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platero
Sep 11, 2001

spooky, but polite, a-hole

Pillbug

Chairman Capone posted:




Looking at the Wikipedia page and the quote they have from Baxter there, I would say follow his preferred reading order. Really I think the 'main' story can be found in Vacuum Diagrams, Timelike Infinity, and Ring in that order (Vacuum Diagrams being a collection of short stories will spoil a bit of stuff from the later novels but not a whole lot more than what you'd have already read from this thread, but it also sets up a lot of the setting that would be useful to you for reading the novels set later in the series).

Sounds good to me. I would have preferred starting with Vacuum Diagrams anyway, since I like the idea of short stories that set everything up, and don't mind minor spoilers.

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Chairman Capone
Dec 17, 2008

Morlock posted:

Chairman Capone, I'm assuming you've read Burroughs since you mention John Carter. Are you looking for modern planetary romances (Philip Reeve's Larklight series? Karl Schroeder? Colin Greenland's Harm's Way? Kage Baker's Empress of Mars?), or just planetary romances in general (Leigh Brackett, maybe?), or what?

The former - like you surmised I've already read stuff like Barsoom and Out of the Silent Planet, and am interested in modern versions. It can either be stuff by modern writers set in the present with the planets as they are, set in alternate present with planets as portrayed back then, set in alternate pasts, whatever - just modern takes on the whole sword and planet/planetary romance genres.

Since you mention it - I've read the original short story of The Empress of Mars when it first came out and liked it, and just saw that it's been expanded into a full novel - if I've already read the short story is it worth it? How much new stuff does it add?

Magnificent Quiver
May 8, 2003


Pumaman posted:

I finished Judas Unchained a few days ago and I just realized the Void Trilogy is in the Commonwealth Universe. Usually, I have to work my fascination in the characters I read about out of my body before I can start a new book. How prominently do the major players from Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained feature in the Void Trilogy? Hell, do they feature at all?

They feature very prominently

Runcible Cat
May 28, 2007

Ignoring this post

Chairman Capone posted:

The former - like you surmised I've already read stuff like Barsoom and Out of the Silent Planet, and am interested in modern versions. It can either be stuff by modern writers set in the present with the planets as they are, set in alternate present with planets as portrayed back then, set in alternate pasts, whatever - just modern takes on the whole sword and planet/planetary romance genres.

Since you mention it - I've read the original short story of The Empress of Mars when it first came out and liked it, and just saw that it's been expanded into a full novel - if I've already read the short story is it worth it? How much new stuff does it add?
I never read the short story, so I can't compare them, but I liked the novel!

As for planetary romances, you might want to head towards the steampunk-y end of the shelf - the Reeves I mentioned would probably do you nicely; ignore that they're marketed for kids. The little bastards don't deserve them. Greenland's Harms Way is a Victorian-orphan-in-peril-in-spaaace story. I should be able to think of others, drat it, but it's too late at night and my brain's not working....

Chairman Capone
Dec 17, 2008

Morlock posted:

I never read the short story, so I can't compare them, but I liked the novel!

As for planetary romances, you might want to head towards the steampunk-y end of the shelf - the Reeves I mentioned would probably do you nicely; ignore that they're marketed for kids. The little bastards don't deserve them. Greenland's Harms Way is a Victorian-orphan-in-peril-in-spaaace story. I should be able to think of others, drat it, but it's too late at night and my brain's not working....

Steampunky end is fine with me. Those suggestions both look good - I shall try them out!

BenevolentFist
Nov 24, 2007
A good space opera I would recommend is the book Five-Twelfths of Heaven and its sequels Silence in Solitude and The Empress of Earth by Melissa Scott. All three were also published in one volume under the name The Roads of Heaven. The first review on this amazon.com page is pretty good http://www.amazon.com/roads-heaven-Melissa-Scott/dp/B00005XTAM.

The first four books in the Starfire series consisting of Insurrection, Crusade, In Death Ground, and The Shiva Option by David Weber and Steve White are good reads. The time line between the first and second and second and third books is great enough that you don't have to read them in order but The Shiva Option is a sequel to In Death Ground and should be read in order. There are immense fleet battles in the books among multiple fronts and dozens of characters and really makes you not want to put the books down until read through. There is a fifth book in the series called Exodus written by David Weber's partner of the first four books and someone new that I've heard is not really worth reading.

