SF & F Mega-thread: I had to google 'spock pirate depilatory'

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > SF & F Mega-thread: I had to google 'spock pirate depilatory'

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Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

When I heard Eric Flint died I reread 1632 and enjoyed it so much I'm probably going to finish the whole series. RIP

# ¿ Jul 27, 2022 18:05

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 10:28

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

Everyone posted:

That's ambitious of you because the "whole series" is pretty large depending on how you figure it. Once you count all the spin-offs and such you're probably talking a good 20-30 books at this point.

One series I'm sad he never got back to was the Rivers of War. It's an alternate history postulating a way to prevent/alter the Trail of Tears.

Yeah, I don't know if I'll end up reading every single spinoff before I get bored. Probably not. But since Baen sells ebooks without DRM I don't feel bad about buying them. Whereas I refuse to buy DRM'd ebooks, which then means most stuff I either buy paperback or :filez:

. The former is a big investment in physical space and the latter I usually feel bad about.

# ¿ Jul 27, 2022 20:23

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

Dementropy posted:

I didn't see it anywhere, but John Varley recently had triple-bypass surgery. Sci-fi nerds like myself may know him from Titan/Wizard/Demon, Steel Beach ("In five years, the penis will be obsolete."), or the incredibly bone-chilling short story, Press Enter.

My wife told me last night that, despite his many accolades and awards, Varley's been living off of Social Security and poo poo royalties for all of his work.

What this comes down to is Varley is now selling his books and will sign/inscribe them however you wish. Thankfully, he has a lot of fans, so when I looked today I saw a lot of his stuff was sold out.

Anyway, if you want to help out a classic sci-fi writer with (IMO) some of the best concepts in the genre, go here:

https://varley.net/shop/

Mods: If you deem this kind of post inappropriate, I apologize, and please remove it.

What would you recommend as a starter book for someone who's never read his work?

# ¿ Jul 28, 2022 16:30

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

SurreptitiousMuffin posted:

I am finally, extremely late to the party, getting around to The Dispossessed and I know "Le Guin is good" is the stalest take in SF/F but holy poo poo Le Guin is good. I never got super into Earthsea, it was definitely good fantasy it just didn't light a fire under me, the The Dispossessed is something-loving-else, if you've skipped it, change that

Dispossessed is leftist wish-fulfillment and I love every word of it

# ¿ Jul 30, 2022 20:06

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

Is The Expanse an outlier as far as readership? That's a 9 book series that afaik is selling well even on the later books

# ¿ Jul 31, 2022 06:30

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

Barnum Brown Shoes posted:

Just finished Rendezvous with Rama. That was a good book.

I need to re-read it, I can hardly remember anything about the actual plot of it, except that they had to leave in a hurry.

# ¿ Aug 6, 2022 04:11

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

Spime Wrangler posted:

you sound like of those hussies with a plunging neckline who could use her bottom striped!!

The cleavage dilated.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2022 21:28

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

The passage about the cheap vs expensive boots was life-changing when I was 17

# ¿ Aug 10, 2022 05:46

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

that seems hosed up even by the standards of sci-fi. like are you supposed to sympathize with said heroine?

# ¿ Aug 11, 2022 02:33

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

Should I read any other Dune books besides the original?

# ¿ Aug 13, 2022 00:21

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

the pizza story is really funny, thanks for sharing that

# ¿ Aug 16, 2022 21:14

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

What's wrong with the writing in Expanse? I've never had trouble with it

# ¿ Aug 18, 2022 10:57

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

Kipling? A racist? Say it ain't so :rolleyes:

# ¿ Aug 18, 2022 18:59

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

There's one Heinlein book where everyone lives in a cool post scarcity utopia. I don't remember the whole plot but I think they want to build a giant orrery to model the solar system (or maybe the whole galaxy). The purpose of their government economy department is to try to spend as much money as possible because they have too much of it. It was bizarre because it had this almost star trek like idyllic future but also very particular gender roles - men were expected to walk around armed and challenge each other to duels for their honor, but women could wear a bulletproof vest or something. I recall the narrator comments once that so-and-so is cowardly because he wears a <technonabble>, like a WOMAN.

No idea what this book is called.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2022 19:33

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

MartingaleJack posted:

Was there ever a conversation about Pierce Brown in this thread? I'm almost finished with the last book in the Red Rising trilogy and I can't believe I haven't heard of these books before. Theyre very well paced. The characters are all interesting. When people die, and they do a lot, they stay dead. After the first book it's like the Expanse meets Spartacus.

The only thing I can think of that might have turned people off was the on the nose world-building about social mobility and identity politics.

