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McCoy Pauley posted:Has O'Malley written anything else? Not a thing. I think the sequel to The Rook comes out next February though.
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Jul 31, 2014 07:20
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Khizan posted:Huh. I found The Crimson Campaign to be notably worse than the first book. Like, a lot worse than it.
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Jul 31, 2014 17:47
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Maybe someone can help me out. I just read Accelerando by Charles Stross and loved it. But there was one thing I didn't really understand : towards the end of the book, what were the autonomic defenses of the Vile Offspring ? All I got was that Manfred and company find evidence of the autonomic defenses but I must have missed the implication of what those defenses would actually do.
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Jul 31, 2014 20:23
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Hedrigall posted:(x-post) So has anyone else read this yet and have any thoughts about it? Personally, when I read on Reynolds blog that he considered this story to be his "reboot" of the Revelation Space universe, I thought he'd be using this story to introduce some kind of new threat that might be showing up in a new novel or two. But nope, it's just the Inhibitors again. Still, it was a very effectively creepy story. I loved the slow exploration, the stuff with the pet monkey, the silver seams of metal that take on horrific shapes as they get deeper... Somebody on Reddit said that this story made them think that Alastair Reynolds should have written Prometheus, and I think the comparison is really good. It was also really cool to find out about more of the pre-human, pre-Shrouder species of the galaxy... even though we barely find out anything about them. Really good story.
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Aug 1, 2014 01:53
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n4 posted:Maybe someone can help me out. I just read Accelerando by Charles Stross and loved it. But there was one thing I didn't really understand : towards the end of the book, what were the autonomic defenses of the Vile Offspring ? All I got was that Manfred and company find evidence of the autonomic defenses but I must have missed the implication of what those defenses would actually do. It's never spelled out, but it would be bad. It is a reference to the old quote about advanced alien civilizations and the Kardashev Scale quote:I can picture the ships entering a system, making contact with a highly advanced civilization, some skirmishing, diplomacy, etc. leading to a treaty and peaceful relations --- and then the invading civilization discovers that it's actually been dealing with the god's non-sentient (on the god's scale) immune system. Basically the best we could possibly field would barely be on the level of the non conscious defenses of the Vile Offspring, much less if we got their full and undivided attention
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Aug 1, 2014 02:30
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Hedrigall posted:Give Seeds of Earth by Michael Cobley a shot. It's the first in a trilogy called Humanity's Fire.
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Aug 1, 2014 06:11
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I just finished Echopraxia. Given that it's unreleased I won't give anything other than one comment on the ending which is quite general, and that in spoilers: gently caress that made me want to hurl my Kindle across the room in anger.
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Aug 1, 2014 09:43
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Neurosis posted:I just finished Echopraxia. Given that it's unreleased I won't give anything other than one comment on the ending which is quite general, and that in spoilers: gently caress that made me want to hurl my Kindle across the room in anger. Is it as bad as Blindsight?
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Aug 1, 2014 10:08
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BadOptics posted:Is it as bad as Blindsight? Worse.
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Aug 1, 2014 10:31
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Neurosis posted:I just finished Echopraxia. Given that it's unreleased I won't give anything other than one comment on the ending which is quite general, and that in spoilers: gently caress that made me want to hurl my Kindle across the room in anger. good anger, like the storytelling brought out a strong emotional catharsis, or bad anger, like it was a bullshit cop out that made you hate the whole thing? I don't need to know anything more than good/bad re: the comment about the end, and how would you rate the book overall? Fried Chicken fucked around with this message at 14:37 on Aug 1, 2014 |
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Aug 1, 2014 14:34
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Fried Chicken posted:good anger, like the storytelling brought out a strong emotional catharsis, or bad anger, like it was a bullshit cop out that made you hate the whole thing? Overall, I liked it quite a bit. It's not as focused as Blindsight and the narrative is overall not as coherent, but it will tickle the same spots as Blindsight. My reaction to the ending is based on its unremitting bleakness. It is basically cosmic horror.
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Aug 1, 2014 16:50
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Neurosis posted:My reaction to the ending is based on its unremitting bleakness. It is basically cosmic horror. So it was written by Peter Watts, is what you're saying.
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Aug 1, 2014 17:08
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Feel like summarizing? The premise of the series doesn't do it for me so I don't want to read it, but I'm kinda curious what's so bad about it.
