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Science fiction story: I start calling everyone with blue eyes a 'homozog' and do not explain that it means 'homozygous recessive on the eye color allele' which is an urban legend, terrible and discredited science I tweet "Homozogs think eyebleaching can't happen to them then crash their scooters into my drivers side door" Millions of homozogs get mad at me I am revealed to be a homozog when my eyes reflect the blue laser light of an NSA drone's targeting system (I am about to be hit by a cuisinart hellfire to silence my discovery that if you aim your retinas directly at each other you can generate a laser beam through your nose). Discourse ensues e: gently caress
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Aug 7, 2022 15:48
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No no, go on.
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Aug 7, 2022 16:06
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I believe the term of art is "knife missile drone"
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Aug 7, 2022 17:54
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Okay. I'm going to buy and read an Elric omnibus after I finish reading my Dracula annotated book. Yes. This is a good plan and might keep me from buying a book until I finish another one.
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Aug 7, 2022 18:12
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fez_machine posted:Simak (he wrote a lot S.F. that could now be described as cozy) What are these author's best works? I see them on sales quite frequently but no one ever posts about them so I don't have any perspective. CIRCE by Madeline Miller - $4.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074M5TLLJ/ A Darker Shade of Magic (Shades of Magic #1) by VE Schwab - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ME0TBFE/ The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by VE Schwab - $4.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B084357H23/
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Aug 7, 2022 18:15
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StrixNebulosa posted:Okay. I'm going to buy and read an Elric omnibus after I finish reading my Dracula annotated book. Yes. This is a good plan and might keep me from buying a book until I finish another one. Quincy Morris is the most American man to ever be in a book. He certainly is an American man! You can tell from the things he says.
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Aug 7, 2022 18:18
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General Battuta posted:Science fiction story: This follow-up to the Baru Cormorant series is looking a little iffy, but gently caress it. Write this sucker and tell me when I can throw my money at you to read it.
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Aug 7, 2022 18:18
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StrixNebulosa posted:Okay. I'm going to buy and read an Elric omnibus after I finish reading my Dracula annotated book. Yes. This is a good plan and might keep me from buying a book until I finish another one. elric of omnibonus
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Aug 7, 2022 18:26
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the do a quote is not edit if you're in danger baru cormorant
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Aug 7, 2022 18:33
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HopperUK posted:Quincy Morris is the most American man to ever be in a book. He certainly is an American man! You can tell from the things he says. Well, he's at least an American vampire anyway.
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Aug 7, 2022 18:39
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Shwoo posted:Is there some context for why encoding a message with only four possible symbols is treated as difficult here, or does the author just not know about binary? Or codons, actually. Hell, Morse.
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Aug 7, 2022 18:46
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Elric of Melbourne?
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Aug 7, 2022 19:32
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pradmer posted:What are these author's best works? I see them on sales quite frequently but no one ever posts about them so I don't have any perspective. I've had Silverburg's Majipoor books recommended to me a few times, though I haven't read them myself. fez_machine posted:Good list of authors Than you for this, I think the only ones on there that I've read are Zelazny (who I agree is kind of criminally underdiscussed outside SA) and Davidson, and that was because you mentioned A Boss in the Wall in the horror thread, I think. I'll hunt down more of these soon.
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Aug 7, 2022 19:34
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Blood and shrimp for my mate Arioch
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Aug 7, 2022 19:35
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General Battuta posted:'homozygous recessive on the eye color allele' which is an urban legend, terrible and discredited science Yeah it interacts with all the other melanin biosynthesis and transport genes, but it's still good enough to use as a type example in undergrad genetics.
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Aug 7, 2022 19:36
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RDM posted:Ehh it's more or less right for white people. There's a specific mutation in an OCA2 enhancer that means you lose expression of a melanin transporter in the iris. When it's homozygous you pretty much always have blue eyes. Utterly zogpilled
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Aug 7, 2022 21:05
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StrixNebulosa posted:Okay. I'm going to buy and read an Elric omnibus after I finish reading my Dracula annotated book. Yes. This is a good plan and might keep me from buying a book until I finish another one. I went the audiobook route and liked it quite a bit.
