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Fart of Presto posted:Tor.com released a short story collection for free in eBook format on all major platforms Thanks for pointing this out. That's a lot of good authors and I'd far rather read on a reader than in a browser window.
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Jan 31, 2020 23:05
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I read Merchanter's Luck as my introduction to Cherryh and I've got 40000 in Gehenna to read as well because it's apart of the same two-parter. What people say about Cherryh's world building ability is spot-on - I really enjoyed the first half of the book getting to know everyone and everything, but thought the end of the book was a bit rushed and sometimes a little confused as to what was happening. Good book though; definitely scratched a sci-fi itch after an unintentionally heavy fantasy book start to 2020.
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Mar 8, 2020 12:21
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StrixNebulosa posted:Thread, help me! I'm in the mood for relatively light reading, and I want it to be sci-fi. Ideally a 4+ book series with shortish novels (long will do in a pinch) that's fun pulpy star trek-esque adventures. The caveat being that I don't want to deal with any sexism/racism, I'd prefer a protagonist who isn't a dude, and the writing needs to be at least decent. Corey J White's Voidwitch Saga is only three books, but it's definitely sci fi, massively pulpy, has a female lead and you'll blast through them pretty quickly. Don't think there's a Star Trek comparison. They're dumb as all hell, but were pretty fun.
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Apr 26, 2020 11:28
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Dragon's Egg features multiple generations set over a relatively short period of time (from a human perspective). Maybe a slight bend of the question, but really worth reading.
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Jul 17, 2020 16:22
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I absolutely hated Consider Phlebas and that confused me because I assumed I’d love the Culture series. Would I stand a chance of liking any of the other books knowing I didn’t like it, or should I just move on - it’s not look my reading list is getting any shorter without adding another multi book series to it. Basically I thought the book ran like a series of And then... statements where the main character continually got saved in the nick of time, and I found the cult sequence just needlessly harrowing to the point that I felt like I just didn’t need to be reading it any more.
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Jul 24, 2020 18:51
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OK, well I can put some of the others on the list then and see if I get on any better with them than Consider Phlebas. I do like the idea of the series from what I've read about it, so it's worth another shot if this book is somewhat different from the others.
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Jul 24, 2020 23:21
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freebooter posted:And have on my TBR pile: Three Body Problem is the first contact book for me now I think. It's not only about first contact, but a treatise about the whole theory of first contact and what that entails. I guess the exploration of that is more in the second book, Dark Forest, but its alluded to in the first. There's a lot of weirdness in the trilogy that doesn't quite work, but specifically on the concept of meeting aliens, it absolutely nails it.
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Jul 26, 2020 19:14
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Vim Fuego posted:My friend recommended Iain M. Banks Culture series to me, so I picked up an ebook copy of the first one. I'm surprised it's regarded as a classic. It seems to be a series of hamfisted vignettes interspersed with scenes where the calm, collected, much-sex-having author insert is held captive for pages and pages of exposition on some grotesque or other. But hey, you know there's hundreds of pages left so he's not going to die so why does it take 20 pages of torture (both of the main character and the reader) before he mercifully escapes? The cannibal scene was just... gross? And really long. And now the author has spent like 5 or 10 pages describing how cool the card game 'damage' is, and how only the coolest most badass people in the galaxy play it, and I'm dropping this. Ha, it's me from about a month ago. I picked up Player of Games after being massively turned off by Consider Phlebas and it's much more like the book I was expecting it to be. It's properly drawn me in and feels like a big space opera, not some disgusting scene-a-thon that never seemed to be going anywhere. So maybe try that if you're still interested in Culture? I gave up on Consider Phlebas and I'm not regretting having not gone back at all.
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Aug 9, 2020 12:00
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Fried Sushi posted:Had heard good things about Binti, think I bought the first book when it was on sale but hadn't gotten around to reading it yet, the full trilogy for $2 seems like a great deal. Binti’s really good. All three books together are about the same length as a ‘regular’ book, and you’ll breeze through pretty quickly as it throws cool ideas at you about three times a page. I think the only annoyance was that because it is three books there’s some needless repetition in books two and three, but it’s a very minor complaint.
