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ShutteredIn posted:His Rosewater books are much better and have a satisfying conclusion within the trilogy. Light of Heaven kinda felt like something lesser that he also had lying around that got published because of the success of the Rosewater books unfortunately. Awesome--I'll give them a look. Thanks!
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Mar 14, 2022 03:41
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AARD VARKMAN posted:I very well could have misinterpreted his age, it was very specific with hers though. The real nail in the coffin of my interest there was the scene (immediately after the sex?) discussing how she was the only one in her age group not on sexual development blockers, I figured between those two things the book wasn't going in a direction I liked lol I think you should take another whack at it. It's again been a long time since I read that book, but it's not going in the direction of "pedophilia is fun" so much as "this mining set-up is an incredibly hosed-up capitalist horror scene that needs to be destroyed." Sten is ultimately kind of a working-class space opera James Bond without quite so much of Bond's misogyny. There's a lot of it that's like Star Wars meets Leverage. But yeah, it was written in the 80s, so there's certainly going to be stuff in the series that's kind of off to our more modern sensibilities.
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Mar 14, 2022 04:47
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AnimeIsTrash posted:I'm looking for a book or series about space colonization/space travel kind of stuff. I really enjoyed Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy and Aurora, and was looking for something along those lines. What all do you folks recommend? It sounds like you're more interested in the initial phase of it - the actual colonisation - which I would also like to read more of, there seems to be a bit of a gap between exploration sci-fi and the centuries-hence space opera. All I can think of is Chasm City, which is set in that centuries-hence future but also has another storyline in the past on a flotilla of generation ships, who do actually end up landing and colonising the world we see in the future storyline - it seems so many generation ship stories revolve around the ships going awry somehow, with the story remaining shipbound. edit - I also really liked Dark Eden by Chris Beckett which is about the in-bred descendants of the survivors of hyperspace ship that got lost and crashed on a planet of permanent night, who have regressed to stone age tech so it feels a bit post-apocalyptic as well. There's a sequel which picks up the story another few generations down the track, and another a few generations after that, showing how much their society has grown. freebooter fucked around with this message at 09:35 on Mar 14, 2022 |
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Mar 14, 2022 09:30
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Chasm City is a cool book, great worldbuilding, lots of fantastic set pieces (the mimic spaceship was a particular standout). But... the ending had a really obnoxious twist-for-twist's sake that only barely made sense, and it left kind of a sour taste in my mouth. I haven't read any more of Reynolds since, but maybe I should check out some of his other books.
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Mar 14, 2022 11:33
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I just picked up Chasm City in the charity bookshop on Saturday, funny it's being mentioned here! I'll read it one day.
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Mar 14, 2022 13:23
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Danhenge posted:I'm 20% of the way through and it seems likely this book is going to make me cry at least once. Ok this book is seriously loving me up. It's like legitimately very good fiction. It's also terribly angry at the world being hosed up and ending in a way that I identify with so strongly that I'm clenched up alongside all the characters.
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Mar 14, 2022 14:39
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The King Must Die (Theseus #1) by Mary Renault - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DCGJ6UO/ The Crucible of Time by John Brunner - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J84KT3M/
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Mar 14, 2022 22:39
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Sailor Viy posted:Chasm City is a cool book, great worldbuilding, lots of fantastic set pieces (the mimic spaceship was a particular standout). But... the ending had a really obnoxious twist-for-twist's sake that only barely made sense, and it left kind of a sour taste in my mouth. I haven't read any more of Reynolds since, but maybe I should check out some of his other books. Strongly recommend his standalone House of Suns and to a lesser extent his standalone Pushing Ice (both of which I think are better than Chasm City, which I liked.)
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Mar 15, 2022 01:04
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AnimeIsTrash posted:I'm looking for a book or series about space colonization/space travel kind of stuff. I really enjoyed Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy and Aurora, and was looking for something along those lines. What all do you folks recommend? Non-stop by Brian Aldiss is a classic and probably influential on Aurora The Luna series by Ian MacDonald is all about moon colonization Growing Up Weightless by John M Ford is a classic about the same subject. The Infinity Project anthologies edited by Jonathan Strahan are filled with great stories about similar themes. fez_machine fucked around with this message at 01:41 on Mar 15, 2022 |
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Mar 15, 2022 01:35
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fez_machine posted:
The Luna series is about kinky sex and going streaking in vacuum.
