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Just finished reading Arthur C. Clarke's last novel, written with/finished by Frederick Pohl, The Last Theorem. I did't like it very much at all. The characters are all flat and boring, the plot doesn't make much sense and follows a bunch of random events that don't make any sense connected to each other. The actual "sci-fi" parts just made me roll my eyes and are a mishmash of tired cliches that both of those authors, and many more, have presented far better. Avoid this one!
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Jun 23, 2013 21:58
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Finished reading The Fall of Hyperion tonight after finishing Hyperion a week ago. What a story. One of my favorite novels I've read in a long time; it had been on my list for years and I found both of them at the local book store here a few weeks ago. I'm going to pick up the next two in the series, is Dan Simmons' other stuff worth checking out?
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Jul 30, 2014 06:07
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Yeah I just read through a few pages of this thread from the beginning and looks like it's not something to bring up here! For what it's worth I kind of got numb to the overuse of literary and historical themes and poorly structured rationalization/poorly explained points of view and went along for the ride with the whacked-out scenarios. Changing topics entirely, how does St. Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman compare to its predecessor? I got bored of reading historical fiction & biographies so I'm back in sci-fi mode now and trying to go through some of the 'classics' I haven't read.
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Jul 30, 2014 06:44
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I'm looking to get into a new sci-fi series that features expansive worldbuilding and a lengthy story documenting a future history of humanity - something like Revelation Space, or even Foundation. I really like the emphasis on crazy future technology that Revelation Space has, especially 'transhuman' elements. Does the Culture series by Iain M. Banks sound like what I'm looking for? Any suggestions? Thanks!
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Aug 5, 2014 16:02
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Cpt. Mahatma Gandhi posted:Here's an official trailer for The Martian. I'm a little disconcerted by how prevalent the Earth/NASA bits are in this, considering I hated all those scenes in the book. Hopefully the movie itself is more Watney-focused. Whoops I didn't pay enough attention this first time I watched the trailer and it actually looks very similar to how it goes down in the books although it seems like the Hermes might find out earlier in the film than the book? Pretty hyped for this, glad to see Jeff Daniels (maybe he can make the NASA parts suck less). my bony fealty fucked around with this message at 05:13 on Jun 9, 2015 |
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Jun 9, 2015 03:40
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I got around to reading A Fire Upon the Deep finally and I really did not much care for it. I picked up the prequel (I think?) A Deepness in the Sky at the same time but I don't have much inclination to read it. There are some really, super cool ideas in Vinge's universe, the zones and powers and transcendence and all is really rad. So I was really disappointed that so much of the book is dedicated to the Tines' world and the power struggle between MR STEEL and Flenser and Woodcarver, none of whom had any real characterization or depth. And for being group-mind dog-things whose bodies are replaceable, they really could have just been humans for the purposes of the story, there was nothing "alien" about them at all. Same with the skroderider plant dudes, the one big twist that they had been created by the Blight didn't really amount to anything. The galactic-spanning newsgroups were pretty entertaining, though. So is A Deepness in the Sky worth reading if I didn't like the first one?
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Sep 23, 2015 00:27
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Beef Hardcheese posted:Has there been any instance of the Islamic Hajj brought up in science fiction? The recent deaths in Mecca this year (and the related topics of crowd control, travel time, expenses, etc) has gotten me wondering about Muslims in a spacefaring future, given that there are very specific instructions on what to do, and within a very specific timeframe. For example, if Earth was an irradiated wasteland, would it be "enough" to enter Earth orbit, or would you need to get on a hardened shuttle in an environmental radiation suit (assuming one could survive)? What if environmental catastrophes put Mecca underwater? Or it was destroyed entirely, and where Mecca was is a point in the air in the middle of a giant crater? Visiting Mecca once in in your lifetime is a mandatory part of the Muslim faith, assuming one is physically / financially / practically capable of doing so, but I have no idea what defines "capable" now, or in the future. The only Muslims in SF I can think of off the top of my head is the father/son pair in "Pitch Black". I haven't actually read any of this but I've had it bookmarked forever, so I can't say if any of the stories deal with the Hajj, but it might be a good starting point: http://www.islamscifi.com/AMosqueAmngstTheStars.pdf It is an anthology of Islamic sci-fi stories. anilEhilated posted:Not exactly the hard SF you may be looking for, but in this vein I loved Jeff Vandermeer's Southern Reach trilogy. I always gotta second this recommendation when I see it brought up. The second book can be a bit plodding, but other than that it's a wonderful series.
