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Google the cover of Robert Heinlein's novel Friday. Stross loves reworking published Heinlein stories, so Saturn's Children having that Friday-esque cover is completely fitting. Heinlein's Puppet-master novel + public sourced HP Lovecraft mythos + the two main characters from Stross's Singularity Sky setting: Stross's The Laundry series Heinlein's I will fear no evil: Stross's Glasshouse
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Mar 31, 2021 03:20
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I remember picking up Friday when i was like 13 and reading the first few chapters about the cool hypercompetent spy protagonist getting kidnapped and repeatedly raped and it put me off Heinlein forever so it kinda deserves the cover imo
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Mar 31, 2021 03:23
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Ccs posted:Haha it’s organized differently than the cryptarchs who actually have an incentive for remaining part... Also, it’s the closest I’ve ever found to an anti-war fantasy novel series.
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Mar 31, 2021 03:27
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StashAugustine posted:I remember picking up Friday when i was like 13 and reading the first few chapters about the cool hypercompetent spy protagonist getting kidnapped and repeatedly raped and it put me off Heinlein forever so it kinda deserves the cover imo I had already read too much Heinlein by the time I got to Friday, so the stuff that should have put me off too just slid right past with a "well, that happened". My dad was a super Heinlein fan and looking back I wonder what the gently caress he was thinking letting me read some of that poo poo at that age.
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Mar 31, 2021 03:47
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HampHamp posted:I just finished Aurora. I'm not sure how much of this is due to me having worked night shift for the last few months, but it wrecked me. A 40 year old man sitting in the canteen at work at 2am on the verge of tears, and not even sure why exactly. Same. I listened to the audiobook of Aurora and I was wrecked by the end. I don't think I can pick up another Kim Stanley Robinson novel.
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Mar 31, 2021 03:48
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cptn_dr posted:I think Traitor is basically perfect, one of the most tightly-written fantasy novels I've ever read, and the sequels are a lot messier/more challenging and ambitious, but ultimately I think they're books I like more, even if they're not quite as "perfect", if that makes sense. I'm sure this has been talked about before, but I'm curious where people place Baru on the speculative fiction axes. I've only read Traitor so far, and to me it seems like alt-historical-dystopian fiction with no (?) fantastical elements whatsoever, but I'm pretty certain I found it under the fantasy heading.
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Mar 31, 2021 04:29
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I was actually wondering how much economic vetting went into the Baru Cormorant books, whether any beta-readers were economics majors and so forth. I ask because I recently convinced a friend who is a CFA to read the first one and he enjoyed it and thought the economics made sense. A CFA is really drat hard thing to get, and he has that on top of a degree in operations research/financial engineering. Yet the goodreads reviews are scattered with people claiming that none of the economics makes sense, the author must not have taken an accounting class, etc. It pissed me off, I want to shake those people and go “how do you think books are written? Do you think no research gets done? That experts aren’t consulted?!” Since it’s a fantasy book though I guess I can’t assume experts were consulted, since it’s not like it’s being published to influence public policy or something. But since it could pass muster with a CFA I figured an economist probably took a look at a draft to confirm that nothing was outside the realm of fiscal possibility.
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Mar 31, 2021 04:59
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Happiness Commando posted:I'm sure this has been talked about before, but I'm curious where people place Baru on the speculative fiction axes. I've only read Traitor so far, and to me it seems like alt-historical-dystopian fiction with no (?) fantastical elements whatsoever, but I'm pretty certain I found it under the fantasy heading. Yeah they are perfectly under the ‘grim dark’ aka somewhat real KJ Parker / Abercrombie axis. This is a genre that’s new to me but is resonating hard due to the ‘alt-historical’ aspect, I mean for crissake cocaine as magic powder and banking or coal-powered factories as satanic nightmare fuel both ring pretty true. As does my favorite non-Gibson/Pynchon opening line: quote:“To Saevus Andrapodiza, all human life had value. This revelation came to him in a moment of transcendent clarity as he looked out from the summit of Mount Doson over the fertile arable plains of Cors Shenei in central Permia. Every man, woman and child, regardless of age, ability, nationality, religion, sexual orientation or social class was valuable and must be treated as such. His task, he realised, was finding someone to buy them all.”
