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Merlin was a Lord of Chaos and had all the powers of Order and Chaos and was never normal. A lot of things with no explanation or particular reason happen in his books and I have to think it was just Zelazny being lazy for setting up the final arc. And maybe it wasn't for his titillation but just casually writing in niece-loving and cousin-rape-loving shows you have some weird ideas about sex.
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Nov 29, 2013 18:11
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Jeff Vandermeer rules and the Ambergris books are really good. Shriek and Finch are more traditional novels than the Book of Ambergris, but they are quite good as well. I don't really need to say anything about Felix Gilman. He posts here occasionally and is a lawyer so I was always going to like him. Although I have wondered how his first few books are, before the Half-Made World.
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Dec 1, 2013 06:09
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gatz posted:Sounds interesting, aside from that whole "libertarian" thing. My favorite part of neuromancer was probably chapter 4 when the whole simstim thing was introduced. Too bad Gibson didn't do much new with it afterwords, other than use it as an easy way to jump from character to character. You're description sounds like the golden age trilogy is comparable to those aspects of Neuromancer. I'll check them out. From my local state-run library. Seconding The Golden Age. It is really, really idea dense and a lot of them are quite original. Don't bother with any of his other books (the first half of War of the Dreaming is pretty decent but the second... UUUGHHHHHH). I expected so much more from him.
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Dec 10, 2013 23:31
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gently caress the rest of his books but you should probably read House of Suns because it loving rules.
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Dec 21, 2013 19:42
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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?
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Dec 23, 2013 05:14
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thespaceinvader posted:I've been thinking about Asher but have NO clue where to start with his work - can anyone make a recommendation? Either Gridlinked or The Skinner. They're separated by enough time that reading one doesn't really spoil the other. The Skinner is better but Gridlinked was written first and is still okay. Gridlinked is more of a straight sci fi action book about an agent of the principal human civilisation who has recently been disconnected from mental interface with AIs tracking down a terrorist. The Skinner is about a world in the same universe with one of the most bizarre ecosystems I have ever read about. The world was set up by criminals and kind of deals with the fallout of that, in addition to the fact that some of the native flora give immortality (not as big a deal in this setting as it sounds because there are other paths to immortality but it's still important). What really sets Asher apart for me is his imagination for alien life. Some really cool ideas as to how a planet's biosphere might develop. The quality of the writing is solid, too, and the books move along at a decent pace. The only thing some people find odious about Asher's politics is he will often interject with statements on the superiority of artificial intelligences to humanity and how everyone who doesn't allow an AI to make all of the political and bureaucratic decisions is a fool. It might be seen as a little authoritarian but I don't really have any problems with it because if we actually did develop benevolent weakly godlike intelligences I'd probably want them making decisions for us as well.
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Jan 7, 2014 03:31
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Strategic Tea posted:And I was going to read his stuff too. Can there be one sci-fi author who isn't a massive shitheel (or dead)? I find this kind of farcical. Reading one tweet and suddenly "Nope! I wouldn't enjoy those! Couldn't allow myself to enjoy them, in fact!" is pretty silly.
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Jan 8, 2014 18:08
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Vacuum Diagrams is pretty good. I couldn't get into his novels.
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Jan 8, 2014 19:10
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The Causal Angel gonna loving own. Looking forward to Zoku culture and discovering whether or not they were in fact the 'good guys' (at least as far as our modern sensibilities can recognise such).
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Jan 10, 2014 18:19
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crowfeathers posted:I liked A Deepness in the Sky more than A Fire Upon the Deep. Does that make sense? Yes. A Fire Upon the Deep was higher concept and had better high points but was overall not as well written. Vinge grew up as a writer and there were decades between them.
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Jan 10, 2014 20:44
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andrew smash posted:when is it supposed to come out? April or May. Echopraxia is also due around then. This year is going to be really cool for sci fi.
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Jan 10, 2014 20:57
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fookolt posted:http://io9.com/all-the-essential-science-fiction-and-fantasy-books-com-1498833055 Has Jeff got anything more planned for Ambergris? Finch felt like the prelude to more. An entire multiverse of loving up Ambergrisian forces distorted by divergent realities. It was weird and horrible and awesome. And they may have just committed genocide by killing the Greycaps.
