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branedotorg posted:It helps if you know a little about network topography, but only in way knowing a bit about 17th century banking & the blood lines of europe during the reformation helps when reading stephenson. As a Software Engineer who at one point worked for a very large corporation and love everything Lovecraft, I feel the exact same way about reading Charlie Stross Laundry series. ("My god, I get every reference, this book was made for me!")
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Sep 22, 2011 14:38
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Velius posted:I did as well, although both are worth reading; Moon tends to make far more interesting non-combat drama in her books, but they also usually have one or two large set-pieces. Whereas reading Harrington is mostly skipping everything that's NOT a set-piece. The thing that annoyed me about Moon was the constant hints at larger things going on that never went anywhere. Someone is intentionally killing off the experienced NCOs, Who? Why? Oops I'll just stop writing in this world.
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Dec 18, 2011 17:14
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Ferrosol posted:I thought that was explained It was the Space Mafia nation. Because if you really want to cripple an army you don't take out the officers but the experienced NCOs because they teach the enlisted ranks and pass on the traditions of naval service and all that crap. been a while since I read that series but pretty sure that was the explanation. I may have missed it but I thought that was just hinted at but never resolved in world, it's been like 10 years since I touched the series, I just thought that it was going to be part of an overall arc, instead the whole series just dropped without ever 'starting' from what I'd consider the start.
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Dec 18, 2011 20:37
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Ghost of Babyhead posted:I've got a question for the thread: Can anyone recommend any books which deal mostly with alien ways of thinking, alien societies, that sort of thing? I've always been interested in stories from alien points of view (especially when humans are examined through alien eyes) and "first contact" stories. I've been especially interested in the possibilities of exotic aliens since reading Peter Watts' Blindsight. One recent recommendation I've had from elsewhere is China Mieville's Embassytown, and I'm looking into getting that, but does anyone here have some thoughts on this topic? Everything by Stanisław Lem? Specifically His Master's Voice, Solaris, Fiasco, and The Invincible. Hughlander fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Dec 31, 2011 |
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Dec 31, 2011 19:29
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notaspy posted:I've read through this threat to find a book or series I'm pretty sure doesn't exist. I'm wanting something with the following plot devices: I'll always recommend David Weber when I see things like this... Head over to Baen Free Library and try out a few... On Basilisk Station - Start of the Honor Harrington Series - By the end you have battles involving thousand of multi-kilometer long ships on either side with death toll in the millions. Mutineer's Moon - Start of the Empire from Ashes Series - A million Alien ships vs mid-21st century earth. March Upcountry - Small group of humans trapped on a toxic alien planet must make alliances with natives to reach the human starport on the far side. Note: Every one of these is pure fluff. Don't expect anything as deep as Dune. But as far as popcorn novels go they're addicting. Just don't be afraid to stop reading them when they no longer interest you either. (For many in the HH universe that will be sometime at or before Ashes of Victory, there's definitely a huge change of pace/tone starting in War of Honor.)
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Apr 30, 2012 16:26
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:They *are* plotted well and are definitely page turners, but there's a point where you can feel the brain cells dying with each page you turn but you just can't stop and oh it hurts. It still hurts. (Or as I call it, War of Honor)
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Apr 30, 2012 18:46
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Never.More posted:It is an excellent idea. It will be interesting to see if they can keep it up with the kindle deal. In other words I can understand Kindle saying no, we want to sell your stuff now. However as the deal continues, hopefully kindle reaches a point they will accept the free route for the older books to drum up interest. Kindle does free books all the time. I think the terms though are basically that Amazon will sell the books at least at the cheapest price they are available online. So any book they have on their site for free will be free on Amazon as well.
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Jun 10, 2013 15:09
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NotYella posted:Drake doesn't write characters that are anything but archetypes - this guy is the corrupt politician, this guy is the hardass NCO, etc To be fair, the same could be said about David Weber only there are two archetypes, author insert and strawman adversary.
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Sep 12, 2013 04:46
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snooman posted:This nails Weber's style but I feel like your post needs more exposition before you actually grace us with a hyperlink. Maybe start with the history of kites and keys before working up to the internet. Took things I noticed wrong: 1) Chapter start didn't spend a page introducing a character, his backstory, and motivations just to end with, "None of this would stop the <technobabbly weapon> that just killed him." 2) No reference to well Mrs. <CHARACTERS SURNAME> didn't raise no dummy or anything similar.
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Feb 25, 2014 22:26
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Neurosis posted:Oh, well, at least that will sound more impressive when I explain the idea to people than "Oh, the guy who formulated the phrase is a sci-fi writer." Can just call him a PhD of Math and Computer Science professor instead. Just like Von Nuemann was.