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Aug 1, 2014 17:11
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mdemone posted:So it was written by Peter Watts, is what you're saying. Yeah, I guess. The endings to Blindsight and The Rifters series weren't quite so uncompromising, though.
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Aug 1, 2014 18:22
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I thought Echopraxia's ending was if anything a little more cheerful than Blindsight's. Baseline humanity is hosed and doomed, but what comes next may include some of the sapiens-derived transhuman elements from Earth as well as vampires and the Scramblers/Scrambler-issue Portia. Blindsight just implies total human extinction and vampire hegemony. (don't read this spoiler please) I am kind of curious as to what the premise of the series might be, and why it feels like a series to you. I guess I'd never thought of it that way.
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Aug 1, 2014 18:33
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mdemone posted:So it was written by Peter Watts, is what you're saying. Peter "I'm actually an optimist with a positive view of human nature!" Watts. It was good, though. Not as good as Blindsight, but good, and I really appreciated that the protagonist's response to Portia going active was to grab a flamethrower and start burning. Nice crisis problem-solving skills.
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Aug 1, 2014 18:38
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General Battuta posted:I thought Echopraxia's ending was if anything a little more cheerful than Blindsight's. Baseline humanity is hosed and doomed, but what comes next may include some of the sapiens-derived transhuman elements from Earth as well as vampires and the Scramblers/Scrambler-issue Portia. Blindsight just implies total human extinction and vampire hegemony. (don't read this spoiler please) I don't know, I guess I'm attached to my baseline nature. Vampire hegemony, as Valerie comments, is preferable to non-existence, and this Portia thing may totally eclipse and eradicate other forms of life, anyway, and if that's the case - well, is Portia conscious? I was a little vague on its provenance, other than coming from Theseus. chrisoya posted:I really appreciated that the protagonist's response to Portia going active was to grab a flamethrower and start burning. Nice crisis problem-solving skills. That was his response to Portia at the end of the novel, too. 
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Aug 1, 2014 18:44
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sure wish i could read this book
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Aug 1, 2014 19:25
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I hate you all for tempting me with spoilers for a book I can't buy, aaaaaa
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Aug 1, 2014 22:11
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eriktown posted:I hate you all for tempting me with spoilers for a book I can't buy, aaaaaa What you do is hang around until Christmas and join the Book Barn Secret Santa. Put said book on your wish list or mention that you particularly want it when you sign up, and perhaps it will show up at your doorstep.
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Aug 2, 2014 02:24
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Zola posted:What you do is hang around until Christmas and join the Book Barn Secret Santa. Put said book on your wish list or mention that you particularly want it when you sign up, and perhaps it will show up at your doorstep. We can't buy it because street date is the 26th
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Aug 2, 2014 03:12
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Oh, and Watts said in the afterword that his next book will probably be about a biologist in a techno-thriller.
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Aug 2, 2014 04:18
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Isn't that like every one of his books anyway? (note, I haven't read Watts but everyone talks about how his books are thrilling and are way sciency)
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Aug 2, 2014 04:36
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Fried Chicken posted:We can't buy it because street date is the 26th Yeah, I'd probably pay twice the regular ebook price to read it now -.-
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Aug 2, 2014 05:27
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All this chat about the new book! I'm reading Blindsight now, about 30% in. It's got very, very good. I'm a big China fan so bleak endings are fine. Getting the new one in hardback for sure, the cover looks great! I really love how snippets about vampires keep getting dropped throughout.
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Aug 2, 2014 07:48
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General Battuta posted:I am kind of curious as to what the premise of the series might be, and why it feels like a series to you. I guess I'd never thought of it that way. Well, (new book spoilers) it might very well end up being one. There is one big dangling plot thread - Jim and Siri. There is, of course, the looming posthuman confrontation between vamps, Bicamerals/hives, the emergent intelligence hinted at, and Portia, but we don't need to necessarily know how that goes. There are also the machine AIs like Theseus to consider, although they may be part of the emergent intelligence referred to above. Machine AIs weren't really discussed in this book. Blindsight/Echopraxia can be seen as a biologist's take on the Singularity, so that's not so surprising, but we know they're there from Blindsight.
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Aug 2, 2014 08:12
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Hedrigall posted:So has anyone else read this yet and have any thoughts about it? I read Lachrymosa yesterday and I'm pretty much feeling the same as you are. I thought the framing and the ordering of the story was a good device. You could feel the dread building up. I had no idea about any rebooting of the universe, so I had no expectations on that to be disappointed over. It's a good read even if you don't have much RS experience (I've only read the eponynomous novel and the stories in Galactic North).