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Jan 11, 2014 19:36
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Decius posted:Jeff VanderMeer comes to mind. His stuff is a bit similar to Bas Lag although the socio-political themes aren't as deep and the style/topic of the books differ quite strongly, even inside the same universe (Ambergris), far more than the Bas Lag books. Would you classify Ambergris as having leftist leanings? Finch felt more anti-authoritarian (authoritarian not being an exclusive property of the right) in the vein of 1984 and Shriek and The Book of Ambergris felt like a weird melding of feudal and industrial era England which don't have much to do with modern politics.
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Jan 20, 2014 14:30
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WastedJoker posted:Does the political slant of a book really bother people that much? Many people in this thread will refuse to read anything by an author who espouses right-wing views outside of a book, so apparently it does. It rarely bothers me personally unless it is extremely overt. The only book from my recent readings that annoyed me enough to stop reading was The Dispossessed, probably because of my economics degree and its casual dismissal of the discipline. I was just interested in that take of VanderMeer's stuff because I didn't get that particular impression. His books do have political themes, I just didn't think of them in that way.
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Jan 20, 2014 14:46
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Depends on the book, really. For everyone who hears this about John C Wright may I recommend you read the first book of The Golden Age. It is incredibly idea dense and depicts a near-utopia that isn't a far right wing fantasy but is just loving interesting. More dense in ideas than The Quantum Thief which is a supreme compliment. Don't touch his later stuff. While there is some good stuff it is quite sparse and he is indeed a bit of a Christian/Libertarian nut. Neurosis fucked around with this message at 16:16 on Jan 20, 2014 |
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Jan 20, 2014 16:14
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Cardiovorax posted:Wright is an insane Mormon who hates gay people with a passion, but The Golden Age is really surprisingly good about it. The protagonist occasionally points out how much he loves the free market, but he also continuously shits in his own shoes because of his smug sense of entitlement, so it kind of equals out. Yep. The protagonist seems relatively balanced early on. Later he encounters people outside the general society and falls prey to their wiles instantly because he has no idea what is going on. Then he lectures them on decent behaviour while not even vaguely being connected to their reality. In the third book Atkins tells him he is a oval office and he doesn't quite get it. Then you read the first book of the War of the Dreaming and it is fun fantasy where everything in Gaiman's Sandman is turned up to 11... And then you read the second book and it becomes awful beyond belief. As I've said before, I'd recommend all of the Golden Age, but the later stuff, uggghhh...
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Jan 20, 2014 18:00
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I have heard nearly universal praise for Saga but I have only found it passable to above average. A lot of the time it just feels like it's meandering and I don't really care about what's going on.
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Jan 23, 2014 17:57
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So, Amazon are alerting me to the existence of a new John C Wright book due to having previously purchased the Golden Age books. Has anyone read Count to a Trillion and its sequels? I began it but the prose and behaviour were a little too strange and offputting and I found it hard to get through. I also felt some slight hints it would blossom into a hardcore right wing polemic I would be unable to endure. I was also still suffering from the second part of the War of the Dreaming. To those who have read it: how much of the series is his wonderful imagination from the Golden Age, and how much of it is thinly veiled proselytising for obnoxious beliefs?
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Jan 29, 2014 11:40
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Fried Chicken posted:I really can't without spoiling it. Everyone talks about the one big trait, but there is a bunch of other stuff that is almost completely alien (like, split away from our branch of life while we were still single celled, confirmed only through work on deep sea vents and the archaeological evidence of microbiological activities levels of alien) that is part of them and core plot points. From what he posted on the two editions he was quite unhappy with the original and has not expressed the same level of dissatisfaction with the second. He described the level of discomfort he felt with it as being comparable to what he felt with Blindsight. Hopefully that means the ending isn't quite as rushed (I actually didn't mind the ending and thought it was okay, but going by general sentiment). The first editor he had sounded flakey and weird as hell.
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Feb 1, 2014 11:50
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DontMockMySmock posted:Has anyone ever read a book based on a video game/movie/etc. that wasn't awful? I sure haven't, especially not novelizations. The Crysis 2 novelisation by Peter Watts is not bad at all.
