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I just started Ancillary Justice (I'm at the beginning of the 3rd chapter) and I wanted to know if it gets better? At this point I just feel almost discombobulated by the pronoun confusion (it's hard for me to picture characters) and I'm just kind of on the fence about whether I even like it so far or not. If the story is really worth seeing through to the end, I will keep going; but I figured I would ask the goon hive mind first
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Jul 9, 2018 02:47
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MarksMan posted:I just started Ancillary Justice (I'm at the beginning of the 3rd chapter) and I wanted to know if it gets better? At this point I just feel almost discombobulated by the pronoun confusion (it's hard for me to picture characters) and I'm just kind of on the fence about whether I even like it so far or not. If the story is really worth seeing through to the end, I will keep going; but I figured I would ask the goon hive mind first I personally didn't care for the series. The pronoun thing is an interesting gimmick if you're interested in gender theory, but I found the story itself pretty dull and resolved by a sudden conclusion that came from nowhere in particular and most of the trilogy's stories didn't end up mattering to the resolution of the trilogy. There's worse sci-fi out there, in my opinion, but this series' one innovative idea I feel is wasted in an otherwise mediocre story.
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Jul 9, 2018 03:03
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Just finished reading the Black Company's original/North trilogy and found it to be very good! I'm definitely glad I got The Silver Spike (and the South duology) since although the trilogy has been concluded, there are a lot of loose ends still. Especially with regards to the silver spike itself! Since at the end of White Rose where they just nail it into the tree, dust their hands and then walk off, I was just thinking..."uh guys? Guys?? Do you REALLY think that little sapling is going to be able to resist any kind of opposition, at this point? I'm sure some resurrectionists will find out about the spike and try to get it in a few months' time!" But I guess if everyone stuck around for a bit longer and the Guard bothered watching the tree more closely, that would ruin the plot of TSS.  But yeah, I did have a couple of minor gripes with the ending. Like, in my opinion before replanting the sapling they should've driven the spike into the underside of it, upwards. I'm not sure what kind of damage that would've done to the tree itself, but I'm sure that it wouldn't be much worse than driving the spike into its trunk - especially considering it's the son of a "god", so I assume it can take a bit of punishment. Also, perhaps most importantly...do they ever cover why they didn't simply cut up the Dominator, Lady and the Taken after the first war, then imprison their souls and burn the bodies?! Like, I could understand it if they needed Bomanz or the Lady or someone with a powerful/unique skill set to be able to trap the Dominator's soul within the spike, (which they plausibly didn't have, at the conclusion of the first war) but it ended up being done by Goblin and One Eye, who are probably the weakest wizards in the books. And surely if the wizards of old could set up all those insane wards around the barrows they made, they could've instead driven silver spikes into twelve heads, burn the bodies and call it a day? But yeah, it was a very good read regardless! I'm gonna dig into The Silver Spike tonight I think, and see how it all pans out.
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Jul 9, 2018 03:03
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Cythereal posted:I personally didn't care for the series. The pronoun thing is an interesting gimmick if you're interested in gender theory, but I found the story itself pretty dull and resolved by a sudden conclusion that came from nowhere in particular and most of the trilogy's stories didn't end up mattering to the resolution of the trilogy. Any alternatives (just in general) you recommend? I just finished Dune and loved it, particularly the concept of the Mentat's and I can be biased towards good revenge stories. I like Foundation, Starship Troopers, Hyperion wasn't my favorite but it was good, and I've re-read 1984 more than any other single book throughout my life -- if any of that helps.
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Jul 9, 2018 03:16
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MarksMan posted:Any alternatives (just in general) you recommend? I just finished Dune and loved it, particularly the concept of the Mentat's and I can be biased towards good revenge stories. I like Foundation, Starship Troopers, Hyperion wasn't my favorite but it was good, and I've re-read 1984 more than any other single book throughout my life -- if any of that helps. Read the next two (three?) Dune books. Then hard stop. It's better to pretend it all ends there.