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Mar 15, 2022 01:37
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AnimeIsTrash posted:I'm looking for a book or series about space colonization/space travel kind of stuff. I really enjoyed Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy and Aurora, and was looking for something along those lines. What all do you folks recommend? 2312 by KSR is pretty in-line with Aurora and the Mars Trilogy, it's a mystery-driven whirlwind tour of the solar system in the process of being settled.
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Mar 15, 2022 01:42
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I finished A Master of Djinn. It was...ok. I like the basic concept: djinn + steampunk + Cairo, but the writing leaves a bit to be desired (the action scenes especially feel a bit weak) and the central "mystery" behind the detective story is a bit obvious. I enjoyed the short story but I don't really think the full novel really enhanced the experience.
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Mar 15, 2022 04:54
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fez_machine posted:The Luna series by Ian MacDonald is all about moon colonization Seconding this, the third book was kinda blah and anticlimactic but the first two are excellent and more than make up for that.
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Mar 15, 2022 06:03
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AnimeIsTrash posted:I'm looking for a book or series about space colonization/space travel kind of stuff. I really enjoyed Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy and Aurora, and was looking for something along those lines. What all do you folks recommend? Alan Steele has some good stuff in the early-days-in-space. Orbital Blues is a blue collar construction site in orbit, with a political twist. His Coyote series has an uncomfortable Libertarian and anti-leftist lean in spots, but he also conveys the mystery and grandeur of exploring and settling a whole new planet. I talked about the Lady Astronaut series recently, so I won't go into detail. Suffice to say you get a first novel about bootstrapping the space program early and urgently, the second novel is a trip to Mars in the 1960s, and the third is a murder mystery on a moon base that has been running for over a decade.
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Mar 15, 2022 06:30
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I will second the Lady Astronaut books, I absolutely loved them. Really well-written and thoughtful.got some chores tonight posted:I finished A Master of Djinn. It was...ok. I like the basic concept: djinn + steampunk + Cairo, but the writing leaves a bit to be desired (the action scenes especially feel a bit weak) and the central "mystery" behind the detective story is a bit obvious. I enjoyed the short story but I don't really think the full novel really enhanced the experience. I really enjoyed A Master of Djinn but I also kind of feel the same way about it. It's the author's first full length novel (as far as I know?) so I can understand why it was a bit rough. Overall I had a lot of fun reading it. Definitely don't skip The Haunting of Tram Car 015 if you haven't read that yet, another short story in the same Cairo.
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Mar 15, 2022 07:52
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freebooter posted:Seconding this, the third book was kinda blah and anticlimactic but the first two are excellent and more than make up for that. I enjoyed all three books but I agree the third one is a bit different. I think it suffered from being the book that had to wrap everything up and bring all the plots back together, so it lacked some of the absolutely batshit "well now everything is even worse" moments of the first two. They definitely worked for me as a trilogy though. N-thing the lady astronaut books as a really good series too.
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Mar 15, 2022 09:30
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mllaneza posted:Alan Steele has some good stuff in the early-days-in-space. Orbital Blues is a blue collar construction site in orbit, with a political twist. His Coyote series has an uncomfortable Libertarian and anti-leftist lean in spots, but he also conveys the mystery and grandeur of exploring and settling a whole new planet. Orbital decay (he wrote something else called galaxy blues) is pretty good although it feels like it was written in 1989. I like the coyote series when I read them 15 years ago but yeah, there's a fascist govt on earth, a colony ship is stolen before its launch by a bunch of political dissidents led by a Robert E Lee (related) who take the ship on a one-way 250 year journey. There's some good bits but I'm not sure I'd buy them at full price.
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Mar 15, 2022 11:32
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on the subject of colonization times fiction, the word for world is forest by le guin is that from the perspective of the colonized people
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Mar 15, 2022 11:45
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The Sweet Hereafter posted:I enjoyed all three books but I agree the third one is a bit different. I think it suffered from being the book that had to wrap everything up and bring all the plots back together, so it lacked some of the absolutely batshit "well now everything is even worse" moments of the first two. They definitely worked for me as a trilogy though. It's not even bad per se, it's just... I don't remember a thing about it. And it only came out a few years ago. I really clearly remember the setpieces and the sense of *high stakes* from the first two books - in particular, the war/revolution that erupts across the moon in the second half of the second book and the way that affects some of the characters is loving brilliant - and then in the third book it just sort of felt like nothing much happened and everything got vaguely deus ex machina resolved. But yeah I still highly recommend the trilogy purely on those first two books alone. A mediocre landing is still sticking the landing.
