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andrew smash posted:Any recommendations for good audiobooks? I am nearing completion on the 6 dune novels and have Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell queued up but I have a credit to burn on audible and would like to find something to use it on. I don't much care if it's a novel I've read before, i'm more interested in good performance. Mark Bramhall reading Lev Grossman's The Magicians is my favourite audiobook performance I've ever heard. He perfectly captures the atmosphere of the book, and does the characters' voices excellently. If you haven't heard of the book, it's a bleak fantasy novel about a magic school (think Harry Potter but with added depression and alcohol and sex). The setting, being an exclusive New England college, as well as the bleakness and undertone of creepiness, reminds me a lot of Donna Tartt's The Secret History... only, you know, with magic. The book also has cool allusions to Narnia and other fantasy works. Don't bother with the sequel though. The Magicians works perfectly as a standalone.
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Dec 11, 2013 04:32
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Fremry posted:Reposting from the recommendation thread because I didn't get much there: Frack Schatzing's The Swarm is a decent popcorn thriller. Basically the ocean turns against humanity. All of the ocean. The creatures, the water, everything. Death ensues, dashing scientists save the day. It's like Crichton but not as science-phobic, and The Abyss but not as happy-clappy. Edit: oh and let me second the recommendation for The Scar by Mieville. Fantasy, but one of the most imaginative and scariest books about the ocean you'll read. One of my all time favorites 
Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 14:36 on Dec 18, 2013 |
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Dec 18, 2013 14:34
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Cheston posted:I just finished reading Galactic North. At this point, I've read all of the Revelation Space books except Absolution Gap and The Prefect and I want to complain about Galactic North specifically (the short story, not the book it's in): Pretty much, yes. Although the greenfly isn't what kills the Inhibitors, but don't expect more than mere hints as to what actually does in Absolution Gap. If it helps, I read that short story before Absolution Gap and I still enjoyed the weird ride that is the final book. It's very, very different to what came before. Just be warned. edit: You also get some good closure for some of the characters in Absolution Gap. Especially Scorpio and Captain Brannigan, who weirdly both become the main characters. Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 09:17 on Dec 21, 2013 |
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Dec 21, 2013 09:15
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Velius posted:Pretty much no one recommends you read Absolution Gap. It's terrible and contributes nothing to the story. For what it's worth. New, shallow characters, nonsensical plot, deus ex machina in the last paragraph. It actively makes the previous two books worse. Uh you must have missed like 3 posts above where I recommended reading it. It has some awesome moments even if it feels like a total side story in the universe. (And anyway, nothing's stopping Reynolds from coming back and writing more about the Inhibitor war.)
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Dec 23, 2013 00:19
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Neurosis posted:Has anyone read Peter Watts' Beyond the Rift? Is it just a collection of stories you can read on his site anyway or does it have much new? I'm halfway through, it's a great collection, but yeah it's all reprints (apart from a new afterword). In the book: quote:The Things On his website: quote:Home
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Dec 23, 2013 05:27
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The upcoming novel Unwrapped Sky by Rjurik Davidson looks very Mieville-esque. I want to preorder it.
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Jan 18, 2014 14:07
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I read a description somewhere that summed Saga up perfectly: it's like Star Wars with way more dicks in it. Highly recommended.
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Jan 23, 2014 12:38
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Fart of Presto posted:Book bundles, like its computer game counterpart, seems to be gaining popularity, selling books from known and lesser known authors for a reasonable price. My thoughts about Alien Influences on Goodreads: quote:Kind of a weird, depressing novel about abused children who become abused adults, oh and there's some aliens in there somewhere. Actually, for a book called "Alien Influences" I wish there'd have been more aliens. The Dancers are the main exospecies of the book but, after the first 20% or so of the book, they only get talked about (rather than actually appearing). There are allusions to many other species but this book hardly explores alien biology, society, etc, at all. Yeah I wouldn't really recommend it, sorry.
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Feb 1, 2014 23:51
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The Explorer is literally the worst science fiction book I've ever read.
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Feb 4, 2014 01:31
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It's utterly boring. The entire novel until literally, loving LITERALLY the last two pages consists of the main character hiding in vents and watching things happen. It's also completely devoid of actual science. The author seems to think that turning off a spaceship's engines would result in the ship coming to a dead stop. The characters have lag-less conversations with people back on Earth, over distances of light-minutes-to-hours. It's so loving unreadably bad.