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Feb 5, 2014 03:57
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RoboCicero posted:Anyone read Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer? It came out a few days ago and I snapped it up though I'm currently working through Americanah, a book in an entirely different genre. I finished reading it last night. It's pretty short and enjoyable. If I had to think of one phrase to describe the book it would be oppressive and paranoid, in a way which the Ambergris books never quite are. The expedition in the novel breaks down pretty quickly and the members do not trust each other. There are basically no positive human interactions shown in the book. Part of that is due to the narrator, who is herself a reticent type who is quite poor at human contact. It's pretty light on explanations and the thing I will most remember about it is this general malaise. The explanations will presumably come in the sequels - there's one due out in May and another out in... August, I think.
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Feb 7, 2014 02:41
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Cardiovorax posted:I've been trying to read the first book of Kate Elliott's Crown of the Stars series. The very first chapter luridly describes a slave girl being beaten so hard by the priest who owns her that she loses his rape baby. Mediocre books. You won't be losing much by giving up now.
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Feb 7, 2014 11:53
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RoboCicero posted:Just finished Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer -- It's pretty good! The sense of the uncanny and the horror of the protagonist's situation is really well done and there's a ton of awesomely creepy parts as the book goes on. As you might expect from Vandermeer's stuff, it's heavily focused on fungus, moss, and lichen, but moreso than his other works there's a focus in infestation and colonization that pervades the book. Unlike, Shriek, an Afterword, or Finch though, there isn't the "knowable versus unknowable" -- the protagonist is sort of sandwiched between a weird and sinister government and the weird and terribly apathetic environment she's sent into and anyone who might know anything aren't telling. It is really awesome that they're all coming out this year. Looking forward to May. I really liked the book, as well. I didn't mind the ending - I knew it was part of a series and it pretty much fit with what we knew of Area X. I am wondering if the books are part of the broader Ambergris multiverse - there are still some alien intelligences and unknown things going on there which hadn't been dealt with in Finch. There's no need for it to be and it more probably than not won't be linked but it's possible.
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Feb 12, 2014 12:42
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Anyone who has a passing interest in sci-fi is the sort of person who would enjoy Rajaniemi's work. It's really loving good.
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Feb 14, 2014 13:22
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General Battuta posted:I thought it was a bit simplistic - pretty banal cheeseburger SF afflicted by an awful goonlord protagonist. A pleasant read but not much takeaway. I mean The Quantum Thief here, I've liked some of Rajaniemi's short stories a fair bit more. I find this to be a strange opinion. The Quantum Thief impressed me as one of the most idea dense novels I have ever read, with an interesting depiction of a futuristic Solar System, beautiful prose and an engaging storyline. I don't really understand how Jean is a 'goonlord' either. He's a compulsive kleptomaniac given to grandiose gestures and expression. Some of his interactions with women might be described as goony but it fits pretty well with the rest of his persona.
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Feb 15, 2014 03:48
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It is worth reading only as a part of the series. There's precious little space opera going on in it and a lot of poo poo to do with the tines. The next one will probably be better.
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Feb 17, 2014 07:47
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Is River of Gods the right place to start with Ian McDonald?
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Feb 19, 2014 17:56
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People on this site in particular are very quick to assert an author's views make him or her unreadable. The changes to the moderation lately are diminishing that, but Jesus it often seems people are worried about thinking incorrectly. When dealing with far future poo poo a lot of political views become irrelevant. For instance, fascism becomes kind of an odd discussion when the governing body truly is several hundred times more intelligent than us.
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Feb 19, 2014 21:35
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Nevvy Z posted:Holy poo poo I really like The Quantum Thief. Besides Stross, where can I find more cool poo poo like this? As someone above recommended, The Golden Age is probably the closest thing. It has a similar (if not sometimes actually higher) density of ideas and is an extremely imaginative far future vision of the Solar System. Don't read anything else by the author, though, and find out as little as you can about his opinions. I'm halfway through River of Gods by Ian McDonald and it seems comparable, also, in the way ideas are delivered and the pacing. Rajaniemi cites McDonald as a major influence so the similarity isn't a huge surprise. It's near future and more directly referable to our own world, though.
