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Telsa Cola posted:Leary was actually worse then Harrington for me which is saying something. 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.
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Apr 30, 2017 16:17
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Yeesh, Cibola Burn felt like it could have been 300 fewer pages. Both it and Abaddon's Gate had a kind of story-of-the-week style that didn't seem to move the main story very far. It kind of reminded me of those Battlestar episodes where they make a settlement on New Caprica and nothing really happens. I find myself wanting to know more about protomolecule Miller, the aliens, the bad stuff that killed them and what's going to happen to humanity but considering that there's 2 books ahead of me and 3 more to be written, I guess I should be patient and just enjoy the ride. On it's own I liked this book, though. Don't regret reading it. Happy to see Avasarala and Bobbie in the epilogue.
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Apr 30, 2017 20:41
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ToxicFrog posted:Let me tell you about battlecruisers, and how they have the armament of a battleship, but the defences and maneuverability of a heavy cruiser. Hah, yeah, it's been a few years since I touched those, it was just the first series of books I thought of that involved a fleet of ships.
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May 1, 2017 03:51
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The Vorkosigan Saga gave me a lot of the same good feels without the bitter aftertaste, but there are way less naval battles in space. The Vattas War series was also good.
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May 1, 2017 12:48
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Biomute posted:The Vorkosigan Saga gave me a lot of the same good feels without the bitter aftertaste, but there are way less naval battles in space. The Vattas War series was also good. Vorkosigan and Vatta's War are both pretty good, but tend to have few and relatively small-scale deep space engagements; I'd recommend both but not to someone specifically looking for "big fleets of ships duking it out".
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May 1, 2017 14:19
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I mean if you want Hornblower in space, you could always pick up the Alexis Carew series. Because obviously in hyperspace...uhhh dark space electronics don't work so we have to use dumb old cannons, and we move though darkspace with literal sails. If you mean the big space fleets duking it out, ehh I guess you got Legend of the Galactic Heroes but that reads a bit too much like a history book to me. ShinsoBEAM! fucked around with this message at 14:47 on May 1, 2017 |
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May 1, 2017 14:44
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ToxicFrog posted:Vorkosigan and Vatta's War are both pretty good, but tend to have few and relatively small-scale deep space engagements; I'd recommend both but not to someone specifically looking for "big fleets of ships duking it out". I don't think there are any "good" books that focus on that though.
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May 1, 2017 14:45
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Biomute posted:I don't think there are any "good" books that focus on that though. Excession
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May 1, 2017 14:54
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ROFLburger posted:Yeesh, Cibola Burn felt like it could have been 300 fewer pages. Both it and Abaddon's Gate had a kind of story-of-the-week style that didn't seem to move the main story very far. It kind of reminded me of those Battlestar episodes where they make a settlement on New Caprica and nothing really happens. I agree with your opinions on Expanse 3/4 but what the gently caress those were nearly the best episodes of BSG man https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdkCpnGMyGw I tried going back to childhood favorite Michael Stackpole's Battletech books and welp they do not hold up at all. Which is kind of a shame because the Battletech fiction comes close to 'nuanced multipolar space war without clear Good Guys or stupid tech differentials' but the novels, uh, well.
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May 1, 2017 16:14
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It's kinda weird to go to BSG for an example of "period of time where absolutely nothing happens" and go for early season three instead of the rest of season three with such highlights as The Woman King.
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May 1, 2017 16:23
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General Battuta posted:I agree with your opinions on Expanse 3/4 but what the gently caress those were nearly the best episodes of BSG man My memory of those episodes, aside from that scene are pretty lame but it's been a while  Antti posted:It's kinda weird to go to BSG for an example of "period of time where absolutely nothing happens" and go for early season three instead of the rest of season three with such highlights as The Woman King. Eh, the point was that the story reminded me of that part of BSG and they were both a little slow ROFLburger fucked around with this message at 16:41 on May 1, 2017 |
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May 1, 2017 16:34
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less laughter posted:Excession Eh, a big space battle does happen in Excession, but I'd hardly say that the book, good as it is, particularly focuses on it. Considering the way the book ends, one could really argue that the battle itself is really almost a sidebar, considering that Sleeper Service had a huge fleet on board and rendered anything the Affront-controlled stolen Pittance fleet could accomplish meaningless. Honestly, I still say the best big space battle books that I've read are In Death Ground and The Shiva Option by Weber and White, especially In Death Ground where things are at their most desperate for the protagonists.
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May 1, 2017 16:48
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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. No, I'm pretty sure it has those hangups, but totally different. The Culture is absolutely an Enlightenment society with the same "liberal" humanist values, save one--the Culture does not buy "cultural" imperialism. In other words, when they see a society that is sufficiently anti-Enlightenment, they are not held back by any Prime Directive bullshit. Instead, they go out of their way to intervene, destroy said society, and set it on a path to become more like The Culture.
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May 1, 2017 17:56
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ZombieLenin posted:In other words, when they see a society that is sufficiently anti-Enlightenment, they are not held back by any Prime Directive bullshit. Instead, they go out of their way to intervene, destroy said society, and set it on a path to become more like The Culture. Except for the planets they designate as part of the control group.  Like Earth.