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Mar 31, 2021 05:02
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Ccs posted:I was actually wondering how much economic vetting went into the Baru Cormorant books, whether any beta-readers were economics majors and so forth. I ask because I recently convinced a friend who is a CFA to read the first one and he enjoyed it and thought the economics made sense. A CFA is really drat hard thing to get, and he has that on top of a degree in operations research/financial engineering. Yet the goodreads reviews are scattered with people claiming that none of the economics makes sense, the author must not have taken an accounting class, etc. It pissed me off, I want to shake those people and go “how do you think books are written? Do you think no research gets done? That experts aren’t consulted?!” Since it’s a fantasy book though I guess I can’t assume experts were consulted, since it’s not like it’s being published to influence public policy or something. But since it could pass muster with a CFA I figured an economist probably took a look at a draft to confirm that nothing was outside the realm of fiscal possibility. I think nobody knows how economics works. But at the same time the book is an intentionally super simplified game economy, I wanted it to feel tangible, like a game of Dominion or a nice crispy eurogame where you move your little wooden guys around on a colorful board and generate resources. Baru starts out doing a Duke rush then moves into a bunch of really annoying hand size attacks and finally trashes cards to get a Province. no econ experts though I just made everything up
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Mar 31, 2021 05:11
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Ccs posted:I was actually wondering how much economic vetting went into the Baru Cormorant books... Lemniscate Blue posted:My dad was a super Heinlein fan and looking back I wonder what the gently caress he was thinking letting me read some of that poo poo at that age. Edit: Battuta you’re cool.
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Mar 31, 2021 05:24
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Just finished Revival by Stephen King at the thread’s suggestion. Pretty decent.
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Mar 31, 2021 07:06
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Remulak posted:Yeah, I remember some parts of Friday clearly despite reading it at I dunno 12 but not any rape(s). I do remember WTFing about Sixth Column and the ray that only kills uh ‘Asiatics’. And how long-haired boys and short-haired girls will be treated the same way. And now I’m remembering a bunch of other related fiction that would have me and my family shoveled into ovens if the ray didn’t work, so gently caress Heinlein, Pournelle, Campbell, and a bunch a related cocksuckers. Also gently caress Asimov for the way he groped women, and Ellison for laughing about it, and this hobby sucks and I remember why I stopped reading this. There were two Heinlein books in my local library when I was a kid and hunting for all the SF I could find: For Us The Living, and The Day After Tomorrow (aka Sixth Column). I read them both and never bothered with Heinlein again. Besides all the yellow peril racism, the thing I remember most about SC is the one coward scientist in the rebel base, who constantly hints he's about to sabotage everything. And then he tries it, so they shoot him, and it all takes about half a page and doesn't interrupt the plot or change anything at all. Even as a 12 year old SF fan I laughed at how poorly written this was. rollick fucked around with this message at 12:16 on Mar 31, 2021 |
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Mar 31, 2021 12:13
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Happiness Commando posted:I'm sure this has been talked about before, but I'm curious where people place Baru on the speculative fiction axes. I've only read Traitor so far, and to me it seems like alt-historical-dystopian fiction with no (?) fantastical elements whatsoever, but I'm pretty certain I found it under the fantasy heading. really though the second and especially the third introduce some closer-to-explicitly fantastical elements but in general they're very grounded (trying to avoid spoilers here)
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Mar 31, 2021 12:16
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Aurora wrecked me too when I read it a few years ago. I may be remembering some things wrong, but what got me is IRL space exploration is generally viewed in an optimistic (maybe naive?) light, like it could help the future of mankind. Then in Aurora, space exploration sucks, humanity sucks, we're destroying the planet and we're not going to get off of it. Kind of the opposite of optimism. At least that's why it hosed me up.
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Mar 31, 2021 12:18
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A Proper Uppercut posted:Aurora wrecked me too when I read it a few years ago. I may be remembering some things wrong, but what got me is IRL space exploration is generally viewed in an optimistic (maybe naive?) light, like it could help the future of mankind. Then in Aurora, space exploration sucks, humanity sucks, we're destroying the planet and we're not going to get off of it. Kind of the opposite of optimism. At least that's why it hosed me up. Yeah, I feel this. Aurora is KSR throwing bricks made of mundane, reasonable-seeming cynicism through the stained glass window of science fiction and reading it felt exceptionally bad. My personal theory is he needed to do an emergency venting of his spleen after the news of Martian soil being essentially useless and infinitely costly to terraform shot the kneecaps right off all his work in the Martian trilogy. I think his performing a mental core dump maybe saved him though, since his books since seem to have a much more optimistic tone.