4 Day Weekend
Jan 16, 2009

Moist von Lipwig posted:


Actually I'd like to hear some peoples thoughts on some of these if anyone's read them :) I'm a ridiculous Reynolds fan.

Galactic North was awesome, especially Glacial, Spy in Europa and Galactic North.

I've read Diamond Dogs & Turquoise Days as well, and while Diamond Dogs was amazing, I really didn't like Turquoise Days. Slow and didn't really go anywhere. Currently reading Zima Blue, but haven't finished it yet...I'll let you know what I think when I do.

Oh and I also loved House of Suns. Which collection has Thousandth Night in it?

e: I just read Everlasting. My God, that was a good short story.

4 Day Weekend fucked around with this message at 16:10 on Aug 13, 2009

Ortsacras
Feb 11, 2008
12/17/00 Never Forget

Magnificent Quiver posted:

They feature very prominently

Although there are some big dogs that haven't yet barked, so I know I'm wondering when they'll show up, not if. I suppose we'll see.

The divide into a new trilogy is a bit artificial - it's essentially a direct continuation of the series, just with a gap (a BIG gap) of time between Judas Unchained and The Dreaming Void.

Chairman Capone
Dec 17, 2008

Astroman posted:

I'd be very interested to hear what you think [about The Sky People] when you're done. The concept sounds fantastic but I can't stand Stirling, so I'd need a really good recommendation before I drop money on that.

Okay assuming anyone is still interested in this...

I've had a hell of a lot on my plate recently so I wasn't able to start reading The Sky People until a few days ago, I'm around 1/3 of the way through it but now I have some other stuff I need to get through before I can continue, so I figure I'd give my thoughts on it so far.

The good:

I really, really like the scenario Stirling sets up for his fictional setting. The details he put into building his version of Venus is really good and immersive, and I like how he also goes into some detail (but more as a backdrop, as you would expect from people talking, rather than overbearing) about how the discovery of intelligent life on Venus and Mars has affected things on Earth, both for the positive and negative (although mostly positive). Like Foundation, each chapter opens with an encyclopedia entry on the history of human exploration of Venus that helps establish the world as well. I also like the main subplot with the Venusian princess fighting the "Beastmen" (Neanderthals, basically). (There is the main plot with the American hero, and then as far as I can tell three subplots, one with a French spy, one with a Soviet cosmonaut, and the one with a Venusian tribe princess). The Venusian subplot, as well as the details of the main city-state (the American base is located next to a bronze-age-level city-state empire similar to ancient Sumeria, and the Americans interact with them a lot) is all really great - it's both an homage to Burroughs and Heinlein while at the same time applying more realistic modern-day science fiction conventions to the notion of the jungle barbarians on the sister planet. The book really delivers on that, at least so far.

The bad:
The main character, Marc Vitrac, is an American Ranger officer. He is manly, brave, heroic, dashing, intelligent and witty and comments early on that he is probably a hearthtrob to every girl in America and the hero to every boy. He mentions that he read Burroughs as a kid (before it was fashionable to) which I think is Stirling's way of telling us that it's all right that he's making his main character into such a cardboard cutout John Carter imitation, because he knows he's doing it (needless to say from my tone it doesn't work). He is also a Creole. This is stated almost immediately as soon as he's introduced, and in case you forget he drops the same half-dozen Creole words into just about every sentence (it honestly seems like every sentence from his view includes the words "mais" and "weh"). He's stated as being the only person on the base who's not intimidated by the commanding general and the only human the natives respect for his ability to survive in the jungle.

The main love interest is a black woman from Harlem. In case you forget this Stirling makes her talk like Detta from the Dark Tower series. Every sentence she utters includes "shee-yit", "da-yum", and/or "bro". I honestly can't remember exactly what it is she's supposed to do on the mission but she apparently tags along with Marc on everything he does. I'm assuming this is Stirling's attempt to crate a Deja Thoris-like damsel in distress for the post-feminist era and a setting where women coming to Venus from Earth would really have to have some sort of skill, even if it's not really developed (she's good with guns of course, since she's from Harlem, but even then she's of course just not quite as good as Marc is at shooting).

