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Spinard knows authors who use subtext and thinks they're all cowards.
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Jul 12, 2023 02:28
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It's important to understand Hitler is wielding a literal veined cock with a fist on the end, and he makes his minions kiss the swastika ring on the fist. He is constantly going on about snug black leather, and gets a handsome blond assistant Nazi halfway through who does nothing apart from 'make himself useful in many ways'. At the end he launches a giant penis rocket full of Nazi sperm to, and I quote, 'fecundate the stars' while jackbooted nazis march around it in a swastika. It's absolutely deranged.
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Jul 12, 2023 07:35
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It's also basically indistinguishable from any of those fantasy books where heroes cleave through thousands of orcs or w/e, which is a point made in a faux scholarly essay at the end by a 'homer whipple'.
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Jul 12, 2023 07:37
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Well... is there something like that but slightly more subtle and poignant? I liked Spiderlight by Tchaikovsky.
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Jul 12, 2023 07:56
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Read Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep and thought it started out quite strongly (it helps that Vinge can actually write well; I really liked the story thread with the shipwrecked humans, and the worldbuilding of the deeply alien aliens they're stranded among) but ultimately it was pretty bloated and was glad to be done with it. What's the consensus view on the sequels?
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Jul 12, 2023 09:42
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freebooter posted:Read Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep and thought it started out quite strongly (it helps that Vinge can actually write well; I really liked the story thread with the shipwrecked humans, and the worldbuilding of the deeply alien aliens they're stranded among) but ultimately it was pretty bloated and was glad to be done with it. What's the consensus view on the sequels? A Deepness In The Sky is connected but not a sequel, and I thought it was quite good. The third book is a true sequel I believe and I haven’t gotten around to reading it.
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Jul 12, 2023 10:41
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sebmojo posted:It's important to understand Hitler is wielding a literal veined cock with a fist on the end, and he makes his minions kiss the swastika ring on the fist. He is constantly going on about snug black leather, and gets a handsome blond assistant Nazi halfway through who does nothing apart from 'make himself useful in many ways'. At the end he launches a giant penis rocket full of Nazi sperm to, and I quote, 'fecundate the stars' while jackbooted nazis march around it in a swastika. It's absolutely deranged. like the rocket is only filled with sperm because they do not need women in the future because uh the jews (sorry, "ratlike Dominators") made them all infertile I think? he doesn't stop them in time? something something cloning?
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Jul 12, 2023 10:52
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https://www.kathryncramer.com/kathryn_cramer/2007/07/the-new-weird-a.html I found myself going back to the forum conversation back in 2003 where Alastair Reynolds, M John Harrison, Jeff VanderMeer, and a bunch of others got into the thick of it figuring out just what this New Weird thing was, and whether their own work defined it. Feels odd to have so many big names in a forum together, visible to the public. Quite the meeting of the minds. I wonder how much brainstorming like that has been going on recently that I'm not privy to.
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Jul 12, 2023 11:41
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DACK FAYDEN posted:don't forget that there are zero women anywhere in the entire book iirc There are I think two women who like serve the protag a drink or something Otherwise mhm
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Jul 12, 2023 12:52
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Nuurd posted:A Deepness In The Sky is connected but not a sequel, and I thought it was quite good. The third book is a true sequel I believe and I haven’t gotten around to reading it. Deepness is among my favorite books. It’s still very long, but I think it’s a tighter book than Fire, while perhaps being a bit less fantastic in scope. I would highly recommend it. Children of the Sky or whatever wasn’t worth reading, unfortunately, because it ultimately leaves a ton of hooks unresolved and it doesn’t seem like Vinge is writing anymore.
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Jul 12, 2023 13:22
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freebooter posted:Read Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep and thought it started out quite strongly (it helps that Vinge can actually write well; I really liked the story thread with the shipwrecked humans, and the worldbuilding of the deeply alien aliens they're stranded among) but ultimately it was pretty bloated and was glad to be done with it. What's the consensus view on the sequels? Deepness in the Sky is very good although very rapey.
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Jul 12, 2023 13:29
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FPyat posted:https://www.kathryncramer.com/kathryn_cramer/2007/07/the-new-weird-a.html It’s a really fascinating discussion. There was a good article that looks at it, contextualises it in the publishing scene of the day, the British SF boom and so forth: http://www.bigecho.org/nothing-beside-remains What I found most interesting was (i) how central Harrison was as an inspiration and, I guess, theorist to at least the British arm of the New Weird, despite being pretty down on it. He’s also not necessarily thought of as part of that scene in the same way as your Mievilles and Vandermeers. and (ii) how loving catty they all are. It’s Real Posters Posting at each other. I’ve had my ups and downs with Vandermeer, disagree with some of what he’s getting across here, but you can see where some of his later snippiness about British authors comes from.
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Jul 12, 2023 18:07
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GhastlyBizness posted:It’s a really fascinating discussion. There was a good article that looks at it, contextualises it in the publishing scene of the day, the British SF boom and so forth: http://www.bigecho.org/nothing-beside-remains I started reading Harrison and Robert Holdstock based purely on how much Moorcock raved about them in Wizardry and Wild Romance.