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Feb 4, 2014 01:51
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Who's read James White's Sector General books? I'm working through the first omnibus and the alien biology stuff is great, but by god the sexism! Every (human) woman is treated as eyecandy for the (human) doctors, who are all male only because women's "pretty little heads" can't handle the Educator tapes. Also there are hilarious scenes where the doctors are forced to eat salad and it's excruciating for them and they wish they could just have a nice big steak. I'm surprised they're not all walking around smoking in the hospital too. loving 1960s.  edit: Anyway read these books if you want a more-sexist-than-Gregory-House House, in spaaaaace! Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 15:53 on Feb 21, 2014 |
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Feb 21, 2014 15:50
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Krinkle posted:I'm reading A Deepness In The Sky, I'm about a third of the way through it, and I just realized I'm confused as gently caress. I only now realized they do the asian thing, where family names go first. Their organization being the Qeng-ho and the asian names in general didn't tip me off. I thought these people were individuals and find out there are families walking around and each name might correspond to up to three different characters. People I thought were dead are walking around, people who should DEFINITELY KNOW THINGS are walking around oblivious to it. People who are supposed to be respectable are being called suck-up idiots by people I thought were their friends. My understanding of who is what and where with the why is all tied in knots. I'm miserable with non-anglophone names, I guess. I want a genealogy chart or character guide that will just give me the basics without spoiling what comes next and I'm afraid to google for it. When you start getting chapters from that old bumbling Pham whatsisface dude's perspective, a loootttt will become much clearer. edit: Pham Trinli. That dude. Wait for his POV chapters.
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Mar 2, 2014 12:24
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Cardiac posted:On Mieville: Before the whole  starts about China Miéville, read this quote. It will explain everything you need to know about how much Miéville's politics affects his work:China Miéville posted:I'm not a leftist trying to smuggle in my evil message by the nefarious means of fantasy novels. I'm a science fiction and fantasy geek. I love this stuff. And when I write my novels, I'm not writing them to make political points. I'm writing them because I passionately love monsters and the weird and horror stories and strange situations and surrealism, and what I want to do is communicate that. But, because I come at this with a political perspective, the world that I'm creating is embedded with many of the concerns that I have. But I never let them get in the way of the monsters. Now that was slightly different with Iron Council, because I had the sense for some years that I wanted to write a third book that operates as a culmination, which was overtly political and precisely about my kind of politics in this world that I've created. So it was a book that was, if you like, deeply structured with politics, but that doesn't mean that it's a manifesto, that doesn't mean that it's an argument disguised as a novel, because even though those politics are central, I know that as a novelist I want to tell a story, and that means that I have to have characters that are engaging. Even if you don't agree with my politics or don't give a poo poo about them, the story has to be engaging. And that's the great thing about big, political radical movements. For instance, if you read about the Paris Commune, whether or not you agree with the position of the Communards, the Paris Commune is a tremendously exciting story. What I tried to do is write something which works as an exciting story but which treats the politics seriously. All of which is a long-winded way of saying I've never had any problems with the American market, because I don't think I'm patronizing or condescending to readers or trying to convince them of a particular political line. I'm trying to say I've invented this world that I think is really cool and I have these really big stories to tell in it and one of the ways that I find to make that interesting is to think about it politically. If you want to do that to, that's fantastic. But if not, isn't this a cool monster?
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Mar 3, 2014 12:11
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Krinkle posted:I finished A Deepness in the Sky. I thought the ending was a little too pat, glib, I"m not sure I know the words to describe how the ending felt just slightly too on the nose. I don't know, but it was enjoyable. A Fire Upon the Deep takes place far, far in the future from A Deepness in the Sky.
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Mar 18, 2014 03:03
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corn in the bible posted:I was more talking about the endless descriptions of dolphin masturbation You didn't like the dolphin who wanted to rape the human woman as a comic relief character?
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Mar 18, 2014 11:57
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Here's a really cool half-hour interview with Alastair Reynolds on the Sword & Laser video podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsZZu1WYo9k He mentions he's working on a new Revelation Space short story, too 
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Mar 28, 2014 02:35
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Anyone else read The Burning Dark by Adam Christopher yet? I'm about 40% in and it's really compelling. Lots of spookiness and mystery aboard a space station. A cover quote calls it The Haunting of Hill House in space, and that's a pretty apt comparison so far. Other reviews are invoking Event Horizon, which is like my favourite horror movie. However, I've read some reviews that say the book ends up explaining too much, which diffuses the tension and fear. I'm hoping it has a satisfying ending, anyhow.
