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General Battuta posted:It's like the cinematography in Children of Men! A camera that smash cuts and judders with violence eventually inures us and makes the action artificial. A dispassionately observing camera that never flinches is ironically more affecting. I need to watch that again. I really liked that movie even though the plot didn't feel that original. General Battuta posted:Just pronounce 'x' as 'sh' and most of them will be pretty easy to sort out. For example 'Lyxaxu' looks like gibberish but 'Lyshashu' is pretty easy. 'Unuxekome' is bad but 'Unushecomb' is hopefully okay! Nah it's fine, nerds are bad I mean, if you had called them the Scottish, the Chinese and the Greeks then people would have had aneurysms about how it was stupid to put those cultures together
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Mar 30, 2016 06:48
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Solitair posted:So I was looking for short stories that I could put on my Hugo nominations ballot and I came across General Battuta's "Please Undo This Hurt". While I thought it was pretty great, I'm not convinced that it's actually a science fiction or fantasy story. Can I get a second opinion on that?  No, that's not really an accurate description. Good story, would have preferred it with fewer maggots.
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Mar 30, 2016 06:56
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Battuta when is your short story collection coming out? I'm looking forward to shelving it pride-of-place next to Kij, Ken and Ted.
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Mar 30, 2016 07:22
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so I finished reading The Demolished Man a few days ago. Good fun, pulpy as all hell but a nice read. I would just like someone to please try to explain the ending. Reich gets cleared of murder, but Powell realises that Reich is actually a baby… demigod… super-telepath… thing, or maybe they were metaphorical and he's just a bit of a fascist, and summons the help of the Esper Guild to give Reich a hallucination that makes him… fall asleep, so that he can be taken away and Demolished? What exactly did this powerful ritual thing do that Demolition didn't? And the Chief of Police who was 100% on Reich’s side the whole book and doesn’t understand Espers just nods and goes “oh, sure, yeah, he was thinking some mean stuff, glad you nearly killed yourself to make him fall asleep so the doctors can do the Demolishing thing.” I mean, I read The Stars My Destination, I was expecting something bonkers, but what the gently caress
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Mar 30, 2016 12:01
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chrisoya posted:A world so hosed that one of the remaining "good" people is a microtransaction engineer. I just read this. Nico's reaction to the game was the same as mine except for some inexplicable reason he liked it whereas I thought it should be used as fuel. Curious!
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Mar 30, 2016 13:57
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Lunchmeat Larry posted:so I finished reading The Demolished Man a few days ago. Good fun, pulpy as all hell but a nice read. I would just like someone to please try to explain the ending. Reich gets cleared of murder, but Powell realises that Reich is actually a baby… demigod… super-telepath… thing, or maybe they were metaphorical and he's just a bit of a fascist, and summons the help of the Esper Guild to give Reich a hallucination that makes him… fall asleep, so that he can be taken away and Demolished? What exactly did this powerful ritual thing do that Demolition didn't? And the Chief of Police who was 100% on Reich’s side the whole book and doesn’t understand Espers just nods and goes “oh, sure, yeah, he was thinking some mean stuff, glad you nearly killed yourself to make him fall asleep so the doctors can do the Demolishing thing.” I mean, I read The Stars My Destination, I was expecting something bonkers, but what the gently caress Alfred Bester is the best (I mean it's right there in his name). His short stories are amazing. I'd put them up against Dick's shorts any time.
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Mar 30, 2016 14:06
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Just finished Halting State by Charles Stross off a recommendation in here. Really engaging read and holy poo poo is that a lot of second person narrative.
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Mar 30, 2016 16:00
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Is the Southern Reach trilogy worth reading? I've never read VanderMeer before.
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Mar 30, 2016 17:45
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Phanatic posted:Is the Southern Reach trilogy worth reading? Absolutely.
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Mar 30, 2016 18:02
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I liked Annihilation a lot and thought Authority and Acceptance were below average. Nowhere near as good as the Ambergris books. A lot of people like them, and they're short, so you lose little by checking them out.