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Sep 28, 2015 01:34
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Starkk posted:Just finished the Southern Reach Trilogy today and feeling very let down. Ending was pretty much non existent, would not recommend. I mentioned last page how I really enjoyed it, but I think that's a fair point, and it's definitely not for everyone. Not specific spoilers but spoilers for the general feel and arc of the series: there's A LOT left unanswered and open to interpretation. Even the biggest mystery from the first book isn't really wrapped up in any way that makes definite sense or has any "payoff". I enjoyed it for this reason because it's clear that none of the characters have any clue what's going on either and even if they did it wouldn't make any sense to them, nor the reader. And the prose is just pretty darn good, Area X really comes alive and feels like a real place that's just slightly "wrong" from our world. I am definitely going to re-read it sometime soon because it's possible that there are more answers than there seem to be, they're just not immediately spelled out.
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Sep 30, 2015 00:59
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gfanikf posted:I originally posted this in the space opera thread but it may be more germane (based on my tastes) here. Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion fit this criteria, I guess. There is a space war and it's full of references to the 19th and 20th century.
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Oct 26, 2015 21:52
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Just finished the first book in Viriconium series, The Pastel City. Not sure what to think. I think I liked it, but I get the feeling I'll appreciate it a lot more if I read more from the series; the world and characters are pretty neat but it's too short to really go into much depth with them. Luckily I've got the second one too so going to start that next.
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Jun 1, 2016 04:46
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Picked up Consider Phlebus today at the local sci-fi/fantasy book store, been meaning to read Banks forever. I get the sense here that the second one might be the better introduction but they didn't have it. Amusingly, they have a 'write a recommendation' book and the by-far most mentioned series was...the Kingkiller books 
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Sep 5, 2016 02:21
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ToxicFrog posted:To re-rail the thread somewhat, I'm reading M. John Harrison's Viriconium books as my wildcard challenge this year, and I'm...really not sure what I think of them. I read the first two earlier this year and I totally agree, I still am not sure if I "liked" them or not. The writing is great, there's some really neat ideas in there (especially in Wings which gets bugfuck crazy a bit in), as stories they're not so engaging. I've read that they're written as criticisms of typical fantasy and that Harrison is kind of a pretentious dick about genre fiction in general, dunno how true that is but it's not surprising if so.
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Sep 14, 2016 16:48
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vulturesrow posted:I was thinking yesterday about some books that were probably bad but teenage me loved them. They were pretty much any books set in the Shadowrun world but in particular a trilogy about a guy who discovered he is a shaman whose spirit animal is dogs. I should dig those up. Please tell me I'm not alone in this. I am lucky and have a cool nerd dad with lots of sci-fi/fantasy books so a lot of what I read as a teenager holds up, stuff like Elric and Foundation and of course Lord of the Rings. He also had a lot of D&D books and I loved the poo poo out of the Dragonlance trilogy, which I re-read a while ago and I am sad to say did not really hold up too well. I think I really wanted to play real D&D as a teen but all my friends just wanted to play Starcraft. The spin-off Raistlin/Caramon books fared even less well on rereading, although I still dig Raistlin's whole thing about trying to become an evil death god, that was a cool arc. And just now I found out there is a Dragonlance animated movie from 2008 with Keifer Sutherland as Raistlin and Lucy Lawless as Goldmoon. I know what I'm watching soon! My dad was also all about Gormenghast, which I never started reading until recently. I am glad of this because I don't think I would have been able to enjoy it much in my teens.
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Sep 26, 2016 07:11
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Xotl posted:Can anyone recommend some fun stuff from the 50s through to the 70s that you feel still holds up today (i.e. not just a classic everyone knows, but something you've read and find still interesting from a style and plot perspective)? A lot of good recs already, I'll add the Strugatsky bros. Roadside Picnic is their most well-known and required reading imo, but their other stuff is good too. The Noon Universe books are neat, they did space communism before Star Trek and Culture made it cool. occamsnailfile posted:I would love to find a fantastic-elements story set in India, dealing with both the viciousness of Colonial forces and the corruption of local regimes. I've found a few historical novels and they were good stuff! Not exactly what you're looking for since it's set in a fictional world, but give Robert Jackson Bennett's City of Stairs a shot. The two major nations in the story are pretty clearly inspired by India and Eastern Europe/Imperial Russia, and it definitely deals with colonialism and local political corruption. It's kinda uneven quality-wise, but there's a lot of fun to be had and I found the world engrossing enough to keep me turning the pages. my bony fealty fucked around with this message at 07:47 on Oct 1, 2016 |
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Oct 1, 2016 07:41
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Well I just finished Bridge of Birds and, no surprise, loved it. How do the two follow-ups compare? I totally lost it at the part where Ox and Kao and Shen escape from a giant invisible spider via jury-rigged bamboo helicopter. Just so great.
