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Also, the Golden Ouecumene trilogy really reads like Atlas Shrugged in space a lot of the time. I just got to the part where The Earthmind appears to Phaethon to reveal to him the secret of how to kill a Sophotech and I'm half expecting him to slay the bad guy with a John Galt speech.
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Apr 19, 2017 13:43
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Also I'm becoming fairly sure that there are a lot of deliberate digs at the Culture in these books. Like the part where our hero goes on about how a post-scarcity society would still definitely use money because all rational societies would necessarily use money.
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Apr 19, 2017 13:52
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Why are you reading it then? Atlas Shrugged has always been trash, how does adding lasers make it worth reading?
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Apr 19, 2017 15:57
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I think they're enjoyable. Despite my posts I loved the Golden Oecumene trilogy despite the blatant agenda. Wright isn't going to spread objectivism through his hard sci-fi books so I find his ideology stupid but harmless and can look past it.
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Apr 19, 2017 16:42
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Applewhite posted:Also I'm becoming fairly sure that there are a lot of deliberate digs at the Culture in these books. Like the part where our hero goes on about how a post-scarcity society would still definitely use money because all rational societies would necessarily use money. Not knowing anything of the series that sounds more like a dig at Star Trek than Culture.
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Apr 19, 2017 17:34
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Hughlander posted:Not knowing anything of the series that sounds more like a dig at Star Trek than Culture. The Culture is also a post-scarcity society without money. It's basically Star Trek's the Federation but without the liberal humanist hangups.
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Apr 19, 2017 18:33
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Barry Foster posted:The Culture is also a post-scarcity society without money. It's basically Star Trek's the Federation but without the liberal humanist hangups. Sorry I know the Culture just meant not reading the series in question I'd think ST would be the more obvious target being so diametrically opposed to what was given in this thread.
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Apr 19, 2017 20:53
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Captain Monkey posted:Why are you reading it then? Atlas Shrugged has always been trash, how does adding lasers make it worth reading? Um because it's still fun? The sci fi concepts are very cool and like n4 said, I'm willing to look past his obvious agenda for an entertaining story.
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Apr 20, 2017 09:07
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Captain Monkey posted:Why are you reading it then? Atlas Shrugged has always been trash, how does adding lasers make it worth reading? Wright is surprisingly imaginative at times. I enjoyed the various superpower paradigms in the Orphans series even if his fetishes kept intruding. He's a good enough writer that if he could keep his views out of his fiction then I'd cry 'death of the author!' and read it anyway. He can't, so I don't. But others may have stronger noses. The Lone Badger fucked around with this message at 10:13 on Apr 20, 2017 |
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Apr 20, 2017 10:08
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Got some more of these to give away, real ones instead of galleys: http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/318370/free-space-by-sean-danker/9780451475800/ PM me if you want one.
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Apr 22, 2017 14:23
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Okay, I just finished Abaddon's Gate and while I didn't like it as much as the first two books I didn't dislike it either. I found myself having a difficult time trying to care about both Anna and Clarissa/Melba. I hope Bobbie and Avasarala make a return at some point as important characters, I really liked them and I hope they've just been shelved for another arc and aren't just gone. How did you guys feel about the book?
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Apr 23, 2017 22:39
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ROFLburger posted:Okay, I just finished Abaddon's Gate and while I didn't like it as much as the first two books I didn't dislike it either. I found myself having a difficult time trying to care about both Anna and Clarissa/Melba. I hope Bobbie and Avasarala make a return at some point as important characters, I really liked them and I hope they've just been shelved for another arc and aren't just gone. How did you guys feel about the book? I was bored during parts of it, but not unduly so. Avasarala is in all of the other books (to a limited extend in 4, to a much greater one in 5 and 6), Bobbie is in 5 and 6.
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Apr 23, 2017 22:57
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ROFLburger posted:Okay, I just finished Abaddon's Gate and while I didn't like it as much as the first two books I didn't dislike it either. I found myself having a difficult time trying to care about both Anna and Clarissa/Melba. I hope Bobbie and Avasarala make a return at some point as important characters, I really liked them and I hope they've just been shelved for another arc and aren't just gone. How did you guys feel about the book? The low point (Cibola Burn) is still ahead of you but Abaddon's Gate is the second weakest so far.
