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Hieronymous Alloy posted:It's too many things. The x and the y compete for attention. http://www.hipsterbusiness.name/#5XU7ueVh has been that way for a decade and change.
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Oct 8, 2020 03:28
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Slo-Tek posted:http://www.hipsterbusiness.name/#5XU7ueVh i would really like to read this book 
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Oct 8, 2020 04:10
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Sooo I really enjoyed Old Man's War and Forever War, am a huge warhams 40k grog and couldn't get into Expanse or Culture. What should I read, new thread?
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Oct 8, 2020 06:51
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Tias posted:Sooo I really enjoyed Old Man's War and Forever War, am a huge warhams 40k grog and couldn't get into Expanse or Culture. What should I read, new thread? You may enjoy Walter Jon Williams' series "Dread Empire's Fall".
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Oct 8, 2020 07:04
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Tias posted:Sooo I really enjoyed Old Man's War and Forever War, am a huge warhams 40k grog and couldn't get into Expanse or Culture. What should I read, new thread? The Lost Fleet series might be up your alley. Diminishing returns on the sequel series but I still love them. Great fleet battles and no chud politics.
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Oct 8, 2020 08:05
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:It's too many things. The x and the y compete for attention. I think the route I’d most like authors to take is starting with the x of y and following it up with the y of z.
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Oct 8, 2020 10:05
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Haven't been reading much lately, but I finally got around to reading Glen Cook's Darkwar series this week and found it entertaining. Cat-person becomes a evil sorceress and goes to space. Last month I read Harrow the Ninth and The Monster Baru Cormorant. Enjoyed them quite a lot. Otherwise I'm mostly stalled out on other stuff, got 50 pages into the second Malazan book and haven't touched it again, tried reading more of Simon R. Green's Deathstalker series and Chris Bunch's Sten series but wasn't feeling it, same for more Patrick O'Brian, feels like looking for work and all the other poo poo going on just saps my will to live as much as my old job. loving ridiculous, I've barely watched any anime since I finished college and now I can't even finish some crummy pulp novels.
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Oct 8, 2020 10:37
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Tias posted:Sooo I really enjoyed Old Man's War and Forever War, am a huge warhams 40k grog and couldn't get into Expanse or Culture. What should I read, new thread? Scalzi's written a bunch of sequels to Old Man's War if you haven't checked them out yet. You might also enjoy his "Collapsing Empire" trilogy.
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Oct 8, 2020 14:10
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Tias posted:Sooo I really enjoyed Old Man's War and Forever War, am a huge warhams 40k grog and couldn't get into Expanse or Culture. What should I read, new thread? You've read Heinlein, right? Both those books are just "what if Heinlein, but slightly left wing?"
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Oct 8, 2020 14:35
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:You've read Heinlein, right? Both those books are just "what if Heinlein, but slightly left wing?" Why do people suggest Heinlein in 2020? Ah yes read this book about a perfect, rich, hyperintelligent, boy with superpowers bc he lived on mars and a harem-and-threesomes psychologist who is always right and definitely not an author insert. This is what the people want. Also there’s a Muslim guy named Dr. Stinky Mahmoud!
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Oct 8, 2020 15:17
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People suggest a lot of bad books in this thread. We're on the same page as people discussing the Cradle books. Disliking a book's politics is fair enough, but it shouldn't be a mystery why some people can still enjoy reading a book whose politics they don't agree with. I don't see much of a difference between disliking a book's politics and disliking a book's prose. But when people poo poo-talk a book's prose, someone comes along to say "just let people enjoy things!" and it eventually settles down. When someone suggests a book whose politics few on this forum (probably) agree with, someone always arrives to say "How could you even suggest such a thing?" They suggested Heinlein because his books seemed appropriate to the request. I find the politics of most of Heinlein's books repellent, but if we restrict ourselves to only reading politically pure novels, that's a short reading list. Pretty much every novel with a well-to-do protagonist relies on the exploitation of the proletariat, for example.
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Oct 8, 2020 19:25
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Enjoying a book that's simple and enjoying a book that was written by a shithead seem like pretty different things to me man Not saying it's always bad or wrong to do the latter, but I don't really think they're equivalent
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Oct 8, 2020 19:50
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No you misunderstand. Heinlein is a worse writer than Wight in every way, and I don’t understand how people suggest him because of that. Politics aside, he’s just not any good. And that’s even when comparing him to a guy like Will Wight who’s writing picture-less manga.