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Nov 29, 2016 03:46
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ToxicFrog posted:I liked them, but they're basically More Bridge Of Birds Except Not Quite As Good. Thanks, that's about what I figured. I'm pretty burned out on an ancient China that never was after binging BoB so I'll wait a bit before delving back in. Unrelated: anyone have any favorite comic/graphic novel adaptations of sf or fantasy books? I snagged Gene Wolfe's The Shadow of the Torturer earlier this year and was surprised and how good a job it does interpreting Urth, anything else like that out there?
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Nov 29, 2016 16:59
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occamsnailfile posted:Sadly, no digital version--it's from a small press from 1991, probably not likely to get a legal version anytime soon. Yeah, no e-version, but I got it on eBay a few months ago. Something like $8 shipped for all 3 issues, the full set pops up every now and then.
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Nov 30, 2016 16:58
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Safety Biscuits posted:How much of the story does it tell? I remember there only being three issues of a planned six. The last scene is Severian and Agia approaching the Botanic Gardens. But before they go in, which is a real shame because that whole sequence would have been awesome if illustrated. I'm going to see what I can find about the legality of scanning it...Innovation's been defunct since 1994 so no clue who holds the copyright. E: I emailed the guy who founded Innovation so maybe he'll reply... more: there's some scans from it here if you wanna see the style (spoilers obv.): http://www.cbr.com/year-of-the-artist-day-299-ted-naifeh-part-1-the-shadow-of-the-torturer-1/ Love how goofy Severian looks half the time. oh hey:  I'll go ahead and start scanning it into a PDF version today then...! my bony fealty fucked around with this message at 19:58 on Nov 30, 2016 |
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Nov 30, 2016 19:15
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DACK FAYDEN posted:If you care, the typical comic distribution method is .cbr or .cbz, which are just renamed .zip with a folder full of scanned images inside. Might save you a step of compiling every scan into a PDF, depending on your workflow. Thanks for the tip! That sounds like the way to go. Unfortunately I misplaced my printer power cord so I have to wait until a replacement gets here this weekend to start scanning, sorry guys  Appoda posted:Does anyone have any comments on The Southern Reach trilogy, particularly Annihilation? The pitch of the book reminded me of Roadside Picnic, which I very much enjoyed. Is this series of a similar vein, at least in setting? I quite liked them, Annihilation definitely being my favorite of the three. The second one especially is a lot different in setting and tone and maybe the weakest, but all three do work together well to tell a great story. VanderMeer has a really good hand for writing about the outdoors, too. The Roadside Picnic comparison is a decent one, both that and Southern Reach (minor non-plot spoilers) keep a lot of their mysteries very vague and leave you to fill in the gaps. It's good enough that I'm planning on re-reading it before the movie comes out.
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Dec 1, 2016 19:20
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DACK FAYDEN posted:If you care, the typical comic distribution method is .cbr or .cbz, which are just renamed .zip with a folder full of scanned images inside. Might save you a step of compiling every scan into a PDF, depending on your workflow. Thanks for the tip! I think I did it right...I downloaded a comic viewer and it reads it as .cbz format. Finally got around to scanning the first issue of the Gene Wolfe's The Shadow of the Torturer comic. It's a little crooked but overall pretty legible. There are a couple pages where the spread was clearly meant to be seen together, so I did my best to stitch two scans together. My favorite page:  Anyhow, here's the link, should work for anyone: https://www.dropbox.com/s/355nntk6hlq8e4i/gw-sott-1991.cbz?dl=0 I'll do the other two if there's interest. If you haven't read the source material, there's visual spoilers of a sort, be warned~ vv like the below poster said, the guy who owned the publishing house told me it was fine to share so it's not ~files~ my bony fealty fucked around with this message at 11:24 on Dec 10, 2016 |
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Dec 10, 2016 08:51
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Junkenstein posted:Player of Games. I went against the usual advice and read Phlebas first, partly because my book store didn't have Player of Games. Those are the only two I've read so far but I think Phlebas makes a fine intro to the series, it was cool to get introduced to the Culture universe via a relatively straightforward sci-fi action novel (that's not without its own depth, the post above about the bleakness is spot-on). Temple of loving light.