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Aug 16, 2020 18:53
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Lemniscate Blue posted:Avoiding spoilers for the rest of the trilogy has been tough since it seems like I'm the last goon on the forums to pick it up. I started reading the first one last night too. Also very much spoiler free so far, and at about 100 pages in, really enjoying it.
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Sep 7, 2020 18:19
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My very short trip report on The Traitor Baru Cormorant was that it was incredible and I've gone straight on to book two. I very rarely mainline a series of books; there's too much else to read and not enough time, so consider this a strong recommendation. Dickinson has a great turn of phrase on occasion - some moments of beautiful prose, some absolutely metal statements. He really balances badass fantasy with being at least somewhat grounded in realism and I've fell pretty hard for it. I look forward to joining the rest of you in not being about to read book four...
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Sep 13, 2020 12:03
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Silver2195 posted:The Dark Forest has a different translator and much worse prose, IMO, so I think your problem is with the author rather than the translator. Yeah, Ken Liu's supposed to be the gold standard for translating Chinese sci fi and The Dark Forest read much worse than either of the other two books in the trilogy which supports that. That's just the way they're written I guess; they definitely can be a slog.
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Sep 18, 2020 19:11
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General Battuta posted:It's the best of the three, though. It is, yes. A shame to miss out on all the cool ideas. I mean, the prose isn’t good, but it’s still a very impressive piece of fiction.
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Sep 18, 2020 21:04
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Mr. Nemo posted:Piranesi, by Susanne Clark. Norrel and Strange has been sittiong on my kindle for a long time due to length. This was a nice way to get a quick taste of what to expect. I honestly don't have much to say, it was a quick read. It's set on a world that's fun to read about, the characters develop nicely enough. Plenty of questions don't get answered, not a negative thing, but if that's what you are looking for you'll get disappointed. I really enjoyed it. It's short, fun throughout. The plot reveals nicely and although it doesn't sit down and explain everything at the end, there was more than enough that I felt there'd been a proper end to the story. I think it's the sort of thing that will get a lot of pondering on and off for a while, which is always a nice thing to have after finishing a book. I think the thing I most appreciated about it is that there's a really good Lovecraftian Mythos vibe going on, without being in any way horrific or tied to that body of work. It riffed off a lot of same beat; other worldly places, cults, psychological trauma, but moves past all the staid 'unfathomable angles' stuff that's now quite tired. I repeat, it's not even trying to be a Mythos piece, it just reminded me of it in a good way.
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Sep 25, 2020 07:45
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Mr. Nemo posted:Yeah, it leaves some interesting questions hanging, but they don't really need answers. ANd even though I get it's not the point I would've loved a travelogue of different rooms. I'd love a map. If nothing else it'd be a great setting for an RPG of some sort.
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Sep 26, 2020 07:11
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PawParole posted:anyone got any good novels about settling other planets or generation ships? 40,000 in Gehenna is your settling a planet book set across multiple generations (not on a generation ship per se, just in the colony the gets established). It's slow and weird and not for everyone I'd imagine but I found it engrossing. It does not go how you first expect it to go.
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Dec 27, 2020 23:39
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Is there anything to know about reading Foundation? Should I approach the books in written order, or the chronological order starting with the books that were written later? I vaguely remember having read some part of the series as a teenager, but can't remember a whole lot about it. It's a big miss on my list of big Sci Fi series that I've not read though, so I think I should at least give it a chance even though I'm aware that it's probably not going to live up to expectations.
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Dec 30, 2020 13:26
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Ani posted:I would start with publication order and you can definitely skip anything but the original trilogy if you aren’t feeling it. The original books were written in the 50s and the later ones and prequels were written 30 years later and feel pretty different. Selachian posted:I think the first book in the original trilogy is the dullest because it's just one problem after another popping up and being solved just as the Seldon Plan predicts. It gets more interesting in the second book onward after the Mule shows up. All good, thanks for that. I have a sneaking suspicion that I might have read Prelude back along so entirely possible I've not read any of the main series at all.
