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Nemesis Of Moles posted:If I really enjoyed the Quantum Thief/Jean Le Flambeur series, especially the later books where the whole fundamental structure of the universe is going apeshit, what else should I check out? Have you read the Hexarchate books yet?
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Oct 7, 2019 21:51
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MockingQuantum posted:Okay this (and the posts above...) lead me to believe that it's probably not my cup of tea for a variety of reasons, I think I'm gonna pass on this one. But we haven't even explained about how battlecruisers go fast and shoot good but also explode goodfast yet! Ceebees fucked around with this message at 23:22 on Nov 12, 2019 |
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Nov 12, 2019 23:09
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nessin posted:??? The unit isn't being torn down 'per doctrine, whatever that means', it's being torn down because they obeyed Cheris' borderline heretical orders. If she had stayed (or been allowed to stay), maybe she could have defended them, but those orders that doomed her troops made her useful to her commanders (as a space ghost holder). Also, this implies that her superiors would have preferred that her unit be slaughtered rather than deviate from said doctrine - as far as being 'good Kel' goes, the ones that rebelled against her and had to be executed were "correct". The troops being sad isn't there to make you ask why, it's there to tell you that being 'processed by Doctrine' is a bad thing that worries even people who cheerfully march face-first into magic death lasers and commit mid-battle fratricide over quibbles of theology. It's never made extremely clear how the Kel are modified, but you're supposed to get a sense over the course of the book of the ways in which they've been intentionally twisted from normal people into a soldier caste for an insane fundamentalist empire. (And, to a lesser degree, the madnesses of every caste.) And from all of this, one interprets that Cheris is a maverick, an unusual talent who adapts to changing rules and uses them to her benefit in a society where the idea that the rules can change at all is heresy. Yet, at the same time, she isn't far enough outside the mold to actually resist when the toll for her decisions comes due - she regrets that the empire is wasting her troops that did nothing but obey her orders, but in the end is as resigned to her fate as they are to theirs. The words don't make sense, but the points they're trying to get across aren't that complicated. In the end, Ninefox isn't a book about weird technology and space magic. It's about broken people and why they do the things they do, and the rest is just window dressing. And if that's not something that interests you or clicks with you, then that's perfectly valid. They are in space though, they explicitly say that at some point. The Fortress is a space station. Ceebees fucked around with this message at 23:27 on Nov 18, 2019 |
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Nov 18, 2019 23:20
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cptn_dr posted:Take care, General B. Hope things look up soon.
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Jan 13, 2020 18:53
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I liked it a lot more than the Radch books past the first. "Here are a couple historical things that most people don't know set in the spacefuture to make them more relatable to modern audiences, your main character is a diplomat who couldn't punch her way out of a paper bag, so she's going to sit around and drink tea and think about things" is a lot more palatable to me than "Here is a huge high concept about immortality and self and gender, the main character is the physical embodiment of a warship and a killbot, but instead of doing something interesting with either of those we're just going to sit around and drink tea and think about things".
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Jul 31, 2020 06:16
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ulmont posted:Fine, fine, if you insist...*checks notes* I too, did this just now. March 7.
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Aug 5, 2020 04:12
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Baru 3 - "I thought I knew who was under there. Apparently I was mistaken." 
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Aug 18, 2020 07:40
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Black Griffon posted:I hesitate to list prices as Amazon deals are just super annoying in Norway (some are discounted, some ain't), but I'm curious to know if anyone's read Sea of Rust or Armageddon Reef. The second seems particularly interesting as I'm a sucker for medieval sci-fi. Sea of Rust was mildly interesting. Sentient robots in the post-robot-revolution earth trying to survive the oncoming Singularity. Armageddon Reef is... serviceable airport fiction, but it is the prelude to absolute trash. The rest of the series throws out any interesting idea David Weber accidentally had in the premise of the first one so he can be as royalist and mary-sue as he can possibly get. Read the premise, and then make up your own story while looking at a picture of a british ship of the line. You'll do a better job than he did.
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Aug 21, 2020 23:27
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anilEhilated posted:That's literally any Weber, though. I mean, yes, but you need some way to describe his crimes against paper to someone who doesn't know who he is yet.
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Aug 22, 2020 07:28
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DACK FAYDEN posted:Only halfway through book three but it isn't a big enough deal to be worth putting off, I think. On kindle, at least, the spoilers-via-text-justification all worked completely fine.
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Aug 30, 2020 22:32
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Qwertycoatl posted:One thing in particular though: Am I supposed to know who the Sleeper was? Wake., geddit?
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Sep 11, 2020 11:18
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Mr. Nemo posted:Stuff Unless I'm direly misremembering, Barus 2 and 3 were originally meant to be halves of one book, so 2 ends at the nadir of all those plot lines, and 3 has the payoff.
