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I was feeling the need to read something sci-fi, something that's a longer series, that doesn't have a nihilistic bend like so much of modern stuff. Slight preference for space opera, maybe with a hint of spirituality, or at least something besides pure logic super atheism. I have a couple ideas, but I was thinking something a bit more modern if it exists. I feel like most modern sci-fi is super hard super nihilistic or fun but incredibly lovely series.
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Jan 4, 2022 02:02
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Hiro Protagonist posted:I was feeling the need to read something sci-fi, something that's a longer series, that doesn't have a nihilistic bend like so much of modern stuff. Slight preference for space opera, maybe with a hint of spirituality, or at least something besides pure logic super atheism. I have a couple ideas, but I was thinking something a bit more modern if it exists. I feel like most modern sci-fi is super hard super nihilistic or fun but incredibly lovely series. Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga doesn't have any magic in it, but includes Space Adventure For Boys to Romance to Heist and Comedy of Manners. Follows interesting and likable characters, stakes are somewhere between multiplanetary empires and dinner parties. Can pick up most of them as omnibus collections for reasonable. Man...pretty much everything else I've read and liked has been kinda nihilistic.
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Jan 4, 2022 02:07
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The best SF in the past five years is the Murderbot series by Martha Wells.
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Jan 4, 2022 02:26
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I've started Vorkosigan, it hasn't sunk it's claws into me yet. Not 100% sold, but I might read more. Murderbot is weird. I found the main character very annoying in the first novella, but maybe it gets better? Like, the main character felt very twee or cutsie, if you get what I mean. It felt like a robot programmed by early 2010s tumblr.
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Jan 4, 2022 02:32
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Hiro Protagonist posted:I was feeling the need to read something sci-fi, something that's a longer series, that doesn't have a nihilistic bend like so much of modern stuff. Slight preference for space opera, maybe with a hint of spirituality, or at least something besides pure logic super atheism. I have a couple ideas, but I was thinking something a bit more modern if it exists. I feel like most modern sci-fi is super hard super nihilistic or fun but incredibly lovely series. Murderbot is great but not long; I would second the Vorkosigan saga as pretty ideal although not very spiritual. Banks’s Culture books aren’t nihilistic imo. Nor are the ancillary Justice series but there are only 3 of those. I assume you are considering Dune and/or Hyperion.
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Jan 4, 2022 02:32
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Hiro Protagonist posted:I've started Vorkosigan, it hasn't sunk it's claws into me yet. Not 100% sold, but I might read more. Murderbot is weird. I found the main character very annoying in the first novella, but maybe it gets better? Like, the main character felt very twee or cutsie, if you get what I mean. It felt like a robot programmed by early 2010s tumblr. Which Vorkosigan did you start with. If you got the Shards/Barrayar omnibus you could just skip to Barrayar and start there.
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Jan 4, 2022 02:33
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I think I may be in the minority, especially on the forums, as someone who doesn't think Murderbot is all that great. The title character does get a little less twee and annoying but always stays neurotic and antisocial in a way that feels intended to be endearing or funny, but doesn't always land for me. Also for how short the novellas are, I feel like all of them drag a bit, and Network Effect just didn't work as a novel-length imo. It was way too meandering. I don't know if I'll ever reread the books but if I do I'd skip Network Effect every time. That said I have read them all except Fugitive Telemetry, so it's not like I hate them. I'm gonna take the very bold stance of saying they are Just Fine, but that they get pretty oversold, especially here.
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Jan 4, 2022 02:40
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I read Shards, I need to go to Barryar. I know it's the one that sets you on the series, but I wanted a break to read other stuff. I should just read it, it been a couple months. Culture is interesting to me, I guess I've been a bit skeptical of it, just based on initial descriptions. I guess I don't know where to start with it, because I've heard so many contradictory sources on Player of Games or Consider Phlebas. I was thinking Player of Games, but not sure.
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Jan 4, 2022 02:42
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Hiro Protagonist posted:I read Shards, I need to go to Barryar. I know it's the one that sets you on the series, but I wanted a break to read other stuff. I should just read it, it been a couple months. Culture is interesting to me, I guess I've been a bit skeptical of it, just based on initial descriptions. I guess I don't know where to start with it, because I've heard so many contradictory sources on Player of Games or Consider Phlebas. I was thinking Player of Games, but not sure. I haven't read Phlebas, I started with Player of Games and didn't feel like I was lost at all. I'll probably go back and read Phlebas at some point now that I've gotten into the series. Player is a perfectly fine entry point imo.