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Mar 15, 2022 12:43
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quote:A man of around fifty with a large bushy beard rose to his feet. “Are you saying that nobody wrote about a confederation of empires living in peace with each other thanks to interference from ancient artificial intelligence because it would be boring?” i was reading the new earthcent and lmao. i guess if you're going to get self-referential, book 5 of the second sub-series is the place to do it.
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Mar 15, 2022 12:54
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Proxima by Stephen Baxter has a fair bit of actual early colonisation.
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Mar 15, 2022 13:03
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freebooter posted:It's not even bad per se, it's just... I don't remember a thing about it. And it only came out a few years ago. I really clearly remember the setpieces and the sense of *high stakes* from the first two books - in particular, the war/revolution that erupts across the moon in the second half of the second book and the way that affects some of the characters is loving brilliant - and then in the third book it just sort of felt like nothing much happened and everything got vaguely deus ex machina resolved. I'm not sure deus ex machina is fair, I never thought the ending was unearned. It's just a different kind of book to the first two, with a lot more talking and manipulating and negotiating around the consequences of events from the first two books, and fewer set pieces. The climactic knife fight is still very much in my mind though.
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Mar 15, 2022 15:00
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Didn't the forge burndown happen at the start of book 3? That's pretty big.
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Mar 15, 2022 15:12
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Sibling of TB posted:Didn't the forge burndown happen at the start of book 3? That's pretty big. That's in book 2. Book 3 starts with Luna getting attacked as she tries to get comatose Lucasinho to his father in Meridian.
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Mar 15, 2022 22:17
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The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E Harrow - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07M77XW56/ The Boat of a Million Years by Poul Anderson - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FFMFVSH/
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Mar 15, 2022 22:45
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PeterWeller posted:Try This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. It's bonkers time travel, so hells of sci-fi. It's about two soldiers, but in no way hoo-rah. It's an epistolary novel, so definitely not typical sci-fi. And one of its authors is a woman. I was just popping on this thread for the first time and my opening recommendation was going to be This is How You Lose the Time War. Extremely good use of the epistolary novel format. Also, I'm apparently another Graydon Saunders sockpuppet and those who haven't already should try the Commonweal series.
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Mar 15, 2022 23:04
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no
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Mar 16, 2022 01:58
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i'll try the first book once its on kindle unlimited
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Mar 16, 2022 02:20
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Last Exit is so loving good. It recalls a ton of fiction over the last couple decades, but does it so much better.
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Mar 16, 2022 06:42
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Danhenge posted:Last Exit is so loving good. It recalls a ton of fiction over the last couple decades, but does it so much better. I’m really looking forward to it. Max Gladstone is one of my favorite SFF writers right now.
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Mar 16, 2022 07:22
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I bounced pretty hard off of Empress of Forever, so I was worried I might not like Last Exit but I shouldn't have worried. I haven't loved something as much as Last Exit in years.
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Mar 16, 2022 07:25
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Pre-ordered Last Exit based on the reviews above. I'll have forgotten all about it by the time it arrives in May, so that'll be a nice surprise.
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Mar 16, 2022 10:03
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cptn_dr posted:I bounced pretty hard off of Empress of Forever, so I was worried I might not like Last Exit but I shouldn't have worried. I haven't loved something as much as Last Exit in years. I didn't like empress much either, it was a bit too golden age. Has a lot of credit left with me after the craft sequence and book burners
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Mar 16, 2022 10:10
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How heavy is Last Exit on the romance?
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Mar 16, 2022 12:52
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anilEhilated posted:How heavy is Last Exit on the romance? An old romantic relationship that ended unexpectedly defines the main character to a large extend. There’s some several flashbacks which explore this.
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Mar 16, 2022 14:02
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Nomnom Cookie posted:i'll try the first book once its on kindle unlimited Saunders objects to the Amazon licensing so this will never happen.
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Mar 16, 2022 14:04
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I liked but was not super wowed by Empress of Forever and to some degree I feel like he made some ideas he was playing around with in Empress work better here, even though they are very different.
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Mar 16, 2022 15:25
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This one got mentioned in this thread a while back A Woman of the Iron People by Eleanor Arnason $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J48FCHU/
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Mar 16, 2022 18:01
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I actually just finished that! I really enjoyed pretty much everything that had to do with the natives and exploring their planets and culture. The human politics were extremely tedious but I think that was kind of the joke.
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Mar 16, 2022 18:46
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ulmont posted:Saunders objects to the Amazon licensing so this will never happen.
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