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MockingQuantum posted:For what it's worth, 2 Like 2 Lightning does back off of that style a bit once the book gets rolling. There are occasional spans where it pops back up, though. It takes a bit, but the book actually becomes pretty compelling techno/political conspiracy fare before too long. The stuff with Bridger is present throughout too, but he's actually not the focus (of the first book, at least, I assume he becomes more central later?) I have never read a book before where about half way through I decided that I hated all the characters and wanted to see bad stuff happen to them. Any other books like that?
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Oct 7, 2019 20:03
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TheAardvark posted:Finished Empress of Forever and was uhh, a bit disappointed. It felt like it was trying, but worse at the contemporary voice than Gideon/Murderbot, while simultaneously having a less compelling story and cast. I liked it but I would have honestly preferred to read the the alternative story they mentioned at the end instead.
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Oct 9, 2019 15:13
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Ramrod Hotshot posted:Just finished Hyperion. It was good, not great, and certainly not what I expected. For some reason I thought it would be a super abstract, Pynchonesque, dark space mystery. Instead it was a pulpy, pop-culture laden universe, almost akin to Futurama or the Hitchiker's Guide in that respect. Not really a bad thing, but I did have a couple issues. I think Hyperion is a two part book and isn't counted as a sequels in the "the sequels are crap" statement. I enjoyed the sequel (another two part book) but it was pretty different.
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Oct 23, 2019 20:39
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Cryptozoology posted:Been reading Luna, I'm a third ish of the way through Wolf Moon. Gotta say there's not enough Moon Facts?? Wanted more of that poo poo. For real though: they do explain it in the books but basically it's bipolar disorder that through medication and culture is synchronized with the phases of the earth.
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Oct 24, 2019 14:09
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I am looking for something like the Black Company but following a crew of pirates. Something where a pirate crew does clever things, sneaks into legitimate crews and takes over from the inside and such. Does anyone have any recommendations for that? Space pirates are good too.
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Jan 21, 2020 17:41
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anilEhilated posted:I mean, there's a whole Sanderson thread to poo poo in with passive-aggressive posting... I preordered it then saw it is about the length of two of the novellas, then canceled because I'm in a state where I want to read really long poo poo. I hope it goes on sale some day.
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May 4, 2020 16:39
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I have to say that I absolutely love the first bit of Monster, but I'm not exactly sure how to describe why. Other than it gave me that same feeling I get when big corporations are shocked and appalled when their own bad behavior actually comes back and gets them.
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May 15, 2020 23:47
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uber_stoat posted:one of the protagonists of Oath of Fealty is a genius engineer (of course) named Tony Rand (of course). his catch phrase: "think of it as evolution in action." One thing that stuck out for me was at the end there was a character who was tired of all the racist politics and was moving to Rhodesia (which has a black president and is doing very well for itself!).
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Jul 1, 2020 23:20
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Hobnob posted:
Maybe I'm misremembering but I thought the point of oath of feality was that they were wrong to build the acrology like a walled community and they should have made it less like a fortress? I also remember that characters at the end were all like "oops, should have done it differently".
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Jul 2, 2020 05:24
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DACK FAYDEN posted:Did you read Vacuum Diagrams? Because that's the only one of Baxter's works I'd actively recommend (it's a short story collection, spanning time and all set in the Xeelee universe) and if you already read the bad books you might as well get the good one done. I think I would have liked Vacuum Diagrams better if they didn't have the framing story that keep contorting to try and justify the why of each story. As it is I stopped at the one in the living plant tree universe?
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Jul 31, 2020 18:47
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Quinton posted:I was a bit worried about diving into The Tyrant Baru Cormorant without rereading the previous books, but the opening got me back up to speed pretty quickly (but nicely done without a clunky Last Time on Baru Betrays Everyone wall of exposition) and I am excited to be back in this depressing world! I was wondering about rereading. I'm still rereading Gideon before going into Harrow, and I did reread Traitor before reading Monster, but I was wondering if I should reread Traitor and Monster, or just Monster, or skip that. (Very economical to reread books I guess).
