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We took turns reading the sex scenes in Glasshouse at my master's residency. It was almost as funny as the HP fanfic where Dobby has a groinsaw.
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Oct 15, 2018 18:05
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Scott Westerfeldt has an amazing story about driving his parents across Texas after they'd (apparently) read some of his early books. After an hour of silence his mom said, "Scott, dear, I read your novel. There was something I didn't really understand. When she put her prehensile clitoris into his urethra, would that really feel good?" And his dad said "Yes, honey, it's called sounding."
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Oct 15, 2018 19:08
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Oct 15, 2018 20:08
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:Stross's fetishes are most obvious in his standalone scifi books, Accelandro + Glasshouse. Now I'm wondering if I should go back and re-read those to figure out what they were.
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Oct 15, 2018 20:11
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Ssssooo is this a good time to ask about more high fantasy novels like Janny Wurts' stuff or should I see myself out...? e: like I grabbed volume one of the Crown of Stars series today, looking forward to sinking a lot of time into it.
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Oct 15, 2018 20:12
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Speaking of High Fantasy, Poul Anderson's Broken Sword is $2 on US kindle right now.
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Oct 15, 2018 21:00
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Kraps posted:What are some books that combine Scifi and Fantasy? some of karl schroeder's more abstruse non-Virga stuff might scratch your itch, or, hell, Virga too, if "sci-fi setting but with more high fantasy-typical tone and narrative tropes" counts StrixNebulosa posted:Ssssooo is this a good time to ask about more high fantasy novels like Janny Wurts' stuff or should I see myself out...? why would it be a bad time to ask about fantasy in the fantasy thread PupsOfWar fucked around with this message at 21:38 on Oct 15, 2018 |
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Oct 15, 2018 21:31
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Loutre posted:I'm halfway through the first book in Peter F. Hamilton's new "Salvation Sequence" series, and it's pretty enjoyable so far. I thought it was a good start for a new series. The ending was waaaaay too abrupt in my opinion, but it'd probably hold up better if the next book was out. Standard stuff from him, only one sex scene to +30 through.
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Oct 15, 2018 22:05
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PupsOfWar posted:some of karl schroeder's more abstruse non-Virga stuff might scratch your itch, Virga's great, just read it no matter what, but it does feel a lot like a fantasy novel except for the careful attention to technical detail.
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Oct 15, 2018 23:01
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Now I'm wondering if I should go back and re-read those to figure out what they were. Accelerando features weird perverted future sex where the participants actually touched each other and exchanged bodily fluids instead of doing it in completely safe mind-linked VR like a healthy normal couple.
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Oct 15, 2018 23:20
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Ancillary Justice is an extremely cool book.
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Oct 15, 2018 23:37
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pseudorandom name posted:Accelerando features weird perverted future sex where the participants actually touched each other and exchanged bodily fluids instead of doing it in completely safe mind-linked VR like a healthy normal couple. Did that book come out before or after Demolition Man?
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Oct 15, 2018 23:59
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Just saw there's a new Halloween story bundle. Anyone familiar with any of them? You mean the ChiZine one? The only book listed that I've read is Every House is Haunted by Ian Rogers, but it was a great collection. I've read stuff by most of the other authors and it was all good, so you probably can't go wrong.
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Oct 16, 2018 01:49
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A Proper Uppercut posted:Did that book come out before or after Demolition Man? That's actually a good question, its a stitch up of a bunch of related short stories and I'm not sure when that individual story was written.
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Oct 16, 2018 01:53
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pseudorandom name posted:That's actually a good question, its a stitch up of a bunch of related short stories and I'm not sure when that individual story was written. Significantly after.
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Oct 16, 2018 03:37
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Now I'm wondering if I should go back and re-read those to figure out what they were. Let me save you some time: every letter in the term BDSM is Stross's fetish. And yes, it crops up in all the Laundry series books, kinda like seeing the white arrow in the FedEx logo, once you see it...it's hard to un-see. Accelandro had the gimp scene, Glasshouse was either Stross going deep into his happy place and pumping out prose (ugh unintended phrasing), or it was Stross reworking the really gross bits of Heinlein's exceptionally skeevy book Friday into a standalone novel. e: tried finding a youtube clip of last week's It's Always Sunny russian malware joke that had Mac chafed + limping after 4 hours of private computer time for a "that was Charles Stross after finishing Glasshouse" meta-joke. quantumfoam fucked around with this message at 04:02 on Oct 16, 2018 |
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Oct 16, 2018 03:58
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I remember the BDSM in Accelerando, but nothing like it in Glasshouse, perhaps because I actually enjoyed reading the latter. Guess I should read it again.