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Jul 12, 2023 18:57
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freebooter posted:Read Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep and thought it started out quite strongly (it helps that Vinge can actually write well; I really liked the story thread with the shipwrecked humans, and the worldbuilding of the deeply alien aliens they're stranded among) but ultimately it was pretty bloated and was glad to be done with it. What's the consensus view on the sequels? I also just read that and had the exact opposite experience -- bit of a slog at the beginning but I stuck with it. I really loved how the extremely alien aliens (particularly the dog pack hiveminds and the sentient algae on rascal scooters) ended up being quite compelling, and I thought it stuck the landing pretty well without drawing things out too much. Really dug the setting as well. Also the message board postings were great. I'm hesitant to check out the prequel as I found the character that links the two books together to be the least interesting of the first novel, but I might pick it up at some point.
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Jul 12, 2023 19:57
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I'll be honest I was extremely uninterested in reading anything else Vernor Vinge covered when I found out there wouldn't be more dog hivemind aliens. My favorite part of the book!
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Jul 12, 2023 20:02
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freebooter posted:Read Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep and thought it started out quite strongly (it helps that Vinge can actually write well; I really liked the story thread with the shipwrecked humans, and the worldbuilding of the deeply alien aliens they're stranded among) but ultimately it was pretty bloated and was glad to be done with it. What's the consensus view on the sequels? The sequel is great, I found the alien spider people in the sequel much more interesting than the dogs, although the dogs were a really neat idea executed very well. I don't remember thinking much of the third book, but I would definitely recommend the second. Bayham Badger posted:I also just read that and had the exact opposite experience -- bit of a slog at the beginning but I stuck with it. I really loved how the extremely alien aliens (particularly the dog pack hiveminds and the sentient algae on rascal scooters) ended up being quite compelling, and I thought it stuck the landing pretty well without drawing things out too much. Really dug the setting as well. Also the message board postings were great. I forgot about the message board postings. Those were great he absolutely gets how dumb forum culture can be and really nails it. I also really loved the whole zones of thought concept and really wish he had done more books in the setting, especially in the far out super-intelligence zone. I am currently reading Edges by Linda Nagata and really enjoying it. My understanding is that there is a prequel trilogy but that she wrote this Inverted Frontier trilogy as a new entry point into the setting. I read the synopsis of the first trilogy and it didn't really grab me so I just went ahead and started this one. Has anybody read the first trilogy, I believe it starts with Bohr Maker, and can recommend whether it is worth reading after I finish this one? Also any other recommendations in the style of Inverted Frontier or Zones of Thought would be welcome. This is the kind of big concept scifi I most enjoy and I feel like I've read most of the well regarded ones so I am looking for stuff off the beaten path.
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Jul 12, 2023 20:27
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StrixNebulosa posted:I'll be honest I was extremely uninterested in reading anything else Vernor Vinge covered when I found out there wouldn't be more dog hivemind aliens. My favorite part of the book! I have some good news about the third book in the series The Children of the Sky
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Jul 12, 2023 20:30
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D-Pad posted:The sequel is great, I found the alien spider people in the sequel much more interesting than the dogs, although the dogs were a really neat idea executed very well. I don't remember thinking much of the third book, but I would definitely recommend the second. Alien spider people you say? Since Children of Time I've been looking for something along those lines so cheers for the recommendation 
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Jul 12, 2023 20:41
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Frankly it's the increasingly unhinged rancor on those message board posts that are my favorite parts of the book. Basically a little epistolary within a solid book, I love it.
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Jul 12, 2023 20:45
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silvergoose posted:Frankly it's the increasingly unhinged rancor on those message board posts that are my favorite parts of the book. Basically a little epistolary within a solid book, I love it. Hexapodia a key insight?!? (No, but actually, hexa-wheelia(?) is.)
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Jul 12, 2023 20:58
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A cool thing about Deepness in the Sky is that the spider aliens still follow the same surnaming conventions we do, and because those surnames can translate into english you get characters like Z'mbnorn Cooper and Fyrneys Smith. I always thought that was a fun detail. One thing that's kind of, not annoying but you have to deal with it, is that they use metric time so you have to constantly refer to the front of the book to see how long a megasecond is in American time zoux fucked around with this message at 21:02 on Jul 12, 2023 |
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Jul 12, 2023 20:59
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silvergoose posted:Frankly it's the increasingly unhinged rancor on those message board posts that are my favorite parts of the book. Basically a little epistolary within a solid book, I love it. It wasn't message boards, it was Usenet. So you get the one guy in the middle of nowhere with the metered Internet connection and the ISP that doesn't carry all the newsgroups making completely uniformed posts based on incomplete and outdated information.
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Jul 12, 2023 21:07
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I thought it was funny that they all believed the 0-second of their metric time was the moment of the moon landing when it was actually just the Unix Epoch. Close.