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Aug 2, 2014 09:10
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gvibes posted:I liked the Terror (which I think is generally well regarded) as well as Ilium/Olympos (which is not). I enjoyed Drood, although it kind of just completely falls apart at the end.
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Aug 2, 2014 12:54
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Ilium was the first half of a fantastic story. Except it turned out to be the first half of a gigantic pile of poo poo instead. Possibly the greatest disappointment I've had in 35 years or so of reading books.
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Aug 2, 2014 13:05
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House Louse posted:It's more than just incompetent writing, although it isn't a genre thing, despite what this thread might make you think... Whoops, been a while since I've been in this thread, but I will answer anyway! The main reason why I preferred The Killing Moon is that I felt the plot was ultimately more interesting and focused and I liked the ending, which gave closure for the main characters, was a logical conclusion to the story and just was satisfying in how it left the characters. The Shadowed Sun has some arguably more interesting plot threads that the first, and the antagonist is truly creepy, but I felt that the story lost momentum partway through and the plot became muddied with story elements continued from the first book. I think I would have preferred a story that took place more years in the future from the first, contained within the city. I appreciate that she was giving us a look at another culture but unfortunately I didn't think that story gelled well with the main plot. But I think the main disappointment was really the ending, which just was a real dud for me. I didn't really like where the main character ended up in the end and didn't feel it was a logical conclusion to her story. It felt tacked on for the sake of a happy romantic ending.
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Aug 3, 2014 08:10
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Are there any sci fi books that deal with humans born on planets with higher gravity being stronger than other humans and maybe when the two sports teams meet the ones used to the higher gravity always win? Or maybe sci fi about how latency issues make interstellar gaming noncompetitive for real-time games? Maybe just a book that explores all of the mundane implications of being a space-faring species.
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Aug 3, 2014 08:52
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Read Poor Man's Fight and just got Rich Man's War. The plot doesn't feel too terribly unique but it hits the right beats and is satisfying - other posters were right when they said that halfway through it takes a hard right turn from boot camp to die hard, and that was pretty weird, but I think that was always kind of intended - this was always a military sci-fi novel, individual combat was always hyped up since that was half the point of the boot camp segments, and half the reason of putting him on that small a ship was to get him into those situations, narratively. However, I don't really think the plot turning that way matters that much. Instead, especially from what happens in the beginning of Rich Man's War, it's really more of a character study of Tanner becoming more accustomed to military life... in the future. One thing that I think hits really home about it is how self-aware he is, and how much the military psychiatrist helps him. That's really not a common thing in military fiction at all, especially military sf: it's normally just another way for the armchair military author to complain about "military" people who don't go into combat and how they "just don't get it". So that's different, and refreshing. And Tanner's self-awareness about what he's doing and its real consequences are also nice. All in all, I see it as a series that really wants to explore characterization in a mil-sf world. The problem being, of course, that the author's not too good at it. The prose is mediocre. There's a lot of really quick and poorly-signposted switches between character POVs, although part of that might be that the Kindle app on the iphone screws up some formatting. But for instance, take the end of Poor Man's Fight - when Tanner's fighting Casey, and Lauren, we're getting all their names on both sides, even though neither side knows who the other is. I don't know if I'd be satisfied by having a character we already know be treated as anonymous, but I do know I don't like this way. Also, while I do like authors trying to get away from using "said" as a verb over and over, please don't have an entire paragraph or two of characters wordily "grinning" back and forth.