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Dec 30, 2020 15:22
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I’ve just finished A Desolation of Peace and really enjoyed it. It felt quite different from the first book, but benefited from a lot of the setup, though I thought it stood alone pretty well as a first contact piece regardless of whether you’d read the first book or not (which you should, be cause that pretty good too). I honestly thought for some reason that after the first book, we were going to jump some time or start a new thread with different characters, so actually quite pleased to see that wasn’t the case.
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Mar 21, 2021 16:01
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Walh Hara posted:A Memory Called Empire was published in 2019. It's also very good. If he somehow has read that already: the sequel was published March 2021. It's my favourite newly released ongoing series, I'd recommend it to anyone who's looking for good sci fi. There's good world building, the characters aren't made of cardboard and there's a good blend of action and intrigue so it'll likely do something for the reader even if you usually only read one or the other.
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May 20, 2021 12:05
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Susan Clarke's Piranesi has won this year's Women's Prize for Fiction. Which is good, because it's excellent and comfortably the most fresh and enjoyable thing I read last year. I really need to get around to invested the time in Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell...
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Sep 8, 2021 23:02
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I'm reading Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell at the moment and I felt absolutely tricked after the first hundred pages for it being painfully slow and absolutely nothing like Piranesi. I'm about 800 pages in now and firm of the belief that it's excellent for entirely different reasons. And I don't care two hoots for Regency-era gentlemen and haven't read any of the books being lampooned. I can see me recommending it to a lot of people. Also, for being 1,200 pages long, it doesn't feel at all like a drag once everything starts to pick up. Sure, it's taking longer to read than a normal book, but I've read books half the length that have felt much longer (because they're terrible and I hate leaving books unfinished, so - death march).
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Dec 30, 2021 17:28
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Sailor Viy posted:Any good books with a Dark Souls/Elden Ring vibe? By which I don't necessarily mean medieval guys in plate mail, but more the moody atmosphere, themes of loneliness or decay, and oblique storytelling. Also, anything with elaborate monster designs (which I guess is much harder to pull off in fiction than in visual mediums). I've just read Titus Groan and I was getting massive Dark Souls vibes from the descriptions of Gormenghast. In fact having read it, I'm convinced the crumbling castle, decay, general sense of despair and pointlessness must have been an inspiration for that game series. Also a good book, although I've not got to the sequels yet.
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Nov 2, 2022 16:59
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zoux posted:- me reading Greg Egan Is this a regular Egan thing? I've just finished Permutation City and I loved the ideas but damned if I knew what was going on for a lot of the time. If their other works are the same, I'll probably not bother...
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Jan 14, 2023 17:49
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Not that I had any reason to question the science/math in Permutation City, but I did feel like Egan could have tried harder to explain what was happening to less technical readers. Maybe that's on me because of the lack of math in me, but I feel like I've read other heavily technical/"hard science" books before and had the author condense the important bits down to something readable. There were sections here that I skim read like a text book because for all the re-reading in the world that wasn't going to make sense. OTOH, that's fine - I can see why someone who did understand might really get a kick from it.
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Jan 15, 2023 10:05
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branedotorg posted:Has anyone read any modern cyberpunk stuff that they can recommend? I'm dragging my way through Malazan, (5% left on the kindle omnibus edition) and want a real change of pace. Corey J. White's Repo Virtual is pretty good. It's a solidly 'classic' sci-fi book with the benefit of another thirty or forty years of technological progress to build on. I thought it was really solid.
