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AmericanGeeksta posted:This was the main reason I loved The Quantum Thief. It grabs you by the face and unapologetically never lets go. I have never heard of the Neuromancer though, would you recommend it?  Neuromancer is the root of everything from post-80s SF cinema (via Blade Runner, If you go through the first few pages sentence by sentence, every single sentence has been copied so widely it's now a cliche. Book is dense. General Battuta fucked around with this message at 17:47 on Apr 28, 2016 |
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Apr 28, 2016 17:45
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It also has the best modern example of the accelerating rate of semantic drift - the very first sentence is "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."
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Apr 28, 2016 17:47
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Neuromancer literally popularized the term Cyberspace. So yeah, it was pretty influential.
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Apr 28, 2016 18:34
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Going back to superhero prose chat for a bit, I brought up Ex-Heroes and Soon I Will Be Invincible over in the City of Heroes thread, and was in turn pointed at Wearing the Cape and Velveteen. I haven't tried the latter yet, but I'm halfway through the second Wearing the Cape book and they're pretty decent. They also have a pretty neat twist on the 'superpowers as reaction to environment' trope going on.
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Apr 28, 2016 18:46
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General Battuta posted:
agree with this. Particularly about the stylistic part. Each sentence was jarring to read, at times, bordering on unpleasant, with a staccato rhythm, but it fit the work so well I didn't mind. There are two other books and some short stories related to neuromancer which are worth reading, too, though they're not as good.
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Apr 28, 2016 18:47
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Neurosis posted:There are two other books and some short stories related to neuromancer which are worth reading, too, though they're not as good. Johnny Mnemonic (the Keanu Reeves movie) was based on one of those wasn't it?
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Apr 28, 2016 19:02
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DACK FAYDEN posted:It also has the best modern example of the accelerating rate of semantic drift - the very first sentence is "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." To expand on this for the youth of today, readers envision a different color depending on whether they grew up with broadcast TV, which showed grey static on empty channels (as Gibson did, and what he actually meant) or a solid blue field (the test signal you get on empty cable channels). So older readers took that line to mean it was grey and cloudy, but to The Kids Today it means a perfectly clear blue sky 
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Apr 28, 2016 19:04
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WarLocke posted:Johnny Mnemonic (the Keanu Reeves movie) was based on one of those wasn't it? Astonishingly, it was based on the short story entitled Johnny Mnemonic.
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Apr 28, 2016 19:04
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Kesper North posted:To expand on this for the youth of today, readers envision a different color depending on whether they grew up with broadcast TV, which showed grey static on empty channels (as Gibson did, and what he actually meant) or a solid blue field (the test signal you get on empty cable channels). poo poo, you're making me feel old. Kesper North posted:Astonishingly, it was based on the short story entitled Johnny Mnemonic. I couldn't remember if that was the title as well. Like I said, gettin' old 
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Apr 28, 2016 19:06
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An interview with Chuck Tingle, author of the Hugo Award-nominated Space Raptor Butt Invasion, is pretty much exactly what you would hope for in an interview with Chuck Tingle, author of Space Raptor Butt Invasion: https://www.inverse.com/article/14881-is-chuck-tingle-and-his-hugo-nominated-dinosaur-erotica-a-sad-puppies-plant IHNJ, IJLS Space Raptor Butt Invasion.
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Apr 28, 2016 19:11
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Kesper North posted:An interview with Chuck Tingle, author of the Hugo Award-nominated Space Raptor Butt Invasion, is pretty much exactly what you would hope for in an interview with Chuck Tingle, author of Space Raptor Butt Invasion: Came here to post this. I will say that it made less sense than I expected from the author of Space Raptor Butt Invasion.
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Apr 28, 2016 19:19
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AmericanGeeksta posted:This was the main reason I loved The Quantum Thief. It grabs you by the face and unapologetically never lets go. I have never heard of the Neuromancer though, would you recommend it? I recommend reading it because it is a kinda seminal work in what we call cyberpunk, so it is a "must read" if only as a reference book. Having said that, I find it a terribly overrated book in which a terribly overrated writer pontifies about things he has no idea about.
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Apr 28, 2016 19:32
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Amberskin posted:I recommend reading it because it is a kinda seminal work in what we call cyberpunk, so it is a "must read" if only as a reference book. Having said that, I find it a terribly overrated book in which a terribly overrated writer pontifies about things he has no idea about. I think Gibson knows a lot more than you think
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Apr 28, 2016 19:46
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Gibson doesn't give a poo poo about the internal function of computers but he is fascinated by the relationship between technology and people, which he is an expert at writing about.