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Mar 30, 2016 18:10
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Solitair posted:So I was looking for short stories that I could put on my Hugo nominations ballot and I came across General Battuta's "Please Undo This Hurt". While I thought it was pretty great, I'm not convinced that it's actually a science fiction or fantasy story. Can I get a second opinion on that? Science fiction doesn't need spaceships or laser guns and fantasy doesn't need dragons and wizards. It's more specifically known as speculative fiction, and boy does that speculate. The whole phone number thing seems pretty SF/F to me anyway. (Your comment reminds me of one of my short stories that got rejected for not being fantasy enough because it could have been a Victorian-ish period piece with some poison names changed. I almost made a whole $15!  )
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Mar 30, 2016 18:35
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"If You Were A Dinosaur, My Love" won a Nebula and was nominated for a Hugo and it's not Sci Fi/Fantasy in the slightest.
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Mar 30, 2016 18:57
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Neurosis posted:I liked Annihilation a lot and thought Authority and Acceptance were below average. Nowhere near as good as the Ambergris books. A lot of people like them, and they're short, so you lose little by checking them out. Anyway, they're all good in their way, just be prepared for a lot of tone shifts between them, most notably between the fear of the unknown in Annihilation and Kafka-esque oppressive bureaucracy of Authority. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Mar 30, 2016 |
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Mar 30, 2016 19:11
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anilEhilated posted:I agree SR is worse than Ambergris but that's because the Ambergris books are utterly awesome. The last Ambergris book is open ended, with one major antagonist left out there as of Finch. I was kind of expecting a hint towards Ambergris to appear in Acceptance.
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Mar 30, 2016 19:28
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Echo Cian posted:Science fiction doesn't need spaceships or laser guns and fantasy doesn't need dragons and wizards. It's more specifically known as speculative fiction, and boy does that speculate. The whole phone number thing seems pretty SF/F to me anyway. You're right, and there's still enough room on my ballot for Battuta's story.
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Mar 30, 2016 20:39
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Cpt. Mahatma Gandhi posted:"If You Were A Dinosaur, My Love" won a Nebula and was nominated for a Hugo and it's not Sci Fi/Fantasy in the slightest. That was a bad thing though, and it shouldn't be encouraged. (this has no bearing on Battua's piece, I just like ranting about "If you were a Dinosaur.")
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Mar 30, 2016 22:50
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Echo Cian posted:Science fiction doesn't need spaceships or laser guns and fantasy doesn't need dragons and wizards. It's more specifically known as speculative fiction, and boy does that speculate. The whole phone number thing seems pretty SF/F to me anyway. On the other hand, it has someone totally unable to decipher the rulebook of Arkham Horror after 100 games, so it's very firmly grounded in reality. (Apart from the bit where they're supposedly playing the unexpanded game but the GOO is Quachil Uttaus  )
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Mar 30, 2016 23:09
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God drat Please Undo This Pain hit me right in the gut. Fuuuuuck.
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Mar 30, 2016 23:22
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Phanatic posted:Is the Southern Reach trilogy worth reading? I've never read VanderMeer before. I only read the first one and enjoyed it, but it is a book that's a lot more about atmosphere and the unexplained than it is about a straightforward plot or logical worldbuilding. It's not long and maintains a good pace though, which is important for me when reading these types of books. If you like that type of stuff, you should most definitely read it.
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Mar 31, 2016 00:09
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I was pleasantly reminded that Annihilation is getting a film done of it after I saw an article about Oscar Isaac joining the cast. We already have Natalie Portman as the biologist, Jennifer Jason Leigh as the psychologist, Gina Rodriguez and Tessa Thompson as the rest of the team. It seems like the other major role would be Control, but if they're just doing Annihilation with the film then maybe he plays her dad?
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Mar 31, 2016 00:26
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RoboCicero posted:I was pleasantly reminded that Annihilation is getting a film done of it after I saw an article about Oscar Isaac joining the cast. We already have Natalie Portman as the biologist, Jennifer Jason Leigh as the psychologist, Gina Rodriguez and Tessa Thompson as the rest of the team. I think I saw that he was going to play the Biologist's husband (the one who went on the previous expedition).