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Jul 9, 2018 03:20
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Proteus Jones posted:Read the next two (three?) Dune books. Then hard stop. It's better to pretend it all ends there. Yeah, read Dune Messiah, Children of Dune and finally God Emperor of Dune, before stopping. I personally read the next one as well (Heretics of Dune?) but I failed to heed the warnings and went too far, as a result. Major Isoor fucked around with this message at 03:32 on Jul 9, 2018 |
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Jul 9, 2018 03:28
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MarksMan posted:Any alternatives (just in general) you recommend? I just finished Dune and loved it, particularly the concept of the Mentat's and I can be biased towards good revenge stories. I like Foundation, Starship Troopers, Hyperion wasn't my favorite but it was good, and I've re-read 1984 more than any other single book throughout my life -- if any of that helps. Anvil of Stars by Greg Bear is very weird, very bleak, and very good. It's a sequel to The Forge of God, but you don't need to read that one first - they're wildly different books in tone and story, and Anvil fills you in just fine on the backstory. The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven is a classic that I enjoyed. I didn't care as much for the sequel, The Gripping Hand, but your mileage may vary. The Expanse is current and popular, but I stopped reading them after the third book. Despite loving space opera in theory, I've found as an adult rather than a kid that it's hard to find a space opera I like. Most are way too fascist for my liking (Midshipman's Hope series), and/or otherwise very politically conservative (anything by Orson Scott Card). Or just plain poorly written (The Lost Fleet, Honor Harrington). Frankly, despite growing up on spaceships and interstellar travel, I'm increasingly finding a lack of taste for sci-fi in general for those reasons. There's a lot of books I used to love as a kid but now I realize how awful they were towards women, poor people, and/or minorities.
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Jul 9, 2018 03:28
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MarksMan posted:Any alternatives (just in general) you recommend? I just finished Dune and loved it, particularly the concept of the Mentat's and I can be biased towards good revenge stories. I like Foundation, Starship Troopers, Hyperion wasn't my favorite but it was good, and I've re-read 1984 more than any other single book throughout my life -- if any of that helps. _The Stars My Destination_ for the classic SF revenge story, and the foundation of a lot of modern cyberpunk. Read Dune series until you stop liking it then stop, it never gets better.
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Jul 9, 2018 03:29
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Major Isoor posted:Yeah, read Dune Messiah and then Children of Dune, before stopping. I personally read the next one as well (Heretics of Dune?) but I failed to heed the warnings and went too far, as a result. God emperor is the best Dune, wtf is wrong with you
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Jul 9, 2018 03:30
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MarksMan posted:I just started Ancillary Justice (I'm at the beginning of the 3rd chapter) and I wanted to know if it gets better? At this point I just feel almost discombobulated by the pronoun confusion (it's hard for me to picture characters) and I'm just kind of on the fence about whether I even like it so far or not. If the story is really worth seeing through to the end, I will keep going; but I figured I would ask the goon hive mind first The gender thing really makes no difference in the scheme of the book except for Breq to embarrass herself once or twice, then wish she could use it to her advantage to look like a tourist later. If you don't enjoy the idea of an AI trying to get revenge, it's probably not for you. You may want to read it up to the bridge scene then decide.
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Jul 9, 2018 03:30
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jit bull transpile posted:God emperor is the best Dune, wtf is wrong with you Oops! Sorry, you're completely right - I forgot about that one and skipped to the next!  It's been too long; in my mind Children of Dune and God Emperor of Dune were merged/the same book.Updating my post Major Isoor fucked around with this message at 03:33 on Jul 9, 2018 |
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Jul 9, 2018 03:31
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Proteus Jones posted:Read the next two (three?) Dune books. Then hard stop. It's better to pretend it all ends there. Y'know I always say this and every time I do, at least two or three people arrive to say they love God-Emperor of Dune or whatever. I'd agree wholeheartedly that the first three are the best (hell, Messiah is basically Dune 1.5) but nowadays I tell people they should read until they stop enjoying it. For me it was Heretics when I finally didn't think I could take anymore. You absolutely should refuse to acknowledge the existence of anything written by Brian Herbert though, and assume anyone who likes them would die to the gom jabbar, as they are all animals.
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Jul 9, 2018 03:31
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Kazak_Hstan posted:It goes without saying that only woman character was at best two dimensional, those dimensions being frailty and uncontrollable emotions. I am probably just never going to encounter a well-written woman character in Asimov, am I? This was like 95% (I'm probably being incredibly generous here, honestly) of women in science fiction/fantasy from before 1970 from what I've seen, and it definitely didn't disappear after then either. When they weren't fainting or tripping they were jealously plotting or hysterical.