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Jan 4, 2022 02:44
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buffalo all day posted:Which Vorkosigan did you start with. If you got the Shards/Barrayar omnibus you could just skip to Barrayar and start there. I'll take this recommendation. MockingQuantum posted:I think I may be in the minority, especially on the forums, as someone who doesn't think Murderbot is all that great. The title character does get a little less twee and annoying but always stays neurotic and antisocial in a way that feels intended to be endearing or funny, but doesn't always land for me. I felt the same for the same reason, although I only read 'All Systems Red'. I read Piranesi based on this thread's recommendation around Christmas and enjoyed it, thanks for the recommendation!
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Jan 4, 2022 03:16
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MockingQuantum posted:That said I have read them all except Fugitive Telemetry, so it's not like I hate them. I'm gonna take the very bold stance of saying they are Just Fine, but that they get pretty oversold, especially here. But yeah, that this is now one of the most popular and critically acclaimed SF series of recent years says something about the fandom's desire for safety and lack of ambition.
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Jan 4, 2022 03:31
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buffalo all day posted:Which Vorkosigan did you start with. If you got the Shards/Barrayar omnibus you could just skip to Barrayar and start there. Interesting. So I wouldn’t miss out on that much by skipping straight to Barrayar?
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Jan 4, 2022 03:41
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theblackw0lf posted:Interesting. So I wouldn’t miss out on that much by skipping straight to Barrayar? Put it this way, I started on Shards of Honor and it killed my interest in reading the rest of the series stone-dead. Unless you like the sound of reskinned Star Trek romance fic, you can skip Shards of Honor and just read a summary. Edit: Oh, and speaking of Glen Cook -- BurningBeard posted:Just want to agree with you. I powered through the first book by sheer interest in the tropes of the subgenre being rewritten, but as if the constant exposition weren’t bad enough, there’s just sooooooo much “Behold! I am tragic and broody! Whoopsy doodle I’ve alienated my friends again. Gosh aren’t I awful? Oh well, I’m destined to be an evil sorceress, so let me tell you about how I don’t want to do that but act like an rear end in a top hat anyway.” The actual good "destined to become an evil sorceress" series is Glen Cook's Darkwar. You know it's coming without it being force-fed to you, it's a natural slide into disaster that still makes you sympathetic toward a person who is, by most objective measures, a walking nightmare, and it's got a satisfying high weirdness quotient. It's not Cook's best series, because Black Company is an extremely high bar to clear, but it's quite good. Kestral fucked around with this message at 03:56 on Jan 4, 2022 |
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Jan 4, 2022 03:52
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Barrayar is the point in the publication order where the series transitions from decent to great.
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Jan 4, 2022 03:57
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MockingQuantum posted:I think I may be in the minority, especially on the forums, as someone who doesn't think Murderbot is all that great. The title character does get a little less twee and annoying but always stays neurotic and antisocial in a way that feels intended to be endearing or funny, but doesn't always land for me. Nah I felt the same but it's a not my cup of tea thing rather than being objectively bad
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Jan 4, 2022 03:57
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Sailor Viy posted:He really does. I reread Black Company last year, I should do Shadows Lingers again as well since I remember it being my favourite. Funny how the best character in the series isn't even a soldier but a hapless innkeeper. Old Man Fish would like a word with you. But yeah, Marron Shed's story is great stuff. For the new reader, after The White Rose [1] Things get weird; half the plot splits off into The Silver Spike and the main thread continues in Shadow Games. The main thread changes annalists a couple of times and goes through some shifts. Bleak Seasons will be hard to follow, but it pays off and is followed by She Is The Darkness, possibly the best of the entire series. It's got Lady running an industrialized magical-military complex and Croaker's best scam, hell, anyone's best scam, as a general. [1] The White Rose is a reference to the underground anti-Nazi organization in Germany during the late 30s and mid 40s. Those people