The main villain, as it was, is a stuffy, uptight Brit who turns out is actually a scheming Frenchman who is a spy sent to Venus to try and get secrets that will make France a world power again because due to them following de Gaulle and refusing to join with the Atlantic Alliance, the French are now a worthless third-world power. Marc is of course the only person on the base who is able to detect that the villain is actually a villain and he of course realizes this immediately upon seeing him.

Then there are some Soviet and Chinese characters who are the butt of Stirling's jokes about how evil and stupid communism is, just like the above character (by combining the worst stereotypes of the Brits and French) is the not too subtle vehicle of Stirling's anti-European views.

The verdict (so far):
If you read it for the general idea of the story (an alternate history/modern-day re-imagining of the typical Burroughs planetary romance) then it delivers in all aspects related to that general theme. However, the characters (at least the human ones) are pretty one dimensional and don't really manage to pull off (what I assume) was an attempt to update the basic Burroughs character stereotypes. The Venusian characters are a lot better though, at least the princess who is the only one a major portion of the narrative is devoted to.

Again this is only based on a 1/3 of the way through reading, once I manage to get back to it and finish it I'll see if my views have changed at all.

Pumaman
Dec 2, 2006

Are you an onion?

Ortsacras posted:

Although there are some big dogs that haven't yet barked, so I know I'm wondering when they'll show up, not if. I suppose we'll see.

The divide into a new trilogy is a bit artificial - it's essentially a direct continuation of the series, just with a gap (a BIG gap) of time between Judas Unchained and The Dreaming Void.

Indeed. I'm halfway through Temporal now, and I concede that it's as if no time at all has passed. Similarly, I'm eager to hear from some of my favorite players.

MikeJF
Dec 20, 2003




4 Day Weekend posted:

Galactic North was awesome, especially Glacial, Spy in Europa and Galactic North.

I've read Diamond Dogs & Turquoise Days as well, and while Diamond Dogs was amazing, I really didn't like Turquoise Days. Slow and didn't really go anywhere. Currently reading Zima Blue, but haven't finished it yet...I'll let you know what I think when I do.

I hated Diamond Dogs, but that was because I found it fairly profoundly disturbing. Turquoise Days was dull, but at least it wasn't quite so hosed up.

Satone posted:

I really liked the whole Rev Space Universe, but your right, Absolution Gap sucked. If there's someone out there reading the series right now, waiting to get to A.G., here's the best advice anyone can give you: don't. Skip the book. Don't buy it, don't touch it, don't look it up on Amazon, don't DO A GODDAMN THING WITH IT. Its a terrible ending that will cloud you judgement of the series.

Following this up; if you want to end the series, read Galactic North (the story) instead. And if you insist on reading Absolution Gap, read Galactic North first. It was written first, and it will make the pain easier. (EDIT: And introduces some of the same future as Absolution Gap in a less blindsidingly 'What the gently caress' kind of way. I really think you were meant to read it first)

MikeJF fucked around with this message at 12:02 on Sep 1, 2009

Moist von Lipwig
Oct 28, 2006

by FactsAreUseless
Tortured By Flan

MikeJF posted:

I hated Diamond Dogs, but that was because I found it fairly profoundly disturbing. Turquoise Days was dull, but at least it wasn't quite so hosed up.


Following this up; if you want to end the series, read Galactic North (the story) instead. And if you insist on reading Absolution Gap, read Galactic North first. It was written first, and it will make the pain easier.

I think that was exactly why Diamond Dogs is a good story, because it is very disturbing.

Turquoise days is kind of bleh, nothing really great in there.

I completely agree that Galactic North is a great ending for the RS Universe, and everyone who's read the first books should read it for a sense of finality. Even though the ending is really goddamn depressing.

Also, without spoiling anything, wasn't there some mention in House of Suns about stars turning green?

Chokeslam
Jan 1, 2007
Make him humble

Velius posted:

A Fire Upon the Deep is my favorite of the three, but I'd say the prequel A Deepness in the Sky is more accessible, in that it's not ultratech. Fire has more revolutionary ideas/concepts, but I think the story of Deepness is better. For reference, I would venture that it's my favorite novel in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre overall right now.

I cant beleive I've never read Vinge before this thread, being a big fan of the genre. Thanks heaps for bringing him up, I just finished Fire (great read) and am starting Deepness.

