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Habibi posted:Sure - I've read Night's Dawn, the Commonwealth Saga, and am most of the way through the Void saga. IMO, Hamilton is an amazing author who creates a fantastic universe and characters. On the other hand, his endings tend to be somewhat anti-climactic because they typically wrap things up far too cleanly. In a sense, he's almost the exact opposite of someone like Stephen Eriksson, in that the build-up is incredible and the conclusion lackluster. I love Hamilton, but the ending of Nights Dawn was so terrible, I felt ripped off. 3400 pages for this? The commonwealth saga is really good and so is the void saga. I especially love the dream sections of the void saga. Jet Jaguar posted:I really loved the warchive and the combat armor of Revelation Space. Speaking of Reynolds, I have most of his Conjoiner/Demarchist short fiction in various Dozois "Year's Best Science Fiction" anthologies, but have they ever been published as a whole? He has another collection called Diamond Dogs and Turquoise Days, which is just two short stories, both in the RS universe. Diamond Dogs is excellent, Turquoise Days is a little slow but alright. Finally, Zima Blue is the last collection and it contains the Merlin Saga of stories which has some similarities to the RS universe but is different. The actual story Zima Blue is really good and the ending was a little  .Actually I'd like to hear some peoples thoughts on some of these if anyone's read them  I'm a ridiculous Reynolds fan.
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Jul 14, 2009 13:19
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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. 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?
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Sep 1, 2009 00:04
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mllaneza posted:I'm patiently waiting for him to finish the Dreaming Void trilogy before starting it; after he sends a couple of characters off a waterfall and into motherfucking space in the last series, I'm just not putting up with that crap anymore... unless I have my next fix on hand. This is a good idea, I've been so anxious about the next book in the series coming out because he pulls a typical Hamilton and leaves us on a massive cliffhanger. Oh well, I've been reading Ian M. Banks stuff lately and it's pretty good. Actually, I was going to ask, not all of his sci-fi is in the culture universe is it? I'm reading Against a Dark Background right now and I guess technically it could be in the culture universe but it doesn't seem like it. On that note, On a dark background went from lighthearted and pretty funny; the King escaping the giant lizard birds only to fall out of the rafters and die was pretty loving hilarious, to completely depressing in like, 50 pages. Still, it's been an excellent read so far. Anyone in here who hasn't read Banks needs to, now. In terms of writing and character development he's light years ahead of most sci-fi authors.
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Nov 20, 2009 07:48
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Ortsacras posted:I don't even mind the end of the Night's Dawn trilogy at all, because when a bunch of characters spend the last third of the trilogy searching for God, it's not a total deus ex machina when they succeed in finding it. The only big thing that I actually found I didn't like about the trilogy when I went through it a second time is that the whole thing with the Neutronium Alchemist didn't actually matter at all. They spend two books looking for it, find it, use it, it doesn't make any difference to the larger plot or conflict, and it's never mentioned again. And if having Mzu along when they went looking for the Naked God had been important, I'd look past it, but she was just kind of there. Honestly, I'll bet that you could edit out that entire subplot and the character of Mzu and the series as a whole wouldn't suffer for it, and would get quite a bit shorter and more accessible. Aside from that, though, I have no complaints about it at all. I completely forgot about that part of the story. It's like Hamilton had an idea for another novel but wanted to beat out Proust for the highest average page count in a series award or something.
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Nov 23, 2009 13:26
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Omegauo posted:the reason for this is that a vast war is being fought against AI on the substrate of the universe, and since human beings use SO MUCH of the processing power of this substance, they run substantially slower than their AI enemies, so a majority of humanity had to be allowed to die out, and the rest need to be in cryosleep so that we (and our AI allies) have even the slightest chance to win Whoa, that sounds awesome! I'll try and find this. In the mean time, anyone have a choice-few really good books from the Baen Free library or the like I can load up on my phone while I'm out of town for a few days? I'm about halfway through Basilisk Station and enjoying it despite the eyerolling Monarchist overtones. My top sci-fi/space opera authors are definitely Reynolds, Banks, Stephen Baxter, Hamilton (to a lesser extent), some Niven and KS Robinson's Mars books.
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Sep 21, 2012 08:44
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Thanks for all the recommendations guys, I'll have enough reading material for a couple months 
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Sep 25, 2012 00:32
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If you don't like Revelation Space I'm not quite sure what to say, it's one of the best in the genre. I guess it's kind of a slow burn in the first half though so I can see getting bored if you don't dig the technobabble. If you're willing to give Reynolds another shot then House of Suns is amazing and his style had matured a little more, I'd actually say it's the better novel because it's self-contained.
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Dec 31, 2012 04:29
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