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Aug 3, 2014 21:49
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^^^ I enjoyed Poor Man's Fight, didn't know there was a sequel. I preferred it to Old Man's War.Lpzie posted:Are there any sci fi books that deal with humans born on planets with higher gravity being stronger than other humans and maybe when the two sports teams meet the ones used to the higher gravity always win? Or maybe sci fi about how latency issues make interstellar gaming noncompetitive for real-time games? Maybe just a book that explores all of the mundane implications of being a space-faring species. I really like the series, it's where I learnt to enjoy listening to football games (and also learned WTF was going on.) It has heavy-G human linebackers, insectoid wide receivers, overwhelmingly powerful aliens who've made all other races subjects of their empire, and all kinds of crazy aliens. The author also does a lot of horror-gore stuff, some of it's fun, some of it is horrifically graphic (Infection was so graphic that I had to stop it and delete it, while a guy was trying to pull an alien 'fungus' infection out of his nutsack with tweezers. I'd recommend The Rookie though, it's got a strong world setting, some organized crime, and is a classic "boy quest" at heart, where the main character starts off as an immature rear end in a top hat and gradually evolves into a leader of coyo7e fucked around with this message at 02:57 on Aug 4, 2014 |
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Aug 3, 2014 23:11
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So I decided to give Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings (Stormlight Archive) a try via audiobook - 45 hours long apparently, holy crap. I'm only up to the first proper chapter, after the unofficial prologue and the lengthy actual officially titled Prologue, and wow this sounds like some of the most generic fantasy bullshit. "On the first day of the week Palah of the month Shash, Kalak looked at the Thunderclast and the Parsheni Dustbringers unsheathed their Shard Blade (which is like a sword but cooler) and fought someone who was wearing Shard Plate (which is like armour but cooler) and used their magical Lashings which affect gravity but we can't say gravity because it's made-uppy olden times. Here's a detailed lengthy description of how this works as though you were looking at a wiki..." "Kalak" alone sounds like something a sitcom writer would make up for a fake series some nerds are into. But names and wiki-writing aside, I actually really like the prose and the artful use of (non-made up) language. I don't know what's going on in the story, but the writing just feels rich. I'm still reading The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie and that's very light in comparison. Descriptions are short, the English is simple and the book seems to be almost 50% dialogue. In some ways it's a refreshing change, but it is strange that it feels closer to Discworld in style (but not tone), whereas Brandon Sanderson's style feels closer to George RR Martin's stuff or to a lesser extent - The Lies of Locke Lamora.
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Aug 4, 2014 07:20
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Hey, fans of Arthur C. Clarke, Alastair Reynolds and Stephen Baxter! There's a new book coming out in 2016 which is a sequel to the Clarke novella A Meeting with Medusa, written by Reynolds and Baxter in collaboration. It's called The Medusa Chronicles and it sounds pretty awesome!
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Aug 4, 2014 08:13
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VagueRant posted:So I decided to give Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings (Stormlight Archive) a try via audiobook - 45 hours long apparently, holy crap. I'm only up to the first proper chapter, after the unofficial prologue and the lengthy actual officially titled Prologue, and wow this sounds like some of the most generic fantasy bullshit. I've been pretty explicit about my distaste for sanderson's stuff before in here so I won't get into it again except to say that i agree with you.
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Aug 4, 2014 13:44
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andrew smash posted:I've been pretty explicit about my distaste for sanderson's stuff before in here so I won't get into it again except to say that i agree with you. I'll agree too on The Way of Kings. Everything in that book just drags on and on and on with the descriptions of poo poo no one should care. There are cool concepts in there but they are ruined by giving too much detail too soon. It's missing the mystery a fantasy world should have. How can you have that mystery when you describe everything in such minute detail? The pacing is just way too slow too and yeah way too many bullshit sounding fantasy words. Oddly I enjoyed Elantris, even though it dragged too, and Steelheart was fun pulpy stuff.
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Aug 4, 2014 14:34
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VagueRant posted:So I decided to give Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings (Stormlight Archive) a try via audiobook - 45 hours long apparently, holy crap. I'm only up to the first proper chapter, after the unofficial prologue and the lengthy actual officially titled Prologue, and wow this sounds like some of the most generic fantasy bullshit. Way of Kings starts off slow but keep in mind that you've barely even scratched the surface. It quickly ramps up into  though, and eventually hits DBZ levels of crazy. Shard Blades are very clearly Final Fantasy-esque swords. The sections with the wall-walking/jumping assassin are probably the weakest parts of the first novel though.If you stick with it a bit you will likely enjoy things a great deal. The one failing of the audio books is that they lack the images of the books/ebooks. The one girl with the sketchpad keeps drawing interesting flora and fauna, and they're depicted in the novels, which helps to make a lot of the "stupid generic fantasy bullshit" clear in one's mind. coyo7e fucked around with this message at 16:16 on Aug 4, 2014 |
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Aug 4, 2014 16:13
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Hedrigall posted:Hey, fans of Arthur C. Clarke, Alastair Reynolds and Stephen Baxter! Well I'm sold.
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Aug 4, 2014 21:10
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coyo7e posted:Should Kalak ought to have been named "bill" or something? Yes. Fantasy names suck.
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Aug 4, 2014 21:55
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