You have any other reccomendations beyond all the usual suspects already mentioned here?

Velius
Feb 27, 2001

Chokeslam posted:

I cant beleive I've never read Vinge before this thread, being a big fan of the genre. Thanks heaps for bringing him up, I just finished Fire (great read) and am starting Deepness.

You have any other reccomendations beyond all the usual suspects already mentioned here?

People have pretty well covered the Genre in the thread, honestly. I hope you enjoy Deepness, I know I did, but if you want more Vinge you're unfortunately limited to the couple other books he has out there, none of which is really Space Opera: Rainbows End is an attempt by Vinge to explore the early threshold of the technological singularity, and it's a good read, but it's entirely set on Earth in about 50 years or so. The Peace War is mediocre, I felt, but it's pseudo-sequel Marooned in Realtime is a far future murder mystery that's actually quite good, I thought. You don't really need to read the former for the latter, either. His next book is a sequel to Fire Upon the Deep, but I haven't seen any information on when it's going to be finished, much less published.

Aussie Crawl
Aug 21, 2007
Contains Opinions Which May Offend
I'm listening to Peter F Hamilton's Void trilogy on audiobook during my drive into work in the morning and it's a curiously mixed bag, on the one hand he does a really good job of inventing an interesting future society, seeing how the Commonwealth has changed from the Commonwealth Duology is fun and Hamilton is really really good at thinking up cool future weapons and writing exciting future violence.

But on the other this guy seriously needs to get loving laid more often or at the very least have a wank before he sits down and starts writing, it's uncomfortable as hell sitting and listening to a man with an epic voice reading the disturbing level of detail Peter F Hamilton feels the need to describe when writing a scene about the female protagonist enjoying a romantic evening loving twenty of the bodies of the guy she's dating (who has a single mind spread over a number of physical body).

The multi-body guy doesn't really serve any purpose to the story, he's introduced solely so that Hamilton can explain the multi-life concept, and that never pops up anywhere else in the narrative, so the only reason he seems to exist is that Hamilton felt that either A: Gang Bangs are great fun and the reason of the world is missing out by not having them more often, or B: Hamilton was casually browsing gang-bang porn while writing the novel and found his muse that way.

What the hell is it about Sci-Fi authors and feeling the need to broadcast their sexual hang-ups in print?

MikeJF
Dec 20, 2003




Aussie Crawl posted:

What the hell is it about Sci-Fi authors and feeling the need to broadcast their sexual hang-ups in print?

Oh jesus. The Rama sequels win everything in this category.

Pumaman
Dec 2, 2006

Are you an onion?
The best part is that you could tell he wanted to include more sexually driven plot to Pandora and Judas, but felt the need to restrain himself. I figure he figured he could get away with including more but pretty much let it take over. More than once I just felt remarkably uncomfortable with how often the word cock shows up and often in the violent context that it does.

Ortsacras
Feb 11, 2008
12/17/00 Never Forget

Aussie Crawl posted:

The multi-body guy doesn't really serve any purpose to the story, he's introduced solely so that Hamilton can explain the multi-life concept, and that never pops up anywhere else in the narrative, so the only reason he seems to exist is that

Are you still in the first book? If so, I don't want to spoil anything, but I think that this may prove (in the third) to be more important than it seemed, given who the girl turns out to be.

(It also might just turn out to be wank material after all, but he spends enough time on the multi-life concept in the first book that I have to think it's going to be of some importance later. Time will tell, I guess.)

Aussie Crawl
Aug 21, 2007
Contains Opinions Which May Offend
I'm not saying that Araminta is pointless, her plotline is clearly going somewhere, i meant the whole Mr Bowvey "Here are my 20 penises". He's there so Araminta can find out she loves a good gangbang and then she runs off to keep him out of danger at the start of the second

I don't see why Araminta's plot points in the first book couldn't be covered if she'd just stayed renovating apartments.

Ortsacras
Feb 11, 2008
12/17/00 Never Forget

Aussie Crawl posted:

I'm not saying that Araminta is pointless, her plotline is clearly going somewhere, i meant the whole Mr Bowvey "Here are my 20 penises". He's there so Araminta can find out she loves a good gangbang and then she runs off to keep him out of danger at the start of the second

Well, that's what I'm saying - I think maybe he'll come back for some reason in the third. At least I hope so, because you're absolutely right that so far it doesn't seem to have served any purpose other than titillation.