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Oct 16, 2018 04:12
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Glasshouse is a weird, weird book, and anyone going into it should be wary. And it was definitely influenced by/copied multiple elements of Robert Heinlein's 1982 novel Friday. Lumping all the Heinlein "incest is cool you prudes" books into the number 1 slot, Heinlein's Friday is probably the 2nd most creepy book Heinlein ever got published. Now that I remember Saturns Children exists with it's sexbot cover, that makes two Heinlein homages Stross has written...of the same book. Just to break away from fetish chat in science fiction novels, I finished Quakeland by Kathryn Miles earlier today. Pretty good book, definitely recommend it to other people. It was slightly scattershot, had a good summary of tectonics knowledge as of 2017. Spoiler alert: Salt Lake City Utah is mega-hosed if a magnitude 5/magnitude 6 earthquake occurs.
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Oct 16, 2018 05:01
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Just saw there's a new Halloween story bundle. Anyone familiar with any of them? The Carey family book is great. It's not as good as the Steel Seraglio but it's really enjoyable. Experimental Film felt like an interesting premise that dragged too long. Honestly almost everything ChiZine does is worth at least checking out.
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Oct 16, 2018 05:15
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Man, the new Black Company is not very good. A lot of moments and not in a good way. It really feels like it was written by a completely different and way creepier dude. There is an interesting story under all of that, but man, his editor should have made him cut and rewrite a bunch of it. The plot was inherently gonna be problematic, but I feel like he would have handled it way better in his prime. The Glumslinger fucked around with this message at 07:52 on Oct 16, 2018 |
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Oct 16, 2018 07:48
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Darksaber posted:I thought it was a good start for a new series. The ending was waaaaay too abrupt in my opinion Never start a Hamilton series until he's finished it. I thought we went over this already. It always ends in tears, or someone going over an infinite waterfall. Whatever else you can say about him as a writer, he does cliffhangers better than anyone else ever did.
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Oct 16, 2018 07:57
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I haven't read Accelerando yet, so my strongest memory relating to it is reading this one review of it that went on a tangent about how much the reviewer hates cats. It made me want to read the book to spite that guy.
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Oct 16, 2018 08:06
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:Let me save you some time: every letter in the term BDSM is Stross's fetish. Honestly, you're the only one who ever brings this up and you do it every time so maybe this is more your issue than Stross's.
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Oct 16, 2018 08:08
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Yeah, the BDSM scenes in Accelerando were intentional comedy, I thought. The "sequel" to Saturn's Children has no sex that I can recall, and doesn't resemble the book Friday in any way. Now, you wanna read something hosed up, try his short story about unicorns.
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Oct 16, 2018 08:55
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pseudorandom name posted:Honestly, you're the only one who ever brings this up and you do it every time so maybe this is more your issue than Stross's. 
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Oct 16, 2018 08:57
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:Now that I remember Saturns Children exists with it's sexbot cover, that makes two Heinlein homages Stross has written...of the same book. Stross had nothing to say about the cover of Saturns Children, that was something entirely up to the publisher. As for Stross, I feel like the Eschaton series ended way too soon.
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Oct 16, 2018 09:53
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Another author who's as prolific as Schaefer (but just not quite as good at the noir bit) is Orlando Sanchez. Pretty good books, but I've only read the Simon and Montague series. He's got like 4? others going on at the moment. Just thought I'd recommend him if someone was looking for a decent urban fantasy read on Kindle unlimited.
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Oct 16, 2018 10:23
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Cardiac posted:Stross had nothing to say about the cover of Saturns Children, that was something entirely up to the publisher. He said it was broken. Something to do with being able to go ftl and all the human societies being placed back in time proportional (1 year per ly) to their distance from earth. Meaning the ReMastered should really have been able to get to earth before the E came into being. Or something like that. He had a 3rd book planned about pirates and accountancy.
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Oct 16, 2018 12:16
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pseudorandom name posted:Honestly, you're the only one who ever brings this up and you do it every time so maybe this is more your issue than Stross's. Fair enough, awkward sex scenes just stick out in good scifi stories like Stross usually writes. So, won't mention it again. Collateral posted:He said it was broken. Something to do with being able to go ftl and all the human societies being placed back in time proportional (1 year per ly) to their distance from earth. Meaning the ReMastered should really have been able to get to earth before the E came into being. Or something like that. He had a 3rd book planned about pirates and accountancy. That actually got published. Neptune's Brood by Charles Stross. Bitcoin, interstellar piracy, secret FTL travel, a literal waterworld, pirate accountants, and flatwormy deep-deep sea miners.
