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Nomnom Cookie posted:i recommend everyone read the entire hyperion series just to experience the work and the author going off the rails simultaneously If you don't have the time for four books, Ilium/Olympos is the same experience, and you only have to get through a couple chapters before it gets medication-level crazy.
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Jan 8, 2022 22:37
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BurningBeard posted:Finished The Book of Strange New Things by Faber, again.
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Feb 4, 2022 19:43
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roomtone posted:what are the best standalone fantasy novels
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Feb 19, 2022 04:05
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FPyat posted:The Stars My Destination had a killer fast pace and a sense of fun and imagination on a level I don't encounter often. Already feeling like I'm starting to forget what happens in it, though.
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Feb 21, 2022 04:30
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buffalo all day posted:Alexander dumas is mad as hell and he’s coming for you Although as I write this, I realize I don't know if The Stars My Destination was really the first book for the trope or if there's some other earlier work I've never heard of.
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Feb 21, 2022 14:01
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Copernic posted:Watts is definitely exploring the implications of these concepts even if he's not precisely an advocate for them. I haven't read blindsight but I don't think, from the descriptions here, it's gonna be the book to change my mind.
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Feb 25, 2022 05:10
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FPyat posted:I'm rereading Diaspora by Greg Egan and it's still as mind-expandingly impactful as the day I first started reading it. Are there any other examples of fiction writing that delves super-deep into software processes? The only other examples that I can think of are the chapter in Absolution Gap by Alastair Reynolds where the ship's subroutine examines sensor data, and Crystal Society by Max Harms, written from the perspective of a half-dozen AI processes collectively managing a single robot body.
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Mar 7, 2022 03:23
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Kalman posted:Zodiac is Stephenson’s best book. I will not be taking any questions. I would characterize this as having chosen poorly.
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Mar 31, 2022 23:36
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FPyat posted:Has anyone read both Revelation Space and Matter by Iain M Banks? I swear I'm going crazy because no one else believes me when I point out the commonalities between the books' endings.
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Apr 10, 2022 17:56
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Megasabin posted:Hot drat, Golden Son, the second book of the Red Rising series was incredible. There's only so much "I'm the smartest person in the universe who can't be beaten -> I have been betrayed by my trusted confidant -> I am the smartest person in the universe who can't be beaten -> I have been betrayed by my trusted confidant -> ...." I could take. I think I stopped after the first obvious betrayal in book 3 and assume there were at least two more before that book ended, if the pattern held. ToxicFrog posted:That's like half the stuff C.J. Cherryh writes, especially the Alliance-Union and Compact Space books. RDM fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Jun 25, 2022 |
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Jun 25, 2022 21:51
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Jedit posted:Has anyone got a recommended reading list for Cherryh excluding Cyteen? My FLCS owner just inherited a bunch from someone who has gone overseas for good and is selling them off cheap.
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Jul 2, 2022 23:55
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I didn't get past 3BP so I don't know about the rest of the series, but my recollection is that I found 3BP irritating cause I thought the science was lovely. A chaotic system doesn't mean unknowable chaos, just that you have to keep updating your predictions with new observations. Also the characters were mostly one dimensional.
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Jul 23, 2022 16:47
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DACK FAYDEN posted:They're literally from the Centauri system, it's a binary star with a third smaller star orbiting. (and so technically yeah it's a four body problem but the planet's mass is negligible compared to even Proxima Centauri) It's one thing to have science fiction be badly written fiction, but the least you can do if you name your book the three body problem is get that part of the science right, goddamn.
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Jul 24, 2022 04:55
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pradmer posted:The Girl with All the Gifts by MR Carey - $2.99
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Jul 25, 2022 05:16
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Jedit posted:They were written at the same time. Mike Carey also appeared in the movie as a zombie, if you keep an eye out.
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Jul 27, 2022 03:15
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Sibling of TB posted:Stop right there! And don't continue the series. Plus they were so creepy horny.