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May 2, 2023 22:43
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Phlebas was the one I started and didn't like, skipped, and have now read everything else in the Culture series. So now I'm thinking it's worth going back to it for completeness, but I remember really not enjoying that book ~5 years ago. It's obviously the first book, and I think an old book by the time it came out, something Banks reworked or rewrote when he wanted to move into Sci-Fi. I don't know if that makes it The Tricky First Novel or whatever, I just sort of feel like I owe it to the series to make it through it now... And it does explain/set a lot of the stage for the rest of the books, even if they're not direct sequels. Look to Windward was fine for not having finished the first one.
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Jun 21, 2023 17:14
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I'd echo that about Titanium Noir - it felt like an escape piece for Harkaway, can almost imagine him writing it as a snack between something much bigger and more involved. It was a fun read (And actually refreshingly brief as far as I was concerned), but it's got nothing of the massive scope that Gnomon has. Would absolutely recommend, just know what you're getting. And, sort of goes without saying, if you don't like noir then you are getting it undiluted here so maybe look somewhere else?
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Jun 27, 2023 06:53
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I'm reading Earthsea for the first time. I picked up that huge illustrated version and I'm going to read one story, then something else, then back again until I've made my way through the whole thing. A Wizard of Earthsea was very good, but I'm about half way through The Tombs of Atuan at the moment and this is incredible. The opening descriptions of the rituals in the temple had me hooked and it's just got better from there. My gap book was the first of the Lost Fleet books, Dauntless because someone recommended them here a few weeks back. What utterly entertaining trash; I devoured that last week, got the same half-empty feeling of satisfaction you get after a really dirty burger and will absolutely be back for more. Haven't read mil SF for a long time but it certainly has it's place in my heart.
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Aug 20, 2023 08:17
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Read The Sheep Look Up after seeing it recommended here a few times. People are not kidding when they say that you'll need a minute after reading that... I don't think I've ever read anything that so neatly encapsulates how utterly disconnected our impact on the planet is from what that actually means for the planet. To think that this is essentially 50 years old now, and full of the same poo poo you see daily on the front page of any newspaper/news site you care to mention. Depressing, infuriating, I dunno man, it's very much a Team Meteor sort of book. So anyway, I need to go touch some grass or something.
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Aug 28, 2023 18:47
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Hobnob posted:
The start of Station 11 hit me hard in a way I was very aware it would not have five years ago. And that book was generally not all that doom and gloom. The other one that's always stuck with me is On The Beach, which I adore as a book but really doesn't encourage dwelling on. Anyway, I continue onwards with Earthsea, which will do me the world of good.
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Aug 28, 2023 20:04
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Nghi Vo's latest Mammoths at the Gates now means there are four awesome stories in this series. They're like 100 page shiny jewels that pop up every so often and I drop everything to read them because they're all so drat good. This one is slightly less myths and legends than some of the previous ones, instead just being a drat good story about grief. It's no worse for it.
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Sep 16, 2023 12:36
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smackfu posted:It seems odd to me she definitively ended the series given its essentially just completely different books in a shared universe. Some shared characters but you could easily write one with no shared characters. There's a lot in the Galaxy and the Ground Beneath about expectation and doing what people want of you, and the need for moving on anyway. That felt like it was more than just a story, and more of an explanation. It's a shame, but on the other hand the Monk and Robot series is different but also very good.
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Oct 29, 2023 09:08
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Have read Jo Walton's Thessaly trilogy starting with The Just City over the last few weeks and cannot recommend it highly enough for anyone that enjoys a bit of Greek mythology blended with likeable characters and a bit of musing on the meaning of life. The third book gets a bit ambitious and doesn't quite stick the landing, but that aside it's probably the best thing I've read about people trying to Figure Things Out this year. It's not entirely cosy reading, but it does a pretty good job of being uplifting and hopeful which I'm pretty sure I needed just now.
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Dec 17, 2023 10:46
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Take the plunge! Okay! posted:I am looking for stuff to read. I really need something that’s decently written and mixes that cosmic horror dread with utter bleakness. Mystical and unexplained is ok. I absolutely loved The Gone World and was very happy with Ship of Fools, to mention some of the thread favorites. Carrier Wave, also very enjoyable. The Last Astronaut was meh, too rational and wrapped up. So please recommend me something I might enjoy. Have you read Annihilation and the read of the Southern Reach trilogy. It's precisely cosmic horror and bleakness. IMO the second two books don't live up to the promise of the first, but it's worth the entry fee just for the first book, which is brilliant. Charles Stross's A Colder War is only a short-story/novelette, but also worth a read.
