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ScienceSeagull posted:Rec me some sci-fi/fantasy that's set in a world where alternative/obsolete/pseudoscientific theories are actually true, e.g. the Earth is in fact flat and 6000 years old, alchemy and humor theory are valid models, etc. Such as some of Ted Chiang's stories, and Garfinkle's Celestial Matters. Son of the Morning by Mark Alder is historical/fantasy fiction set at the beginning of the 100 years war. The premise is that all the "divine right of kings" stuff from the middle ages was true, that God set up class order, ordained that there were those to rule and to be ruled. Angels are real, they are weirdo beings that are entranced by beauty so kings build huge cathedrals to entice them to come live there and fight on the side of that king. So there are angels and demons all over the place, but what's interesting is that it still largely follows the actual history of the period, the battles of Sluys and Crecy still happen, the whole Despenser conspiracy is a major factor, Edward III, Phillip VI, Charles V, Charles the Bad of Navarre and Isabella of France are all major characters. It's also quite satirical and very funny at times. There is a sequel, and it is quite clearly the middle book in a trilogy, but he's never written the third book and I can't find out if he means to or not. zoux fucked around with this message at 14:50 on Mar 30, 2022 |
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Mar 30, 2022 14:47
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ScienceSeagull posted:Rec me some sci-fi/fantasy that's set in a world where alternative/obsolete/pseudoscientific theories are actually true, e.g. the Earth is in fact flat and 6000 years old, alchemy and humor theory are valid models, etc. Such as some of Ted Chiang's stories, and Garfinkle's Celestial Matters. Not quite what you're asking for, but Ian Watson's Queenmagic, Kingmagic starts off in a chess-based universe, which the protagonists escape to find themselves in universes based on other boardgames...
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Mar 30, 2022 14:54
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ScienceSeagull posted:Rec me some sci-fi/fantasy that's set in a world where alternative/obsolete/pseudoscientific theories are actually true, e.g. the Earth is in fact flat and 6000 years old, alchemy and humor theory are valid models, etc. Such as some of Ted Chiang's stories, and Garfinkle's Celestial Matters.
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Mar 30, 2022 15:48
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zoux posted:Son of the Morning by Mark Alder is historical/fantasy fiction set at the beginning of the 100 years war. The premise is that all the "divine right of kings" stuff from the middle ages was true, that God set up class order, ordained that there were those to rule and to be ruled. Angels are real, they are weirdo beings that are entranced by beauty so kings build huge cathedrals to entice them to come live there and fight on the side of that king. So there are angels and demons all over the place, but what's interesting is that it still largely follows the actual history of the period, the battles of Sluys and Crecy still happen, the whole Despenser conspiracy is a major factor, Edward III, Phillip VI, Charles V, Charles the Bad of Navarre and Isabella of France are all major characters. It's also quite satirical and very funny at times. I accidentally read the second book and Between Two Fires almost back to back, which was an interesting comparison.
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Mar 30, 2022 15:54
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Benagain posted:I accidentally read the second book and Between Two Fires almost back to back, which was an interesting comparison. Yeah I just started Between Two Fires after devouring some of Buehlman's other books. The 100 Years War is one of my favorite historical periods so I'm excited to read it.
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Mar 30, 2022 16:03
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Stuporstar posted:I read this not long ago, and I loved how absolutely everyone, including the narrator, was 100% full of poo poo. Basically one giant pisstake on Enlightenment thinking. Every character walking on with a big speech about life, the universe, and everything, then dying of hubris was Yeah, it's not my favorite by him either--Baudolino is--but it's a wonderfully clever exploration of how people can rationalize just about anything if given enough time to think it through. I think you could argue that all of Eco's novels are just brilliant pisstakes. branedotorg posted:the Illuminatus! Trilogy by Shea & Wilson is very much this. This was a really fun and wild book. I love that its premise is essentially, "yes, conspiracy theories are true, all of them." And then it just relishes in how incredibly silly that idea is.
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Mar 30, 2022 16:35
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Groke posted:Yeah, that sounds like Greg Egan being as Greg Egan as possible. I don't know of any other author that does the exact thing he does, certainly not to the same degree. If that's your thing, Stephen Baxter's Xeelee Sequence is also extremely that, and it's wild.