Though I think that the main part of Hamilton's strength is coming up with interesting future human societies, and certainly that would include advances in sex. But that aspect does seem to be a bit more fully fleshed out (engorged, if you will) than it needs to be.

Aussie Crawl
Aug 21, 2007
Contains Opinions Which May Offend
The multi-life concept isn't terrible and Bowvey running his business staffed entirely by himself covers it nicely. Writing a scene in which we get to hear about how wonderful Araminta finds it to be going down on Mr Bowvey whilst simultaneously being hosed both anally and vaginally by him (with 20 more of his bodies standing naked and waiting around the bed) is just Peter F Hamilton having a wank in print.

I'm just really disappointed in him, i read the first Nights Dawn book and thought he had some good ideas and a purile obsession with writing needlessly pornographic sex scenes, read the Commonwealth saga on the advice of a girl i'm friends with and thought that'd he'd grown out of it and matured as an author and this just feels like a big step backwards.

Long story short Peter F Hamilton needs an editor who will tell him to go find a psychiatrist or else twenty prostitutes and get his poo poo sorted out as it's seriously hurting his work, the sex scenes read like something a 17 year old would put in his first attempt at writing a novel in order to prove he's mature and edgy.

Aussie Crawl fucked around with this message at 23:45 on Sep 15, 2009

branedotorg
Jun 19, 2009

Chokeslam posted:

I cant beleive I've never read Vinge before this thread, being a big fan of the genre. Thanks heaps for bringing him up, I just finished Fire (great read) and am starting Deepness.

You have any other reccomendations beyond all the usual suspects already mentioned here?
his ex wife, joan d vinge is pretty great too. the snowqueen series & her short story collections are worth picking up.

Shrecknet
Jan 2, 2005


Since it's already a trashy sub-genre and I doubt the stigma of tie-ins matter, I'll go ahead and say I fuckin' love the X-Wing series. It's just straight-up space adventure, without the pointless, endless continuity and fanservice of the main series of Star Wars books, just blastin' the poo poo out of TIE fighters for 400 pages at a time.

General consensus is that while the Stackpole stuff isn't bad, when Aaron Allston takes over in the later books it takes a turn for the :iamafag:

Vanilla
Feb 24, 2002

Hay guys what's going on in th
I tried reading A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Verge because it got some good reviews here, but I just couldn't get into it.

Things were poorly introduced and explained, people seem to lack character and I just didn't feel good pulling it out of my bag to read on the train. I stopped half way through the book and started on 'The Songs of Distant Earth' by Aurthur C Clarke.

Enjoying this one much more!

Vanilla fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Sep 28, 2009

Chairman Capone
Dec 17, 2008

Songs of Distant Earth is one of my favorite Clarke books - it's up there with 2001, Childhood's End, Rendezvous with Rama, City and the Stars...poo poo, might as well say that my list of favorite Clarke books would probably be the majority of what he's written.

beep-beep car is go
Apr 11, 2005

I can just eyeball this, right?



Vanilla posted:

I tried reading A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Verge because it got some good reviews here, but I just couldn't get into it.

Things were poorly introduced and explained, people seem to lack character and I just didn't feel good pulling it out of my bag to read on the train. I stopped half way through the book and started on 'The Songs of Distant Earth' by Aurthur C Clarke.

Enjoying this one much more!

I ran into the same thing. The parts with those dog aliens and the children just didn't do it for me. I'll have to check out "The Songs of Distant Earth" I'm also looking to go to the library this week and pick up a few of the first "Culture" novels by Ian "m" Banks.

Magnificent Quiver
May 8, 2003


Vanilla posted:

I tried reading A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Verge because it got some good reviews here, but I just couldn't get into it.


Is that the one with the furries or the spiders

I liked the spider one a lot but the other one was pretty bad

shadok
Dec 12, 2004

You tried to destroy it once before, Commodore.
The result was a wrecked ship and a dead crew.
Fun Shoe

Vanilla posted:

I tried reading A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Verge because it got some good reviews here, but I just couldn't get into it.