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Aug 11, 2020 22:44
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PawParole posted:Just went on a bing of the xeelee sequence novels and holy poo poo the books get wild towards the end ( I read it backwards lol) I bounced off vacuum diagrams. Felt too much like a contrived framing device to connect what felt like an otherwise unrelated collection of short stories. Do the novels hold together better?
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Nov 30, 2020 21:02
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fritz posted:You know what's even more common is UTIs and yet I can only think of one book in which they appear. I mean, yeah. I can only think of the one in The Mirror Empire by Kameron Hurley. I thought there was one in the Hyperion saga but it was just kidney stones.
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Dec 3, 2020 17:27
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tildes posted:Recliners is apparently also free on the Apple bookstore right now 👍🏻 just picked it up. Amazon kindle store also. "Buy now for free"
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Dec 19, 2020 20:21
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General Battuta posted:You joke, but some weird poo poo goes down on this colony, there’s spaceports falling into the earth and huge spiraling mounds controlling behavior and chthonic orgies. Well now I'm interested but it doesn't look like it's on kindle. Amazon is selling a 30 dollar paperback version.
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Dec 28, 2020 18:27
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pradmer posted:The Dispossessed by Ursula K Le Guin - $2.99 quote:Review I'm not familiar, did Ursula K Le Guin used to publish under male pseudonyms?
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Jan 6, 2021 00:33
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I almost bought earthseed because "hey a full series!" but "A multiple Hugo and Nebula Award winner’s powerful saga of survival and destiny in a near-future dystopian America." and I'm not sure if I want to read dystopian future America right now. Is it actually really good and I should get it?
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Jan 14, 2021 00:13
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Oh man! Bought iron dragons mother just a week ago for full price. Finished it two days ago. I found it interesting that it was like 14 real years between book 1 and 2, and 12 from 2 to 3.
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Jan 28, 2021 23:50
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Only quibble I had in Stars are legion are all the characters pointing out how things aren't poisonous, or how nothing really rots, and how things aren't actually trying to kill you, when they're presumably talking about the world they've spent their while lives in and I'm not sure where they would have acquired any other worldview where those things weren't true.
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Apr 13, 2021 01:41
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:He's living his dream The Doors of Eden were like if a cosmic horror had a well balanced sane protagonist. Had all sorts of weird sapient races.
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Jun 8, 2021 20:17
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eke out posted:yeah it's honestly one of the better things i've ever learned about from this thread. it is a strange, experimental passion project that one guy makes basically negative money writing, but there's a lot to it to like (e.g.: the entire way gender is handled is very internally consistent in a specific way but i think literally never explained lol) Any links to the books or store page? Googling "Commonweal" is coming up dry for me. Also i don't think it's a good idea to try claiming that the scrfi and fantasy thread is too good for web serials.
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Aug 8, 2021 15:49
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Ccs posted:
https://www.businessinsider.com/fetus-vision-hearing-development-uterus-2016-9 light makes it inside the womb by the way.
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Aug 9, 2021 16:29
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BurningBeard posted:Fantasy authors need to stop doing this. It’s a tired and offensive trope. Not calling you out specifically it just frustrates me to see it. Offensive?
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Aug 14, 2021 19:15
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Traitor Monster Tyrant Terror Traitor Monster Tyrant Ends Of Terror, Horror, Abomination, Murderer, Genocide, Plague
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Aug 27, 2021 18:42
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Though I've noticed people already confusing the order of Monster and Tyrant. Pretty sure Terror would also confuse people (but that is true for nearly any series so probably shouldn't be that much of a consideration). Ends Of would be much more clearly the end, except if there is a book 5.
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Aug 27, 2021 19:11
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That's sounds like something i want to check out. Wild that 2010 was so different than now, feels like yesterday to me. Edit: Google search brought up the wrong book. Searching...
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Aug 28, 2021 16:11
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Are there any e-ink readers that are small? I have a kindle paperwhite that I never read because it's too big, so I just do the app on my phone but I would prefer an ereader.
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Oct 7, 2021 16:14
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That's my plan. My web serials have dried up so I'm to read the last cradle book, then go full on literary whiplash and reread/read all 4 Terra Ignota books.