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Apr 28, 2016 20:17
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Kesper North posted:To expand on this for the youth of today, readers envision a different color depending on whether they grew up with broadcast TV, which showed grey static on empty channels (as Gibson did, and what he actually meant) or a solid blue field (the test signal you get on empty cable channels). It gets even better. Old school analog cable actually also had grey static on dead channels, but because the sound of static was incredibly annoying the better TVs started using a blue screen to cover empty channels (on both cable and broadcast). Blue rather than black to avoid the impression of a broken TV. Digital cable then defaulted to blue. So if you were reading it at the right time, the color described by that line depended on how nice of a TV you were watching on and what kind of cable you had.
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Apr 28, 2016 20:29
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Kesper North posted:An interview with Chuck Tingle, author of the Hugo Award-nominated Space Raptor Butt Invasion, is pretty much exactly what you would hope for in an interview with Chuck Tingle, author of Space Raptor Butt Invasion: Well, after reading that, I think Helicopter Man Pounds Dinosaur Billionaire in the rear end is headed to the top of my reading list.
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Apr 28, 2016 20:40
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Kalman posted:It gets even better. Old school analog cable actually also had grey static on dead channels, but because the sound of static was incredibly annoying the better TVs started using a blue screen to cover empty channels (on both cable and broadcast). Blue rather than black to avoid the impression of a broken TV. Digital cable then defaulted to blue. Hell, broadcast was still going strong at the time it came out and cable was still that "new thing with maybe 30 channels and couple movie channels". I can remember when that book came out (at least in paperback). I was in high school and we still had broadcast TV. That book blew my mind when I read it.
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Apr 29, 2016 00:53
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One of my favorite things about Gibson is that he loathes Shadowrun. "[T]he admixture of cyberspace and, spare me, *elves*, has always been more than I could bear to think about."
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Apr 29, 2016 01:12
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Velius posted:One of my favorite things about Gibson is that he loathes Shadowrun. He pretty much recanted that, I thought.
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Apr 29, 2016 01:29
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Props to whoever recommended Souls in the Great Machine, I really enjoyed it and will probably pick up the other books in the trilogy, even if it did move a bit fast in the middle and I had no idea why someone was suddenly rebelling against someone else until I went back and reread.
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Apr 29, 2016 02:00
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Velius posted:One of my favorite things about Gibson is that he loathes Shadowrun. shadowrun is a fun setting. it's very much cyberpunk with fantasy elements rather than the other way around, so the 'ugh, elves' thing is fine, imo. flosofl posted:He pretty much recanted that, I thought. good.
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Apr 29, 2016 12:22
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new neal asher book, the conclusion to justin cronin's vampire/zombie series the passage, and a stephen baxter novel with an okay sounding premise in this month. cool
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Apr 29, 2016 13:03
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Just finished up Red Knight Falling by Craig Schaefer (Book 2 in the Harmony Black series), and it's pretty damned good. It's actually sort of blending sci fi in with urban fantasy, and I can dig that. It's got some interesting ideas, and the lead is actually a strong female lead without the overly bitchy stereotype or the "OMG THIS MIGHT BE OUR LAST FIGHT QUICK LET'S HAVE SEX IN THE STAIRWELL" thing that tends to happen in other books. Definitely worth a read, doubly so if you have Kindle Unlimited.
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Apr 29, 2016 13:08
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Neurosis posted:and a stephen baxter novel Is that on top of the Arthur C Clarke sequel collaboration with Alastair Reynolds thing? Talking of which, is the original Meeting with Medusa available on it's own/cheap anywhere? Want to read it before the sequel. Not that this is bad value at 10p per story I guess.
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Apr 29, 2016 13:17
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If you haven't read it already, Devil's Cape is a really good one. I strongly recommend it. Noir-ish. Also, I just in the past few weeks finished reading Worm, by John McCrae, which was pretty goddamned amazing for a superhero book. Consistently high quality and pretty fantastic. It's a good book outside the genre, too - I didn't mean to drat it with faint praise. I read VIcious by Schwab - the one about the villain who can transfer pain or whatever, and though it was ...okay. Nothing great - about on par with the Jenny Pox type books. It didn't really psych me up to read other books by the author. If you DO read superhero junk, I'd absolutely recommend you stay far away from Bernheimer's D-List Supervillains series. What a lovely crock of poorly written boring poo poo. If you've *just* begun puberty maybe it's something you'd enjoy.
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Apr 29, 2016 16:34
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Just finished up Red Knight Falling by Craig Schaefer (Book 2 in the Harmony Black series), and it's pretty damned good. I feel like the gradual bleed of SF into urban fantasy is a growing trend, one which has mostly been pushed on by the British fantasy/SF writers like Charlie Stross (everything "fantasy" he's ever written, like the Laundry Files and his "Amber knock-off portal fantasy" Hidden Families series, is really very thinly-veiled hard SF; his most fantastical elements usually have a ton of solid hard-science backstory, like Peter Watts and his paleo-vampires). I'm really quite fond of it, honestly, it makes the worldbuilding crunchy. I'm looking forward to starting Red Knight Falling today; I don't know how Craig Schaefer writes so well while publishing like four books a year, but good on him...