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Apr 3, 2014 12:57
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syphon posted:I think I need to institute a rule about not starting new Sci-fi/Fantasy series' until they're completely written. I keep notes on series' in progress and realized that I'm waiting for new books in the following series: I think you've stumbled upon the secret fact that books don't spawn from the aether, but rather, have authors who need to take time to write them, word by word.
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Apr 8, 2014 23:51
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Damo posted:Can someone recommend a good first Alastair Reynolds novel? House of Suns is excellent, a fully-contained, epic space-opera that beautifully demonstrates everything good about Reynolds. Personally I like the Rev Space books even better, so you could then move onto them.
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Apr 9, 2014 07:31
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Cardiac posted:Lynch/Gentlemen Bastards seems to have psychic problems, All those drat psychics hounding him day and night
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Apr 9, 2014 10:21
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Ugly In The Morning posted:So true. I was pumped for Abbadon's Gate, but then it ended up being "Oh, they added three books to our contract, time to spin the wheels while we come up with ways to extend the plot forever". They extended the contract after book 1, so my theory is that book 2 was the filler book (because it doesn't deal directly with the protomolecule that crashed onto Venus, just human experiments using the protomolecule IIRC; still the best of the lot so far though!) and book 3 is what book 2 was going to be. Book 3 is definitely the worst so far. If I'm right, book 3 is the middle book of the original envisaged trilogy. Hopefully things get better with Cibola Burn.
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Apr 9, 2014 13:05
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http://io9.com/syfy-is-turning-james-s-a-coreys-books-into-game-of-t-1562411885io9 posted:Syfy has given a direct-to-series order to The Expanse, a new show based on James S.A. Corey's acclaimed space-opera novels, with the first season comprising 10 episodes. And they're describing it as "Game of Thrones in space." Wow, not even a pilot, they've ordered a whole 10 episodes. This could be good. They're also doing a loving 12 Monkeys tv show????
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Apr 12, 2014 05:02
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Darth Walrus posted:I'll warn you right now, it's going to contain giant loving spoilers if you haven't finished the book. Really, because here's my thoughts as I headed towards the ending: quote:Hmm, this is creepy. Whoa, it's kinda scary in places! The tension and the dread is really amping up. This is cool! The backstory's really interesting too. Oh my god this is amazing! Somebody finally did space horror right! This book is gr— FFFFFFAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRT
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Apr 14, 2014 13:32
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Darth Walrus posted:How close in to the ending? Because yeah, I think that, like, the last few pages were weak, with some tension being lost to the aforementioned catchup for people who still didn't have a clue, and a bit too much of the climax being offscreen and/or open-ended/underexplained (What was the deal with the full transcript of Ludmilla's death? What purpose did it serve? Wasn't all of it information we already had?). However, it seemed like it did enough, without retroactively ruining the rest of the story. It's not like the ending, to, say, the Deepgate Codex, which was a complete loving disaster and felt like the author had just run out of pages. Actually, I'd place it above Hull Zero Three as well in terms of how much tension it manages to retain, because Zero Three really deflated hard quite a bit earlier (though that wasn't my only complaint with that book - the first part went past 'intentionally confusing' straight into the realm of 'unpleasantly difficult to parse'). After a slow and terrifying build up of horrific visions and people disappearing, the main threat turns out to be a Japanese spirit thing who literally stands on a pile of corpses wielding her katana, uguu~. The book turned into anime. It became anime, in my hands. loving Adam Christopher weeaboo piece of poo poo.
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Apr 15, 2014 04:15
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I actually just wrote a blog post about the space horror subgenre, and I mini-review 5 works (Unto Leviathan, Blindsight, Hull Zero Three, The Burning Dark, and the Revelation Space series) while giving comments on the horror elements, SF elements, and mystery/resolution elements of each work. http://outtherebooks.wordpress.com/2014/04/15/space-horror-five-recent-works/ I also spent some time doing cool graphics for the ratings in Photoshop, like so:  Pretty proud of that glowy control panel look 
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Apr 15, 2014 06:30
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Fried Chicken posted:Your page here got tweeted out by Alistair Reynolds the other day. Awesome job man! Yeah that was a cool surprise  Soviet Canuckistan posted:This entire blog is pretty awesome. Would you consider enabling full-text RSS feeds? I do most of my blog reading on the train where I often don't have signal, so truncated RSS feeds aren't much good for that. Hey thanks! I thought it was enabled... Wordpress's settings tell me that full text goes out on the RSS.  edit: Looking at the raw feed ( http://outtherebooks.wordpress.com/feed/ ) it seems like the full text of each article is there.