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Aug 6, 2022 04:23
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Zoracle Zed posted:re: blake crouch's upgrade, i got to the encrypted dna secret message and it just got way too stupid for me to continue. in case anyone's curious:
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Aug 6, 2022 23:38
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General Battuta posted:'homozygous recessive on the eye color allele' which is an urban legend, terrible and discredited science Yeah it interacts with all the other melanin biosynthesis and transport genes, but it's still good enough to use as a type example in undergrad genetics.
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Aug 7, 2022 19:36
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General Battuta posted:The alt right is talking about homozygosity!?
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Aug 8, 2022 15:14
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thotsky posted:I read The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, and while I enjoyed some of the more uplifting scenes and generally cute characters, there's a lack of radicalism to the underlying politics that is a little disgusting. It's a lot like firefly in that way.
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Aug 15, 2022 13:46
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ToxicFrog posted:This take is absolutely wild to me because I don't think I have ever see Long Way lauded as "especially optimistic, politically" until your post. The setting it takes place in is a pretty crappy one, in a lot of ways, for a lot of people, and while the sequels get more up-close-and-personal with that, it's not exactly hidden in the first book. It was just... weird. It didn't come together for me (the fact that it took my *absolute* least favorite character archetypes from firefly and dialed them up to 11 didn't help). The sequels could have been better, I don't know.
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Aug 15, 2022 16:53
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Tezer posted:If you google for reviews that include the word 'progressive' you'll find a fair number. I figure when people say the book is 'progressive' they mean 'has aliens that gently caress'.
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Aug 15, 2022 17:19
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Tezer posted:"I know interspecies marriages are for business. It’s just, well —  Why is it always tentacles
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Aug 15, 2022 18:28
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Count Thrashula posted:I have read the Silmarillion! I'm at the point where I've spent like 30 years steeping myself in the LOTR universe and I'm looking to branch out haha I recommend Orconomics, a book which I enjoyed and would characterize as "supermarket checkout-grade".
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Aug 15, 2022 19:31
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quantumfoam posted:David Brin is a baby boomer generation contrarian rear end in a top hat that has been coddled his entire professional life. Glory Season is interesting because it's clearly written to be part of / inspired by the hainish cycle. And it's garbage, the answer to "what if Ursula Le Guin couldn't plot a book and was also poo poo at writing and an all around creepy guy". It's one of the few books I have actively hate read to the end just to make sure I hated it the exact right amount. My point is that if you put me in charge of eugenics David brin would be on my list of dudes to sterilize and probably organ harvest. Dunno why he's so gung ho to establish a master race when he's one of the last people that would be included. RDM fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Aug 15, 2022 |
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Aug 15, 2022 22:39
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Danhenge posted:All of this talk reminded me of the League of Peoples books by James Alan Gardner, which are pretty fun. And now after a generation of this, the only humans worth anything in a crisis are the deformed or disabled. (It's a surprisingly good series even if the writing is pretty hit or miss)
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Aug 17, 2022 00:15
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Sailor Viy posted:What exactly is 'rational fiction'? Does it just mean "like Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality"? I can only imagine what their fiction is, but I'm guessing it's probably not good.
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Aug 17, 2022 16:54
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Sonderval posted:Years late to the party but just finished Gideon and Harrow. God drat they were good. I am now in the mood for more weird fantasy sci fi mashup unknown power etc. I know the next book isn’t far off but is there anything of a similar vein? I’ve always liked the idea of starting fantasy then oops all sci fi.
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Aug 19, 2022 03:36
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If you have KU and haven't read This is How You Lose the Time War, it's on KU and you have a homework assignment
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Aug 19, 2022 13:23
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ToxicFrog posted:Speaking of Cook, Passage at Arms might appeal to people looking for grimy, tense sci-fi. I dunno if it got chopped up in editing but it's pretty hard to get through - it feels like the narrative is all over the place and it's hard to follow who most of the characters are.
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Aug 19, 2022 17:18
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Doktor Avalanche posted:never reading heinlein seems like a good decision so far Starship troopers has a weird "beat your children" and "military pseudofascism is the way to go", but also prominently says this ubermensch culture that's better than liberal democracy is full of child abduction/rape/murder and random street violence. The moon is a harsh mistress is all about how libertarianism/anarchism is the way to go, but also prominently features group marriages to 13 year olds and the tacit acknowledgment that this only works with a Deus ex controlling everything behind the scenes. Stranger in a strange land probably has a bunch of inherent contradictions but I never managed to finish it cause it's really kinda dry and boring. I keep getting told it's a classic though. A better author might have written these contradictory things intentionally to make you think but Heinlein 100% just never noticed I'm sure.