had guts. Kestral posted:The actual good "destined to become an evil sorceress" series is Glen Cook's Darkwar. You know it's coming without it being force-fed to you, it's a natural slide into disaster that still makes you sympathetic toward a person who is, by most objective measures, a walking nightmare, and it's got a satisfying high weirdness quotient. It's not Cook's best series, because Black Company is an extremely high bar to clear, but it's quite good. Darkwar might be Cook's most important work, exactly because it does tackle that question - how you get from a fat, happy toddler to someone who will murder a city because her favorite tailor closed. It's sad, he builds up a character you can sympathize with, like, even share dreams with. Then she gets ultimate power and, without changing one iota, and without ever actively choosing to do evil, ends up destroying whole societies and then all of civilization for the best of reasons. Arguably, the common meth in the street is better off when her story is over, but she stacked bodies to get to that point. Darkwar is also some of his best storytelling. Cool stuff keeps happening, Marika gets progressively introduced to wider and wider society until she's initiated into the deepest secrets of her race, and she is opposed by deeper and deeper conspiracies. A real Matryoshka doll of a plot. mllaneza fucked around with this message at 04:15 on Jan 4, 2022 |
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Jan 4, 2022 03:58
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I'd gladly erase all memories of Murderbot if Martha Wells wrote more Ile-Rein stories. Ile-Rein was a good setting, always feel sad Martha Wells abandoned it to work on Murderbot & Raksura stories. For the holidays, one of my family members got me paperback copies of the STEN Chronicles & Dean Ing's Quantrill series, daring me to do readthroughs explaining exactly how and why both series are so bad and hosed up. STEN Chronicles readthrough would be easy, a one-line sentence saying what movies the book is a mashup of, and maybe 5 or 7 line items describing the background setting or ongoing plot points. A Quantrill series readthrough would be much harder because there's much more insanity in it despite only being 3 books. I am talking about the cost-free matter transmutation China figured out, israel glassing the entire middle-east the pico-second Israels space habitat became fully operational, death squad assassins (w/ bombs in their heads) enforcing Mormon rule in a post-apocalyptic USA, the evil diane sawyer villain getting hosed to death by a 700 kg mutated russian boar, etc.
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Jan 4, 2022 04:16
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My favorites were always Goblin and One-Eye, the pair of elderly hedge wizards who keep coming out on top when they have to deal with ancient witch-kings and sorcerer-generals.Llamadeus posted:But yeah, that this is now one of the most popular and critically acclaimed SF series of recent years says something about the fandom's desire for safety and lack of ambition. Two years of pandemic preceded by the Trump presidency has done a number on a lot of people's leisure reading choices. Personally, I find that I am way more likely to go for stuff on the Becky Chambers/Murderbot side of things now than I used to be. Khizan fucked around with this message at 04:20 on Jan 4, 2022 |
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Jan 4, 2022 04:17
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Does Barryar have anymore rape or threats of rape? Definitely my least favorite part of Shards of Honor.
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Jan 4, 2022 04:25
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Hiro Protagonist posted:I was feeling the need to read something sci-fi, something that's a longer series, that doesn't have a nihilistic bend like so much of modern stuff. Slight preference for space opera, maybe with a hint of spirituality, or at least something besides pure logic super atheism. I have a couple ideas, but I was thinking something a bit more modern if it exists. I feel like most modern sci-fi is super hard super nihilistic or fun but incredibly lovely series. Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota series hits all or almost all of these marks.
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Jan 4, 2022 04:33
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Hiro Protagonist posted:Does Barryar have anymore rape or threats of rape? Definitely my least favorite part of Shards of Honor. It’s been too long so I can’t guarantee it’s completely absent, but it’s definitely not that kind of book.
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Jan 4, 2022 04:36
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Hiro Protagonist posted:Does Barryar have anymore rape or threats of rape? Definitely my least favorite part of Shards of Honor. No, but there is some related PTSD.