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Apr 24, 2017 06:19
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I just read all of Peter Hamilton's Commonwealth books in roughly two weeks--I actually listened to them at work--and was quite surprised I enjoyed them after the aborted child that was Night's Dawn. Not to bring up a really old conversation, but I too was troubled by how accepting everyone was of re-life. The only character to ever giving voice to my own feelings (a copy of me is not me) was Wilson Kime; however, by the time you get to the Void Trilogy, everyone is just super cool with getting re-lifed. This includes Wilson Kime, who has uploaded himself into ANA. In fact, there is literally a character in the Fallers series that basically says, "it's cool, don't worry about giving me first aid and let the body die, I will get re-lifed anyway." In any case, this whole discussion makes me want someone to write a series of novels set in the Eclipse Phase universe. The setting for the universe really tries to tackle this issue exactly--what defines "you" when your consciousness can easily be "moved" or copied from one body to another. Plus, the fiction that is in the source books (they're all at least half fiction) and the short stories in "After the Fall" are loving incredible. It's all creative commons, so while you should give these guys money (they deserve it), I encourage everyone I meet who is into science fiction to check them out, whether they are into table top gaming or no. Lastly, I think the notion that everyone from ever species over a certain age, with some very rare exceptions, would want to dispense with their body and achieve "post-physical" status is questionable. I agree some would, but the instinct to "live" is quite intense, and most people go live their life in a very routine way--I really do not think I would "get bored" with everything in a thousand years, or even ten thousand years. Edit Added spoiler because I think anyone in process of reading those novels could figure it out. ZombieLenin fucked around with this message at 15:29 on Apr 24, 2017 |
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Apr 24, 2017 15:23
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ZombieLenin posted:I just read all of Peter Hamilton's Commonwealth books in roughly two weeks--I actually listened to them at work--and was quite surprised I enjoyed them after the aborted child that was Night's Dawn. I think everyone except Wilson was chill with the idea because that's how they were raised. Wilso was a relic of our current notions of consciousness, so it makes sense that he feels that way.
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Apr 24, 2017 15:53
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ZombieLenin posted:
Maybe this is addressed, but why not lose the physical body but recreate a world where you experience everything as if you were in a physical body? Like, that seems like a way better way to experience the world than to -actually- live in it. It seems entirely reasonable that almost no species would care if you could perfectly recreate, to your mind, the real world to play around in literally whenever you wanted?
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Apr 24, 2017 20:13
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Captain Monkey posted:Maybe this is addressed, but why not lose the physical body but recreate a world where you experience everything as if you were in a physical body? Like, that seems like a way better way to experience the world than to -actually- live in it. It seems entirely reasonable that almost no species would care if you could perfectly recreate, to your mind, the real world to play around in literally whenever you wanted? In these novels, what you are referring to happens in the form of people uploading their consciousness into ANA, which is a super sentient AI/collective consciousness where the individual parts maintain their individuality; however, post-physical in the novels is something different. The author perhaps has a obsession with evolution that is taken up by That said, I see what you are saying; however, I also see how the opposite might be true. There is something about the authenticity of real experience that cannot necessarily be captured by even the most realistic simulation; given this, and given that everyone in the universe seems to be okay with the idea of "re-lifing," thus removing any real danger of "death" in the minds of everyone, I could see a case being made for a strong desire to continue to be physically alive for as long as someone possibly can be. rafikki posted:I think everyone except Wilson was chill with the idea because that's how they were raised. Wilso was a relic of our current notions of consciousness, so it makes sense that he feels that way. True enough. It is hard to escape the cultural bounds of thought. I would be far more comfortable, but still uncomfortable, with the idea of "re-lifing" if what was being stored was somehow consciousness itself at the moment of death, rather than a mere recording of your memories. ZombieLenin fucked around with this message at 18:02 on May 1, 2017 |
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Apr 25, 2017 15:43
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When I wake up in the morning am I the same me that went to sleep last night? 
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Apr 25, 2017 18:48
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Nope.
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Apr 25, 2017 21:03
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I know this came up in the thread awhile back, but I was sharing with a cow-orker how completely insane Ian Douglas Star Carrier series is for the USS America as giant dick orgasming all over the enemies... It was even worse than I remembered... The prologue opening with:quote:She was…enormous, by far the largest mobile construct ever built by humankind, a titanic mushroom shape, the kilometer-long stem shadowed behind the immense, hemispherical cap that was both reaction mass and radiation shielding. Her twin counter-rotating hab rings turned slowly in the shadows. Swarms of probes and recon ships emerged from her launch tubes, minnows streaking out into wan sunlight from the bulk of a whale. Enormous mushroom shape with a big head? Two round wheels at the back? Hmm that's a bit subtle. Maybe he should be more overt in the first chapter... quote:Each of the Starhawks had emerged from the diamagnetic launch tubes in standard flight configuration, a night-black needle shape twenty meters long, with a central bulge housing the pilot and control systems, and the mirror-smooth outer hull in a superconducting state. At Gray’s command, his gravfighter began reshaping itself, the complex nanolaminates of its outer structure dissolving and recombining, drive units and weapons and sensors folding up and out and back, everything building up around the central bulge in a blunt and smoothly convoluted egg-shape with a slender spike tail off the narrow end, and with the fat end aligned with the distant, golden gleam of Eta Boötis. Ok space ships shooting out that's a bit odd but.. quote:Blue Omega Leader, Omega Seven,” he reported. “Sperm mode engaged. Ready for boost.” Gravfighter pilots claimed their craft looked like huge spermatozoa when they were in boost configuration. His Starhawk was now only seven meters long—not counting the field bleed spike astern—and five wide, though it still massed twenty-two tons. Oh god drat it Ian Douglas stop typing with one hand.