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Sep 26, 2020 00:45
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Yoked posted:How is the Inheritance Trilogy for someone who hasn’t read Jemisin yet? I hated the first one so much it put me off reading Jemsin's good books for years. Not just that it took an interesting idea and turned it into the cardboard backdrop for a romance, that's not for me but still fine, but the romance was also garbage. Twilight tier "oh I know I shouldn't gently caress the enslaved literal god of murdering idiots but he's ~so dreamy~".
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Sep 28, 2020 15:38
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General Battuta posted:I haven’t finished 100K Kingdoms but I have to say that wanting to gently caress the thing you’re not supposed to gently caress is an extremely human and believable motivation. Also I think Jemisin was purposefully writing to market after she found it hard to sell her earlier novels. I could see what she was going for, with forbidden longing and trauma and the weird interpersonal dynamics of royalty, it just struck me as poorly written - every cardboard character consistently made the worst choices possible even when they were supposed to be cunning diplomats and experienced court politickers. It doesn't help that nothing else happens in the book, and it doesn't care about the background setting, so it's just 300 pages of her thinking about things and resolving to definitely not get boned to death by THE NIGHTLORD... (but his ~rippling alabaster abs~). For a plot about internal conflict, there's no conflict. She just keeps telling herself over and over that this would definitely be a terrible idea, but that divine booty tho. With her other books, it's clear she can write realized settings, and dynamic characters, and relationships that are interesting to read. In 100k she just... Didn't. In, admittedly, my opinion. I certainly hope she sold better writing good books than imitation bodice ripper trash, but I won't hold my breath.
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Sep 28, 2020 16:30
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pradmer posted:The Way into Chaos which is by Harry Connolly, the Twenty Palaces series author. Maybe i'm being too harsh on free kindle unlimited books, it's better than a lot of the competition, but the ending to this one really left a sour taste in my mouth. It, as they say, smacked heavily to the earth in much the same way that spaceships do not - i strongly get the feeling he either expected another book or two to wrap up, or just started writing without an ending in mind. Besides which, along the way, it had a bunch of ideas that could have been neat, but just felt under-baked.
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Jan 15, 2021 05:43
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General Battuta posted:The draft of the last Baru is a total mess but I’m enjoying finally getting to crash all the model trains into each other. 
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Feb 12, 2021 19:28
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navyjack posted:I don’t remember much about it, I don’t think? Main character is a criminal of some kind? Brothel owner or drug dealer? Yeah, drug dealer. I found it a bit trite in the protagonist being an incredible omnicompetent badass, and it (and especially the sequels) could have used an editor pass for typos. But it was entertaining enough, and had the occasional clever turn of phrase.
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Mar 14, 2021 22:38
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ulmont posted:It's better than this recommendation. I mean, i took the time out of my life to say it was fun on a dead comedy forum. 
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Mar 15, 2021 16:09
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quantumfoam posted:offtopic, someone on social media ask Martha Wells if the bond company name Murderbot keeps auto-purging it's Murderbot diaries has Valiadre or Viller in it's title. But The Company is venal, dumb, and evil, while Valiarde is a "charming" rogue. Gardier Tactical Assholes LLC would be my guess
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Jul 8, 2021 22:09
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cptn_dr posted:I enjoyed Hench a whole lot. I'm still trying to get over her name. Halfway through, but I got it on the first goddamn page and i've been suppressing a groan every time it comes up since. She gives the villain name 'palindrome' in the first paragraph, so i just had to try to read everything backwards, and she's loving anna voldemort.
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Aug 15, 2021 04:30
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E - okay, no joke. Yes, Terror is good
Ceebees fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Aug 27, 2021 |
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Aug 27, 2021 18:47
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Larry Parrish posted:Literally anyone mentioning the the Commonweal series by Graydon Saunders. Hey cool i'm just going to get my popcorn and wait for that one guy to show up and get mad again.
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Oct 6, 2021 15:59
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Ceebees posted:Hey cool i'm just going to get my popcorn and wait for that one guy to show up and get mad again. Cardiac posted:being mad Larry Parrish posted:What are you trying to imply lol. Sorry I brought it up, I guess. I'd be lying if I thought the Commonweal books were gonna have mass appeal, but they're definetly weird, and if you like them you ain't gonna get that anywhere else. neongrey posted:sounds like they like this set of fantasy novels and are discussing them in the sf and fantasy thread my dude, what are you suggesting  (We've had this argument with Cardiac like 4 times in this thread, there's no point to having it again)
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Oct 15, 2021 16:19
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There's the redneck that tried to brain Chloris, but even then everyone promptly agreed they were an rear end in a top hat.
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Oct 22, 2021 21:18
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shrike82 posted:the adrian tchaikovsky novella (?) The thread must adjudicate: 200-page novella y/n?
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Nov 25, 2021 04:11
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Well, first you write a million words about your bug-people based D&D campaign. Then, with all the bad words out of your system, just write good words from then on.