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Apr 17, 2014 00:51
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Has anyone posted the blurb for Echopraxia by Peter Watts (sequel to Blindsight) yet? It sounds insanely awesome:Amazon posted:Prepare for a different kind of singularity in Peter Watts' Echopraxia, the follow-up to the Hugo-nominated novel Blindsight. 
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Apr 23, 2014 01:54
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General Battuta posted:This upcoming anthology is packed with a lot of my favorite authors, and (by nature) it'll be a killer reference for those 'but who should I read!' discussions: After the pretty drat good anthology Aliens: Recent Encounters also edited by MacFarlane, I'll probably be getting this one too! (I have a review of said anthology on my blog)
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Apr 24, 2014 08:31
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Walh Hara posted:Well, the 60 pages/hour thing is just a guess based on articles that claim an average untrained adult reads around 250 words per minute and me assuming that's about one page (it normaly is). However, I just checked and apparently asoiaf only has about 180 words per page, probably because of the dialogue. Not if you have borderline ADD and reading a page or two takes 5-10 minutes because you have to keep re-reading the same sentences over and over then restarting paragraphs because your mind was racing with a million other thoughts that had nothing to do with the book, then realising you'd better start again at the top of the page, and so on...  Despite this I have dedication and I manage to get through 45-50 books a year so 
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Apr 29, 2014 14:14
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I know this is nowhere as cool an accomplishment as General Battuta's, but I just got my first review quote published on a book's back cover  It's such a generic-sounding quote but oh well
Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 05:12 on May 1, 2014 |
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May 1, 2014 05:09
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Wolpertinger posted:Which book? Talus and the Frozen King by Graham Edwards (added a photo to my post above you) but the review quote was about an earlier work of his.
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May 1, 2014 05:12
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As well as The Expanse (SF series by James SA Corey), SyFy is now turning Lev Grossman's The Magicians into a TV series! Exciting times http://www.tor.com/blogs/2014/04/the-magicians-lev-grossman-television-adaptation
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May 1, 2014 12:28
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:The Magicians was just a boring rear end book. Other than the apple faced guy showing up, it was basically the GRIMDARK version of "Boy, life is hell, ennui". It's actually a pretty smart self-contained book about depression. Then the publisher-mandated sequel came along and farrrrrttttted all over what Grossman had achieved with book 1
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May 2, 2014 00:58
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Decius posted:Yes, of course and with good reason. People buy books for summertime reading at the beach and for wintertime reading/gifting at Christmas (this alone makes up the majority of book sales in certain (= mainstream bestseller) categories). Book publishing is pretty similar to cinema releases in this regard. Who reads at the beach? You'd get sand all through your book, ugh
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May 4, 2014 08:21
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Personally I think the thread should talk about authors as well as works of SF/F, it should provide a ground for this kind of discussion. Ornamented Death, Cardiovorax and General Battuta (and whoever else), I'm glad you're posting important stuff about authors and politics of the SF/F community in here. Keep it up! Iseeyouseemeseeyou, maybe go to /r/printSF where every thread is "recommend me books about [thing here]" and the replies are all just lists of titles.
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May 9, 2014 00:17
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All these pinko commies tryin' ta take away my red-blooded white-skinned American sci-fi 
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May 9, 2014 01:42
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Alternatively, satyr.
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May 9, 2014 02:13
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My thoughts on Ancillary Justice from a few months ago:my goodreads review posted:I have real mixed feelings about this book.
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May 10, 2014 01:26
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The new neolithic murder mystery fantasy-ish book Talus and the Frozen King by Graham Edwards has a positive portrayal of a gay side character but he ends up being one of the murder victims so uh
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May 12, 2014 15:39
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Bolverkur posted:Has anyone read Retribution Falls or other stuff from the Ketty Jay series by Chris Wooding? I can't tell if this will be a fun adventure through the skies or a cringy cheesefest. I read the Broken Sky series as a kid and at the time I thought it was absolutely amazing, although I have my doubts it holds up as a fun children's sf series today. Having no knowledge of anime at the time probably helped. And being a kid that I read it a few months ago and really enjoyed it: my goodreads review posted:4.5 stars!
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May 16, 2014 13:08
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