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Jul 12, 2023 21:19
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D-Pad posted:The sequel is great, I found the alien spider people in the sequel much more interesting than the dogs, although the dogs were a really neat idea executed very well. I don't remember thinking much of the third book, but I would definitely recommend the second. I love Linda Nagata's work, although I prefer her near future mil and Hawaii stuff. Her fantasy stuff is ok. Bohr maker and it's direct sequels are good but clearly her first published writing, they give context to the inverted frontier series but I wouldnt call them essential.
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Jul 12, 2023 22:29
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The Dreamblood Duology (#1-2) by NK Jemisin - $4.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01DSTTQAO/ The Complete Poppy War Trilogy (#1-3) by RF Kuang - $4.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXLM3JSF/ Shards of Earth (Final Architecture #1) by Adrian Tchaikovsky - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08HLPZY6X/ Jack of Shadows by Roger Zelazny - $0.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01F7T7R5O/ Rumo & His Miraculous Adventures (Zamonia #2) by Walter Moers - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MWC9NZJ/ The Alchemaster's Apprentice (Zamonia #4) by Walter Moers - $3.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MXDJJHF/
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Jul 13, 2023 00:57
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zoux posted:A cool thing about Deepness in the Sky is that the spider aliens still follow the same surnaming conventions we do, and because those surnames can translate into english you get characters like Z'mbnorn Cooper and Fyrneys Smith. I always thought that was a fun detail. Also I love how the spiders live in a warmly bucolic, Thomas Kincade, cusp-of-steampunk world that's basically just like earth but with more legs; you could almost think they were people after a few paragraphs.
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Jul 13, 2023 05:37
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NoneMoreNegative posted:Also I love how the spiders live in a warmly bucolic, Thomas Kincade, cusp-of-steampunk world that's basically just like earth but with more legs; you could almost think they were people after a few paragraphs. It's been several years since I read the book, but I had been under the impression that both of these things were the result of the way the slave translators thought about the spider society and that the spider story was their translation of the radio broadcasts they listened to. When the humans actually met the spiders, they were horrified by them.
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Jul 13, 2023 06:03
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Yea sure it SOUNDS hot when she says she's got legs that go on forever, and she's gonna tie you up and suck you dry but then https://i.imgur.com/dSIhxaM.gifv
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Jul 13, 2023 06:58
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Xenix posted:It's been several years since I read the book, but I had been under the impression that both of these things were the result of the way the slave translators thought about the spider society and that the spider story was their translation of the radio broadcasts they listened to. When the humans actually met the spiders, they were horrified by them. That's kind of the point, that these aliens that we see as horrific monsters are just normal people with normal wants and desires that we can identify with
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Jul 13, 2023 14:53
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poo poo, the series is on Kindle Unlimited now? Nice, the library only has the first book, I read it when I was a wee child and always wanted to read the others.
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Jul 13, 2023 18:50
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I'm reading The Traitor Baru Cormorant after seeing it recommended and referred to a million times on these forums and I'm only a couple chapters in but it is... incredible. I'm a relative novice to SFF in general and nowhere near as well-read as most of y'all who post in this thread but the prose and pace is just amazing, I know that I've barely even scratched the surface of the series but the characterization of Baru and her family is just staggering in its density. I don't have much else to say other than that - I'm just really enjoying it, what a great read.
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Jul 13, 2023 20:15
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Yeah. Too bad about the author though.
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Jul 13, 2023 20:23
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(in case you missed one of the reasons it's talked about so much, the author posts in this very thread)
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Jul 13, 2023 21:00
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FuturePastNow posted:I thought it was funny that they all believed the 0-second of their metric time was the moment of the moon landing when it was actually just the Unix Epoch. Close. Vinge knows how difficult it is to get rid of legacy systems.
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Jul 13, 2023 21:38
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Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FCK2TW/ The Wrinkle in Time Quartet (#1-4) by Madeleine L'Engle - $3.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BD29DX7/ The Near Witch by VE Schwab - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07L2GGTWW/ The Crack in Space by Philip K Dick - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005LVR6UK/ Lies, Inc by Philip K Dick - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005LVR0AG/
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Jul 13, 2023 23:03
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pradmer posted:Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro - $1.99 This book is incredibly good!! Not sure why he doesn’t get nominated for hugo/nebulas as his last three books have been increasingly straight SF or Fantasy but he won the noble prize after putting out this book! I won’t spoil what’s SF about it (teenagers going to a boarding school in England where something strange is definitely going on), read it!
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Jul 13, 2023 23:33
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Is there a third Baru on the way? I tried reading the second and it was impenetrable because it had been awhile since I read the first and I couldn't hack it. I want to reread the first, so I can read the second, but if there's a third coming I'm going to hold off.
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Jul 14, 2023 00:07
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Beachcomber posted:Is there a third Baru on the way? I tried reading the second and it was impenetrable because it had been awhile since I read the first and I couldn't hack it. The third came.
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Jul 14, 2023 00:10
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Beachcomber posted:Is there a third Baru on the way? I tried reading the second and it was impenetrable because it had been awhile since I read the first and I couldn't hack it. lol the third was published years ago
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Jul 14, 2023 00:11
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 ????
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Jul 14, 2023 00:14
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