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Nov 8, 2021 00:47
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Reading through To Light the Lightning again and I forgot how much of this is trying to figure out what's society and what's Mycroft being weird.
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Nov 19, 2021 21:39
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A Carly Rae Jihad posted:It’s so good. I never read the third or fourth book so I might restart the series soon. The thing I had in mind was the stuff about pretending you can't understand the language you don't identify as as your primary spoken language. It's plausible to me that society has that as a norm but I really can't tell if anyone else thinks that. Other thing I'm finding again, going through their remembrance day stuff, is that their society and world sound so much better than what we have now. Oh my god I want to live there except for all the garbage that happens after.
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Nov 19, 2021 21:49
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Evil Fluffy posted:It definitely took some inspiration from Starship Troopers considering the various similarities such as the Tyranid and the bugs sharing more than a passing resemblance. 40k in Gehenna or Warhammer 40k?
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Nov 21, 2021 23:25
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What's it called when it's Checkof's gun except it just sits there on the wall and never ever shoots anyone?
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Dec 13, 2021 02:29
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Maybe Pennsylvania is just weird? Like, Night in the Woods is set in one of the fading mining towns and they packed it with lore inspired by local history. And there that town that's always on fire that inspired silent hill.
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Dec 14, 2021 08:03
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DurianGray posted:I speed/scan read sometimes, but only when it's a book that I'm not enjoying very much and for whatever reason I need to finish and can't just drop. Definitely never retain anything but broad strokes doing that, though. The sequel is basically just part two of the book (like i had forgotten that it was book two on the reread until suddenly "end of book one of the history of the world" before we had even gotten to things i 'remembered' from the first book) Reading the first three and then diving into 4th here, bit of the way into book two. I remember the first time i read this, at this point i hated all the characters and wanted them all to fail. Enjoying it a lot more on second read through now that i have a bit more context.
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Dec 18, 2021 18:10
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I read and watched the bbc series in parallel and that helped me get through the first hundred pages.
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Dec 28, 2021 19:22
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There is the last angel https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-last-angel.244209/ about an ai embodied dreadnaught, built by humans at their peak development before being conquered and subjuigated by an alien alliance, which has been wageing the war alone for thousands of years. But the story is posted on a bunch of forum threads so it's kind of difficult (for me at least) to keep track of the reading order.
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Jan 4, 2022 07:35
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Hollismason posted:drat I hate when a book you're reading ends on a killer cliffhanger and you know you're not going to find out what happens for like 2 more books because the author has decided to take a break and do something different with the next few books. I've had that happen then you realize the book was published in like 1995 and the author died in 2014 or something. I think metaplanetary did that. Edit: oops they're still alive. Was thinking about when gravity fails by George Alec Effinger. Sibling of TB fucked around with this message at 06:54 on Jan 10, 2022 |
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Jan 10, 2022 06:47
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Just realized that even though i have a bunch of them, I've never actually read any books by Octavia E. Butler. Should fix that.
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Jan 11, 2022 21:21
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Going from Perhaps the Stars (which was loving amazing holy crap!) Directly into the latest Stross new management book is giving me horrible tonal whiplash.
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Feb 1, 2022 06:10
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Another Dirty Dish posted:Currently reading How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu. It’s set in the near future, where everything sucks in a similar way to the present: there’s a pandemic, due to a mysterious virus found in the melting Siberian permafrost. It seems to mutate organs in unpredictable ways, and primarily infects children and advanced elderly, though there’s heavy foreshadowing for it mutating into something that can infect adults. It’s a great book to read if you want to ruin your whole day: chapter 2 features an underemployed comedian who ends up working as a Mickey Mouse analogue at a euthanasia park for children, complete with a 2000 foot murdercoaster; a few chapters later we get a lab pig that became sentient and learned to talk, and it’s about to learn that it was raised to grow organs for harvesting, and that the mutation in its brain is going to kill it eventually. There’s even a funeral industry cryptocoin: “For only one thousand bereavement crypto-tokens, you can scatter your loved one’s ashes on a one-hour cruise around SanFancisco Bay.” Haha! Holy poo poo just your description really brought me down. I guess I'll pass on that one.
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Feb 14, 2022 23:32
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