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Jul 9, 2018 03:38
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No. No more dancing! posted:This was like 95% (I'm probably being incredibly generous here, honestly) of women in science fiction/fantasy from before 1970 from what I've seen, and it definitely didn't disappear after then either. When they weren't fainting or tripping they were jealously plotting or hysterical. Unfortunately this is still most media right now today. It's gonna remain true as long as men continue to be published or have their scripts filmed at a higher rate than women
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Jul 9, 2018 03:40
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MarksMan posted:Any alternatives (just in general) you recommend? I just finished Dune and loved it, particularly the concept of the Mentat's and I can be biased towards good revenge stories. I like Foundation, Starship Troopers, Hyperion wasn't my favorite but it was good, and I've re-read 1984 more than any other single book throughout my life -- if any of that helps. You might enjoy Old Man's War by John Scalzi. Alternatively, if you want gender issues done well, I would recommend The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula LeGuin.
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Jul 9, 2018 03:40
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jit bull transpile posted:Unfortunately this is still most media right now today. It's gonna remain true as long as men continue to be published or have their scripts filmed at a higher rate than women It's a big part of why I've been turned off by a lot of sci-fi and fantasy. I've shut more than one book never to reopen after the first two or three paragraphs introducing the female lead of the book.
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Jul 9, 2018 03:43
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Cythereal posted:It's a big part of why I've been turned off by a lot of sci-fi and fantasy. I've shut more than one book never to reopen after the first two or three paragraphs introducing the female lead of the book. Also all TV and movies genre or no. Even great non genre stuff like The Sopranos undermines itself by constantly using women as set dressing and trying to make it seem like Tony is justified in being annoyed with Carmella all the time (the show really goes back and forth on that depending on the writer and director).
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Jul 9, 2018 03:49
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jit bull transpile posted:Unfortunately this is still most media right now today. It's gonna remain true as long as men continue to be published or have their scripts filmed at a higher rate than women It's more than just that. Even LeGuin wrote about how she would look back at her early work and chastize herself for making the protagonist male / writing the females in the story poorly.
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Jul 9, 2018 04:01
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jit bull transpile posted:Also all TV and movies genre or no. Even great non genre stuff like The Sopranos undermines itself by constantly using women as set dressing and trying to make it seem like Tony is justified in being annoyed with Carmella all the time (the show really goes back and forth on that depending on the writer and director). And I've stopped buying video games if there's not an option to play as a woman. It's also made S. M. Stirling incredibly hard to read. I enjoyed Island in the Sea of Time as a kid. Then I went back and read it a few years ago, for the first time since I was in middle school, and, uh... holy poo poo there's a lot of rape in that book I never registered as a kid. Though that does sometimes work in positive ways as well. With Anvil of Stars, as a kid I never realized that the protagonist was bisexual despite him doing everything but using that exact word to describe himself or explicitly calling his ex (who may not have even existed, Anvil of Stars is weird) his boyfriend.
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Jul 9, 2018 04:08
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I'm still surprised The Windup Girl didn't get more poo poo for essentially being this: but with a Vice Magazine poverty tourism gloss and it's in the 20XXs instead of the 18XXs.
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Jul 9, 2018 04:19
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:It's more than just that. Even LeGuin wrote about how she would look back at her early work and chastize herself for making the protagonist male / writing the females in the story poorly. Yeah, this is something they stick out to me in my run through the hainish cycle. All the men are noble bad asses and all the women are manipulative and conniving and the characters' internal monologues even say that outright at times. Left hand of darkness was simultaneously extremely progressive and gender normative at the same time. I imagine she looked back on some of those choices with frustration.
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Jul 9, 2018 04:22
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Cythereal posted:And I've stopped buying video games if there's not an option to play as a woman. If the character is an audience cypher like in an rpg or a dark souls game I get this, but if there's a compelling story reason why the main character is male or female I don't get bothered by it. Like, tomb raider isn't tomb raider is there's no Lara Croft and Grand Theft Auto doesn't work very well if the player character isn't a mirror onto toxic male power fantasy.
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Jul 9, 2018 04:25
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jit bull transpile posted:Yeah, this is something they stick out to me in my run through the hainish cycle. All the men are noble bad asses and all the women are manipulative and conniving and the characters' internal monologues even say that outright at times. Left hand of darkness was simultaneously extremely progressive and gender normative at the same time. I imagine she looked back on some of those choices with frustration. quote:In her 1976 essay "Is Gender Necessary?" Le Guin wrote that the theme of gender was only secondary to the novel's primary theme of loyalty and betrayal. Le Guin revisited this essay in 1988, and stated that gender was central to the novel; her earlier essay had described gender as a peripheral theme because of the defensiveness she felt over using masculine pronouns for her characters.[42] quote:It’s bracing to see a writer take herself to task over a novel that has enjoyed so much success, but Le Guin wasn’t done. Twelve years later, she revisited the essay in her book “Dancing at the Edge of the World.” “Minds that don’t change are like clams that don’t open,” she says in an introductory note, and proceeds to provide an italicized running commentary on “Is Gender Necessary?”