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Mar 31, 2021 12:27
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I disagree, it was that particular iteration of space travel that would be bound to fail. By the end of the book they have hibernation, so its no longer going to be intrepid explorers dooming their children to a precarious existence on a generation ship. The personal journey of the protagonist ends on a livable planet, something her ancestors denied her. Her mother spends her life fixing their ship decrying their decision to doom her to that existence. My read on it was the decisions of parents forcing their children into a lifestyle they are unsuited to, wrapped in a sf wrapper. KSR left lots of open ends wrt space travel and the human need to explore.
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Mar 31, 2021 12:38
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Collateral posted:I disagree, it was that particular iteration of space travel that would be bound to fail. By the end of the book they have hibernation, so its no longer going to be intrepid explorers dooming their children to a precarious existence on a generation ship. The personal journey of the protagonist ends on a livable planet, something her ancestors denied her. Her mother spends her life fixing their ship decrying their decision to doom her to that existence. I can see that, my general pessimism is probably coloring my thoughts on it.
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Mar 31, 2021 12:42
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I feel like part of what's at work in Aurora is an attack on a particular vision of space travel and exploration as a vector for endless human expansion without real human growth. While it's never laid out explicitly, I got the impression the ship was launched by basically a pack of Elon Musk-types looking to find more resources to exploit and worlds to damage. Part of the ending reads as an attack on that line of thinking: we have a beautiful world right here, if only we'd take care of it! But that would require giving up ideas about infinite economic growth. Present in the ending too is the notion of someone losing basically everything--their mom, their boyfriend, their life's (and their community's) purpose, their home--and still being able to find joy in being alive. I get that it's not a super-happy book but to me that's KSR's humanism and optimism shining right on through.
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Mar 31, 2021 12:51
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thotsky posted:it's difficult to be outraged that some stranger has bad taste. Excuse me!!?
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Mar 31, 2021 14:03
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Remulak posted:
Haha I just started Two of Sword Volume 3 yesterday and that is a great opening. The end of that section is a blistering indictment of how the market economy can lionize the slave trade: "Slave labor, however, would enable the empires to take thousands of men from the plough and the forge, freeing up whole regiments for service, while ensuring uninterrupted supply of equipment and material for the war effort from slave-staffed State arsenals. The simple inscription on the base of Saevus' statue reads: 'He saw the worth of every man. We shall not look upon his like again.' " A lot of Two of the Swords has been light compared to the usual Parker but when I read that I was like "ah, that's some classic Parker."
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Mar 31, 2021 14:15
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DACK FAYDEN posted:I spent twenty pages waiting for spaceshipts to arrive and I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one Once I hear something good recommended I try to avoid learning anything else about it for fear of spoilers. So before I read Baru I had somehow conflated it in my mind with a preview chapter I’d read for some space opera novel, and I was encountering nothing to turn me away from this expectation. It lasted for at least a chapter after I picked it up.
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Mar 31, 2021 14:34
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wizzardstaff posted:Once I hear something good recommended I try to avoid learning anything else about it for fear of spoilers. So before I read Baru I had somehow conflated it in my mind with a preview chapter I’d read for some space opera novel, and I was encountering nothing to turn me away from this expectation. It lasted for at least a chapter after I picked it up. The Guardian Baru Cormorant
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Mar 31, 2021 18:12
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I just finished Moxyland by Lauren Beukes. Less than 300 pages, it paints a really cool picture of a cyberpunk world.
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Mar 31, 2021 19:02
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HaitianDivorce posted:I feel like part of what's at work in Aurora is an attack on a particular vision of space travel and exploration as a vector for endless human expansion without real human growth. While it's never laid out explicitly, I got the impression the ship was launched by basically a pack of Elon Musk-types looking to find more resources to exploit and worlds to damage. Part of the ending reads as an attack on that line of thinking: we have a beautiful world right here, if only we'd take care of it! But that would require giving up ideas about infinite economic growth. This is almost exactly how I read it. I was extremely emotional at the very end but in a kind of weirdly cathartic way.