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Mar 30, 2022 18:20
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Runcible Cat posted:Not quite what you're asking for, but Ian Watson's Queenmagic, Kingmagic starts off in a chess-based universe, which the protagonists escape to find themselves in universes based on other boardgames... This sounds awful and amazing.
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Mar 30, 2022 18:56
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Kestral posted:If that's your thing, Stephen Baxter's Xeelee Sequence is also extremely that, and it's wild.
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Mar 30, 2022 20:17
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Kestral posted:If that's your thing, Stephen Baxter's Xeelee Sequence is also extremely that, and it's wild. Baxter partially scratches the same itch, but not completely. With Egan, you know that he's not only thought up this weird poo poo somewhat based on speculative science, but also done the math. You know this because he'll drat well show you his math.
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Mar 30, 2022 21:21
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The Pariah (Covenant of Steel #1) by Anthony Ryan - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08PV49R1G/ A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe (Salvagers #1) by Alex White - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0763KVBBH/
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Mar 30, 2022 22:12
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Runcible Cat posted:Not quite what you're asking for, but Ian Watson's Queenmagic, Kingmagic starts off in a chess-based universe, which the protagonists escape to find themselves in universes based on other boardgames... This sounds amazing. Is it good?
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Mar 30, 2022 23:50
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Just recently started The Library at Mount Char since it was one of the extra-cheep audiobooks when Audible had the store-wide sale a while back. I understand it was a thread favorite/talked about a lot here when it came out years ago, and now I'm regretting not reading it sooner. When I was in middle school The Great and Secret Show and Imajica were my favorite Clive Barker novels, and this feels like a more coherently executed version of that sort of urban fantasy/magical realism. Has a lot of Neil Gaiman vibes too, except instead of the magical stuff following dream-logic like it does in Barker or Gaimen books it's very clear that Scott Hawkins came up with a fixed set of rules and logic that all the magical stuff is adhering to behind the scenes. About a third of the way through and thoroughly enjoying the book.
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Mar 31, 2022 01:20
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Blastedhellscape posted:Just recently started The Library at Mount Char since it was one of the extra-cheep audiobooks when Audible had the store-wide sale a while back. I understand it was a thread favorite/talked about a lot here when it came out years ago, and now I'm regretting not reading it sooner. I also was super into Imajica in middle school so this book just skyrocketed in my list
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Mar 31, 2022 01:23
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Can't really think of anything else I've read that was quite like Library At Mount Char.
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Mar 31, 2022 02:16
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Since there's definitely an overlap between "people who post in the TBB SF/F thread" and "people who might be interested in tabletop roleplaying games," I'm compelled to mention that if you enjoy The Library at Mount Char and also have any interest in RPGs whatsoever, you owe it to yourself to check out Jenna K. Moran's Nobilis: the Game of Sovereign Powers. It's available on DriveThruRPG in several editions, I'm not sure which of them is currently regarded as the go-to but I can vouch for the nigh-legendary second edition through actual play. There's a 4th Edition coming out in the nearish future as well. Nobilis is the closest thing we're ever likely to see to a Library at Mount Char RPG, and they are both singular and weird and beautiful in many overlapping ways. The Library and Father are basically one-to-one a Chancel and an Imperator, the Librarians are the Nobilis of various domains, and the myriad weird and terrifyingly powerful and ancient beings that are all over Mount Char are the sorts of things Nobilis protagonists spend a lot of their time conducting diplomacy or making war against. Pitch ends there, apologies for going somewhat off-topic.
