, if you haven’t already gotten to it? (Baru 3 was real good, I left my Amazon review already.)
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2020 22:09
|
|
|
Poldarn posted:William Gibson's short story Hinterlands, in the collection Burning Chrome might be up your alley. I haven't read any of the ones you listed so I don't know if it's similar or not, but I remember it creeping me right out. This hit the spot! Thanks for all the others, fortunately/unfortunately I've read them. Except Hull 03 and Six Wakes, hm...
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2020 22:48
|
|
|
I can safely warn you not to read The Dark Ship cause while it starts out pretty good, and gets a little more weird and creepy as it goes along, it completely shits itself at the climax and renders the whole book just... dumb.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2020 22:57
|
|
|
Nondescript Van posted:Quippy internet speak bad hey everybody read Murderbot! I felt exactly the same way about Murderbot as Old Man's War: it's fine but forgettable, and the speech patterns bugged me a bit.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2020 23:48
|
|
|
quantumfoam posted:-An arthurian series focusing on Gawain using the Welsh spelling of his name comes out, and people mistake the Welsh spelling as being a new self-insert character into the Arthurian Mythos and got very angry. This is very funny
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2020 23:55
|
|
|
The Dragon Reborn (Wheel of Time #3) by Robert Jordan - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0030AF5DO/
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2020 00:04
|
|
|
General Battuta posted:Anyone have any good cosmic horror American Elsewhere by Robert Jackson Bennett is cool, if flawed.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2020 01:30
|
|
|
rmdx posted:Adrian Tchaikovsky's newest, The Doors of Eden, is out. It's good. He has.i think there's a lot of good and entertaining sci-fi around but only a handfull of authors than can deliver a great sci fi novel.imo Tchaikovsky's has one of those in him.he just keeps getting better.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2020 02:44
|
|
|
General Battuta posted:Anyone have any good cosmic horror or (even better) deep space horror that's not Blindsight, Revelation Space or Ship of Fools/Unto Leviathan? Similar vibes welcome, I'm looking for a nice break from 2020. I enjoyed Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2020 03:02
|
|
|
Lovecraft Country was surprisingly good. I'm also a big fan of Carter and Lovecraft. I can't think of very many cosmic horror novels where it's like, deep space cosmic and doesn't end up being something incredibly stupid.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2020 04:03
|
|
|
Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Lovecraft Country was surprisingly good. I'm also a big fan of Carter and Lovecraft. Yes; except I wasn't surprised because I'd read some Matt Ruff before and knew he was good.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2020 10:42
|
|
|
Spoiler question for Gideon/Harrow the Ninth: Can anyone remind me which part of the books Harrow having Gideon's blood under her nails came from (in order to unlock the tomb)?
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2020 16:01
|
|
|
Tor is giving away a sampler of novelas: Fantasy from Asia and the Asian Diaspora https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08D8849V6/
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2020 16:43
|
|
|
Grimson posted:Spoiler question for Gideon/Harrow the Ninth: H9 Chp 51. It was worse when I was a kid. I remember the time you caught me telling her, I love you, and I can’t even remember what you said, but I remember that I had you on your back—I put you straight on the loving ground. I was always so much bigger and so much stronger. I got on top of you and choked you till your eyes bugged out. I told you that my mother had probably loved me a lot more than yours loved you. You clawed my face so bad that my blood ran down your hands; my face was under your loving fingernails. When I let you go you couldn’t even stand, you just crawled away and threw up. Were you ten, Harrow? Was I eleven? Was that the day you decided you wanted to die? You remember how the gently caress-off great-aunts always used to say, Suffer and learn? If they were right, Nonagesimus, how much more can we take until you and me achieve omniscience?
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2020 16:59
|
|
|
Grimson posted:Spoiler question for Gideon/Harrow the Ninth: Also, H9 Chapter 3: One very bad day—when it seemed as though everyone hated her, and as though this were a completely correct way to feel—with bloodied fists and a bruised heart, she wrote a note explaining her suicide then went and unlocked the door. Unexpectedly, this did not kill her; and what did not kill her made her curious.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2020 17:06
|
|
|
The Great Hunt (Wheel of Time #2) by Robert Jordan - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002VBV1R2/
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2020 18:47
|
|
|
Goddamn the first page of Hull Zero Three and I’m slammed by a wall of late career Greg Bear funk. I don’t know what it is about his prose but I find it insufferable whenever he starts talking about nature and body rhythms and deep yearnings and so on.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2020 19:43
|
|
|
I didn't really like HZ3. It was like all the worst parts of Pandorum in one lovely novel.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2020 19:46
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 20, 2024 12:54 |
|
|
Up to book 3 of Ken MacLeod's Corporation Wars Trilogy, though it is really just one very long book. Enjoying it a lot, since I love stuff about the nature of consciousness/uploading/AI ethics. It's also extremely hammer-on-the-head with politics but I'm not minding much.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2020 19:53
|
|