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Mar 31, 2016 00:37
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Oscar Isaac ought to be cast in everything. He was fantastic in Ex Machina.
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Mar 31, 2016 00:40
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RoboCicero posted:I was pleasantly reminded that Annihilation is getting a film done of it after I saw an article about Oscar Isaac joining the cast. We already have Natalie Portman as the biologist, Jennifer Jason Leigh as the psychologist, Gina Rodriguez and Tessa Thompson as the rest of the team. I wish they cast someone besides Portman as the lead
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Mar 31, 2016 01:38
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Keep scifi pure! NO avant garde, no literary fiction NO gay dinosaur poems NO humanism or original plots Make scifi great again!
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Mar 31, 2016 13:28
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mallamp posted:Keep scifi pure! Let's get back to our roots! Only men in space-suits with bubble helmets shooting ray guns at tentacled aliens stealing our women
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Mar 31, 2016 15:37
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mallamp posted:Keep scifi pure! Or we could say that every Hugo nominated work should include either speculative technology or fantastical elements. That seems like a better idea than freezing things in the 1950s forever.
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Mar 31, 2016 15:43
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In If You Were Dinisaur My Love, as you can guess from the title, the narrator is speculating what would happen if his boyfriend/husband/friend (whatever it was) had been dinosaur. I didn't particularly like it as far as literary merits go, but it's much more interesting speculative scenario than most of the engineer porn novels that get nominations every year (let alone infantile stuff like GRRM or Wheel of Time that have managed to creep in)
mallamp fucked around with this message at 15:53 on Mar 31, 2016 |
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Mar 31, 2016 15:47
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flosofl posted:Let's get back to our roots! ... with big boobs
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Mar 31, 2016 15:48
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mallamp posted:In If You Were Dinisaur My Love, as you can guess from the title, the narrator is speculating what would happen if his boyfriend/husband/friend (whatever it was) had been dinosaur. I didn't particularly like but it's much more interesting speculative scenario than most of the engineer porn novels that get nominations every year (let alone stuff like GRRM or Wwheel iof Time that have managed to creep in) I thought it started out interesting, but it lost me when they brought up an unspecified, generic hate crime. I didn't pick up that the narrator and subject were both men, so I didn't know any of the context of why the subject would be hospitalized by bigots. Without knowing if it was motivated by race, sexuality, or something else, it came across as a telegraphed "you should feel sad now" moment. It's a shame, because I dug the train of thought up until then, and the subtle signs of the narrator's jealousy. In general, yeah, I'd love for esoteric, emotional pieces to get more love in SF circles.
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Mar 31, 2016 15:58
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At the risk of stating the obvious, speculative fiction doesn't mean "Fiction where someone speculates.Solitair posted:I thought it started out interesting, but it lost me when they brought up an unspecified, generic hate crime. I didn't pick up that the narrator and subject were both men, so I didn't know any of the context of why the subject would be hospitalized by bigots. Without knowing if it was motivated by race, sexuality, or something else, it came across as a telegraphed "you should feel sad now" moment. It's a shame, because I dug the train of thought up until then, and the subtle signs of the narrator's jealousy. The narrator refers to herself as a woman in the story. But I'm okay with emotional pieces getting rewards in SFF as long as they are actually SFF.
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Mar 31, 2016 17:56
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On the topic of slightly different than expected Sci-Fi, I just finished Version Control by Dexter Palmer. It's set in a near future in a world ruled by data collection. Rebecca is a customer service agent for an online dating website and her husband is a physicist who is building a causality violation device that he'd really prefer you do not call a time machine. The book delves into their personal lives and tragedies and uses that to explore a world ruled by data collection. A lot of aspects of it make me think a bit of later day Gibson, though there's not the more action oriented climax. It also focuses a lot on how we as people are different from our data, and the public performance of our private selves. The "Who are we, really" has echoes of Dick, especially in the way the online invades the real world. Also, there's a time machine. I grabbed it on a whim at the library, and it was not the book I expected, but I really enjoyed it. It's not necessarily a quick book, there's not a lot of "action" and it really does focus a lot on the personal lives of the main characters, so I'd keep that in mind before recommend it unreservedly. I thought it very well done and a very different sort of sci-fi story.
