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withak posted:And then tragically struck down by an early case of the marthambles. I seem to remember it was hockogrockle that brought him low.
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Jul 22, 2023 20:05
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A Proper Uppercut posted:I didn't know there was a first series. Was it any good? I'll just repost my post from last month: SimonChris posted:Yeah, the BBC adaptation had fantastic aesthetics for their budget:
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Jul 22, 2023 20:10
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I really need to check that series out. On a semi-related note, I’m re-reading The Scar right now (because lol OceanGate) and god drat Mieville’s descriptions of the dark depths of the ocean are properly terrifying. Anyone got some refs for other books that explore the deep sea?
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Jul 22, 2023 20:13
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A Proper Uppercut posted:I didn't know there was a first series. Was it any good? I agree, it's *really* good.
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Jul 22, 2023 20:16
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Fool's Errand (Tawny Man #1) by Robin Hobb - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FBFMIO/
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Jul 22, 2023 20:18
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Cpt. Mahatma Gandhi posted:I really need to check that series out. Can I interest you in Sphere? It’s a Crichton novel, but it’s not bad.
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Jul 22, 2023 20:31
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Haystack posted:The web serial Time to Orbit: Unknown scratches a kind of similar itch. Man wakes up from deep sleep, and there are space problems. More survival focused and grounded than Bobiverse, but better world building. D-Pad posted:Thanks for this. Loving this I'm already halfway through. You completely hosed my day. Well I caught up to the latest Time To Orbit. I would definitely suggest this to the thread, it's a lot of fun. Easy reading with some cool mysteries that unfold at a nice pace. If I was this author I would definitely try and get it published once it is finished I could see it finding a much bigger audience. Any other suggestions along this "daydream" sci-fi are welcome!
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Jul 22, 2023 20:42
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Finished up my audiobook read of Howard Pyle's The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, and it's great. Just a wonderful page-turning palate-cleanser that takes the old ballads and puts them into the form that we recognize today, a rollicking good-times adventure that goes on exactly as long as it should. Now to finish the read-along thread! Meanwhile, I have started Watership Down for the first time since it was read to me as a bedtime story around age 9. I have absolutely no memory of this book, so I'm looking forward to coming to it fresh, but something I wouldn't have appreciated as a little kid that I really appreciate now is in the author's forward: "I want to emphasize that Watership Down was never intended to be some sort of allegory or parable. It is simply a story about rabbits, made up and told in the car." God that's refreshing. In print reading, struggling to get through The Archive Undying, but only due to a mismatch of expectations brought on by the marketing. It's been pitched as a mecha story, and while there are definitely giant robots in it, if you go over a third of the way in and the only mechs are distant and occasional antagonists, it's not a mech story. I'll finish it, because the setting is cool and it reads well, but it's going to take a while. Definitely recommended for people who want to read something Extremely Gay, in the "dudes loving dudes and thinking about loving dudes constantly" sense. As a bi guy, this is also rather refreshing, since the vast majority of queer POVs in genre fiction seem to be ladies, and the specific kind of brain-clouding, bad-decision-inducing horniness present in gay dude relationships isn't something most writers seem equipped to handle.
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Jul 22, 2023 20:43
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Cpt. Mahatma Gandhi posted:I really need to check that series out. So, not exactly what you asked as it's not the deep sea but deep space, but Passage at Arms by Glen Cook is perhaps the most submarine-like sci fi book I've read. Been a while since I've read it but felt very claustrophobic
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Jul 22, 2023 20:55
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Das Astronaut Boot
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Jul 22, 2023 20:56
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Cpt. Mahatma Gandhi posted:I really need to check that series out. Peter Watts' Starfish has a fair amount of this. It is, however, incredibly dark and is the first part of a series that is outright difficult to read. Still, it's a notable entry in a fairly limited sub-genre. fermun posted:So, not exactly what you asked as it's not the deep sea but deep space, but Passage at Arms by Glen Cook is perhaps the most submarine-like sci fi book I've read. Been a while since I've read it but felt very claustrophobic Passage at Arms is amazing and everyone should read it, can confirm.
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Jul 22, 2023 21:17
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Kestral posted:In print reading, struggling to get through The Archive Undying, but only due to a mismatch of expectations brought on by the marketing. It's been pitched as a mecha story, and while there are definitely giant robots in it, if you go over a third of the way in and the only mechs are distant and occasional antagonists, it's not a mech story. I'll finish it, because the setting is cool and it reads well, but it's going to take a while. Definitely recommended for people who want to read something Extremely Gay, in the "dudes loving dudes and thinking about loving dudes constantly" sense. As a bi guy, this is also rather refreshing, since the vast majority of queer POVs in genre fiction seem to be ladies, and the specific kind of brain-clouding, bad-decision-inducing horniness present in gay dude relationships isn't something most writers seem equipped to handle. I finished it a few days ago, and loved it. I wasn’t expecting a standard mecha story because it seemed so much more than that, so my expectations were exceeded if anything. I loved the idea of a far-future post-post-post apocalyptic world where AI had been gods and since fallen, leaving a wreckage of dangerous tech and broken civilizations As I finished it, I couldn’t help comparing it to Akira (without the motor bikes unfortunately) if it were extremely gay (which is awesome). It goes places—body horror places. It’s loving great The plot was so twisty in the end, I got a little exasperated with that, but it certainly paid off.