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Feb 21, 2014 05:41
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Seldom Posts posted:Another big point of confusion in the debate is are we talking authors or their books? I am would love to discuss the racism in Lovecraft's books, but who cares about some anecdote where he was racist in his actual life? Racism on Lovecraft is kind of trite. (1) No one reads him for his incisive social commentary. (2) It is widely acknowledged he is a flawed writer with a powerful imagination who writes in a very specific style. (3) He comes from a time where such opinions were more acceptable. (4) His personal development was retarded as hell due to his weird mother and how reclusive he became. (5) He created his own bubble of familiar things to shield himself, so anything like race that challenged it was distasteful. It's not really much of a discussion. He was a strange guy who wrote some influential stories and had some major character flaws. In the books the racism manifested as another example of what was other and strange, but in itself I don't think is worthy of much comment given the things set out above. Anyway, I do agree that authors having opinions I disagree with is only offensive to the extent it influences their work. People with opinions I consider bad can still write well and have valid points. Sometimes something is worth reading despite that, sometimes it overwhelms it, and a lot of where the line falls is hugely subjective. I can tolerate a lot of things I don't agree with as long as it doesn't guide the story. The Dispossessed is an example of something I just couldn't read because of how fundamentally I differed from the author, but the whole story was about cultural norms so that kind of disagreement was always going to break the book (I don't mind some of Le Guin's other stuff). Someone incidentally talking about something I disagree with or spending a few pages wanking over some bullshit isn't going to make me throw away the book. I don't agree with Mieville politically but I still like a lot of things about his writing. Neurosis fucked around with this message at 21:12 on Feb 21, 2014 |
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Feb 21, 2014 21:09
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Alhazred posted:That's not actually true. Lovecraft was so racist that even his contemporaries asked him to tone it down a notch. I am going to be pedantic and point out I said 'more', not 'acceptable', and his circle of friends may not have reflected wider society. Lovecraft himself was hypocritical given his marriage.
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Feb 21, 2014 21:15
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CestMoi posted:You are all incredibly stupid. Tell me more 
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Feb 21, 2014 22:15
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About right.
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Feb 23, 2014 13:37
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The Gunslinger posted:I see what you mean but for me at least it doesn't jive with some of what he presents in the book like Sarasti being controlled by the Captain AI the entire time. I know we're getting a sidequel or something so hopefully he'll explore that in more detail. It's funny actually, I was really happy with Blindsight when I finished but after a second read a bunch of little inconsistencies have started nawing at me. I really enjoy his ideas on consciousness and will but he also throws out a bunch of story elements that never seem to go anywhere. Sarasti didn't quite seem to live up to how predatory vampires were meant to be. Could be he was selected partly for that factor, given how things ended up. We'll get to find out more about what happened on Earth come August when Echopraxia gets released. From reading the spoiler bits he's put up... Things are not simply about proceedings on Earth.
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Feb 28, 2014 03:55
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The Diamond Dogs novella by Reynolds focuses pretty heavily on body modification. It's fairly short so it might not be appropriate, though.
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Mar 8, 2014 08:56
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Edit: poo poo, wrong thread.
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Mar 10, 2014 10:05
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corn in the bible posted:Vinge's best thing is always the alien races he writes about, like the Tines or the Spiders in A Deepness in the Sky The worst part is everything else. The main plot of Fire Upon the Deep was a huge slog for me to get through, but I did it because I liked learning about what was going on with the Tines. Exact opposite experience for me. I loved finding out about the broader space opera stuff and the tines were boring as hell. The spiders were a step up but I still preferred finding out what was going on with the Emergency and Qeng Ho.
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Mar 19, 2014 08:34
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I remember hearing good things about those books and that GRRM had been inspired by them and I read them and kept waiting for them to get good. They never did.
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Mar 27, 2014 12:56
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uberkeyzer posted:The main characters are pretty evenly split between men and women and the women are rarely in "damsel in distress" spots where men have to rescue them. It still happens, just when the women are rescued they are insufferable cunts about it and have no regard for their rescuer. When Mat rescued the wonder girls within 2 minutes they were physically threatening him with their wizard powers.
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Mar 27, 2014 15:03
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I just saw that the release date for Richard K Morgan's The Dark Defiles has been set for October 7. Looking forward to that. I didn't really like his Takeshi Kovacs novels all that much but have enjoyed the fantasy series a lot.
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Mar 28, 2014 08:48
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