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Mar 31, 2016 18:32
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Is it anything like Dream of Perpetual Motion? That had a lot of potential it drowned in pretentious drivel.
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Mar 31, 2016 19:46
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anilEhilated posted:Is it anything like Dream of Perpetual Motion? That had a lot of potential it drowned in pretentious drivel. I read that last year and darned if I can remember much about it.
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Mar 31, 2016 20:19
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While I know we have a recommendation thread I think the quality of recommendations from this thread will be better, so: can anyone recommend a good alien invasion story? I was waxing nostalgic about reading those Harry Turtledove World War books this afternoon and have a hankering for something in a similar vein. And yeah, I realise in hindsight the World War books are pretty poorly written in many respects, but they seemed good when I was 10.
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Mar 31, 2016 20:54
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Ben Nevis posted:On the topic of slightly different than expected Sci-Fi, I just finished Version Control by Dexter Palmer. I enjoyed this one too. Like you said, it's definitely not super-actiony, but you did get to understand the characters as like, you know, being more like real representations of people. Would recommend if you're into near-future fairly plausible SpecFic. It does remind me a lot of the more modern Gibson (I'd compare it most to a combination of Peripheral, but less surreal, and stuff from the Blue Ant trilogy)
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Mar 31, 2016 21:15
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Neurosis posted:While I know we have a recommendation thread I think the quality of recommendations from this thread will be better, so: can anyone recommend a good alien invasion story? I was waxing nostalgic about reading those Harry Turtledove World War books this afternoon and have a hankering for something in a similar vein. And yeah, I realise in hindsight the World War books are pretty poorly written in many respects, but they seemed good when I was 10. Comedy suggestion you should definitely not read: Out of the Black by David Weber Serious options despite author: Troy Rising and/or Looking Glass series by John Ringo
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Mar 31, 2016 21:32
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WarLocke posted:Comedy suggestion you should definitely not read: Out of the Black by David Weber I felt like a kid going on a car trip to DisneyWorld (I mean, c'mon Draculas vs. Aliens? Hell Ya!) and finding we went to exact opposite end of the country to the Lumberjack Hall of Fame in Hayword, WI. "Are we there yet, Weber?" "No" "How soon?" "Soon" "Now?" "No" "Now?!" "OK, but the now the book is over"
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Mar 31, 2016 21:43
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Neurosis posted:While I know we have a recommendation thread I think the quality of recommendations from this thread will be better, so: can anyone recommend a good alien invasion story? I was waxing nostalgic about reading those Harry Turtledove World War books this afternoon and have a hankering for something in a similar vein. And yeah, I realise in hindsight the World War books are pretty poorly written in many respects, but they seemed good when I was 10. Just trollin': The War of the Worlds. Serious suggestion: Cixin Liu's Three Body Problem, although it kind of spoils the first book of the trilogy to recommend it as such. Really good: Greg Bear's The Forge of God.
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Mar 31, 2016 21:48
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General Battuta posted:Just pronounce 'x' as 'sh' and most of them will be pretty easy to sort out. For example 'Lyxaxu' looks like gibberish but 'Lyshashu' is pretty easy. 'Unuxekome' is bad but 'Unushecomb' is hopefully okay! It's fine, people just need to toughen up about pronouncing words they haven't seen. They can pick any which way to handle the x - ks, kh, sh, z - and carry on. I read them as kh and it didn't matter to me if they match what you had in mind, there's a good chance we pronounce other words differently too. Robert Jordan can put Ta-eem in his glossaries but he can't stop me slurring it to one syllable or others from saying 'Tame'.
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Mar 31, 2016 22:58
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Makes one appreciate the attitude of Steven Erikson, whose response on people asking how to pronounce his multi-apostrophed monstrosities was "however the hell you want".
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Mar 31, 2016 23:17
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