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Jan 4, 2022 04:37
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Hiro Protagonist posted:I was feeling the need to read something sci-fi, something that's a longer series, that doesn't have a nihilistic bend like so much of modern stuff. Slight preference for space opera, maybe with a hint of spirituality, or at least something besides pure logic super atheism. I have a couple ideas, but I was thinking something a bit more modern if it exists. I feel like most modern sci-fi is super hard super nihilistic or fun but incredibly lovely series. Maybe The Lost Fleet series? Guy is in hypersleep for 100 years, wakes up to find a war still going all that time and he's been made a propaganda hero, and due to mass casualties everyone has forgotten fleet tactics so he can do cool things to get a fleet trapped in enemy territory home they can't. It's not epic literature but it is fun at least through the first 6. Everyone in the future does ancestor worship so there is a bunch of that in the books mllaneza posted:Old Man Fish would like a word with you. Fish is so good, single-handedly elevates Silver Spike Tars Tarkas fucked around with this message at 05:13 on Jan 4, 2022 |
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Jan 4, 2022 05:11
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Hiro Protagonist posted:Does Barryar have anymore rape or threats of rape? Definitely my least favorite part of Shards of Honor. Elements of this do pop up again, but there is no rape. There is one threat of it that I can remember, but it is very brief and called out as being disgusting. The elements involving it that do crop up are largely involving the aftermath of Shards of Honor. Mild spoilers off the top of my head, I don't think any of this will spoil any major plot points: One of women raped by Bothari had a child, and Bothari is providing for the baby and its caretaker out of his wages. It is not an abusive situation. Bothari reveals a bit about his past and how/why he is hosed up, which involves him being sexually abused as a child. Nothing graphic here, he just mentions that he was. There's a threat of rape, but the soldier who makes the threat is promptly  ed.
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Jan 4, 2022 05:48
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Hiro Protagonist posted:I was feeling the need to read something sci-fi, something that's a longer series, that doesn't have a nihilistic bend like so much of modern stuff. Slight preference for space opera, maybe with a hint of spirituality, or at least something besides pure logic super atheism. I have a couple ideas, but I was thinking something a bit more modern if it exists. I feel like most modern sci-fi is super hard super nihilistic or fun but incredibly lovely series. The Neverness series by David Zindell might be attractive Aliette de Bodard's Xuya books should work I'd say the Starbridge Chronicles but they're super nihilistic um also the Hyperion books but they're pretty nihilistic
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Jan 4, 2022 05:51
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There’s also the end of Mirror Dance.
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Jan 4, 2022 05:57
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pseudorandom name posted:There’s also the end of Mirror Dance. It's the entirety of Mirror Dance, but he was asking about Barrayar.
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Jan 4, 2022 06:00
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LMB is great but also very much an older liberal aunt with a thing for aristocracy. I quite like her books, but sometimes I'm rolling my eyes a lot. It's interesting watching the Barrayan tech evolve with ours. Comconsoles used to be big bulky things and now everyone has compads.
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Jan 4, 2022 06:02
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Anybody know any good SFF web serials? I have basically never read fiction in that format but I like the idea due to my longstanding love of comic books. I had a look at Royal Road but it seems like everything there is LitRPG or adjacent genres.
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Jan 4, 2022 07:19
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Has anyone read Daniel Abraham’s Long Price Quartet? What did you think?
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Jan 4, 2022 07:26
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Sailor Viy posted:Anybody know any good SFF web serials? I have basically never read fiction in that format but I like the idea due to my longstanding love of comic books. I had a look at Royal Road but it seems like everything there is LitRPG or adjacent genres. You might want to try the Web Serial thread for more recs. I've been enjoying War Queen which is a first contact novel between humans and giant alien bugs from the alien bug point of view.
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Jan 4, 2022 07:28
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There is the last angel https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-last-angel.244209/ about an ai embodied dreadnaught, built by humans at their peak development before being conquered and subjuigated by an alien alliance, which has been wageing the war alone for thousands of years. But the story is posted on a bunch of forum threads so it's kind of difficult (for me at least) to keep track of the reading order.
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Jan 4, 2022 07:35
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Hiro Protagonist posted:I was feeling the need to read something sci-fi, something that's a longer series, that doesn't have a nihilistic bend like so much of modern stuff. Slight preference for space opera, maybe with a hint of spirituality, or at least something besides pure logic super atheism. I have a couple ideas, but I was thinking something a bit more modern if it exists. I feel like most modern sci-fi is super hard super nihilistic or fun but incredibly lovely series. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 08:32 on Jan 4, 2022 |
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Jan 4, 2022 08:27
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Sailor Viy posted:Anybody know any good SFF web serials? I have basically never read fiction in that format but I like the idea due to my longstanding love of comic books. I had a look at Royal Road but it seems like everything there is LitRPG or adjacent genres. First Contact on Royal Road might be what you want. I’m on Chapter 481.