Is it the kind of on-the-nose where it'll make you sad by reminding you that real life is awful?

# ¿ Aug 22, 2022 23:22

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

It was definitely Beyond This Horizon, for the record. I remembered that once radmonger posted it

# ¿ Aug 23, 2022 00:52

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

idiotsavant posted:

Just finished the 3rd Expanse book & I'm pretty done with them. They felt like basic bro sci-fi from the start but at least the first had some body horror stuff & the conflict between Holden & Miller. Thin, cliche conflict but hey, better than nothing. 2 & 3 feel like more of the same, except the villains all get progressively dumber and stereotypical, plots all get dumber & stereotypical, and Holden is loving unbearable. He's at best a psychopathic rear end in a top hat who can't ever consider the consequences of his own actions, but the story treats him as a naif Mary Sue just trying to do the right thing and making the Hard Choices_TM.

First book felt like ok schlocky space-pulp, but three books of the same thing is too drat much.

edit: on a positive note Black Water Sister was great, fantastic, really good.

Spoilers for somewhere in books 4-7 (I don't remember exactly where lol)

Miller comes back as a space ghost (maybe more than once) and it's the best part of whatever book it happens in

And speaking of miller, what other books are like a sci-fi mystery novel?

# ¿ Aug 26, 2022 22:46

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

HopperUK posted:

I would way rather read a story about a decent person in a lovely world (eg I love the Raymond Chandler books) than a lovely person making a lovely world shittier.

Sometimes you get a story like this but then the author shits all over them to demonstrate the naivete of being a good person

# ¿ Aug 31, 2022 04:11

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

It means he is offended that British people were specifically called out as racist in Mr Hootington's post.

# ¿ Sep 1, 2022 00:51

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

zoux posted:

Rather than being a critique of a human civilization over-reliant on machines and computers to do their work and cogitation for them, the AI threat in the Bad Books are 20 human warlords called Titans who stuck their brains in giant stomping mechs called cymeks.

Some of the computers the Titans use are neglected and a true strong AI emerges and overthrows the titans and takes over the galaxy. It is called Omnius, which sounds like a transformer villain.

Everything that is subtle or mysterious about the Dune universe set out by Herbert is stripped away by the prequels, mid-quels, and sequels written by Brian and KJA. The Harkonnens and Atreides families hate each other because the Harkonnens betrayed the Atreides by not showing up at the decisive Battle of Corrino which ended the Butlerian Jihad. It's very much that old Star Wars EU vibe, where every background character as well as the ice cream machine he was carrying gets a detailed and intimate connection to the major events of the story.

Ok but in the EU that poo poo was awesome

# ¿ Sep 1, 2022 19:22

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

extremely based to take the cool Bedouin people and make them fr*nch

# ¿ Sep 2, 2022 00:53

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

Everyone posted:

Do RPG authors count? Because

Raven C. S. McCracken

This dude looks hot. Holy smokes

# ¿ Sep 4, 2022 16:55

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

bagrada posted:

My Red Rising experience is a couple of my friends loved it and bought a board game based on it that we played a couple of times. It involved crafting a hand of cards out of the hundreds of characters ranging from Darrow and what looked like a bunch of roman emperors all the way down to random tax accountants and sex workers. The two people who had read the books couldn't tell me who most of the characters on the cards were when I asked, but assured me it was good and they spent most of the game going "Oh yeah that guy!". Unfortunately the book owner moved away before I could borrow them from her so I may never know who all those people were if the series doesn't pop up on a kindle daily deal or something.

This reminds me that the Battlestar Galactica board game is really fun, and I've never even seen the show. It's kinda like Mafia but with a spaceship and the Mafia want to blow up the ship because they're robots or something

# ¿ Sep 8, 2022 20:20

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

Sinatrapod posted:

Campaign Proposal:
4 Dads of various species set out on a roadtrip across the stars in their tremendously expensive, sporty Jump6 starship with no weapons or cargo space. They have a 1 year leave of absence from their respective mundane paper-pushing jobs and trained in exactly one spacefaring skill at a competent level. There's an Embarrassment mechanic that's kind of like Cthulhu style Sanity - your stupid escapades slowly chip away at your embarrassment stat as you get blackout wasted at starport casinos and fruitlessly hit on a parade of shamefully young bar patrons, until you either succeed at accomplishment of such legendary stature that you redeem your misspent youth and prove your virility, or go limping back to your wife/husband/egg circle/nesting creche/whatever to quietly fade away.