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Aug 7, 2022 21:26
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fez_machine posted:I was gonna say Jack Vance, but you said it.
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Aug 7, 2022 21:52
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pradmer posted:What are these author's best works? I see them on sales quite frequently but no one ever posts about them so I don't have any perspective. Silverberg is difficult because 1. he wrote so much stuff, Sanderson levels of stuff, and that means there's a bit of a quality hit, 2. he's conservative (but in a broadly inoffensive way) so his work has trouble finding advocates. Dying Inside, Hawksbill Station, Night Wings, The Book of Skulls, and The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg series would be my recommendations. MockingQuantum posted:I've had Silverburg's Majipoor books recommended to me a few times, though I haven't read them myself. Majipoor is kind of his equivalent of Zelazny's Amber series, clearly a cash grab for the fantasy doorstopper market. They're okay but distinguish themselves by occasionally being very weird, having the aesthetic novelty of everything being HUGE, and the setting largely having no conflict except at the highest echelons of power. MockingQuantum posted:Than you for this, I think the only ones on there that I've read are Zelazny (who I agree is kind of criminally underdiscussed outside SA) and Davidson, and that was because you mentioned A Boss in the Wall in the horror thread, I think. I'll hunt down more of these soon. Thank you! If you're interested in more about how SF deals with what has come before The Science Fiction Encyclopedia (easily one of the best places to go for worthwhile information about authors and critical appraisals of their work) has two pieces on the subject https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/longevity_in_writers https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/sf_megatext
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Aug 7, 2022 21:55
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I was expecting that to go "millions of people get mad at me for making a portmanteau of alt-right slang words."
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Aug 7, 2022 22:16
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Reading Tchaikovsky's Cage of Souls because I've been meaning to get around to his stuff for a while and it was recommended as kind of Dying Earth-flavoured, and... does it actually get interesting at any point? So far the protagonist's got to the prison, survived a giant snake attack and I'm not feeling particularly interested in continuing. The protagonist is boring, the background is thinly-sketched and the prose is basic (I know it's not fair to expect Vance/Gene Wolfe levels, and it's not bad, it's just... there). Is there any sudden turn that'll make it worth my while continuing or is it just not for me?
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Aug 7, 2022 22:43
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MockingQuantum posted:Out of curiosity, what do you see as disappearing? I agree in general, I'm just always curious what authors or eras in particular people see as being underrepresented because I came to a lot of non-modern sci Fi and fantasy pretty late as a reader, so I'm not sure what just doesn't get mentioned anymore. I feel like I didn't really get many Jack Vance recommendations until I was on SA, and I'm sure he's not the only one. Hope you don't mind a bit of an effortpost. fez_machine's reply was good and I agree with many of the authors named -- Davidson, Disch, Lafferty, Sheckley, Sturgeon, and also George Alec Effinger, Lucius Shepard, Algis Budrys, John Brunner, Lester del Rey, Robert Sheckley, AE van Vogt, etc -- there's tons more that are natural to forget, like the pre-Golden Age Gernsback stuff, primitive in structure and the prose clunky even by genre fiction standards, or the Sword and Planet stuff like Hamilton and much of Leigh Brackett. There's also the host of mid-listers of history, the people that were generally well respected at the time but have largely faded away: your Hal Clements, Gordon R. Dicksons, Eric Frank Russells, Clifford D. Simaks and so on. And the material that's most rooted in pure technological speculation often fails to hold up as it moves from predicted future to alternate history over the decades. Overall though, I was thinking more in terms of structure. Up until the 1970s and running somewhat into the 1980s, short fiction was incredibly important to the field, far more than it is today. Many older core SF novels were actually short stories glued together and/or expanded (a novel type known as the fix-up). Some of the all-time best work was released as short stories and novelettes, since the pulp era was almost entire short fiction driven, and the magazines that replaced them were absolutely essential forums for the release of SF until novel publishing really got going -- Galaxy, If and F&SF in particular -- and short story anthologies were major venues for original work in addition to the usual reprint purpose they usually have