I made several attempts to read this book over the years because Vinge is one of my favourite authors and "Marooned in Realtime" is one of my favourite books of all time, and I never made it much past the first couple of chapters. Last month I picked it up again randomly and bombed all the way through it. Sometimes books are like that.

Velius
Feb 27, 2001
A Fire Upon the Deep is significantly harder to get into than A Deepness in the Sky. Everything is much more alien, and I also couldn't get into the Tines as much as the Spiders. It doesn't help that Steel isn't a very fun character to read about, certainly in comparison with Sherkaner Unnerby. The intrigue in Deepness is also human-centric, and accordingly more interesting. Plus Pham Nuwen is way cooler.

ShinsoBEAM!
Nov 6, 2008

"Even if this body of mine is turned to dust, I will defend my country."
A thread about space opera(best genre ever), thanks you jerks now Im going to have to read every book mentioned in this thread.

Also p. much all of david weber's stuff is p. great, I have read a decent number of these other books mentioned but it seems like I have alot to read.

I kinda wish there was a list of Tv space opera's (TVIV needs to get on this) too sadly the only one I can think of now that was any good was legend of the galactic heroes.

Winifred Madgers
Feb 12, 2002

Babylon 5 doesn't count, or you didn't like it?

ShinsoBEAM!
Nov 6, 2008

"Even if this body of mine is turned to dust, I will defend my country."

EX-GAIJIN AT LAST posted:

Babylon 5 doesn't count, or you didn't like it?

poo poo forgot about that one... I knew I was forgetting one somewhere its just been so long.

Magnificent Quiver
May 8, 2003


ShinsoBEAM! posted:

poo poo forgot about that one... I knew I was forgetting one somewhere its just been so long.

If you haven't seen Farscape you absolutely need to.

glug
Mar 12, 2004

JON JONES APOLOGIST #1

Baron Von Awesome posted:

I read the first one and absolutely loved it, but the cliffhanger ending upset me enough that I lost all interest in reading The Fall of Hyperion.

Sorry for the very very late reply.. wish you'd give it another go. He writes a lot of big books that really are two volumes. Hyperion should be read in pairs. Hyperion/The Fall of Hyperion, then Endymion/The Rise of Endymion. Not a space opera so to speak, but Illium/Olympos are the same way (and good reads).

Brought this up again because now would be the time to read it. Apparently as of January the movie options have a director - Scott Derrickson who did The Day the Earth Stood Still, directing for Warner Brothers. The old story was that Scorcese was interested, and DiCaprio wanted the Endymion role.

Director: http://www.dansimmons.com/news/news_items.htm#helmer
2008 Announcement: http://www.dansimmons.com/news/news_items.htm#film

It's been in talks and options and crap forever.. can't wait for this to hit the screen. And Dan at least is involved in the screen treatment for how to convert these 4 books into 1 or 3 movies.

Chokeslam
Jan 1, 2007
Make him humble

shadok posted:

I made several attempts to read this book over the years because Vinge is one of my favourite authors and "Marooned in Realtime" is one of my favourite books of all time, and I never made it much past the first couple of chapters. Last month I picked it up again randomly and bombed all the way through it. Sometimes books are like that.

Probably should have rechecked this thread sooner, but the real charm I found about Fire Upon the Deep was the setting itself layered galaxy as well as the interpretation of a web as such and the communications between far flung species.

I do agree that the Tines (whilst conceptually very interesting) chapters were sometimes more dull to push through.

The writing, characters and plot in general are also not nearly as well developed as Deepness in the Sky which I read more recently and also loved. Overall I'd have to say that Deepness is probably a better novel, but the sheer scope and creativity in Fire still made it for me very enjoyable.

WarLocke
Jun 6, 2004

You are being watched. :allears:

Magnificent Quiver posted:

Can anyone recommend a book with a humanity uber alles theme? I have a weakness for books where humanity gets beaten or starts out as the underdog, then proceeds to kick rear end. Sort of like the first three books of the Uplift series, or that weird Niven book where the elephant aliens invade the solar system.

John Ringo's Legacy of the Aldenata books.

We get contacted by a Galactic Federation, consisting of the Darhel (fox-elf bankers), Indowy (tiny green industrialists), Tchpth ('Crabs') and Himmit (chameleon frogs obsessed with secrets and stories). Unfortunately they don't have good news: another race, the Posleen are methodically butchering and eating them (since every known sentient race besides Humans and Posleen are pacifistic) and oh, they'll be at Earth in 5 years. But they'll give us advanced technology to fight the Posties if we'll in turn help drive them off from their other worlds.

