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Horizon Burning posted:Even however many years on, Twilight has left horrible psychic wounds on sci-fi nerds It was more all the 90s/2000s edgy nu-metal vampire stuff. I pretty much ignored twilight.
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Dec 5, 2020 03:28
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Off topic, but does anyone have recommendations for viking stuff that is neither tremendously problematic nor historical fiction? Mostly looking for sci-fi or fantasy with either literal vikings or a direct adaptation of the pop culture or historical feel of 600-1000AD people of that part of Europe and Iceland. Most of what I've found is the (good) adaptations by people like Cornwell, Warhammer 40k stuff, or super fash.
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Dec 5, 2020 04:09
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Horizon Burning posted:Even however many years on, Twilight has left horrible psychic wounds on sci-fi nerds Oh young one, there were lovely vampires in popculture way before 2005. For me it was when a bunch of my highschool friends insisted on being addressed by their vampire names after playing too much masquerade https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire:_The_Masquerade For an earlier generation Anne Rice and sexy old lestat would have done it.
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Dec 5, 2020 04:12
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Silly Newbie posted:Off topic, but does anyone have recommendations for viking stuff that is neither tremendously problematic nor historical fiction? It's been too long since I read it to feel comfortable asserting that it's not tremendously problematic, but The Hammer and the Cross by Harry Harrison may be a good start. Also Guy Gavriel Kay's Last Light of the Sun.
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Dec 5, 2020 04:15
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Silly Newbie posted:Off topic, but does anyone have recommendations for viking stuff that is neither tremendously problematic nor historical fiction? There's Pierce Browns red rising series which is a campy violent space opera ya about a society split genetically where the rulers are vaguely neo classical and use a slave warrior caste who live on the poles of planets in a constructed Norse society. David drake's northworld series has a bit, with a techobarbarism thing. Starfishes series by Glen Cook is loosely based on Norse mythology except for the last one which is das boot in space
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Dec 5, 2020 04:20
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Crashbee posted:The implausibility of the vampires kinda spoiled the book for me too. I mean, in the real world just making potatoes more resistant to disease is super controversial, but you're telling me someone decided to create a race of creepy super-smart monsters that feed on humans and terrify everyone? No-one would think that's a good idea. It's not like there's even any twists, it ends exactly the way you'd think.  If becoming a human-eating monster is a side-effect of living longer, getting super smart and super strong then you'd have literally every billionaire in the world funding that research while also preparing their human farms because they would think it's a good idea for themselves and the damage it does to the masses would be irrelevant. Profit and self-enrichment are the only things that matter for those kinds of people. And it's not like we haven't already had a billionaire who was funding research in to how to use the blood of young people to extend his own life.
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Dec 5, 2020 04:30
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Oh, you can't turn yourself into a vampire. You can only sequence the genome of enough of the human species to find all the left-over recessive genes from our vampire ancestors, and then combine all of them together in engineered zygotes.
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Dec 5, 2020 04:52
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Silly Newbie posted:Off topic, but does anyone have recommendations for viking stuff that is neither tremendously problematic nor historical fiction? American Gods by Neil Gaiman. Old gods living in modern America. Not quite what you asked for but so good that I'm recommending it anyway.
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Dec 5, 2020 08:49
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pseudorandom name posted:I know, right? resurrecting the vampires would be like ignoring a pandemic in order to maximize the value of your stock portfolio. That's way too passive, it's more like a company deliberately re-creating a disease, giving a vial of it to each of its employees, then being surprised when they all die and the company collapses. Urcher posted:American Gods by Neil Gaiman. Old gods living in modern America. Not quite what you asked for but so good that I'm recommending it anyway. Neil Gaiman also wrote Norse Mythology, a whole book retelling the Norse myths.
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Dec 5, 2020 09:03
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Silly Newbie posted:Off topic, but does anyone have recommendations for viking stuff that is neither tremendously problematic nor historical fiction? Tom Holt wrote 2 or 3 Viking stories
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Dec 5, 2020 10:00
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How to train your dragon. Seriously. I don't know, asking for dark age Scandinavian culture without the nasty poo poo they based their identity on is like asking for Rome without slaves, fascism and snobbery. Though I'm sure there is a ya author out there who has tried. Or perhaps I am misunderstanding what you mean by tremendously problematic? I always thought that was the point of the glorification of these happily dead cultures. Like if someone goes on about the virtues of spata it is a massive red flag that they are a rightwing shitbird.
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Dec 5, 2020 10:17
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loving Icelandic sagas, man. Go straight to the source. Njál's saga is especially awesome/hilarious, make sure to get a modern translation (older translations tend to leave out the racier bits).