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Apr 29, 2016 17:23
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Drifter posted:If you haven't read it already, Devil's Cape is a really good one. I strongly recommend it. Noir-ish. I enjoyed Prepare to Die by Paul Tobin. It's revolves around a hero named "Reaver" who can punch years off your life (you age with every punch) and is also more or less invulnerable. The driving plot of the book is Reaver is given a week to "get his affairs in order", after which the main uber-villian is going to destroy him. And Reaver completely believes that he can. So he goes back to his home-town for closure. There's a lot of interesting things in that book. Reaver, with his brother and a friend, crashed into toxic spill for a fairly horrific origin story. It also touches on the responsibility of having a side-kick and the consequences of not keeping your identity a secret. It's not *great* literature by any means, but it stands up fine against the good stories in the "superhero" genre.
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Apr 29, 2016 17:29
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Kesper North posted:I'm looking forward to starting Red Knight Falling today; I don't know how Craig Schaefer writes so well while publishing like four books a year, but good on him...
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Apr 29, 2016 19:25
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Kesper North posted:I feel like the gradual bleed of SF into urban fantasy is a growing trend, one which has mostly been pushed on by the British fantasy/SF writers like Charlie Stross (everything "fantasy" he's ever written, like the Laundry Files and his "Amber knock-off portal fantasy" Hidden Families series, is really very thinly-veiled hard SF; his most fantastical elements usually have a ton of solid hard-science backstory, like Peter Watts and his paleo-vampires). Hines's Libriomancer books have a lot of SF in them too, although it's not at all hard; the basic conceit is that the main character is a type of mage who can pull physical objects out of books. And he's an SF fan. So while everyone else is yanking out Excaliburs by the dozen, he's running around with a Dune shield belt and a lightsaber. I really like this trend.
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Apr 29, 2016 20:10
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anilEhilated posted:Just finsihed it, it's really good. The central idea is pretty drat amazing too, I wish more urban fantasy authors had the balls to go out of their vampire/ghost/mythology comfort zone when there's so much more interesting stuff to see. I like the premise of Brotherhood of the Wheel by RS Belcher. It's a sect of Knights Templar that are truckers, bikers and state cops that protect America's roads, I just have no idea if the author's actually good or not.
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Apr 29, 2016 20:43
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savinhill posted:I like the premise of Brotherhood of the Wheel by RS Belcher. It's a sect of Knights Templar that are truckers, bikers and state cops that protect America's roads, I just have no idea if the author's actually good or not. I didn't find him to be awful, at least.
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Apr 29, 2016 20:55
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I'm about done with a complete re-read of John Varley's Gaea Trilogy (Titan/Wizard/Demon) and I had forgotten how loving weird it was. Especially at the end with the 50-foot Marilyn Monroe. Thankfully, the Titanides never caught on with the general public because Bronies are creepy enough.
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Apr 29, 2016 23:32
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Titan blew my loving mind when I read it in high school, and when I found out years later that there were sequels I was bummed I never read them. Then I looked at the summaries on Wikipedia  . The other Varley stuff I read was cool and good, though.
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Apr 30, 2016 00:58
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Are we really doing this again?Wikipedia page that doesn't exist anymore posted:Titanides come in two sexes, male and female. Both sexes have a rear vagina and uterus, and a large penis in the position where a horse's penis would be. Both sexes also possess humanoid breasts and can thus give birth to and suckle young.
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Apr 30, 2016 04:47
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Holy poo poo
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Apr 30, 2016 07:13
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And aren't all those critters centaurs who are big-tittied ladies from the waist up or something equally retarded? I like some of Varley's stuff, but jesus sheepfucking christ why do you crusty old SF writers have to get all rule 34 about poo poo...
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Apr 30, 2016 07:21
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savinhill posted:I like the premise of Brotherhood of the Wheel by RS Belcher. It's a sect of Knights Templar that are truckers, bikers and state cops that protect America's roads, I just have no idea if the author's actually good or not. I've tried his Western books (a little undercooked, he got published a couple of books too early) and I tried Nightwise (prose matured a lot, but he tried to make it EDGY to the point of ridiculousness - in the very first scene the protagonist looks at a corpse of someone tortured to death and it reminds him of how he totally likes to have hot BDSM sex with hot bitches). Given the general trajectory of his improvement I'll give BotW a try. Eventually.
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Apr 30, 2016 07:57
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Hedrigall posted:Are we really doing this again? What greedy loving species needs three sets of genitals? Is one not good enough for them?
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Apr 30, 2016 15:06
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Hedrigall posted:Are we really doing this again? 
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Apr 30, 2016 15:23
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But what pronouns does each one use?
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