now. Some of the field's authors can really only be understood in short form. For example, Damon Knight (today best known for his story "To Serve Man", which became that legendary Twilight Zone episode) was considered an amazing writer, but built his rep almost entirely on being the perfect short story writer (though his criticism and later Orbit anthologies were huge); his novels were generally considered subpar. And of course, Harlan Ellison's entire career was (with a couple of oddball exceptions at the very start), short stories. Today, Ted Chiang is the only author I can think of who can get away with what was once a perfectly typical, even standard, way of success in the field. Since you seemed interested in a deeper dive, here's some authors that shined at the shorter length: Avram Davidson - Complex works that reward close readings, I'd recommend his 1979 Best Of collection, since I feel his 80s works are noticeably weaker (though still usually rewarding in their own way). The Avram Davidson Treasury is excellent if you really fall for him. I like this description of the effect of his tales: "Suppose you are the insomniac son of the world's funniest, smartest rabbi, who tells you bedtime stories to get you to go to sleep, except they are so good, you never do." Judith Merril - "Dead Center" (1954) is one of only two SF stories picked in the 1950s for the Best American Short Stories series. She also was a major tastemaker and trendsetter in the 1960s through her short-story anthologies. Lucius Shepard - Shepard was always a difficult sell because his favourite vehicle was the novella, which in terms of publishing is an awful format. I like this description of his output: "His work is characterized by strong elements of magic realism, supernatural horror, Central American and other exotic locales, and hallucinatory depictions of futuristic warfare." I suggest “The Man Who Painted the Dragon Griaule” (1984), "The Jaguar Hunter" (1985), and "R & R” (1986). Robert Silverberg is a weird entry because he's still alive. If you went to a con and talked to most any author there about Silverberg you'd likely get a response bordering on awe, but despite an incredibly long career and mountains of awards and success (three Hugos, five Nebulas), he feels to me like he's being forgotten about even now, that the current generation hasn't really latched on to his work. You've got a bazillion works to choose from and much of it is inessential, but again, a lot of the major stuff is in short form: try "Nightwings" (1968), "Passengers" (1968), "Good News from the Vatican" (1971), "Born with the Dead" (1975), "Sailing to Byzantium" (1985), or "Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another" (1990). Theodore Sturgeon - He of Sturgeon's Law, he wrote a decent number of novels that aren't that very interesting, but then short stories as varied as the weird horror of things like Bianca's Hands (1947) or Bright Segment (1955), the vivid structural experiment that is the widely anthologized "The Man Who Lost the Sea" (1959), and love stories like “When You Care, When You Love" (1962). James Tiptree Jr. - Like Knight, this is another author whose rep entirely rests on her short story output, with her novels being largely passed over. Too many good stories to list: just get the Her Smoke Rose Up Forever anthology. Perhaps the most well respected today of the authors I've listed here, and she's I think the one most likely to survive. Roger Zelazny - Though remembered best today for his paycheque generators known as Amber, even before Lord of Light he made his name as an author off the backs of short stories like “A Rose for Ecclesiastes” (1963) and "The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth" (1966). Xotl fucked around with this message at 06:42 on Aug 8, 2022 |
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Aug 7, 2022 22:44
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Runcible Cat posted:Reading Tchaikovsky's Cage of Souls because I've been meaning to get around to his stuff for a while and it was recommended as kind of Dying Earth-flavoured, and... does it actually get interesting at any point? So far the protagonist's got to the prison, survived a giant snake attack and I'm not feeling particularly interested in continuing. The protagonist is boring, the background is thinly-sketched and the prose is basic (I know it's not fair to expect Vance/Gene Wolfe levels, and it's not bad, it's just... there). Is there any sudden turn that'll make it worth my while continuing or is it just not for me? one of his (rare, imo) misses
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Aug 7, 2022 23:02
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Re old stuff I've been reading Fritz Leiber on the recommendation of this thread and really enjoying him. He does sometimes write women in a way that's very Of Its Time but it's otherwise amazing how well his work holds up considering how obviously influential it is – you'd think you'd get that Beatles effect where the genuinely revolutionary has been mimicked so much it now sounds kinda cliche, but nah this is great, he writes these great big worlds but never forgets to focus on people.