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Oct 8, 2020 20:00
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Ooh, it's late in the year for the annual Heinlein argument. There's still Heinlein worth reading. The juveniles are all pretty solid reads. Lots of good short stories. It's worth picking up Starship Troopers. I'd say the Moon is a Harsh Mistress is too. Methuselah's Children is to, you just have not read anything else involving Lazarus Long.
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Oct 8, 2020 20:01
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Lots of very good books were written by shitheads, so enjoying them seems perfectly reasonable. If you've got a personal policy not to read anything by a bad person that's fine, but getting performatively offended that someone could recommend Heinlein is extremely tedious.
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Oct 8, 2020 20:02
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https://twitter.com/nkjemisin/status/1314284483131179008?s=20
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Oct 8, 2020 20:22
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Tias posted:Sooo I really enjoyed Old Man's War and Forever War, am a huge warhams 40k grog and couldn't get into Expanse or Culture. What should I read, new thread? Read the Murderbot books
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Oct 8, 2020 21:59
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Captain Monkey posted:Why do people suggest Heinlein in 2020? If you like John Scalzi and Joe Haldeman, both of them are basically writing Heinlein except without (as much) cringe, and he also said he was a WH40k fan, so he's probably fine with the cringe stuff as far as that goes. That said Heinlein is pretty cringey so it's a valid point to bring that up, sure.
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Oct 8, 2020 22:39
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Patrick Spens posted:Lots of very good books were written by shitheads, so enjoying them seems perfectly reasonable. If you've got a personal policy not to read anything by a bad person that's fine, but getting performatively offended that someone could recommend Heinlein is extremely tedious. You didn’t read a single word I wrote and it shows. It’s ok to like Heinlein, I just think there are way better authors out there, and I never got why he became famous. The only even tolerable book, to me, was Starship Troopers. And even that was just ok. Hieronymous Alloy posted:That said Heinlein is pretty cringey so it's a valid point to bring that up, sure. Yeah it’s just cringey writing. It’s fine to like but ‘like Heinlein without the bad parts’ is a very different thing than Heinlein’s harem manga writing style. I honestly don’t super know his politics which makes the ‘omg u jus dont like conservatives (or whatever)’ really silly. Dude just was not a great writer imo.
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Oct 8, 2020 23:35
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The Quantum Thief (Jean le Flambeur #1) by Hannu Rajaniemi - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004ULPVN6/ Pretty rare sale. Grab if interested.
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Oct 8, 2020 23:41
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Captain Monkey posted:You didn’t read a single word I wrote and it shows. I was replying to Cicero, not you.
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Oct 8, 2020 23:43
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That makes even less sense? Unless I misunderstood your meaning.
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Oct 9, 2020 00:53
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pradmer posted:The Quantum Thief (Jean le Flambeur #1) by Hannu Rajaniemi - $2.99 I enjoyed this book (and the series as a whole, though I felt each book was progressively weaker). Has anyone read his Summerland book? Is it any good?
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Oct 9, 2020 01:08
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Patrick Spens posted:I was replying to Cicero, not you. Cicero wasn’t—- never mind. I don’t think you’re posting in good faith after realizing you pulled a ‘Liberal Virtue Signaling!!’ Post as your first entry into the conversation.
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Oct 9, 2020 01:24
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Why are any of you continuing this?
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Oct 9, 2020 01:25
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Xenix posted:I enjoyed this book (and the series as a whole, though I felt each book was progressively weaker). Has anyone read his Summerland book? Is it any good? Summerland was quite good, basically a le carre Cold War spy thriller with talking to dead people
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Oct 9, 2020 04:35
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The new Naomi Novik book is great! It’s about kids at a deadly magical school, and I finished it the first day I got it. It manages to actually feel surprisingly uplifting/not at all depressing to read despite actually having a pretty dark setting. Kind of the feeling that even though a lot of bad things happen and the situation is basically bad, people are still basically good. Basically, I’d recommend reading it if any part of it seems at all up your alley or at least trying the sample chapter. It’s maybe my favorite of her books so far. E: Wikipedia article on the schools from folklore that the series title, Scholomancy, comes from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholomance?wprov=sfti1 (book is not at all 1-to-1 that, but you can see where some of the inspiration comes from) tildes fucked around with this message at 07:25 on Oct 9, 2020 |
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Oct 9, 2020 07:15
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I'm like 600 pages in to To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, which is to say, less than 2/3rds It's not terrible. It desperately wants to be Star Wars or Guardians of the Galaxy. The main character joins a ship that has a le epic pet pig for some reason. She has a bunch of really inorganic personal conversations to learn her shipmates' backgrounds. I think that's a pretty good indicator of the maturity level of the book, pg-13 as hell. Also, I don't know that the author has ever met a woman. AARD VARKMAN fucked around with this message at 11:58 on Oct 9, 2020 |
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Oct 9, 2020 11:55
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It was written by the Eragon kid, so that makes a lot of sense.