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Apr 4, 2014 14:04
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Kellanved posted:Just had a brainfart on how the Honor books could get interesting again. Kill off her entire family or something so she goes completely bonkers and flies away with her fleet after bombing manticore/sol/some planet. And then switch pov and deal with the fallout, hunting down and fighting against the unstoppable Honor Harrington and the fleet she stole. Brandon Sanderson already did something similar and probably better than Weber in Firstborn
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Aug 16, 2014 15:44
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Chairman Capone posted:Does anyone know of any Lovecraftian space operas? Preferably directly incorporating Lovecraft's mythology, although I'd take something just along the lines of cosmic horror in the cosmos also. I've always been interested in what the future of the Lovecraft setting would have been once humans started going out into space on their own and encountering the Mi-go and Old Ones on different planets as equals. I think the only thing that kind of comes to mind in that genre is Charles Stross's story "A Colder War". Nothing other than warhammer 40k.
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Oct 20, 2014 14:16
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So I read all that's been published of The Last Angel that was recommended a few months back. It had an interesting start but the world building really falls apart for me. Like Humans are getting their asses kicked and exterminated across the galaxy but manage to come up with no less than 5 huge breakthroughs at the same time. I was hoping that it was going to be revealed that The original species went full AI and was supplying humans tech but nothing like that hinted at yet. Also maybe it's just the comparison it was setting up with David Weber's universe but I felt like going Excalibur Alternative would have just made more sense. You know the expansion route of the species, go to a spot they won't be hit for 500-1000 years, and genetically engineer up another trillion humans with enough Dreadnoughts to match.
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Feb 10, 2015 15:24
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Chairman Capone posted:I feel like there's another story of a similar type that was about a Roman legion that gets abducted by aliens and made to fight for aliens. Possibly it's set in the same series because I think there was another story in that collection involving the Spanish Armada and aliens? It's the same universe the end part in the future talks about the Romans giving the terrans the hyperdrive and being willing to be sacrificed to the galactics if it'd save earth
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Apr 27, 2015 04:47
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Just Another Lurker posted:Finished the three David Weber books mentioned earlier, the third one: The Excalibur Alternative is included in the second book (which is composed of several shorter stories) and looks like Weber took one, padded it out and extrapolated a new ending to complete it and flog it as the third book. Every so often I'll break it out to read the future part of the book as a standalone short story.
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May 6, 2015 03:02
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Drone posted:Really the only reason I'm reading this is because 1.) it's free and 2.) a lot of people seem to have read it. I'd probably have the same reaction as you, if I even make it through the first book. It may be stockholm but I grew to like it but the only way I even got that far was stuck in a blizzard in West Virginia and it was the only thing to read.
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May 8, 2015 14:30
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General Battuta posted:I think 'do monsters win more, is that good, and what are the costs of believing it's true?' is more or less the central question of post-Vietnam military SF. (Not published by Baen.) Otherwise it's pew pew lasers or America, gently caress Ya.
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Jun 18, 2015 16:34
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Finished the silver wings series. My god does the author love Deus ex machina. I almost threw the tablet across the room when the aliens that were repeatedly described as looking like Roswell aliens are called Ross'El to their friends.
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Jul 4, 2015 23:10
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Man slowly going through Expanse 1 and feel like I have so much to look forward to. It's not perfect but better than that silver wings pew pew lasers I read last time it came up in the thread.
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Sep 9, 2015 06:16
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Miss-Bomarc posted:So the answer to "I don't like the first book so far" is "read all the rest of them and THEN decide whether or not you like it" No. It's to finish that book since the concerns raised are directly addressed in that book. (Note I just finished it for the first time yesterday and did thoroughly enjoy it)
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Sep 11, 2015 06:32
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I just hated growing up and reading the pulp novels where the cover art had nothing in common with the descriptions in the books. Even early HH had these star destroyer looking things where every book mentioned but didn't describe the "double hammerhead" inherent in each ship design
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Sep 12, 2015 23:57
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Baloogan posted:Expanse #4 isn't perfect but its a return to form. I'd recommend skipping Expanse #3 entirely. What's the complaints on 3? I'm only 25% in but so far it seems like it's as good as the first 25% of 1. Holden just met the Marines on the station.
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Sep 20, 2015 14:31
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Stars, Won't You Hide Me? by Ben Bova, which for some reason I thought was a Joe Haldeman book.
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Sep 26, 2015 01:05
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chrisoya posted:Some games you play with pencils, a pad of graph paper, and a spreadsheet. Some books you read with a notepad, noticeboards and bits of red string. To be clear you are talking about David Weber right?
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Oct 7, 2015 02:59
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Miss-Bomarc posted:There's "The Quantum Thief" by Hannu Rajaniemi. It's not straight-up mil-SF, but one of the characters is a soldier. It gets pretty heavy into quantum weirdness, nanotech hooha, and pocket-universe tomfoolery, but I really liked the series and recommend it to people. It may be worth pointing out the SA thread for the series is entitled "Hannu Rajaniemi is smarter than you" and you really do feel stupid how he throws you headlong into the world without much exposition.
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Nov 14, 2015 05:26
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Drifter posted:I'll never understand that complaint. For me it's not a complaint and was why I thought the first book was amazing. But also why I haven't started the second yet since I feel that there is a higher amount of "buy in" than most of the trash I read.