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Jan 27, 2017 23:07
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I never read past Redemption Ark and I don't think I will. A shame, the first 2 were great (Chasm City might be my favorite). I got the feeling that he was running out of ideas by the end of Redemption Ark. How are his other books? House of Suns in particular sounds neat.
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Jan 30, 2017 07:23
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Any opinions on A.E. van Vogt's Empire of the Atom? Apparently it's "I, Claudius in space" which I'm down with, worth reading?
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Feb 26, 2017 00:23
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space libertarianism is dumb read space communism instead (culture and noon universe and idk what else?)
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Apr 3, 2017 07:25
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Literally the book of the month right now and you succeed, never a bad time to do a Hainish Cycle read quote:tl;dr: if I'm not in love with Book of the New Sun after two books, should I bother finishing? If there's some huge payoff I'm willing to stick with it, but I am willing to be among the very few people who just don't "get it" if everyone else loved the series throughout. Keep going if you can. There is a payoff, and there is a satisfying conclusion, and there is a strong plot underlying everything; it's just very well hidden and hard to piece together. Part of the problem is that Severian doesn't really know what's going on. Not just that he's unreliable, he really does not know what's happening to him or why. You absolutely won't "get it" the first time through though, no one does. It's so convoluted that the publisher asked Wolfe to write a sequel clarifying wtf happened and what the actual ending of the story is, and thus we got Urth of the New Sun. There are a lot more story-within-the-story parts, and they mostly do have some bearing on the plot, even if it doesn't seem like it. The story isn't told linearly, and much of it isn't really told at all but left to the reader to infer. If you do keep reading, don't expect to finish the fourth book and go "ah ha, I get it now" because you won't and you probably won't even if you read Urth of the New Sun. It is ultimately also a story that relies a lot on personal interpretation. People still argue about it on a 90s mailing list, 30+ years after it came out; it's a book that has generated at least 2 full-length books of analysis, that don't agree with each other at all (though most people agree one of those is total trash). Wolfe did suck at writing female characters, yeah (he got better at least!). There is more to Dorcas and Jolenta than just shallow archetypes but it's definitely a weak point of the novel. A lot of people think Severian embellishes his sexual history, which ain't hard to believe given that he's like 18 when the events are happening and is in a position where it's probably advantageous for him to do that.
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Apr 3, 2017 21:00
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Almost all of Wolfe's words are not pure neologisms; they're often just insanely archaic dead words he's reviving in a weird context. If they are neologisms, they're usuall based on Latin or Greek Root's recombined in weird ways. I really like the frame-up he gives for it - the narrative is a translation of "posthistory" and was written in a language that doesn't exist yet, so he had to translate it as best he could using weird archaic words. Using extinct animal names to represent genetically modified animals that don't exist yet and such. I think Wolfe borrowed the fictional translator idea from Tolkien and instead of Elvish we get real words that seem made-up.
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Apr 4, 2017 18:16
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Ulio posted:Just finished the Consider Phlebas from the Culture series. It is pretty good but I was expecting more space opera feel like at the start and when at the end they overviewed the whole war. But it was almost like indiana jones in space with all the adventuring going on with the space opera stuff being mostly in the backdrop. Its a cool book and I felt the same, was expecting epic space battles instead got the zany adventures of Bora Horza Gobuchul, but that's not a bad thing. Highly recommend Look to Windward which is a follow-up, sort of. I finished Stations of the Tide by Michael Swanwick this morning and I dunno what to think. Cool story, liked the ending, but it wore its influences a little too obviously. Swanwick himself seems to be fairly divisive, what else by him is worth reading? Do all of his books have annoying sex scenes?
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Apr 5, 2017 22:41
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"The Saurons" sounds like terrifying villains!
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Apr 13, 2017 04:56
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Groke posted:As I understand it, a certain author's problem is not so much not writing, but more endlessly rewriting and rewriting and rewriting. Granted, this also results in a dearth of actually finished manuscripts, but the process is different. Oh jeez, we're going to get some sort of 'GRRM's Book of Lost Tales' after he croaks. Except instead of chill old gnomes telling stories it'll be weird gnome incest and murder.