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Jul 22, 2023 21:31
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I didn't like Passage at Arms, personally.
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Jul 22, 2023 21:37
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Kestral posted:Finished up my audiobook read of Howard Pyle's The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, and it's great. Just a wonderful page-turning palate-cleanser that takes the old ballads and puts them into the form that we recognize today, a rollicking good-times adventure that goes on exactly as long as it should. Now to finish the read-along thread! Watership Down has been my favourite book since I was about eight. I went to university in Southampton and lived right next to the River Test and this was very pleasing to me.
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Jul 22, 2023 21:59
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General Battuta posted:[whispering throatily through glorybreach] Besz blowjob you’ve ever had. Ul Qoma so hard you’ll faint drat
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Jul 22, 2023 22:00
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Cpt. Mahatma Gandhi posted:I really need to check that series out. Starfish has already been recommended and I second the heads up about darkness, it makes Blindsight seem like a cheerful romp. I quite liked Julia Armfield’s Our Wives Under the Sea. More weird/horror than SF, very much in the Annihilation vein, and maaaybe it would have been better as a short story or novella but it’s good. Sort of 50:50 between the undersea stuff and the ‘collapsing relationship of someone who came back from below the sea’. Also Caitlin R. Kiernan has written a few stories about creepy ocean stuff. ‘Our Houses Under The Sea’ is great and tbh kind of does at least some of what Armfield was going for better and in half the space. It’s in their Very Best Of collection. (boy howdy I wish they hadn’t gone off the reactionary deep end in the last, like two years)
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Jul 22, 2023 22:07
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Can you elaborate on what’s up with Kiernan? I love their writing but haven’t looked them up in a while.
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Jul 22, 2023 23:13
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Kestral posted:In print reading, struggling to get through The Archive Undying, but only due to a mismatch of expectations brought on by the marketing. It's been pitched as a mecha story, and while there are definitely giant robots in it, if you go over a third of the way in and the only mechs are distant and occasional antagonists, it's not a mech story. I'll finish it, because the setting is cool and it reads well, but it's going to take a while. Definitely recommended for people who want to read something Extremely Gay, in the "dudes loving dudes and thinking about loving dudes constantly" sense. As a bi guy, this is also rather refreshing, since the vast majority of queer POVs in genre fiction seem to be ladies, and the specific kind of brain-clouding, bad-decision-inducing horniness present in gay dude relationships isn't something most writers seem equipped to handle. I don't have a huge fondness for mechas, but ridiculously gay but well written has been my jam for a while now so this sounds perfect for me, heh. Was already on my to read...
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Jul 22, 2023 23:19
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StrixNebulosa posted:Can you elaborate on what’s up with Kiernan? I love their writing but haven’t looked them up in a while. They started talking about ‘woketards’ and the importance of ‘expunging marxist-Leninist doctrine/indoctrination from the US educational system by any means necessary’. That and retweeting stuff by the head of Britain First, a self-declared fascist party. Examples here but tbh it’s also glaring if you look at their livejournal for the last while: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1666159533872349184.html It’s really poo poo, I love their writing too, probably my favourite author working in the Lovecraft-adjacent space so it’s really disappointing. And for it to come from someone who’s been the target of transphobia for decades… Yeah. They’re a palaeontologist and it seems to have started with stuff about ‘attacks on science by SJWs’ and descended in a predictable manner.
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Jul 22, 2023 23:31
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Jesus gently caress that’s so much worse than I expected 
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Jul 22, 2023 23:35
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Yeah it’s a bummer. One of those ones where I don’t think there is/was really any indication in the writing. But still.
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Jul 23, 2023 00:44
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Awkward Davies posted:Re: his interests and knowledge I’ve always thought the description of him on Wikipedia was amusing: I'm certainly putting the book down to google things more than usual.
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Jul 23, 2023 01:44
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Poldarn posted:I'm certainly putting the book down to google things more than usual. Have you found the companion sites? There’s one that lists and explains all of the literary allusions. Of course I’m having trouble finding it at the moment. Someone else wrote an entire companion book to the series called “A Sea of Words”. Might buy it for my next read through. I have them all in physical copies now, it would be nice to have the companion as well.
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Jul 23, 2023 02:05
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Awkward Davies posted:Have you found the companion sites? There’s one that lists and explains all of the literary allusions. Of course I’m having trouble finding it at the moment. Someone else wrote an entire companion book to the series called “A Sea of Words”. Might buy it for my next read through. I have them all in physical copies now, it would be nice to have the companion as well. I typically would not recommend that anyone follow the advice of someone with this particular username, but Sea of Words is pretty good.