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Dec 5, 2020 11:06
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Collateral posted:How to train your dragon. Seriously. Yeah I'm guessing they meant the stuff written by (overt or not) white supremacists and neo nazis and that sort of thing, more than works that just include violence. For an actual suggestion though: Beowulf if you haven't already read it. The recent Maria Headley translation is fun (if sometimes a little goofy) but there's always the more 'traditional' translations too.
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Dec 5, 2020 11:52
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Evil Fluffy posted:
This is even explicit in Blindsight - the only way to get by or get a job is to undergo extensive bio/cyber augmentation to keep up with other transhumans, and all the characters are right on the edge of not being properly human anymore. Echopraxia is kind of a mess, but I love that it leans even further into the idea of transhumanism as neo-Lovecraft. Humanity is an irrelevance, all the future-society is run by unfathomable AIs and eldritch horrors that we built ourselves.
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Dec 5, 2020 13:39
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Lemniscate Blue posted:It's been too long since I read it to feel comfortable asserting that it's not tremendously problematic, but The Hammer and the Cross by Harry Harrison may be a good start. Well it's definitely not tainted by the fash but unfortunately it is kind of dumb. All the good-guy main characters think in impossibly modern ways. Like 20th century college students. Monotheism is bad, polytheism is better (and the Norse gods are basically a D&D pantheon with specialty priests and all) but atheism is best. (I happen to broadly agree with that but I don't buy a bunch of 9th century anglo-saxon peasants and/or escaped harem concubines thinking themselves into it.) Groke fucked around with this message at 14:01 on Dec 5, 2020 |
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Dec 5, 2020 13:58
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Silly Newbie posted:Off topic, but does anyone have recommendations for viking stuff that is neither tremendously problematic nor historical fiction? I've not read it, but it's my impression that The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson would fit this well.
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Dec 5, 2020 17:17
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Ben Nevis posted:I've not read it, but it's my impression that The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson would fit this well. Rules, but is obviously historical fiction.
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Dec 5, 2020 17:49
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On a somewhat different note, are there any good series involving the first steps of humanity beyond the Solar System? Most sci-fi universes involve aliens coming to us, or else are set long in the future. I'm looking for series that begin with "Earth's first FTL starship" or "the first extra-solar colony". Ideally not an established universe.
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Dec 5, 2020 18:03
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Silly Newbie posted:Off topic, but does anyone have recommendations for viking stuff that is neither tremendously problematic nor historical fiction? Northworld by David Drake is a retelling of the Eddas in power armor. Keepers of the Hidden Ways by Joel Rosenberg takes place mostly in a Viking/Norse inspired fantasy portal-world
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Dec 5, 2020 18:06
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Following up on my viking question without trying to go back and quote everyone on mobile: Re: problematics - on topic violence and characters being bad people is fine, I just refuse to deal with or patronize master race fantasy bullshit or meaningless in depth sexual violence. Guy Gavriel Kay, Harry Harrison, related stuff - been through that, the Kay stuff in particular was amazing. I started with his not-vikings and went through the rest of his not-europe stuff, it's well put together and fun. American Gods and Gaiman's Norse Mythology is really what kicked off the whole fascination. Did Beowulf back in the day, might try to tackle that again if there's a new and better translation than Heeney, which there must be. Also read Eaters of the Dead and didn't hate it. I've done a bit of the sagas for research and translation purposes, but I think I'd be down to read a modern translation if anyone has a specific one to recommend. I'll totally check out the Pierce Brown and Glenn Cook stuff, I enjoyed Cook's writing enough that I made it all the way through Black Company this year. Edit - the Drake and Rosenberg stuff sounds up my alley too, I'll check that out.
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Dec 5, 2020 18:17
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Gnoman posted:On a somewhat different note, are there any good series involving the first steps of humanity beyond the Solar System? Most sci-fi universes involve aliens coming to us, or else are set long in the future. I'm looking for series that begin with "Earth's first FTL starship" or "the first extra-solar colony". It's a standalone and not a series, but I think Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson might kind of fit this.
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Dec 5, 2020 19:02
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Ashes of the Sun (Burningblade & Silvereye #1) by Django Wexler - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZZ25BCX/
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Dec 5, 2020 19:12
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Crashbee posted:Neil Gaiman also wrote Norse Mythology, a whole book retelling the Norse myths. You mean he copy pasted/translated Scandinavian Viking literature. There is zero original content in that one. I literally grew up reading the exact same stories as they are a part of what constitutes basic Swedish literature. That book was the final straw for me with regards to Gaiman cause it was such an obvious cash grab. There is not even a gaimanesque twist like in American gods.