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Mar 31, 2021 21:50
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The Viscount and the Witch (Riyria Chronicles) by Michael J Sullivan - FREE https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005QOIHR8/
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Mar 31, 2021 22:14
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Anyone got a trip report on Stealing Thunder by Alina Boyden?pradmer posted:The Viscount and the Witch (Riyria Chronicles) by Michael J Sullivan - FREE !!!
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Mar 31, 2021 22:19
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HaitianDivorce posted:Present in the ending too is the notion of someone losing basically everything--their mom, their boyfriend, their life's (and their community's) purpose, their home--and still being able to find joy in being alive. I get that it's not a super-happy book but to me that's KSR's humanism and optimism shining right on through. Really good thoughts, yeah I can see that. Also finding peace, hope and value after a calamity is very on-brand for KSR and fits with his more current books.
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Apr 1, 2021 01:24
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wizzardstaff posted:Once I hear something good recommended I try to avoid learning anything else about it for fear of spoilers. So before I read Baru I had somehow conflated it in my mind with a preview chapter I’d read for some space opera novel, and I was encountering nothing to turn me away from this expectation. It lasted for at least a chapter after I picked it up. i also did exactly this, because I'd been reading about Baru here mixed with other SF chat.
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Apr 1, 2021 01:55
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I'm still angry, angry about Aurora. I will never forgive KSR for making the voice of the story and arguably the most interesting character in the book die offscreen with a 2 sentence obituary who no one mourns and it's never brought up again
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Apr 1, 2021 02:38
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Hello friends. I've recently picked up a bunch of older 1970s-1980s SCI-FI novels, and I think I would like to share reviews here, as I finish each one. Of course, I won't be doing a review of DUNE, or the Foundation series. DEMON is the 3rd book in a Trilogy. I've actually had the first book, TITAN, for a few years, and it's a wild ride. Maybe I'll stumble across the 2nd book WIZARD, one day, and finish the series. I just finished Proteus Manifest" by Charles Sheffield. Actually, I think this is 2 paperbacks as a hardback omnibus. This is a 1989 Book Club edition. First book was written 1978, 2nd one 1989. Blurb in front dustjacket sleeve: quote:If you could look like anyone --or anything-- you wanted to, who would you be? It says 22nd Century, but that just doesn't line up with some things. Pretty sure some of the year frames given at places, pushes it later, but it's not important. Earth Population is around 14 Billion. Doctors, as a profession, have been rendered obsolete by Form-Change tanks. It allows you to change, or regrow, various parts of your body. Plastic surgery, but it's all natural. It is an extremely popular, and well regulated, entertainment/lifestyle. Much like a ....LOT of sci-fi, it is pretty much a detective serial as it's driving force. You can change through all the varieties of the human form, and when you get bored of that, there are lots of ...others to choose from. Behrooz Wolf, or "Bey" as his friends call him, is the head of "The Office of Form-Control". He investigates things dealing with form-control, and hunts down illegal forms. I like that it is sort of hard-ish Sci-Fi, in that reshaping your body takes time and effort. You could spend weeks in a tank, for some of the more involved forms. It also has other costs. In the first few pages, he complains about the storage requirements for the new forms in the Spring Catalog. He says: quote:I already have a billion words of primary storage, and I couldn't even begin to handle it. Four billion words, or you shouldn't even think of ordering it This goon in SH/SC was kind enough to translate: admiraldennis posted:In x86 land, a "word" is still defined as 16 bits with 32 being a "double word" (dword) and 64 being a "quadruple word" (qword). Thank you, Admiral Dennis! So, Bey has 2 GB of primary storage right now, but the new forms require, at least, 8 GB of storage. All in all, a decent set of stories, with no real complaints. No racism, or anything that would be objectionable today. Typical Detective drama. First story is actually fairly low stakes. Investigate thing, dig deeper, uncover thing, then spend time hunting down person. 6.5/10. Probably not something I would read again, but it was different. Would recommend a read, if you came across a copy.
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Apr 1, 2021 21:27
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Johnny Aztec posted:Hello friends. I've recently picked up a bunch of older 1970s-1980s SCI-FI novels, and I think I would like to share reviews here, as I finish each one. Those are nice covers on the Foundations!
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Apr 1, 2021 22:08
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i love seeing the ancient book haul posts. some of those books have been travelling the world for decades and now they're there with you.