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Apr 25, 2017 23:22
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Gross
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Apr 25, 2017 23:42
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22-Ton Spermatozoa would be a pretty good band name
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Apr 26, 2017 01:05
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A whole bunch of people are going to read that and laugh at the obviously fake quotes. No, seriously, that's real. That's all real.
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Apr 26, 2017 01:13
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Yep, Cibola Burn seems a lot slower. I'm 200 pages in and what was initially an interesting story has ground to halt over the course of the past 100 pages. I like the new characters though, and miller.exe is really interesting
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Apr 27, 2017 04:09
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90s Cringe Rock posted:A whole bunch of people are going to read that and laugh at the obviously fake quotes. Although to be honest, all of the Navy guys I've known would immediately describe it that way--- actually no, they wouldn't, really. They'd just call them "jit jets" or something like that, because no Navy puke would ever use a word like "spermatozoa".
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Apr 28, 2017 01:22
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OK, humor me, space opera thread. I frickin' loved the Honor Harrington series as a kid but now... eh. Just doesn't do it for me. Anyone know of anything that captures the whole "Horatio Hornblower IN SPACE" feel but... a little more maturely, I guess? This is probably a simple question that's been answered a lot, but 100 pages is a lot of thread. Help me, goons; you're my only hope.
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Apr 29, 2017 05:46
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David Drake's series with Captain Leary and Mundy... I forget the name! The technology is more sail boat like than honor Harrington, the adventures are less about fleet action and more about the two main characters (so in a sense it's the Aubrey/Maturin to Weber's Hornblower), and the colonization of space is at an earlier tech level and scope. And the tech itself is designed to amp up the analogies to sailboats. I highly recommend it as decent popcorn. Edit - The RCN Series (Royal Cinnabar Navy). With The Lightnings is first.
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Apr 29, 2017 20:04
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Grand Prize Winner posted:OK, humor me, space opera thread. I frickin' loved the Honor Harrington series as a kid but now... eh. Just doesn't do it for me. Anyone know of anything that captures the whole "Horatio Hornblower IN SPACE" feel but... a little more maturely, I guess? I felt the same way about the HH books after trying to re-read them a few years ago. Just can't do it anymore. However, I would say go straight to the good stuff and read the Aubrey/Maturin books. Not space opera, of course, but the feeling is the same and Patrick O'Brian is the heroin dealer of that type of novel. A/M is the true hard stuff, nothing can top it. The Hornblower books aren't bad either, but in my experience once I read POB everything else paled in comparison.
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Apr 29, 2017 20:33
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Yah, Aubrey/Maturin would be my go-to recommendation as well. It's historical rather than SF but O'Brian makes a better job of portraying an alien world with weird cultures and obsessively detailed strange technology than most space opera writers.
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Apr 29, 2017 21:12
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"Jack, you have debauched my Arcturan Megasloth." O'Brian wrote some good technobabble too, if you're into that, except it's not babble. It's knots and weird bits of boat. It definitely scratches a lot of the SF itches.
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Apr 29, 2017 21:28
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I didn't feel like Drake's Lieutenant Leary books were all that much more 'mature' than Weber's, though I will say that they don't go nearly as Mary Sue or as far off the rails. I feel like there is a dearth of nuanced ship-to-ship combat military SF.
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Apr 29, 2017 22:59
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I suppose I read "mature" as "less self inserty" since that's probably the most egregiously "young reader" thing to like about Weber, and then the fact that Drake drops a lot of the bizarre "and then this fleet lobbed eight hundred thousand advanced v2.5 techno missiles at the other" as well as the "lots of words about a character who dies in a fire in the last paragraph of the only chapter they appear in." The RCN books are still space opera popcorn, of course, but they are a few steps better than HH.
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Apr 30, 2017 01:40
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You might enjoy The Vor Game by Lois Mcmaster-Bujold.