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May 1, 2017 19:09
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ToxicFrog posted:Vorkosigan and Vatta's War are both pretty good, but tend to have few and relatively small-scale deep space engagements; I'd recommend both but not to someone specifically looking for "big fleets of ships duking it out". I think someone recommended the Vor Game a few pages back. While it's still not a large engagement you do get at least bits of a the? non-minor battle. Still not really a great series for that request though. Is Vatta's War in a similar vein to the Vorkosigan books?
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May 1, 2017 19:19
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Kesper North posted:Except for the planets they designate as part of the control group. That was the only way one could've adequately explained a universe which allowed Thatcher's Britain.
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May 1, 2017 19:50
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Kesper North posted:Except for the planets they designate as part of the control group. Well as Horkheimer and Adorno point out in Dialectic of the Enlightenment this kind of poo poo in the name of both science and efficiency is just as Enlightenment as language about the rights of humans.
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May 1, 2017 21:33
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BIG FLEET SPACE BATTLES: Hey, I just remembered one from a long time ago. "Renegade's Honor", by William Keith, is set in FASA's Renegade Legion universe. It's about a battleship combat group that goes rogue. There's some good ship-to-ship action in there, as I recall, although (as per usual) there's a bunch of other bullshit. And there's some RPG lore stuff that you won't get without a quick read of Wikipedia. It's an older book (published 1988) but you can probably still find it out there. ToxicFrog posted:Let me tell you about battlecruisers, and how they have the armament of a battleship, but the defences and maneuverability of a heavy cruiser. coyo7e posted:100% agreed. the Geary books are basically unreadable ater the first...basically, only read the blackjack Leary novels if you're mentally handicapped Miss-Bomarc fucked around with this message at 06:47 on May 2, 2017 |
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May 2, 2017 06:36
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General Battuta posted:I tried going back to childhood favorite Michael Stackpole's Battletech books and welp they do not hold up at all. Which is kind of a shame because the Battletech fiction comes close to 'nuanced multipolar space war without clear Good Guys or stupid tech differentials' but the novels, uh, well. I think Battletech could benefit from a transition to tv, its pretty much Game of Thrones in Space with Giant Stompy Robots.
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May 2, 2017 07:04
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ZombieLenin posted:No, I'm pretty sure it has those hangups, but totally different. The Culture is absolutely an Enlightenment society with the same "liberal" humanist values, save one--the Culture does not buy "cultural" imperialism. Eh, destroy implies everything gets burnt to the ground. Its implied that they normally nudge it over a long period of time into the direction they want, bribing or acting as advisors for leaders. The example in Player of Games is way more aggressive than what they normally do and thats probably because they were already a galactic civilization so the slight nudges wouldn't work.
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May 2, 2017 08:41
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Jack2142 posted:I think Battletech could benefit from a transition to tv, its pretty much Game of Thrones in Space with Giant Stompy Robots. Have you seen the cartoon?
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May 2, 2017 08:53
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Yes, but that was also 23 years ago.
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May 2, 2017 18:32
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General Battuta posted:
Wolves on the Border still holds up; a recent re-read of William Keith's Grey Death Trilogy wasn't too terrible, but I struggled with even wanting to finish the earlier Stackpole novels. E: William Keith's getting a lot of mentions last couple of pages: BattleTech, Renegade Legion, and he also writes as Ian Douglas, so there's that.
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May 2, 2017 20:37
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Reading Alastair Reynolds Revelation Space series now and I am kind of disappointed. Mostly because of his reputation as a writer of hard science fiction. Case in point, I'm reading Chasm City and the distance between Sky's Edge and Yellowstone is described as 15 light years. It's pretty clear that this is from the point of view of a stationary observer, as people in Yellowstone talk about a 15 year information delay between the two systems. At one point in Revelation Space, Light Huggers are described as traveling at less than 100th the speed of light. So doing the math, traveling at 99.99% of the speed of light, from the point of view of those on the Light Huggers, traveling 15 light years (to the stationary observer) would take a little over 77 days. So I'm really confused why people need to be frozen for trips that last 2 1/2 months, or why they would be described as "having spent 15 years frozen" after arriving at their destination. If someone actually spent 15 years ship time traveling 99.99% of c roughly 1060 years would have passed for the stationary observers on the planets. This is clearly not what is being described. And it isn't just from Chasm City. It is something I noticed in Revelation Space as well. It would be easy to overlook the fault if I did not know the book was written by a literal scientist. Edit I suppose we can add time to build speed and then reduce at the destination. Even so, the amount of time spent for those on the Light Hugger should not be anywhere close to 15 years. We should still be talking in the realm of 5 years at most as it takes roughly 2 years ship time to hit 99% of c at a constant 1g acceleration. This would be seriously reduced by just doing 1.25g, which would still be quite comfortable for those on the ship. ZombieLenin fucked around with this message at 18:04 on May 4, 2017 |
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May 4, 2017 17:57
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ZombieLenin posted:
Not your point I understand, but "less than 100th" is "less than 1%", not "99.99%." More critically, I read what I think the relevant passage in Revelation Space to be "less than one percent slower than light", which is anywhere from 99.01% to 99.99%. How much do the numbers change with acceleration at 99.01%?