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Oct 16, 2018 14:36
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Kesper North posted:Yeah, the BDSM scenes in Accelerando were intentional comedy, I thought. I wouldn't have gone with comedy as it was a rape scene (female on male) but it didn't strike me as particularly fetishistic, it was pretty integral to the plot since that's where the daughter came from, and it was the only scene like that in the book. Stross has posted that he hates the US cover for Saturn's Children--he didn't get to choose it, but he had already thrown a hissy fit over the cover to whatever he published right before it and didn't think he had the ability to demand a complete redo at the time. For the record, the UK cover is this. This isn't to say that Stross isn't kind of pervy but it's never struck me enough to make a noteworthy impact on any of his books I've read. I haven't read the Laundry series outside of some short stories so maybe there's more of it in the series that's about Lovecraftian horror.
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Oct 16, 2018 14:45
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:Stross's Merchant Princesses follows the scifi/fantasy mash-up established by Roger Zelazny's Changling/Madwand books, magic + science intertwined with dimension travelling. That's my point though. There is zero magic in Merchant Princes except the dimensional travelling (which in itself isn't something beyond the ken of science, in the setting).
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Oct 16, 2018 15:46
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The Glumslinger posted:Man, the new Black Company is not very good. A lot of He's 75 next year, he may unfortunately have reached that condition of "Oh dear, he really should have retired from writing 10 years ago" that a lot of F&SF writers suffer from. In my head I've always thought of it as Heinlein Syndrome but there's no shortage of other candidates you could name it after. Deptfordx fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Oct 16, 2018 |
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Oct 16, 2018 17:02
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Cardiac posted:Stross had nothing to say about the cover of Saturns Children, that was something entirely up to the publisher. That cover is totally appropriate given the content of the book though I wasn’t imagining the scene with the robot’s self lubricating nipples was I Or having a completely trashy orgasm with a space ship
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Oct 16, 2018 17:26
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Collateral posted:He said it was broken. Something to do with being able to go ftl and all the human societies being placed back in time proportional (1 year per ly) to their distance from earth. Meaning the ReMastered should really have been able to get to earth before the E came into being. Or something like that. He had a 3rd book planned about pirates and accountancy. Other authors would have ignored that and made up something to make it fit together. So I guess he got bored of the scenario or it didn’t sell enough. The merchant princes apparently goes well with like 3 different series, but was boring to me.
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Oct 16, 2018 19:39
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I just noticed there's a new Honor Harrington book out. Which I used to love. But I was astonished he actually wrapped up the Safehold series so maybe he's reigning stuff in and moving towards a conclusion.  Anyone read it and care to comment? My baseline assumption is that shark hasn't merely jumped, but is currently heading for low Earth orbit.
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Oct 16, 2018 19:54
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Deptfordx posted:I just noticed there's a new Honor Harrington book out. It wasn’t terrible! Although the parts directly involving her were largely boring, they were a small part of the book. And it more or less wraps up the Solarian war and is probably the last HH-focused book. If he writes more I expect a 25-30 year jump with her kids in a new war against the Mesan Alignment proxy nation.
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Oct 16, 2018 20:07
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Cardiac posted:Other authors would have ignored that and made up something to make it fit together. Stross’ thing is that he looks at FTL as “hard science”, so handwaving away the time travel paradox would have been against the entire point of the book. I’m not smart enough to understand that stuff so my fiction involves a lot of hyperspace and wormholes and poo poo idgaf
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Oct 16, 2018 22:41
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The Glumslinger posted:Man, the new Black Company is not very good. A lot of That's Port of Shadows, right? Good to know - I think I'll avoid it (and Pitiless Rain when it comes out) then, if he's gone a bit...weird with age. (And well, me not buying PoS is also good in a sense, since that'll give me a chance to read through all the other books I have!  I've been eyeing off my copy of The Count of Monte Cristo, so I might give that a go after I finish TBC series)
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Oct 16, 2018 23:45
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occamsnailfile posted:I wouldn't have gone with comedy as it was a rape scene (female on male) but it didn't strike me as particularly fetishistic, it was pretty integral to the plot since that's where the daughter came from, and it was the only scene like that in the book. I started reading Glass House and the protagonist immediately casually has an orgy with a four armed woman and a unicorn. I dropped the book like my hands had been burnt. Fortunately Stross has restraint enough to keep it out of a lot of his work - on my experience anyway - or to keep it to vaguely creepy levels like the 16 year old loving the 50something guy off camera in Iron Sunrise rather than mega gratuitous wank material.
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Oct 17, 2018 01:42
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Neurosis posted:Fortunately Stross has restraint enough to keep it out of a lot of his work - on my experience anyway - or to keep it to vaguely creepy levels like the 16 year old loving the 50something guy off camera in Iron Sunrise rather than mega gratuitous wank material. Science Fiction and Fantasy: what is this, the alabama of space?
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Oct 17, 2018 02:12
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