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Apr 25, 2017 15:04
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Fwiw I read Consider Phlebas first and it was just fine and I thought it was a great introduction to the series. My rec - A Canticle for Leibowitz, for the best post-apoc novel there is. I also love the sequel but that may be an unpopular opinion.
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May 2, 2017 19:14
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I picked up the compendium Tales of the Dying Earth a few days ago and blitzed through it. I love dying Earth settings and I shamefully had not read the master until now. What else is there from Vance, or anyone really, that has the same kind of subtle humor throughout? Cugel and Rhialto's stories are funnier than any intentional sci-fi/fantasy comedy I've read.
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May 4, 2017 21:27
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Xaris posted:SF has always been extremely niche with perhaps some vocal and annoying fat nerdy fans. Going to any bookstore in my city, SF/Fantasy section is just as small as Mystery section for instance meanwhile general fiction/lit fic always massive and spans easily 3x as much. Sometimes its lucky if theres more than a tiny section of a backwall with more than LOTR, GoT and zombie-vampire romance books. I would suspect that the biggest sci-fi book sellers are tie-ins to popular movies, i.e. Star Wars books and the like. Or maybe there's just loads of these published? IDK, I went to a local bookstore with a decent sf/f section and at least 10% of it was Star Wars books.
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May 8, 2017 22:19
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Mr Chaos posted:I want to start the third "City of ___" book. I've read the past 2 and really enjoyed them, but I don't know if it's something about the author, but I can't remember the details of the last few chapters of either book. Can someone spoil the ending of them for me so I've got the details down for the third one. I have only read the first one but I recall: the protagonist takes a bunch of drugs and fights the re-awakened god(s) who were actually not dead, and wins, and then coups her aunt to become prime minister of not-India. turns out she and her family and their myth hero were related to the Gods all along! even though they hated them! I don't remember either really, and I liked it too. PlushCow posted:TOR's ebook of the month is Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep, it's a good book and you should signup and get it for free http://www.tor.com/2017/05/09/torcom-ebook-club-may/ I'm seemingly the only person who doesn't like A Fire Upon the Deep but I still think sf fans should read it. I've had the prequel sitting on my shelf for years and never cracked it because of how much I didn't like Fire, but haven't ditched it because one day I will read it (my least favorite part of Fire is the Tines and it lacks those entirely I think?).
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May 9, 2017 19:47
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I'm reading Dhalgren for the first time and the edition has an intro by Gibson and drat it is clear that he was hugely influenced by it. I'm only like 10% in but definitely recommend this to Gibson fans.
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May 12, 2017 18:41
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I actually like Count Zero more than Neuromancer if only because it deals with the fallout of the latter in the coolest way. I still haven't read MLO though, somehow. I have to take Gibson books very, very slowly, like one every 5 years.
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May 13, 2017 07:20
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My fav. is Vinge's galaxy-wide future Usenet that is apparently the #1 way to communicate breaking news
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May 30, 2017 19:03
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I saw House of Suns at the library yesterday and picked it up on a whim. I like Reynolds enough, though Revelation Space really lost its steam after the third book, to the point where I couldn't really start the fourth. So far I'm loving it, it does a really cool thing with the idea of galactic stagnation and space travel taking a very, very long time. And I detect a bit of influence from The Fifth Head of Cerberus which is always welcome.
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Jun 1, 2017 22:07
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anilEhilated posted:But it's more likely that Reynolds can't do characterization. Yeah, that's his weakness, and I appreciate that he's a strong writer despite that. But gently caress if I remember anything about any of his protagonists. The archaeologist guy was cool I guess.
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Jun 2, 2017 07:48
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I've only seen the show but the magical blue goo that can do magic stuff kinda takes it out of the hard realm?
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Jun 5, 2017 20:13
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Runcible Cat posted:Cugel in Vance's Eyes of the Overworld and Cugel's Saga. I don't really think I would call Cugel particularly deep or inspiring, more like the literary personification of  On the topic of Vance, I'm reading The Demon Princes and "The Killing Machine" has my new favorite sci-fi parachronism: Gersen outwits Interchange and the villain by counterfeiting 10 billion space-dollars worth of paper money, which people in 3500 AD still haul around in suitcases, apparently.
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Jun 12, 2017 20:36
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