Of course, it's never that simple. But I won't spoil the rest. The first books are pretty much straight military science fiction, then the focus shifts somewhat to more covert groups, although there's still some overlap. The newer books are heading back in the direction of straight-up warfare.

Anyway, try A Hymn before Battle. Ringo has a very distinctive style, but it works well for guys in power armor shooting up thousands of centauroid cannibalistic aliens.

Edit: Wiki page if anyone wants a little more information. Contains a bit of semi-spoiler info though.

WarLocke fucked around with this message at 20:44 on Nov 3, 2009

Chairman Capone
Dec 17, 2008

WarLocke posted:

John Ringo's Legacy of the Aldenata books.

We get contacted by a Galactic Federation, consisting of the Darhel (fox-elf bankers), Indowy (tiny green industrialists), Tchpth ('Crabs') and Himmit (chameleon frogs obsessed with secrets and stories). Unfortunately they don't have good news: another race, the Posleen are methodically butchering and eating them (since every known sentient race besides Humans and Posleen are pacifistic) and oh, they'll be at Earth in 5 years. But they'll give us advanced technology to fight the Posties if we'll in turn help drive them off from their other worlds.

Of course, it's never that simple. But I won't spoil the rest. The first books are pretty much straight military science fiction, then the focus shifts somewhat to more covert groups, although there's still some overlap. The newer books are heading back in the direction of straight-up warfare.

Anyway, try A Hymn before Battle. Ringo has a very distinctive style, but it works well for guys in power armor shooting up thousands of centauroid cannibalistic aliens.

Edit: Wiki page if anyone wants a little more information. Contains a bit of semi-spoiler info though.

That series sounds pretty interesting, but on the other hand it is written by the absolutely terrible John Ringo, so is it worth it? Does the story manage to overcome his atrocious high-school level characterization, plots, and writing?

WarLocke
Jun 6, 2004

You are being watched. :allears:

Chairman Capone posted:

That series sounds pretty interesting, but on the other hand it is written by the absolutely terrible John Ringo, so is it worth it? Does the story manage to overcome his atrocious high-school level characterization, plots, and writing?

I'm not sure I can give you an objective opinion. I happen to like most of Ringo's stuff, even while recognizing it as pretty bad fiction. But the whole "Humanity, gently caress yeah!" vibe he sets up in this (and the Looking Glass books) really works for me.

I will say that the first four books are relatively light on the over-arching story. They all take place mostly on Earth, with humanity trying to hold back wave after wave of Posleen. There's some cloak and dagger and hints to other things to come, but it's basically Starship Troopers except the Bugs are invading Earth and we are in poo poo up to our ears.

The spinoff series follows Cally O'Neal, daughter of the protagonist of the first books, as a member of the Bane Sidhe, a multi-species underground resistance against the Darhel. It's a lot greyer, but deals much more with how the Galactics hosed us over during the invasion, and continue to do so.

I'm gonna crib a section from A Hymn before Battle here, if it's too much of a wall of text I'll remove it, but this is a pretty good example of Ringo's style in this series:

John Ringo posted:

To take his mind off of the stupid bastard as he waited for last formation to be called, Duncan studied the latest black box they had been issued. It was about the size of the pack of Marlboros in his left breast pocket and flat, absorbent black, very similar in appearance to their AIDs. Black as an ace of spades. And, somehow, it projected a field you could not put a .308 round through. He'd already tried. Several times, just to be sure. And it didn't even move the box when the shells ricocheted off; that was freaky. Mind you, the guys around him moved prrrretty damned fast when those .308 rounds came back up range at the Fort Bragg Rod and Gun club. Fortunately there weren't any jerks around. The other shooters just laughed and went back to jacking rounds downrange from an amazing variety of weapons.