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Apr 30, 2017 01:48
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pork never goes bad posted:David Drake's series with Captain Leary and Mundy... I forget the name! The technology is more sail boat like than honor Harrington, the adventures are less about fleet action and more about the two main characters (so in a sense it's the Aubrey/Maturin to Weber's Hornblower), and the colonization of space is at an earlier tech level and scope. And the tech itself is designed to amp up the analogies to sailboats. I highly recommend it as decent popcorn. Captain Leary is so over the top bad writing tho. The Mary Sue syndrome to the 10th degree, it's like watching a DM run a game for their best friend and just let them get away with anything. It's maybe less so than Honor Harrington, but to me it just feels like more of the same. The first book feels like it was edited differently than the follow ups, and is a lot better than the ones I read later, I think I quit without finishing book 3 though. Washout fucked around with this message at 02:26 on Apr 30, 2017 |
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Apr 30, 2017 02:17
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Leary was actually worse then Harrington for me which is saying something.
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Apr 30, 2017 05:57
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Kesper North posted:I feel like there is a dearth of nuanced ship-to-ship combat military SF. I can agree with that. Honorverse books started out ok with a pretty fleshed out vision of spaceflight and weaponry, but Weber keeps one-upping himself in later books until it's pretty crazy. I'm struggling to think of counter-examples though. Lost Fleet books? I will say I haven't read the RCN books or some of the others mentioned here.
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Apr 30, 2017 06:08
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The Lost Fleet books have a bunch of problems too. Blackjack Geary ain't quite the Mary Sue that Honor Harrington is, but he's in the vicinity. Worse, though, the books all have a similar feel. The fleet's in trouble, Blackjack gets them out of trouble, some dipshit idiot fellow captains complain about it, said captains are proven to be incompetent, traitorous schemers, or both and receive comeuppance at the end of the book. Meanwhile, Blackjack leads the fleet to crush another hapless enemy fleet while taking just enough losses for Geary to reflect on the horror of war, while never taking enough damage to actually slow him down appreciably. But! As the book comes to a close, a new enemy threat appears! Next book: The fleet is in trouble.... The Lost Stars books are better since the main characters are allowed to gently caress up and not be perfect, but they don't have nearly as many space battles, being equally concerned with ground combat and politics.
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Apr 30, 2017 09:30
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jng2058 posted:The Lost Fleet books have a bunch of problems too. Blackjack Geary ain't quite the Mary Sue that Honor Harrington is, but he's in the vicinity. Worse, though, the books all have a similar feel. Whatever you do, don't be me and read them all in a few weeks. ...That said, I say that the books are great! They're like - if you just want neat space battles with heroes you can root for, no questions asked, they're good. It's like watching a kid's show, almost, but with detailed space battles. Bureaucrats and idiots bad, bad communication bad, let's fight the bad guys! ... Over and over again. Soothing, when you want space but you don't want something dark or too complex. And I can't say that for a lot of books, especially genre fiction.
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Apr 30, 2017 09:57
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Finished At the Sign of Triumph this morning. Weber fixes the problem of very little happening in previous books by having altogether too much happening, almost all of it generic WW1 war porn between people we've never heard of and don't grow attached to because half of the sections end with "And then a shell landed two feet away." The main characters of the series almost entirely vanish from the plot, and what plot there is beyond "Good guys kill bad guys and suffer no reverses or defeats" is centered on mildly interesting intrigue in Dohlar and Zion. There's also a half-baked plot of conspiracy in Chisholm that's a complete nonentity because the good guys have far too many advantages to lose and there's zero tension to be had. Meanwhile, potentially interesting things like the situation in Corisande, Merlin and Nynian apparently getting together (not like Hell's Foundations Quiver didn't make it pretty obvious they were attracted to each other), and the stirrings of rebellion in Zion are each relegated to a handful of lines here and there. I want to like Safehold so drat much for its creative setting and a lot of the characters being essentially likeable and interesting, but good Lord does Weber make it hard.
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Apr 30, 2017 12:06
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hannibal posted:I can agree with that. Honorverse books started out ok with a pretty fleshed out vision of spaceflight and weaponry, but Weber keeps one-upping himself in later books until it's pretty crazy. Let me tell you about battlecruisers, and how they have the armament of a battleship, but the defences and maneuverability of a heavy cruiser. Let me tell you about battlecruisers, and how they have the armament of a battleship, but the defences and maneuverability of a heavy cruiser. Let me tell you about battlecruisers, and how they have the armament of a battleship, but the defences and maneuverability of a heavy cruiser. I would rank Lost Fleet well below the first few HH books, honestly.
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