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Dec 5, 2020 19:44
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Gnoman posted:On a somewhat different note, are there any good series involving the first steps of humanity beyond the Solar System? Most sci-fi universes involve aliens coming to us, or else are set long in the future. I'm looking for series that begin with "Earth's first FTL starship" or "the first extra-solar colony". The Coyote series by Allen Steele does a pretty good job of this. It's got some weird politics, but it's very much about the first colony developing in its own way despite interference from Earth. Larry Niven's Known Space series is very much about this, the stories span the settling of much of the solar system and the STL colonization efforts. He doesn't get stupidly horny until Ringworld, the bulk of the series is just him playing with science in space.
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Dec 5, 2020 19:51
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There is a recent new Beowulf translation. It's actually pretty good. no, seriously.
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Dec 5, 2020 20:36
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Well, it's entertaining, but good is going to be a matter of some debate.
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Dec 5, 2020 21:06
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As for quasi-historical fantasy, I'm pretty sure Turtledove had some Viking-analogues in his Videssos series. And surely there must be some time travel stories involving Vikings?
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Dec 5, 2020 21:31
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Cardiac posted:You mean he copy pasted/translated Scandinavian Viking literature. There is zero original content in that one. I literally grew up reading the exact same stories as they are a part of what constitutes basic Swedish literature. He wanted to bring those classic stories to an English speaking audience that largely had not, in fact, grown up with them. At no point did he claim that it was anything besides that. 
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Dec 6, 2020 00:06
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Groke posted:As for quasi-historical fantasy, I'm pretty sure Turtledove had some Viking-analogues in his Videssos series. Yeah but Turtledove though  jng2058 posted:He wanted to bring those classic stories to an English speaking audience that largely had not, in fact, grown up with them. At no point did he claim that it was anything besides that. That was my take on it - it was classic myths presented to a modern western audience in a way they hadn't seen before, which made the stories accessible all over again. I'm all about accessibility to the degree that I probably wrote off any attempt at authorial ownership to a publicist banking on the name, rather than Gaiman trying to say "I made this". I'll give him benefit of the doubt there, because he didn't adulterate or Gaiman-ize the work, just presented it. Silly Newbie fucked around with this message at 01:15 on Dec 6, 2020 |
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Dec 6, 2020 01:12
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Not Vikings, but Gene Wolfe’s Wizard/Knight duology has some cultural inspiration for the mythological underpinnings. Also going back Dave Duncan’s A Man of His Word series has one of the many sub races/ethnicities of humanity named after Jotuns but behaving like Vikings. The main character is half Jotun and this has consequences. I wonder how that series stands up today. Duncan seems largely forgotten despite all his output over a couple of decades.
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Dec 6, 2020 02:17
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navyjack posted:Northworld by David Drake is a retelling of the Eddas in power armor. I really have come to the conclusion that "X Retold As Scifi" is the worst thing ever.
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Dec 6, 2020 02:20
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90s Cringe Rock posted:There is a recent new Beowulf translation. It's actually pretty good. From the excerpts I have seen, it IS a quite good translation. Only reason I haven't taken the plunge is I'm irrationally annoyed by the reviews and press copy being like "This is a feminist version of Beowulf, and unlike other translations doesn't leave out that masculinity of the era was about exerting your will and maybe killing stuff, and maybe Grendel's mom was totally justified in being pissed that some guy killed her child?" And I think "...All of that was present in the other translations, though? I'm not even sure how you'd gloss over it tbh, not sure how it's feminist" and I'm so bugged by it that I haven't bought it yet. Like, maybe it's feminist for other, cool reasons, and the stuff I read was doing weird conflation? Heck if I know.
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Dec 6, 2020 02:39
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Gnoman posted:On a somewhat different note, are there any good series involving the first steps of humanity beyond the Solar System? Most sci-fi universes involve aliens coming to us, or else are set long in the future. I'm looking for series that begin with "Earth's first FTL starship" or "the first extra-solar colony". The Expanse books use some alien deus ex machina to start it, but it's forgivable both because it takes a while to get there, and has plenty of Earth/Mars/Belter tension to play with, and because the holy poo poo extrasolar gold rush is something that SF oddly doesn't seem to take on too much.