Okay, so it stopped bullets. But the field only extended out about seven feet in either direction and it stopped when it touched an obstacle. Stopped. It didn't wrap around the obstacle. Just stopped, which sucked if you thought about it. And you should be able to brace it into something, not just depend on whatever it was that kept it in place. He'd had a little talk with his AID and it turned out the drat thing had some sort of safety lock. So he'd talked with his AID a little more and convinced it that since they were an experimental battalion, with experimental equipment, they had the responsibility to experiment. The AID checked its protocols and apparently agreed because it had just released the safety interlocks on the device. Ensuring that it was at arm's length, Duncan activated the unit.

The Personal Force Field unit functioned by generating a focused reversal plane of weak force energy as analogous to a laser beam as a line is to a plane, meaning not. The unit was designed to produce a circle 12 meters in area for 45 minutes. Given the option of maximum generation, it generated a circle 1250 meters square for 3 milliseconds before failing. The plane was effectively two-dimensional. It extended outwards 20 meters in every direction, sliding through the interstices between atoms and occasionally disrupting the odd proton or electron.

The plane sliced as effectively as a katana in air through all the surrounding material, severing I-beams, bed structures, wall lockers and, in the unfortunate case of Sergeant Duncan's roommate, limbs. The slice, thinner than a hair, reached from the basement supply room, where it, among other things, sliced through an entire box of Bic pens causing a tremendous mess, to the roof, where it created a leak that was never completely fixed. However, once the entire base was overrun by the Posleen the leak became moot. In addition, the throughput on the unit exceeded the parameters of the superconductive circuitry, and waste heat raised the case temperature to over two hundred degrees Celsius.

"Jesus!" screamed Sergeant Duncan and dropped the suddenly red-hot case as his bunk dropped to the floor. As the floor began to settle, he slid forward as did his roommate on the other bunk. His roommate let out a bloodcurdling scream as his legs, from just below the knees, suddenly slid sideways away from his descending body and arterial blood spurted bright red to blacken the army blanket.

In his time Sergeant Duncan had seen more than any man's share of ugly accidents and he reacted without thought. He rapidly wound parachute cord around the stumps. The knife made an effective tightener for the first tourniquet; placed right it did not even cut the cord. The second tourniquet slowed the blood loss through the simple expedient of using a self-tightening hitch, very common when preparing vehicles for heavy drop or certain kinds of girls for bed. The unfortunate roommate screamed imprecations and began to cry; to such a man the loss of his legs might as well be death.

"Forget it," Sergeant Duncan snarled as he slid a screwdriver under the second tourniquet and tightened it until the blood flow stopped. "They can regrow them now." The soon-to-be ex-roommate was going glassy eyed as the blood loss began to affect him, but he caught the central idea and nodded as he passed out. "I'm the one who's hosed," Duncan whispered at last and cradled his burned hand to his chest as he crawled up the incline to the door. "Medic!" He yelled into the hallway and slumped back against the doorframe staring blank-eyed at the floor sloping towards the mirror-bright cut.

Also, most of the early books are available online in the Baen Free Library. There are links from the wiki page above, or you can read the first book directly here.

WarLocke fucked around with this message at 23:26 on Nov 3, 2009

Hobnob
Feb 23, 2006

Ursa Adorandum

Chairman Capone posted:

That series sounds pretty interesting, but on the other hand it is written by the absolutely terrible John Ringo, so is it worth it? Does the story manage to overcome his atrocious high-school level characterization, plots, and writing?

I only read the first two(?), but in my opinion, no. As always, remember you can get the books free and legal online (e.g. here) rather than pay money for this stuff.

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fed_dude
May 31, 2004
I read through the thread and decided to go through my stacks and see if I could add anything. There's not a lot left to mention.

L. Ron Hubbard's Battlefield: Earth (it's Scientology-free). But everything else he wrote was utter dreck, the Mission Earth decology was torture, I don't know why I slogged through it.

Timothy Zahn was mentioned, but no one mentioned that his Star Wars trilogy, beginning with Heir to the Empire, was probably the only time Star Wars books have ascended into the truly great category.

Kevin J. Anderson sucks. Asimov is awesome, A Deepness in the Sky and A Fire Upon the Deep are fantastic, and I had to give up on Peter F. Hamilton in the middle of his first trilogy, because it was horrible. Miles Vorkosigan is a dwarf.

Is Dune space opera? I mean there's space, right? And superheros basically. Sounds operatic. And what's better than Dune? I don't think I saw Dune in the thread except in regards to Kevin J. Anderson's work (if you can call it that).

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