Much like Call of Cthulhu, the latter is much more likely.

this is the worst idea I ever had

This sounds really fun tbh. I would play it

# ¿ Sep 17, 2022 03:41

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

I have been reading 1635: A Parcel of Rogues. Since I did not grow up as a Christian I didn't know anything about the whole presbyterian vs. episcopal thing. Wacky stuff.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2022 00:31

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

Everyone posted:

The 1632verse is pretty good overall. Really thoughtful and detailed. I eventually lost track of it and it got huge but at some point I'm going to rebuild it and read it via Kindle.

Flint also did Trail of Glory two book series that I was disappointed he didn't continue before he died. 1812: The Rivers of War and 1824: The Arkansas War are variously an attempt to fix/prevent the Trail of Tears, an alternate history of the American frontier and an alternate biography of Sam Houston. It's a "pure" alternate history (no science fiction/magic stuff) with a single oddly minor break-point that goes in some really interesting directions. It also makes you kind of go "God-dammit I wish this had been actual America history!"

Baen sells the ebooks directly, I've been downloading epub files from them as I go.

I think because the series started in like 1999 or 2000, and Flint was a socialist, it really avoids all the bullshit of 2000s-era stuff wrt the war on terror and whatnot. I appreciate that a lot.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2022 19:12

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

Gnoman posted:

A fair number of the books can be gotten from the last CD images on the Fifth Imperium (a collection of the CDs Baen used to include in their hardcovers and completely legit).

One big thing I'd suggest is do not try to read the series in chronological order. If you try to read the entire series, and go by timeline ("this book ends in 1635, so I need to read the other books that are ongoing in 1634 and 1635 before moving on to 1636") you not only risk getting absolutely lost but tons of stuff won't pay off until you've read a dozen more books.

Instead, read by plot thread. Read, for example, the Barbie plot to (current) completion, then the Russia plot, then the Scottish plot, then the Catholic Church plot, and so on. While this will spoil some future plot developments, you'll get a more satisfying narrative experience and have an easier time tracking the major players.

Flint (as explained in at least some of the forewords) set the series up specifically to produce a very messy and complicated plot, trying to mimic how actual history is always extremely messy and complicated. That's the big reason there's so many authors, and also why the series has a good chance of surviving his death.

I've been following the reading order from his website: https://ericflint.net/1632-series-reading-order/

It seems like it was written in 2019, but there are so few books past that point that its probably easy to fill in the rest from there.

# ¿ Sep 21, 2022 02:37

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

Everyone posted:

And... I think this just frightened me away from the series again.

I mean you can just read the main sequence books and have a good time that way!

# ¿ Sep 21, 2022 03:18

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

Is Journey to the Center of the Earth any good? I remember enjoying 20k leagues when I was a kid

# ¿ Sep 25, 2022 18:44

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

What book is this?

# ¿ Oct 1, 2022 01:57

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

The first chapter of three body problem is a real downer

# ¿ Oct 3, 2022 01:29

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

Nomnom Cookie posted:

I have bad news about the other chapters

I do feel bad for Ye Wenjie because she had a poo poo life but drat, selling out to aliens was not what I expected

# ¿ Oct 3, 2022 17:35

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

I finished Three Body Problem. That was interesting, though it has the classic trilogy problem of just feeling like a long first act. Overall I guess it was ok? I suppose I'm a little bit disappointed. I had expected a mind blowing story based on what internet people have said

# ¿ Oct 4, 2022 17:27

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

Is there anything in the realistic-ish rocketships genre that's not made by weird right wing people?

# ¿ Oct 7, 2022 18:40

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

What's competency porn?

# ¿ Oct 7, 2022 20:33

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

That sounds hella badass

# ¿ Oct 7, 2022 20:46

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

I borrowed Calculating Stars from the library yesterday and so far I am loving every word of it. This book is like crack for me. I'll probably burn through it in four days

I took the entire list of recommendations from when I asked about space mysteries a while back with me too. Sadly they didn't have a whole lot of those. I think they just don't keep older fiction books maybe.

However I did find Dark Orbit and bring that home so there will be at least one mystery in my future.

# ¿ Oct 8, 2022 16:59

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

Dark Orbit was pretty cool.

# ¿ Oct 13, 2022 22:10

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

But what if the author starts each of their forum posts with a big banner declaring that the post is a new sequel, thus making it textual and not extra-textual.

# ¿ Oct 15, 2022 00:15

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 10:28

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

What's different about swords and sorcery vs normal fantasy

# ¿ Oct 15, 2022 18:37

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > SF & F Mega-thread: I had to google 'spock pirate depilatory'

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