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May 4, 2017 18:20
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ulmont posted:Not your point I understand, but "less than 100th" is "less than 1%", not "99.99%." Traveling at 99.01 of c it would take, from the point of view of the person on the ship, roughly 2 years and 38 days to travel 15 light years; however, the spin up and spin down time would be significantly less too. We still aren't anywhere in the neighborhood of 15 years stationary time = 15 years ship time for a ship going anywhere close to relativistic speeds. For example, if you could average 50% of light speed to go round trip to Alpha Centauri (assuming 2 years at the destination) you are looking at 20 years of time for those on Earth versus 9 years of time for those who went on the trip. Basically to get 15 years ship time to equal 15 years of stationary observer time, you'd pretty much have to be going at speeds possible with current levels of technology. In other words, slow as poo poo by interstellar standards. *edit* And to get 15 years ship time at anywhere near the speeds discussed in the novels you are looking at somewhere between 106 years and 1060 years stationary observer time. ZombieLenin fucked around with this message at 19:19 on May 4, 2017 |
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May 4, 2017 19:11
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Ultras a stingy bastards, they're not going to feed passengers for months
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May 4, 2017 19:37
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FuturePastNow posted:Ultras a stingy bastards, they're not going to feed passengers for months I would be okay with this if he just hadn't described the flights as lasting so long for the passengers.
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May 5, 2017 02:10
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Just email him about it and ask whether it was a simple mistake or intentionally dumbing it down a bit for average Joe if you're curious. He responds to most messages actually.
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May 5, 2017 06:04
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Yup I've actually corresponded with him via email before. Cool chap
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May 5, 2017 09:33
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It's been a good long time since I read Revelation Space but I recall some talk of the effect of their non-FTL travel on society. People travelling across space essentially leaving everyone they knew X-years behind them, while they don't really age. Isn't that why one of the characters (Sylveste?) travelled in the first place, to get away from past acts? Assuming that it doesn't really matter physiologically how long you are frozen, then the length of the trip in your frame doesn't really make much difference to you, it's more the societal effect of "having spent 15 years (according to everyone else) frozen" that would be more important.
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May 5, 2017 15:13
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less laughter posted:Excession Excession is awful, and where I stopped reading the culture novels. Total snorefest.
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May 5, 2017 20:25
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Biomute posted:Excession is awful, and where I stopped reading the culture novels. Total snorefest. Excession was one of my favorites 
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May 5, 2017 21:20
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Excession can't be bad because Excession has the Affront and the Affront are fantastic.
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May 5, 2017 21:25
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The Excession humans are by far the worst humans in any Culture book, but they also matter less than any Culture book, so I'm not sure who that balances out. I found the book kind of meh in the overall arc of the series.
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May 5, 2017 22:33
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As mentioned in the other thread the other day, Reynolds doesn't really do hard sci fi, he just tends to not break the laws of physics in his stories. He has a PhD in astrophysics so i think any "mistakes" are probably deliberate for the sake of the story.
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May 6, 2017 18:59
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Just a heads up for anyone who wasn't aware, Reynolds is writing and supposedly releasing a sequel to The Prefect sometime this year. There's not a ton of info that I could find but it's supposed to take place 2 years after the events of the first one. I don't remember exactly when The Prefect takes place in the RS timeline but I wonder if it'll involve the melding plague.
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May 6, 2017 19:59
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johnsonrod posted:Just a heads up for anyone who wasn't aware, Reynolds is writing and supposedly releasing a sequel to The Prefect sometime this year. There's not a ton of info that I could find but it's supposed to take place 2 years after the events of the first one. I don't remember exactly when The Prefect takes place in the RS timeline but I wonder if it'll involve the melding plague. Yeah, as far as I know, this is the only official thing we know: http://approachingpavonis.blogspot.dk/2017/03/new-one-in.html quote:So I've delivered a new novel. We have a possible title, but it's still subject to discussion and may well change, so I won't mention it just yet. What I can say is that the new book is the first novel-length work to be set in the Revelation Space universe since 2007, and is also a sequel to The Prefect. Despite the decade-long gap beween these books, this one is set only two years after the last and features a large number of recurring characters. Nonetheless I hope that it will be capable of being read independently of the first.
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May 6, 2017 20:11
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I'm giving Margaret Weis' Star of the Guardians another shot. I remember trying to start it about 20 years ago and kept bogging down.
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May 11, 2017 23:09
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Mister Kingdom posted:I'm giving Margaret Weis' Star of the Guardians another shot. I remember trying to start it about 20 years ago and kept bogging down. That series is what got me into space opera in middle school. I reread them a couple of years ago, and still found them enjoyable, if not as amazing as I thought they were 20 years ago.
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May 11, 2017 23:35
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