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Dec 28, 2023 09:39
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And that's a cool way to recommend a trilogy!
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Dec 28, 2023 15:32
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Notable SF/F I read this year: Station Eleven / The Ghost Hotel / Sea of Tranquility - I'd not even heard of Emily St. John Mandel and was recommended by someone I volunteer with who, to the best of my knowledge, isn't really much of a sci-fi fan. All just very well written, each gripped me very quickly. Children of Time / Children of Ruin (Still need to read the last one) - Some Banksian Big Ideas spacey sci-fi that lived up to my expectations of it. Consistently being impressed by little details. Made me more tolerant of spiders. A Half-Built Garden - A flawed and occasionally annoying book that nevertheless handled the questions of what first contact would mean better than anything else I can remember reading. Really thoughtful, definitely glad I got into it. Gormenghast - Titus Groan didn't completely click for me, but I loved the lore and world-building so had to carry on and read Gormenghast. It's monumentally good. If you want beautiful, long, unnecessary prose about a crumbling castle and it's weird inhabitants, look no further. The Sheep Look Up - Just terrifyingly right about basically everything. Depressing. The Thessaly Trilogy - As mentioned recently, philosophy + greek gods + sci-fi = a book that was essentially written just for me.
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Dec 31, 2023 14:33
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Arsenic Lupin posted:
I read the first of this series and bounced right off it. I just found it very... flat. And at a year's remove, I equally cannot remember a thing about the first one. And I was really poised to like that series based off the general premise! Chairman Capone posted:You should watch the Station Eleven miniseries. It's not a 100% direct adaptation of the book (a big part of it is almost like a "what if?" alternate take on the novel) but consensus from people who have seen/read both seems to be it's the better version of the story. There was an official podcast that went along with the show and one episode had Emily St. John Mandel talking with the showrunner about the differences between the novel and show. For what it's worth, the show aired late 2021/early 2022 and it was easily my favorite piece of TV from both years. Can't praise it highly enough. Yes, good point. I really should. Major Ryan fucked around with this message at 21:33 on Dec 31, 2023 |
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Dec 31, 2023 21:27
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A The Library at Mount Char review for Secret Santa Rid: I'm conflicted. I started out thinking it was kooky but generally fairly good, and then I noticed that it was the author's first book and that excused a few of the awkward things I'd not like with the odd piece of bad prose or strange choice of words. Not a fan of the excessive violence (which is just a me problem), but I was basically having a good time with it until Carolyn won, at which point the book didn't really seem to know what it wanted to do, wobbled about a bit and ended up with "it was Father's plan all along", which just seemed rather weak. However, the world of the book is quite a neat take on god-like beings, especially anti-heroic ones, so bonus points for being original because that's often lacking. I'd have like to have seen more of the other 'players' - we got a lot of foreshadowing and then nothing really played out, but it make for some good world-building. So basically, if it's supposed to be a love-it-or-hate-it book that's not where I fell, because I thought overall it was alright, and absolutely worth reading, because I doubt I'd have picked that up outside of being sent it for Secret Santa. A shame there hasn't (yet) been a sequel, because another shot might iron out some of the issues and turn it into a really good work.
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Jan 1, 2024 23:08
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Remulak posted:Well I bought Michelle Sagara's Cast in Shadow after skipping SkipNebulossa’s dissertation simply because that level of passion means it’s worth $10 I’m lucky enough to be able to afford. Same. Having someone go to bat for a book in that way is great and I look forward to reading it now. The blurb on the Kobo site doesn't make it sound a tenth as interesting! Still got quite the booklog though, so it's going to be a while...
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Jan 6, 2024 10:47
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