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Jul 9, 2018 04:27
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What an amazing lady 
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Jul 9, 2018 04:30
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jit bull transpile posted:Like, tomb raider isn't tomb raider is there's no Lara Croft and Grand Theft Auto doesn't work very well if the player character isn't a mirror onto toxic male power fantasy. I disagree, but that's neither here nor there. One recent book I enjoyed was Blackfish City by Sam Miller. In case you ever had the feeling that cyberpunk didn't have enough Inuit characters and themes, or just want a plot centered on a badass Inuit lesbian grandma who leaves a trail of bodies in her wake as she fights to rescue her family, this is the book for you. Most of my reads from the sci-fi section of my local library, though, have been pretty meh. Most of them are either very fascist (typically without ever acknowledging it), awful to their female characters, have a plot where the protagonist does nothing in particular but is inexplicibly drawn into and for some reason a part of the events going on, involve  time travel nonsense, or some combination thereof.
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Jul 9, 2018 04:37
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Proteus Jones posted:Read the next two (three?) Dune books. Then hard stop. It's better to pretend it all ends there. Major Isoor posted:Yeah, read Dune Messiah, Children of Dune and finally God Emperor of Dune, before stopping. I personally read the next one as well (Heretics of Dune?) but I failed to heed the warnings and went too far, as a result. Hieronymous Alloy posted:Read Dune series until you stop liking it then stop, it never gets better. MockingQuantum posted:Y'know I always say this and every time I do, at least two or three people arrive to say they love God-Emperor of Dune or whatever. I'd agree wholeheartedly that the first three are the best (hell, Messiah is basically Dune 1.5) but nowadays I tell people they should read until they stop enjoying it. For me it was Heretics when I finally didn't think I could take anymore.  Between these comments, people's comments on the GBS Dune thread (which I discovered completely at random, hadn't browsed GBS for more than a decade except for a few minutes) and on Reddit, I almost feel genuinely bad for Brian Herbert and the later Dune books, but Brian's "contribution" in particular. His books must be so incredibly terrible, because there seems to be a universal disdain for them. How terrible are they and what makes them so terrible?I'm considering just continuing on with the Dune series possibly now, because I definitely was into Dune and wanted more of the story/continuation as long as it was on the same level of quality, or close, to the original book. Hieronymous Alloy posted:_The Stars My Destination_ for the classic SF revenge story, and the foundation of a lot of modern cyberpunk. I'm almost sold on this Wikipedia description alone: "The novel, set in the 24th or 25th Century (this varies between editions of the book) when humans have colonized the solar system, tells the story of Gully Foyle, a teleporter driven by a burning desire for revenge." That simple premise and character just screams to be fleshed out in my mind. When those kind of stories are told right (i.e. Count of Monte Cristo) they can be so satisfying MarksMan fucked around with this message at 04:49 on Jul 9, 2018 |
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Jul 9, 2018 04:38
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MarksMan posted:
Brian doesn't actually write them. Kevin J Anderson, writer of Darksaber, writes them. Get it? Like the opposite of a lightsaber. Get it? Clever huh?
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Jul 9, 2018 04:46
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MarksMan posted:
Oh, it's not even Brian Herbert -- basically each succeeding Dune book by Frank Herbert gets linearly less well-written and exponentially weirder than the previous book. Everyone has their own personal tolerance level where the drop in quality is no longer balanced out by the increase in innovation (I generally stop with God Emperor) but the books never get better, so the consensus around here for the past few years has basically been "keep reading till you stop liking it, then stop, it won't ever improve again."
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Jul 9, 2018 04:46
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If you read Brian and Kevin Dune novels you are inflicting star wars eu level garbage on yourself for no God drat reason. The gbs Dune thread is not exaggerating at all about their terribleness.
