- platero
- Sep 11, 2001
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spooky, but polite, a-hole
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Pillbug
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Chairman Capone posted:
Starship Troopers is probably the obvious answer.
Stephen Baxter's Xeelee Sequence has that element to that; the human race twice gets conquered by alien species, and each time manages to overthrow them, steal their technology, and essentially tell all other alien races to go gently caress themselves. Then it gets to the point where humans go to war against dark matter itself in a billion-year long war, only to get defeated and end up exile into a four-dimensional prison planet. The bits about the human race being conquered and then emerging stronger than before are mostly background elements (most stories take place either before or after the conquests, although I think one or two stories take place during them) but honestly you should read them regardless, I truly do believe that Baxter is the greatest current sci-fi writer and the one who has the best grasp on truly mind-boggling concepts and whose aliens are really alien (for example, one of the alien races that conquer mankind are just flow patterns in liquid as they evolved in patches of mud). I think in 20 or 50 years he's probably going to have the reputation that Arthur C. Clarke or Heinlein have now.
Other than that, if you're willing to go a bit beyond just books, there's the comic Scarlet Traces and its sequel, which are set 10 years after The War of the Worlds and whose plot consists of the British Empire using reverse-engineered Martian technology captured during the invasion to build a space fleet and invade Mars to get the Martians back.
Regarding the Xeelee Sequence: What's the suggested reading order? Wikipedia says one thing, the author says another, and then there's publishing order.
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Aug 9, 2009 21:26
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Apr 27, 2024 17:33
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- platero
- Sep 11, 2001
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spooky, but polite, a-hole
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Pillbug
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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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Aug 10, 2009 00:17
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Aug 9, 2009 21:26