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Jan 4, 2022 08:29
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fez_machine posted:The Neverness series by David Zindell might be attractive Seconding the Xuya series. Hieronymous Alloy posted:The best SF in the past five years is the Murderbot series by Martha Wells. This may well be true, but it's a pricey investment. Urban (semi-rural?) fantasy rather than sci-fi, but on the subject of long running novella series my favourite of recent years is Paul Cornell's Witches of Lychford. It's set in a small Cotswolds town that's on a boundary between our world and other worlds, and I found it such a compelling read that when I'd finished the first one I bought the other four. It also has the advantage over Murderbot that you can get all five installments so far for a little over £10 total.
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Jan 4, 2022 10:24
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Kestral posted:First, we're told that the Round House wizard team's external Power-use is like steering a barge: less precise than traditionally-trained sorcerers, feels less controlled than internal Power-use, but is capable of manipulating enormous volumes of energy. How does that square with the kind of exceedingly fine manipulation we see them doing? I'm a little shaky on this, but, the way I thought of it is kind of simple. Internal power users are doing what I would call real-rear end magic. They start out doing esoteric, impossible bullshit. Our friends in the round house start out doing stuff that, while the energy source is impossible, is entirely within and explained by physics (well, maybe not the poo poo with the temporal shifts and stuff. You know what I mean). They're using magic to change gravity, not using magic to make stuff float. It's a subtle difference. Anyway, supposedly these differences between internal/external use fall away. Once someone is fully sorcerous, there is no longer any difference to the caster. But even the precise poo poo they're doing early on when making the lights and stuff is not magically precise. They're providing energy for those fancy artificial emeralds to form via chemical process, not transmuting matter themselves or making it out of nothing. Kestral posted:Second, how do we square the portrayal Blossom (and for that matter, Halt) in The March North with what we see of them in the rest of the series? We're told by Halt that the Round House team is "near enough a heavy brigade," and also that none of them are (quite) the equal of Blossom in power, and even several of them put together would have a tough time equaling her militant skill. But if we'd had, say, Strange Mayhem along for The March North, I expect it would have been a much shorter book: "And then we placed the whole valley in a singularity that stripped apart every atom inside it, drank some liquid vigor, and teleported home" the end. And that's not even considering what Halt might have brought to bear on the problem. Idk for this one either, really. You might be right, and that it just got away from Saunders. But Halt is endlessly ancient and powerful, but she's also just one shard of her former self, squeezed into The Peace, wasting a lot of power just to make herself able to interact with regular people. She needs to be able to strip electrical wires and all she has is a hammer with the mass of a moon. All of the old Short List sorcerors are this way, supposedly, or were never very strong in the first place and are just unendingly durable. Blossom has sort of the same problem, on a smaller scale. She's really strong and talented, but her 'ascension' was flawed and she has trouble until the Round House crew is able to intermesh with her and help her out. Now you could read that as handwaving previous stuff, and it might even be right, but that's not how I took it. Larry Parrish fucked around with this message at 10:42 on Jan 4, 2022 |
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Jan 4, 2022 10:39
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MockingQuantum posted:I think I may be in the minority, especially on the forums, as someone who doesn't think Murderbot is all that great. The title character does get a little less twee and annoying but always stays neurotic and antisocial in a way that feels intended to be endearing or funny, but doesn't always land for me. This, basically. I like Murderbot, but, frankly, Ancillary Justice already did this idea but better, if you ask me.
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Jan 4, 2022 10:40
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I’d second these feelings on Murderbot. They’re fine, good light fun, but not on the level of even Wells’s own Raksura books. Not read the novel though, so maybe it all hits different at that length.
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Jan 4, 2022 11:29
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theblackw0lf posted:Has anyone read Daniel Abraham’s Long Price Quartet? What did you think? I read the first few dagger and the coins and got pretty bored, years ago. These are even earlier right?
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Jan 4, 2022 11:33
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quantumfoam posted:I'd gladly erase all memories of Murderbot if Martha Wells wrote more Ile-Rein stories. Ile-Rein was a good setting, always feel sad Martha Wells abandoned it to work on Murderbot & Raksura stories. oh yeah, ile-rien is my favorite of her settings never really liked the raksura series, i don't know why
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