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Dec 1, 2021 02:02
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anilEhilated posted:It's actually not a bad series if you're in the mood for generic epic fantasy. Oh, i read all of them. I had a job with 12-hour shifts and i needed cheap paperbacks big enough to stun a horse. They're fine, it just makes me laugh to see Tchaikovsky praised now for high-concept sci-fi when to me, he will always be about a weeb-rear end Mantis-kin and Cheerwell Maker's amazing ability to fall in love with the dumbest possible target at every venture.
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Dec 1, 2021 19:02
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theblackw0lf posted:Has anyone read Daniel Abraham’s Long Price Quartet? What did you think? Like Jedit said. Writing was fine, central conceit ( poem djinni with infinite power in an extremely narrow portfolio ) was novel to me when I read it and interesting. The changing of the world over the 'four seasons' of one guy's life was, eh, but I've paid more to read worse without being mad. The one thing i have to say about them is, i read them interspersed with the Echoes of Empire trilogy (garden of stone/pillars of sand/obsidian heart) and now i will forever get the two mixed up, as workmanlike series with one big central weirdness the plot revolves around.
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Jan 4, 2022 21:16
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No, that's pretty much Watt's expressed personal philosophy.
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Feb 23, 2022 21:04
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Strom Cuzewon posted:
You know, fair. I had read most of his books and short story collections five or so years back, and the many downsides and failures of sapience is kind of a recurring theme. Stuff like 'the only known case of free will in the universe' does not paint a rosy picture. But, i will walk back my opinion of his opinions to merely a black hole of nihilism.
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Feb 25, 2022 18:42
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LLSix posted:Temeraire is Horatio Hornblower + dragons. It's very much a fantasy adventure series rather than speculative sci-fi though. Just to quibble, Temeraire is a book and a half of Hornblower With Dragons, and then four or five of a world tour of 'what if empire and colonialism, but it didn't work right because dragons.'
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Mar 29, 2022 18:09
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Beachcomber posted:Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers I mean, it's all as tasteful as textually possible, but there is a nonzero amount of lizard fuckin' there.
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May 5, 2022 20:14
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Kestral posted:Has anyone here read the other books by QNTM, the author of thread darling (and very good book) There Is No Antimemetics Division? I just now learned that they've written other things, and the pitch for Ra in particular looks interesting: I didn't like RA, and frankly it put me off reading anything longer than a short story from QNTM ever again. If you were hooked by the 'space magic' lead, too bad, it's a tiny fraction of the book. It spends the entire front half being very obscure and disjointed on purpose, and what tries to tie it together is a series of deus ex machina. When it started to explain itself, at each twist i was just waiting for one of these 'geniuses' to do something dumb, or forget how magic works all of a sudden, to allow the clowning to continue. The ending, in particular, left an unpleasantly Yudkowski-ish aftertaste on my palate. Did you think i was putting together all the parts for a happy ending, which the genius main character would figure out at the last minute? No! gently caress you! Strong AI are too smart and will just wreck whatever you do! Serve the Machine, or scavenge for what scraps it ignores. I get that it was trying to make some points about grief and obsession and AI, uploading, reality, and all that transhumanism 101 crap, but the way it went at it felt very internet rationalist to me, and uuuugh.
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Jul 8, 2022 09:09
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If you get the emote pack for just $3.99, you can make them dab.
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Jul 29, 2022 20:00
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Gato posted:So I guess my question is, how does the rest of his work stack up? e.g. Neuromancer is obviously part of the sci-fi canon, but does it actually still hold up? Neuromancer definitely still holds up, and should be read. But, it can feel a little strange given how you've probably seen everything it has done worse somewhere else first. If you enjoy the weird frenzied cyber drug trip though, there's the rest of the trilogy. The sequel to Peripheral doubles down on zero-agency protagonists on a tour of 2024. I would suggest you pass on that. It doesn't have the Cool Idea of the stubs versus the 'real' that Peripheral did, but the Blue Ant trilogy has more corporate bullshit happening in IRL tomorrow, with less of that agency problem. Not none, but less.
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Oct 16, 2022 07:21
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RDM posted:To honor you call us Just as a heads-up, this author was a covid denier, and the series will never be finished because he died of covid. If that influences your buying/reading decisions any.
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Oct 20, 2022 05:05
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It said there were a limited number of ARC copies, so i held off in favor of someone who might actually do you some good. But do comment again when it's possible to throw money at you about it?
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May 17, 2023 20:46
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I didn't think much of the sequel, but The Peripheral was pretty good Gibson. Nice pickup on sale there.
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Jun 4, 2023 18:25
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Kestral posted:Do the later books have any big ideas that are worth pushing through to reach? No, the opposite.
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Jun 19, 2023 05:42
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pradmer posted:Forever Free (Forever War #3) by Joe Haldeman - $1.99 I don't want to take away from the daily deals, which i really do like seeing. But there are very few books that are so clearly shat out for a paycheck as Forever Free. Hard avoid.
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Aug 17, 2023 06:36
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