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Jul 23, 2023 02:22
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Stuporstar posted:I finished it a few days ago, and loved it. I wasn’t expecting a standard mecha story because it seemed so much more than that, so my expectations were exceeded if anything. I loved the idea of a far-future post-post-post apocalyptic world where AI had been gods and since fallen, leaving a wreckage of dangerous tech and broken civilizations Yeah, it's definitely a good book, it's just not the book I was looking for when I started it. Got tricked by the marketing and the blurbs, which made it sound like I'd be getting, like, Post-Post Apocalypse Southeast Asian Steel Frame, and it's super not that. I've got to get my head around what it actually is, recalibrate so I can enjoy it on its own terms, because it's been good so far! HopperUK posted:Watership Down has been my favourite book since I was about eight. I went to university in Southampton and lived right next to the River Test and this was very pleasing to me. This already feels like a book where the landscape is Important (tm). The author's intro goes so far as to give the exact survey maps on which the area is located, so I think I'm going to download a bunch of landscape images and 4K walkaround videos of that region, make it a real multimedia experience.
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Jul 23, 2023 02:48
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Awkward Davies posted:Have you found the companion sites? There’s one that lists and explains all of the literary allusions. Of course I’m having trouble finding it at the moment. Someone else wrote an entire companion book to the series called “A Sea of Words”. Might buy it for my next read through. I have them all in physical copies now, it would be nice to have the companion as well. We do have a wonderful ongoing A/M thread: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3393240
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Jul 23, 2023 02:51
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:We do have a wonderful ongoing A/M thread: Sorry! Wrong thread. Excited to have located the friendly book side of SA that I didn’t previously know about.
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Jul 23, 2023 03:01
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Thanks for all the deep sea recs (wrecks  )! I read Sphere way back in the 90s and have completely forgotten about it, so will definitely revisit that and will also check out all the others, including the one that’s more deep space than deep sea because that is also very much my poo poo.
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Jul 23, 2023 03:14
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if you want some background on A/M read NAM Rodgers' the wooden world or anything of his really
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Jul 23, 2023 03:36
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Or play Return of the Obra Dinn.
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Jul 23, 2023 03:37
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Or play Return of the Obra Dinn. You should do this regardless but boy howdy does having a bit of age of sail knowledge make certain things a bit easier. Still one of those completely fair but absolutely devious puzzles, nothing before or since has given me the sheer satisfaction of a completely blind 100%.
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Jul 23, 2023 04:00
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FPyat posted:The New Yorker’s new article on Samuel R. Delany is pretty great. I’m more interested in reading the Neveryon books knowing that a later entry explores how AIDS would affect a fantasy city. It was great. So many cute little details. Or amazing ones.
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Jul 23, 2023 05:26
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GhastlyBizness posted:They started talking about ‘woketards’ and the importance of ‘expunging marxist-Leninist doctrine/indoctrination from the US educational system by any means necessary’. That and retweeting stuff by the head of Britain First, a self-declared fascist party. Examples here but tbh it’s also glaring if you look at their livejournal for the last while: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1666159533872349184.html
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Jul 23, 2023 10:13
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Kestral posted:
Ooh yeah do it. The landscape has obviously changed a fair bit since the book was written but Watership Down itself is still there, of course.
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Jul 23, 2023 12:31
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Awkward Davies posted:Have you found the companion sites? There’s one that lists and explains all of the literary allusions. Of course I’m having trouble finding it at the moment. Someone else wrote an entire companion book to the series called “A Sea of Words”. Might buy it for my next read through. I have them all in physical copies now, it would be nice to have the companion as well. Companion sites you say?? Hieronymous Alloy posted:We do have a wonderful ongoing A/M thread: A Let's Read thread you say??
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Jul 23, 2023 16:39
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I read the "Engines of Light" trilogy by Ken MacLeod. Interesting premise, cool aliens (non humans, anyway). Not sure it needed several 300 year old men hooking up with 18 year old girls. Or a civilization with only 3 laws, one of which is "no sex with anyone before puberty". I lost my faith in SF authors long ago, especially self proclaimed libertarian ones, so it's hard not to get squicked out by that
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Jul 23, 2023 16:44
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Poldarn posted:Companion sites you say?? The Let's Read part sorta fell apart (I worry what happened to that guy sometimes) but the thread has been going for years and years now.
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Jul 23, 2023 16:53
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AARD VARKMAN posted:I read the "Engines of Light" trilogy by Ken MacLeod. MacLeod himself is pretty goddamn far from libertarian though, or at least he was twenty-odd years ago when I got drunk with him & some other people at a con. Old Trotskyite, more like it.
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Jul 23, 2023 17:44
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People's political affiliations can change significantly. Just ask David Horowitz.
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Jul 23, 2023 19:01
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fermun posted:So, not exactly what you asked as it's not the deep sea but deep space, but Passage at Arms by Glen Cook is perhaps the most submarine-like sci fi book I've read. Been a while since I've read it but felt very claustrophobic Yes. Also Frank Herbert's Under Pressure is an amazing psychological thriller. Very submarine oriented. I will also recommend noted non-SF book, Das Boot in either or both of book or movie forms. I would advise watching the longest version of the film that you can find, it's celebrated for a reason. I will also advise planning your viewing so that it will be daylight out when you finish, you will badly need to go touch grass afterwards.
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Jul 23, 2023 21:04
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