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Dec 6, 2020 04:52
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Silly Newbie posted:That was my take on it - it was classic myths presented to a modern western audience in a way they hadn't seen before, which made the stories accessible all over again. I'm all about accessibility to the degree that I probably wrote off any attempt at authorial ownership to a publicist banking on the name, rather than Gaiman trying to say "I made this". I'll give him benefit of the doubt there, because he didn't adulterate or Gaiman-ize the work, just presented it. There was nothing new in the presentation, which is one of the many reasons I disliked it. A twist in the myths would at least be interesting. Also thanks for calling Sweden a non modern western country  .There are obviously English translations of this from long before gaiman did it, which basically translates the whole thing to “ famous author repeated known mythology as book to cash in, while hoping his audience wouldn’t know better”. I have always seen fantasy and fairytales/religious mythology to be the same thing and reading mythology is often basic background for modern fantasy.
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Dec 6, 2020 06:36
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Cardiac posted:I literally grew up reading the exact same stories as they are a part of what constitutes basic Swedish literature. This is the issue, they may be something you're very familiar with but I didn't grow up with them in the UK, and I'm sure there are plenty of people in other countries who have only read these myths because Gaiman's name was attached. I mean, if you're from Sweden I wouldn't expect you to be familiar with say English or Irish mythology either. Plus I remember reading an interview with Gaiman about the Sandman and how he'd originally intended to write a more sophisticated story about Orpheus, but found almost no-one actually knew who he was so ended up mostly just re-telling the original myth. Surely increasing awareness of these stories can only be a good thing. Crashbee fucked around with this message at 07:35 on Dec 6, 2020 |
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Dec 6, 2020 07:20
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navyjack posted:Northworld by David Drake is a retelling of the Eddas in power armor. I really loved Rosenberg's Guardians of the Flames series as a teenager and I keep meaning to a) read it again to see if it holds up, and b) check out his other stuff. Apparently he wrote a space opera series about a mercenary company but it's out of print and rare enough to be pretty expensive on Abebooks. edit - actually I just remembered I read his standalone fantasy-murder-mystery novel D'Shai a couple of years ago, and it was... fine. freebooter fucked around with this message at 07:37 on Dec 6, 2020 |
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Dec 6, 2020 07:35
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freebooter posted:I really loved Rosenberg's Guardians of the Flames series as a teenager and I keep meaning to a) read it again to see if it holds up, and b) check out his other stuff. Apparently he wrote a space opera series about a mercenary company but it's out of print and rare enough to be pretty expensive on Abebooks. I liked D'Shai better than the first GotF book. I was put off by the rapes and didn't bother with the rest of the series. But D'Shai had some interesting worldbuilding. The sequel wasn't as good.
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Dec 6, 2020 07:52
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Finished SFL Archives 1989, it was huge. My favorite thing for 1989 was the person who built an incredibly detailed A-Z index for the 4-book Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series(5th HHGttG book didn't exist yet), realizing exactly why the SFWA white knight SFL person is/was so servile & fawning over authors; especially author-editors (SFWA white knight ran a fanzine and got off on being a bargain basement version of Brian Aldiss), SFLer's swearing franchised SF universes like Robot City & Roger Zelazny's "Clypsis" series would still be getting published & discussed 20 years in the future, and BABYLON 5 the tv series being a thing J. Michael Straczynski was already working on/pitching to television networks in late 1989. If people in this thread enjoyed John Brunner's STAND ON ZANZIBAR, the 1989 SFL people think you might want to check out John Dos Passos very ancient 1930's trilogy "USA". Also if you are a book collector, the very first edition of Walter Jon Williams ANGEL STATION might be worth something.....TOR Books utterly hosed up the print run for it & did a rare 100% free total recall & replace on it because of non-existent quality control.
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Dec 6, 2020 08:25
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freebooter posted:I really loved Rosenberg's Guardians of the Flames series as a teenager and I keep meaning to a) read it again to see if it holds up, and b) check out his other stuff. Apparently he wrote a space opera series about a mercenary company but it's out of print and rare enough to be pretty expensive on Abebooks. I don't remember if you use a Kindle but some of the mercenary books are on the us Amazon Kindle site
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Dec 6, 2020 10:22
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quantumfoam posted:Finished SFL Archives 1989, it was huge. The whole thing about Diane Duane having a impersonator is wild and there's a little more information on her website, at one point both the FBI and USAF counter-intelligence got involved because the person had apparently tried to pose as a officer. https://www.dianeduane.com/past-news-items/about-the-fake-diane-duane-a-warning/ It also reminded me that Youtube video person Jenny Nicholson had a random other woman impersonating her at a brony convention, though they apparently weren't writing bad checks for merch. https://twitter.com/JennyENicholson/status/1286110353139462144 https://twitter.com/JennyENicholson/status/1286110786499121152
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Dec 6, 2020 11:27
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