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Jul 9, 2018 04:47
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MarksMan posted:
I dunno, to me it just seems like Frank Herbert simply didn't know how to end the story and so it just kinda...kept going, really. Then Brian Herbert (/Kevin Anderson) took up the mantle and continued it. (Presumably for easy money from the "Dune" name, as much as to keep his father's series alive) I've read bits and pieces of some of Brian's works, and they're just...well, thoroughly "meh", really. I imagine the series ended up becoming like one of Abe Simpson's ramblings, where you don't really remember how it got to this point, and you don't really care anymore, as you just want him to finally fall asleep. I originally had your mindset, but as you can probably tell that rapidly faded away, haha
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Jul 9, 2018 04:50
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MarksMan posted:
They're bad. Brian Herbert had to team up with noted king of genre mediocrity Kevin J. Anderson to actually get them written. Supposedly they based at least the first prequel series off of Frank's notes that were found after his death, but given that the Brian books range from ignoring the plot points set out in his dad's books to outright rewriting those plot points to be much dumber and more contrived, it's pretty unlikely they bare any resemblance to what Frank had intended for the world. The writing quality is mediocre to awful, they ruin a few good characters, if I remember right they contradict themselves all over the place, and there's a shocking amount of handwavey bullshit where they couldn't be bothered to actually fill in plot holes. I read a handful of them when I was in high school and even then I could tell they were pretty awful. Which, honestly, kinda just puts them on par with a lot of b- and c-list sci-fi that existed at the time. I think the reason they're so totally reviled, though, is because they were heavily marketed as the triumphant return of a beloved series of books, and were in truth a transparently wet-fart cash-in by comparison.
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Jul 9, 2018 04:53
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jit bull transpile posted:Also all TV and movies genre or no.
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Jul 9, 2018 04:56
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MarksMan posted:I'm almost sold on this Wikipedia description alone: "The novel, set in the 24th or 25th Century (this varies between editions of the book) when humans have colonized the solar system, tells the story of Gully Foyle, a teleporter driven by a burning desire for revenge." That simple premise and character just screams to be fleshed out in my mind. When those kind of stories are told right (i.e. Count of Monte Cristo) they can be so satisfying Oh you should definitely read The Stars My Destination. It's basically a sci-fi adaptation of Count of Monte Cristo, and I mean that in the best possible sense. It has some of the pitfalls that any 1950's sci-fi has, what with "advanced technology" that has been wildly surpassed by what actually exists today, but it's still engaging and had a big impact on a lot of sci-fi that followed it.
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Jul 9, 2018 05:00
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Brian Herbert's Dune books are mostly pulp sci-fi level cargo culting his father's books with a hefty dose of gratuitous sex and violence. Setting details that stood on their own in the originals get laboriously explored and just end up feeling tainted by the poor rendition. It's basically the Star Wars prequels problem. I noped out partway through the Butlerian Jihad trilogy so I didn't get to see how terrible the whole mess became. The first of those books is probably a good test-piece if you want to see how bad they are and can comfortably forget it's a Dune novel afterwards. Or the House trilogy, but that at least lulls you with the first before gaining momentum downhill.
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Jul 9, 2018 05:02
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I maintain that while it's a very, very bad idea to read the Brian Herbert Dune books, it's a great idea to read the Wikipedia plot summaries of them to see just how loving stupid they are. Like, here's just one paragraph from the summary of Sandworms of Dune: A couple of hacks posted:Omnius explains that to complete his domination of humanity, he requires the superior Kwisatz Haderach of the two Paul gholas. Paolo and Paul are forced to duel, during which Paul is mortally wounded. Victorious, Paolo takes the ultraspice; overwhelmed by the rapid onset of perfect prescient vision, he slips into a coma. Paul, at the urging and efforts of Yueh, Chani, and Jessica, slowly regains his past memories and is able to repair the damage to his body using Bene Gesserit physiological control. Under the guise of aiding Paolo, Yueh takes his revenge by killing Baron Harkonnen, who had orchestrated the torture and death of Yueh's wife Wanna in their original incarnations. Ornamented Death fucked around with this message at 05:19 on Jul 9, 2018 |
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Jul 9, 2018 05:17
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Ornamented Death posted:I maintain that while it's a very, very bad idea to read the Brian Herbert Dune books, it's a great idea to read the Wikipedia plot summaries of them to see just how loving stupid they are. DARK SABER
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Jul 9, 2018 05:18
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jit bull transpile posted:DARK SABER Wasn't that just the big laser from the Death Star with an engine on it? I read a lot of EU poo poo when I was a kid...
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Jul 9, 2018 05:21
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People poo poo on Darksaber a lot, but I've always had a soft spot for a superweapon built by lowest-bidder contractors.
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Jul 9, 2018 05:24
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Ornamented Death posted:"the two Paul gholas" Why do you hurt me like this
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Jul 9, 2018 05:34
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Patrick Spens posted:People poo poo on Darksaber a lot, but I've always had a soft spot for a superweapon built by lowest-bidder contractors. But enough about the F35 folks
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