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Nov 14, 2015 15:09
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General Battuta posted:Uh...the publication order and chronological order are the same. Cibola Burn takes place after Caliban's War and Abaddon's Gate (it also sucks but that's beside the point). There's also some novellas that are mingled all over but each I read detracted from the main story.
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Dec 13, 2015 00:33
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Odoyle posted:I enjoyed the new SyFy show enough to pick up Leviathan Wakes 3 days ago. I'm 3/4 in already (I've not read a book this fast since I discovered Peter Watts' Blindsight ~2009) but I notice the author(s) call deep space raiders "pirate casts" - do they mean "castes" or is there some grammar or slang that I'm not reading correctly? I think it means broadcasts of unknown origin.
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Jan 6, 2016 01:24
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Altered Carbon is becoming a Netflix series... http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-classic-cyberpunk-novel-altered-carbon-is-becoming-1754048539
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Jan 20, 2016 20:47
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jng2058 posted:Yeah, but take Mesan stealth tech and add Gravlances and now you're cooking! I thought the stealth in question was that they moved without an impellar and so were practically invisible because no one uses infrared optics in the future.
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Feb 3, 2016 00:41
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WarLocke posted:I'm on the last book of the Star Force series and this poo poo is dire. At this point I'm just taking a perverse pride in the fact that this poo poo is not gonna beat me, I am gonna bull through. Oh man that made me check to see if there's a new Ian Douglas STAR CARRIER book and there is. That series is  as gently caress. Can the STAR CARRIER America survive the EEEEEVIL Europeans?
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Mar 19, 2016 00:02
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WarLocke posted:
It's really bad. Like lost fleet bad. But they go by so fast that as long as you aren't spending money on it, it's not bad. (Also the bad Europeans was just a small part of one book, but STAR CARRIER AMERICA is in the whole thing.
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Mar 19, 2016 03:14
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Why do I have to like this kind of milSF?
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Internet Wizard posted:Don't forget the ship is dick-shaped, and launches fighters from the tip of the mushroom head. I was trying to... Was the c fractional fighter recon mode with a long tail too?
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Mar 19, 2016 04:17
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Kesper North posted:Way I see it, the only thing that's economically worth fighting an interstellar war is trying to prevent the spread of an idea or technology so dangerous your species doesn't want to risk being contaminated by it, or risky behavior on the part of your interstellar neighbors that you think could end up screwing you as well (like tampering with their star and putting surrounding systems at risk to their sun going supernova) or unintentionally creating/summoning weakly godlike agencies that want to enslave or consume the mind of every sentient in the neighborhood. While your ideas are awesome you are locking out huge concepts by assuming it's always expensive. Look at "The road less taken". Antigravity is a trivial thing most species discover during the age of sail. To the point their intergalactic spaceships are sealed with tar and they need to get to the next planet before their air goes bad.
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Jun 27, 2016 01:52
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Kesper North posted:I'm mostly interested in writing fairly crunchy SF, to the point where I went through some pretty major mental gymnastics to make room for "FTL" travel in the first place. Interstellar wooden arks wouldn't really fit with what I'm going for, and isn't super interesting to me personally. (And Dan Simmons did interstellar trees better in Hyperion anyway.) Ok, you didn't preface it with in your universe, so I was talking sci fi generically. And even as such you are one buffer overflow from remote code execution which is short for "Waldo" if you believe in tech it works.
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Jun 27, 2016 02:55
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Khizan posted:This really just comes down to "Interstellar warfare is as practical as the author wants it to be." My point, so eloquently concise.
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Jun 27, 2016 03:15
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WarLocke posted:Weber did the Prince Roger books which are kind of like that but I don't think they're what you're thinking of. Also The Excalibur Alternative which is a stand-alone 'primitive humans get kidnapped to be alien mercenaries' book (which seems to be a whole subgenre in itself). Actually it's part of a shared universe already and the short story Sir George and the Dragon was expanded to Excalibur Alternative. In the last session they talk about "The Romans" who were the lost legion kidnapped a thousand years earlier than Sir George.
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Jun 28, 2016 02:18
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Kesper North posted:Well, nobody likes waiting, but for personal reasons I have a set amount of time that I can devote to this experiment before I have to go back into the software industry and can't write full time anymore. (I know from long experience that if I'm not writing full time, I don't write at all; I just can't maintain the headspace I need to be in.) There's a really good thread here, either in Creative Commons or ask/tell that helped get a rl friend a publishing deal. (Yes there's at least one woman goon with four novels to her name). Maybe find that and give it a read?
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Jun 28, 2016 02:20
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Totally worth looking at the page if for nothing else the 'frequently purchased with' and 'people who purchased this purchased that' sections...
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Jul 3, 2016 14:15
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Strategic Tea posted:Kind of related to gunchat, I'd like a sci fi book where every time someone references the past they really clumsily and awkwardly crowbar in the twenty.... Only thing that comes to mind is books or series with future chapter quotes from future history books. Dune, Robotech, later David Weber poo poo.
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Sep 25, 2016 19:28
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