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Oct 9, 2020 12:48
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I've been thinking about Renraku Arcology lately, and other similar unfortunate incidents like that mess on Citadel Station. I read a (bad, IIRC) novel once where some folk were having a look around a brand new fully-automated AI skyscraper before its official opening, the kid installed Doom on it, and it turned evil and tried to kill all humans. Are there any good books out there covering similar ground? AI gone horribly wrong (possibly due to executive greed and capitalism) in an arcology or other large, sealed environment, but not like a regular ship or space ship or something unless it's super huge. HAL doesn't quite count.
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Oct 9, 2020 13:25
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tildes posted:The new Naomi Novik book is great! It’s about kids at a deadly magical school, and I finished it the first day I got it. It manages to actually feel surprisingly uplifting/not at all depressing to read despite actually having a pretty dark setting. Kind of the feeling that even though a lot of bad things happen and the situation is basically bad, people are still basically good. I think Uprooted is still my fave, but it was indeed an excellent novel that I really enjoyed. TheAardvark posted:I'm like 600 pages in to To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, which is to say, less than 2/3rds Yeah, I finished it last week. Doesn't get any better. Extremely predictable politics from a rich kid whose parents set him up as a teen.
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Oct 9, 2020 14:50
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TheAardvark posted:I think that's a pretty good indicator of the maturity level of the book, pg-13 as hell. Also, I don't know that the author has ever met a woman. Apparently the dude just got engaged, even  https://twitter.com/paolini/status/1275569217321029634 'And yes, there were capes involved. And a drinking horn. And some Skyrim music. And a modified Klingon ceremony.' 
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Oct 9, 2020 15:48
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Man that ring is uggo. And I say this as someone with an unconventional wedding ring. Props for the "modified Klingon ceremony" though. I assume it doesn't mean his groomsmen attacked him and his wife with big sticks after they were pronounced man and wife.
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Oct 9, 2020 16:02
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMBylNJQEbg
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Oct 9, 2020 16:46
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ready player two
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Oct 9, 2020 16:47
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Jade City (Green Bone Saga #1) by Fonda Lee - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XRCBRX8/ Changing Planes by Ursula K Le Guin - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IWTRB4E/ The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J5X5LVQ/
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Oct 9, 2020 22:32
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feedmegin posted:Apparently the dude just got engaged, even The only man having a good 2020.
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Oct 9, 2020 23:17
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90s Cringe Rock posted:ready It's just 'Ready Player One' with the One crossed out and replaced with a Two quote:
Cline's response to Armada getting a meh response being to just rewrite book one is pretty unsurprising.
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Oct 10, 2020 11:01
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90s Cringe Rock posted:I've been thinking about Renraku Arcology lately, and other similar unfortunate incidents like that mess on Citadel Station. I read a (bad, IIRC) novel once where some folk were having a look around a brand new fully-automated AI skyscraper before its official opening, the kid installed Doom on it, and it turned evil and tried to kill all humans. Sarah Zettel's Fool's War has a bunch of this, and some other interesting stuff as well. The setting is a tramp freighter that carries information, not goods. It's owned in a timeshare arrangement by a shady trader dude and a Muslim woman. We follow her crew on a legit transfer, but something might have survived reformatting the ship's storage arrays after the shady dude's last run. The worst case scenario is it's a rogue AI; these occur naturally and are extinction-level events for some of the colonies they happen to - the birth of an AI looks like serious system glitches to the human operators, and their attempts to stabilize critical infrastructure look like murder to the nascent AI. Skynet doesn't have to nuke you if it controls the air.
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Oct 10, 2020 13:42
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tildes posted:The new Naomi Novik book is great! It’s about kids at a deadly magical school, and I finished it the first day I got it. It manages to actually feel surprisingly uplifting/not at all depressing to read despite actually having a pretty dark setting. Kind of the feeling that even though a lot of bad things happen and the situation is basically bad, people are still basically good. It really strongly reminded me of the earlier portions of Gideon the Ninth. I picked it up a couple of hours ago on the basis of this recommendation and I'll be keeping an eye out for the sequel.
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Oct 10, 2020 14:42
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