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Aug 21, 2022 17:52
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HaitianDivorce posted:I just finished A Memory called Empire and it left me cold in a way I wasn't expecting. I think the opening is really strong--the Aztec-inspired space empire is cool, the basic problem of "how do I keep my backwater space station independent of these guys playing Civ 5 on Settler difficulty from stomping all over us" is interesting, the early "the ghost in my head is malfunctioning" complication is a great way to turn up the temperature--but then it feels like it spins its wheels for the rest of the book and things mostly happen around her? I think it's worse in the second book because at least the antagonists in the first book are agents of a massive powerful space empire, and the main antagonist in the second one is some hillbilly administrator from space guam. Plus the foreshadowing for the super alien menace is so hamfisted that the characters all look like morons for not figuring it out before the end of the book
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Aug 28, 2022 17:59
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NoneMoreNegative posted:For all the weird writing quirks, Harrow is really just a stock character. 
RDM fucked around with this message at 20:39 on Sep 1, 2022 |
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Sep 1, 2022 20:37
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pradmer posted:Earthseed: The Complete Series by Octavia E Butler - $4.99 Although as I recall it's got the 80s/90s boomer near future where they assumed kids & by association society would just keep getting more and more violent. It's weird to read now that it's just like... yeah we stopped poisoning their brains with lead and things got better.
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Sep 4, 2022 15:30
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Milkfred E. Moore posted:The first chapter of Red Rising is like: I am the grittiest toughest miner known to man -- a helldiver. I use my helldrill to hellmine Helium-3 as I sip from my drinktube. My frysuit is ironically named because it keeps me from frying. I spit into my helmet that stinks like piss. Here on Mars, the planet that is red, girls get married off at fourteen. Life's just that tough on the red planet but my uncle is weak and my father is dead -- everyone is weak, my hands are worn and my expression grim and the caverns of Mars smell like death. The society killed my wife on our wedding day. I am fourteen years old. For some reason Kindle has been trying to sell me the 3rd book in the series for like 5 years, it's not gonna happen.
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Sep 8, 2022 21:36
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habeasdorkus posted:Anathem is a book that deserves the title spec fic rather than sci-fi. It's my favorite of Stephenson's works and I highly recommend it.
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Sep 12, 2022 22:37
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Silver2195 posted:And while there's obviously nuances to it, there's a general idea running through what I've read of his works that technology is cool and, by extension, so are engineers and "hackers". He seems like the kind of person who's appalled by Elon Musk now but thought Elon Musk was cool a few years ago. Don't read Seveneves it's fuckin terrible.
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Sep 15, 2022 00:15
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tiniestacorn posted:Is he a villain Don't read Seveneves it's fuckin terrible. pseudorandom name posted:I dunno, the part where Carly Rodham Holmes almost doomed the human species was kind of funny. RDM fucked around with this message at 01:50 on Sep 15, 2022 |
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Sep 15, 2022 01:35
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Lead out in cuffs posted:To be fair, he dies by bleeding to death through his anus because he was an idiot who didn't understand the giant nuclear engine he created. Also a bunch of his acolytes make a break for Mars and literally everyone else is just "lol RIP", and you never hear from them again. Three cheers for the savior of humanity. It's absolutely possible the book was making GBS threads on him the entire time and I just forgot, I don't remember anything besides a handful of plot highlights. Teal neGrasse Dyson did plot exposition and was the last man alive and I don't remember a single other thing about that character.
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Sep 15, 2022 20:10
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FPyat posted:I'm starting Speaker for the Dead ten years after I finished Ender's Game. Young me spurned reading it because of the lack of epic space war. I'm still totally thrown for a loop by the subplot of Ender's siblings taking over the world and its political discourse by posting online.
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Sep 16, 2022 21:24
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