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Apr 1, 2021 22:14
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I just got the last David Mace book I haven't read in the mail today. Bittersweet to think there's no more 
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Apr 1, 2021 22:16
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Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JCRXBSU/ One of the IKEA horror books recently discussed. The Night Watch Collection (Night Watch, Day Watch, and Twilight Watch) by Sergei Lukyanenko - $3.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00I2PH5QC/ The Novice (Black Magician #2) by Trudi Canavan - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000MAH7C2/ Harmony Black series 1-4 by Craig Schaefer - $0.99 each Harmony Black - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZX99WCA/ Red Knight Falling - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017RBIZJ2/ Glass Predator - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LZ2HO4W/ Cold Spectrum - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XRP6ZL6/
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Apr 1, 2021 22:56
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Gats Akimbo posted:Those are nice covers on the Foundations! 1952 editions. 
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Apr 1, 2021 23:13
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quantumfoam posted:Google the cover of Robert Heinlein's novel Friday. Stross loves reworking published Heinlein stories, so Saturn's Children having that Friday-esque cover is completely fitting. was Puppet-masters the one where everyone becomes nudists to demonstrate they don't have an alien parasite on them? or did I hallucinate that.
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Apr 1, 2021 23:27
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HaitianDivorce posted:I feel like part of what's at work in Aurora is an attack on a particular vision of space travel and exploration as a vector for endless human expansion without real human growth. While it's never laid out explicitly, I got the impression the ship was launched by basically a pack of Elon Musk-types looking to find more resources to exploit and worlds to damage. Part of the ending reads as an attack on that line of thinking: we have a beautiful world right here, if only we'd take care of it! But that would require giving up ideas about infinite economic growth. This is the right take, except I'd go easier on the spaceship-launchers than chalking them up as Elon Musk types, and I don't think it's at all clear that the Earth of 2200-ish when the ship is launched (or the Earth they return to centuries later which is still launching generation ships) is still capitalist or exploitative. I think the manifest destiny attitude of human space colonisation is super widespread in science fiction and science fiction fans, to the point of almost being an orthodoxy, and it's not necessarily a cynical attitude, or one with any ulterior motives. A thriving galaxy of a billion human-settled worlds, hey, what's not to like! But in Aurora KSR is looking at that and basically saying: why? What are we hoping to gain from that? What are we looking for that we can't already find right here? (That's made quite explicit with the Greek poem they keep quoting towards the end.) And that only feels pessimistic because it challenges something we as science fiction readers take for granted: that a star-spanning empire is good in and of itself. Bhodi posted:I'm still angry, angry about Aurora. I will never forgive KSR for making the voice of the story and arguably the most interesting character in the book die offscreen with a 2 sentence obituary who no one mourns and it's never brought up again The ship "dies" literally mid-sentence in a first-person POV, I don't know how much more its death could be on-screen! Its final monologue in which it talks about how it finally found and fulfilled its purpose ("Meaning is the hard problem") and how proud it is of having safely borne its humans home, right before being destroyed by the sun, is easily the most emotionally moving passage KSR has ever written.
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Apr 1, 2021 23:52
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freebooter posted:This is the right take, except I'd go easier on the spaceship-launchers than chalking them up as Elon Musk types, and I don't think it's at all clear that the Earth of 2200-ish when the ship is launched (or the Earth they return to centuries later which is still launching generation ships) is still capitalist or exploitative. That's a much sharper take on that element, thank you. Challenging that idea of manifest destiny was probably one of my favorite parts of the book. quote:The ship "dies" literally mid-sentence in a first-person POV, I don't know how much more its death could be on-screen! Its final monologue in which it talks about how it finally found and fulfilled its purpose ("Meaning is the hard problem") and how proud it is of having safely borne its humans home, right before being destroyed by the sun, is easily the most emotionally moving passage KSR has ever written. It's not nearly as climactic a moment, but the passage in Ministry for the Future where I feel like he wrote in second person? about how God and meaning might not exist, but joy definitely does made me put the book down for a bit.
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Apr 2, 2021 04:21
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pradmer posted:The Viscount and the Witch (Riyria Chronicles) by Michael J Sullivan - FREE The Riyria series was good so this being free is cool.
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Apr 2, 2021 05:27
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pradmer posted:Harmony Black series 1-4 by Craig Schaefer - $0.99 each
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Apr 2, 2021 12:25
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