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Mar 31, 2022 08:38
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Just to clarify my Inherit the Stars series recommend for the person looking for fantasy or scifi books with outdated/obsolete/batshit discredited insane theories. Inherit the Stars book 1 alone has the Immanuel Velikovsky planetary collisions theory (leading to the Earth's Moon only having been in orbit around the Earth for roughly 50,000 years in-book), nuclear weapon detonations being the reason why the "dark side" of the Moon has a different density crust than the side facing the Earth in-book, humanity evolving from apedom on another planet thanks to alien visitor abductions (which is why science hadn't been able to find the human evolution "missing link" so far), etc. The following books in the series add more discredited theories, and dumber even more contrived crap like 1 or 2 timeloops. Pre-Internet scifi fandom ate this poo poo up. Started re-reading Dean Ing's Quantrill Trilogy and I had blocked out how insane that series was. Dean Ing, for people not familar with his mil-fiction or mil-scifi work, is essentially Tom Clancy sans brakes applied to his writing with an overt fixation on future military tech (that Dean Ing theory-crafts out via line-art diagrams in his books), lighter-than-air dirigibles and roaming covert death squad assassins Quantrill book 1: China is the mastermind plotter, playing 12th dimension chess versus other nations, while creating working matter synthesis machines, hyper-anthranx, concrete submarines, and 500 meter condoms used to steal fully loaded oil supertankers. Meanwhile Israel decides the way to de-escalate Middle East tension is to immigrate en masse to Turkey as migrant workers, then secretly hijacks Turkey's missile-defense SDI program to create a space colony nation-state of New Israel at one of Earth's Lagrange Points. Also amused nobody called out my misnaming the I CLAUDIUS/CLADIUS THE GOD author (Peter Graves instead of Robert Graves) when mentioning the BBC I CLAUDIUS adaptation a few thread pages back. Peter Graves being totally original and doing I Claudius as a A&E Biography episode sure would have been something, so would the scheming and political shenanigans of the Claudian line of Roman emperors done as a Mission Impossible miniseries, complete with the 1960's series face masks and doubling of rooms and so on. e: pace is now 'space' quantumfoam fucked around with this message at 09:10 on Mar 31, 2022 |
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Mar 31, 2022 08:54
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Didn't James Hogan eventually go full Holocaust denial, or is my memory loving with me?
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Mar 31, 2022 09:02
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Groke posted:Didn't James Hogan eventually go full Holocaust denial, or is my memory loving with me? yeah probably. James P Hogan is someone I try not to remember.
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Mar 31, 2022 09:04
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Kestral posted:Since there's definitely an overlap between "people who post in the TBB SF/F thread" and "people who might be interested in tabletop roleplaying games," I'm compelled to mention that if you enjoy The Library at Mount Char and also have any interest in RPGs whatsoever, you owe it to yourself to check out Jenna K. Moran's Nobilis: the Game of Sovereign Powers. don't suggest self harm plz
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Mar 31, 2022 10:14
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Are there any scifi books (or preferably series) that start out with hard science fiction and build on it with the people inventing things that build on hard science fiction principles but get more and more far-future with everything from FTL and/or wormholes? Optionally where the story features multiple generations that go by as humanity is changed by the rapid scientific progress. EDIT: Similarily, are there any scifi books (or series, again preferably) where humanity encounters multiple alien species and has to learn to understand and cooperate with them? BlankSystemDaemon fucked around with this message at 12:01 on Mar 31, 2022 |
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Mar 31, 2022 11:59
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BlankSystemDaemon posted:Are there any scifi books (or preferably series) that start out with hard science fiction and build on it with the people inventing things that build on hard science fiction principles but get more and more far-future with everything from FTL and/or wormholes? For the former, Lensman is like that but without the hard SF. Maybe The Long Earth qualifies, but again the science isn't hard even if the implications are. For the latter, the Humanx Commonwealth series has a fair amount of that.
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Mar 31, 2022 12:24
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moonmazed posted:don't suggest self harm plz
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Mar 31, 2022 13:12
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Kestral posted:Since there's definitely an overlap between "people who post in the TBB SF/F thread" and "people who might be interested in tabletop roleplaying games," I'm compelled to mention that if you enjoy The Library at Mount Char and also have any interest in RPGs whatsoever, you owe it to yourself to check out Jenna K. Moran's Nobilis: the Game of Sovereign Powers. It's available on DriveThruRPG in several editions, I'm not sure which of them is currently regarded as the go-to but I can vouch for the nigh-legendary second edition through actual play. There's a 4th Edition coming out in the nearish future as well. Nobilis is the closest thing we're ever likely to see to a Library at Mount Char RPG, and they are both singular and weird and beautiful in many overlapping ways. The Library and Father are basically one-to-one a Chancel and an Imperator, the Librarians are the Nobilis of various domains, and the myriad weird and terrifyingly powerful and ancient beings that are all over Mount Char are the sorts of things Nobilis protagonists spend a lot of their time conducting diplomacy or making war against. I'd looked at buying a copy of that game but it's massively out of print and it seemed like something I'd want a physical copy of. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 13:26 on Mar 31, 2022 |
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Mar 31, 2022 13:21
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BlankSystemDaemon posted:Are there any scifi books (or preferably series) that start out with hard science fiction and build on it with the people inventing things that build on hard science fiction principles but get more and more far-future with everything from FTL and/or wormholes? I would argue that the three body problem trilogy qualifies. It starts in the quasi present and tries to explain it's science but goes deep into the rabbit hole later on.