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Aug 7, 2022 23:43
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fez_machine posted:
Pat is an interesting one, some of the earlier cyberpunk stuff has aged worse than golden age sci-fi, perhaps because it was set closer in both time and culture. Disch's best work for mine is not his novels but his book the dreams our stuff is made of about sci and culture. 334 was a good book and night flyers is still a little relevant with the rise of the Christian right in the us and the rise of ubiquitous surveillance in our handheld devices
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Aug 8, 2022 02:00
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FPyat posted:I was expecting that to go "millions of people get mad at me for making a portmanteau of alt-right slang words." The alt right is talking about homozygosity!?
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Aug 8, 2022 03:27
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General Battuta posted:The alt right is talking about homozygosity!? General Battuta posted:Utterly zogpilled https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionist_Occupation_Government_conspiracy_theory
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Aug 8, 2022 03:47
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General Battuta posted:Science fiction story: The homozog Baru Cormorant
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Aug 8, 2022 05:43
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I was sitting there going "man this sounds familiar for some reason, like maybe it's close to w*g? It does sound like a weird olde timey slur but I guess I'm just imagining things" and I think I had the realisation on the exact same reply the general did SurreptitiousMuffin fucked around with this message at 09:33 on Aug 8, 2022 |
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Aug 8, 2022 05:51
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The other term I've seen people use a bunch in the past two years is "globohomo," which as I understand it describes the neoliberal elite order Mencius Moldbug calls "the Cathedral."
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Aug 8, 2022 11:12
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:I was sitting there going "man this sounds familiar for some reason, like maybe it's close to w*g? It does sound like a weird olde timey slur but I guess I'm just imagining things" and I think I had the realisation on the exact same reply the general did what's wrong with wigs. i mean they're not very fashionable anymore. let's bring that back. gonna dress like George Washington
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Aug 8, 2022 11:52
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Larry Parrish posted:what's wrong with wigs. i mean they're not very fashionable anymore. let's bring that back. gonna dress like George Washington Bring back the merkin imho
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Aug 8, 2022 12:40
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sebmojo posted:Bring back the merkin imho Be the change etc
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Aug 8, 2022 12:45
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Oh gently caress
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Aug 8, 2022 13:13
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General Battuta posted:Oh gently caress holy poo poo wait, other poster making a podcast named "Deplorable Visions", you know what "Deplorable" meant in 2016 right
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Aug 8, 2022 13:36
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DACK FAYDEN posted:wait was that not intentional because I thought it was No, it was not, I'm sorry, I will never make jokes again
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Aug 8, 2022 14:15
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General Battuta posted:No, it was not, I'm sorry, I will never make jokes again This only happens because we’re living in the worst timeline 
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Aug 8, 2022 14:53
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General Battuta posted:The alt right is talking about homozygosity!?
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Aug 8, 2022 15:14
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I read the third murderbot novella. They've all been quite good this far, although extremely formulaic. Covering very familiar territory with someone that are not your bland, usually male, Hero Protagonist seems to be the thing these days. I enjoy the shorter format of these; the prose flows really well and it's like a warm bath.
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Aug 8, 2022 15:28
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DACK FAYDEN posted:wait was that not intentional because I thought it was I'm secretly Batutta's alt who is really Graydon Saunder's. MartingaleJack fucked around with this message at 16:24 on Aug 8, 2022 |
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Aug 8, 2022 15:58
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