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Mar 31, 2022 15:14
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Yeah, Nobilis is truly amazing. There's also a third edition that was unavailable for a long time (due to yet another publisher defalcation) and recently came back on sale with a new layout and public-domain art. I wish we could get the gorgeous second edition available print-on-demand, but PoD services continue to not offer to print books in 12x12" squares. But you can buy Glitch, Nobilis' sister game and a meditation on living in a world that seems determined to destroy you, either in PDF, PoD, or a deluxe version available at Indie Press Revolution.
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Mar 31, 2022 15:36
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Harold Fjord posted:Is there anything else quite like Embassytown? I preferred Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany. Has Mieville's penchant for being densely packed with ideas.
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Mar 31, 2022 16:02
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90s Cringe Rock posted:moran is extremely good, actually if you like reading the books instead of playing i guess
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Mar 31, 2022 17:30
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moonmazed posted:if you like reading the books instead of playing i guess this book is terrible, all you can do with it is read it i think this is the wrong thread for that criticism
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Mar 31, 2022 18:52
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Nomnom Cookie posted:this book is terrible, all you can do with it is read it yes i hate reading that is why i'm posting in tbb. idiot (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Mar 31, 2022 20:08
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BlankSystemDaemon posted:Are there any scifi books (or preferably series) that start out with hard science fiction and build on it with the people inventing things that build on hard science fiction principles but get more and more far-future with everything from FTL and/or wormholes? Literally the_expanse.txt
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Mar 31, 2022 20:17
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moonmazed posted:yes i hate reading that is why i'm posting in tbb. idiot well, why are you posting here. no one is forcing you to be pointlessly lovely so i hope you've got a reason
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Mar 31, 2022 20:56
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The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DHJT92Q/ Rivers of London (#1) by Ben Aaronovitch - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004C43F70/ Parable of the Sower (Parable #1) by Octavia E Butler - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008HALO4Q/
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Mar 31, 2022 22:27
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Nomnom Cookie posted:well, why are you posting here. no one is forcing you to be pointlessly lovely so i hope you've got a reason seconding this question. Dean Ing Quantrill series book 1. I had forgotten about Canada being useless at war, but amazing at medicine and producing metric tons of chocolate that was more valuable per ounce than gold krugerrands. The only twist on the replacement President of the United States being a religious zealot was that they were a Mormon (a bad mormon). The secondary villains being a Steve Jobs or more on point a Elon Musk that immediately murdered their Wozniak's or SpaceX engineers whenever they made an amazing breakthrough, and a gender swapped Vladimir Harkonnen from Dune who raped everyone I had blocked out. quantumfoam fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Mar 31, 2022 |
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Mar 31, 2022 22:47
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Kalman posted:Zodiac is Stephenson’s best book. I will not be taking any questions. I would characterize this as having chosen poorly.
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Mar 31, 2022 23:36
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Branderson kickstarter is over with 85,331 backers pledging $41,752,653, or ~$225 per backer. The total is more than 2x as much as the next most funded kickstarter (Pebble Time with 20m). I foresee more fiction kickstarters from bigger names in the future.
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Apr 1, 2022 00:11
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Cicero posted:Branderson kickstarter is over with 85,331 backers pledging $41,752,653, or ~$225 per backer. The total is more than 2x as much as the next most funded kickstarter (Pebble Time with 20m). Wonder what the median backer is paying?
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Apr 1, 2022 00:35
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withak posted:Wonder what the median backer is paying?
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Apr 1, 2022 00:42
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pradmer posted:The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie - $2.99 This was really good.
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Apr 1, 2022 01:03
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Cicero posted:Just going off of pledge tiers -- which ignores add-ons, so it's gonna be a bit low as an estimate -- the median backer would be in the third tier, the one that goes for $160. The cheapest shipping cost on top of that would be $40 for domestic shipping, so $200 total. I guess $160 for four hardbacks isn’t excessively crazy. Holy poo poo @ the 23,000 backers in the $500 tier tho.
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Apr 1, 2022 01:07
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