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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. It's weird, because I liked the Craft sequence. I think the narrative voice of Empress felt forced or something. 
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Oct 9, 2019 15:04
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a foolish pianist posted:The Rook is incredibly aggravating in a men-writing-women-badly sort of way. There's lots of poo poo like this: drat it, I just impulse bought it and this is my least favorite type of bad fantasy writing.
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Oct 14, 2019 15:48
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Really liked Six Wakes after it got mentioned in this thread a week or two ago. Cloning/mind-backup murder mystery on a generation ship, with a bunch of backstory chapters ala Hyperion.
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Feb 19, 2020 00:02
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buffalo all day posted:Nebula award finalists announced: A Memory Called Empire was good. The Caine books are not good and I regret reading them.
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Feb 20, 2020 19:23
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here are some spoilers on some of the dumbest poo poo in the Caine series. he is very very bad at writing women and romance A woman is secretly paid to be the main character's lover and spy, and falls in love with him but for real, and is obsessed with coming to save him, and its the only thing she, a super badass commando woman, ever thinks about when given a pov. She then dies unceremoniously in the final assault and is never mentioned again in the series, because Caine finds out he secretly has a lovechild with another female character from a 3 day romance that was wiped from his mind. he decides he is madly in love with her and it's really important. then at the end of the book Caine is mortally wounded. rather than writing anything about his new love, the author retcons in the next book that she was also mortally wounded, and had to be carted away to an advanced alien civilization where she exists only to "motivate" him a few times a book for the next 4 books
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Feb 20, 2020 19:29
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Slo-Tek posted:Vorkosigan Saga is pretty light on sex, and it is all very off-screen. They said no romance either. Vorkosigan saga has shitloads of romance - the first two books are a love story, and one of the books in the series is unrepentantly a romance novel. I'd say steer clear if you're avoiding romance. God it's everywhere in that series, and I love it
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Feb 24, 2020 05:40
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To turn it around, who other than Bujold has done romance well in SF/F? Any good love stories? Book 4 of The Dark Tower comes to mind.
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Feb 24, 2020 05:43
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Done and good luck. I loved The Dawnhounds.
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Feb 24, 2020 06:45
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Reading Foreigner right now and really enjoying it. Though I wish I hadn't read the first 2 added short stories, I saw the warnings ITT but picked it at random from my unread list and forgot it was about this book 
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Feb 29, 2020 21:07
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StrixNebulosa posted:I'm so sorry. They're not bad but they're a thousand times more interesting to read when you're deeper into the series and invested in the setting. I'm just a bit annoyed because the backstory and descriptions of Atevi/the planet aren't really in sync with how Foreigner portrays them. In the 15 books between her writing Foreigner, and her writing these short stories, obviously her perspective on them has changed, and it is really noticable.
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Feb 29, 2020 21:19
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StrixNebulosa posted:er, to be clear, as I understand it she wrote the short stories before she wrote Foreigner. And the editor made her sell the lot as one package. Really? There was a foreword about how she didn't really want to write them but was glad she did. If they are pre-Foreigner that makes me feel much better. The differences in how she portrays them being 'more accurate' in the books themselves is fine, thinking they were a perspective far in advance was annoying.
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Feb 29, 2020 23:41
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Question about Foreigner: who does Bren actually shoot at the beginning? I can't tell if I'm having massive brain fart, or if it's never confirmed.
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Mar 7, 2020 05:12
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Thank you for posting all the e-book deals. I buy 2 or 3 books a week because they sound good and only read like 1.5 a week, so the more I've bought on sale the better when I eventually try to buy them full price.
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Mar 24, 2020 01:01
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Are there any books where present vs. past tense makes a big difference? I suppose first person present could leave you in suspense about the main character's fate, or the opposite for an unreliable narrator. Otherwise I only notice it for a couple pages and then completely forget. Second person on the other hand I think should be used judiciously. It was very well used in Raven Tower, I thought.
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Apr 2, 2020 02:56
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Just finished the 7th Foreigner book. Deciding to take a break from it because I almost addressed someone as "Nadi"
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Apr 4, 2020 03:21
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Taking a break from my binge read of the Foreigner series after almost ending a sentence calling someone "Nadi". Read up through book 7. Overall enjoying the series, reminiscent of the Vorkosigan Saga. My book club decided on The Blade Itself so I just switched to that and uhh woof, it's hard going from Cherryh's page long monologues to someone who seems to average 8 words a sentence, and uses exclamation points liberally.
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Apr 4, 2020 19:12
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I have never in my life been able to read 2 books at once, but honestly I haven't tried in at least a decade. It feels off in a weird way. I should try it again some time since how much i read daily ties directly to how much I like my current book.
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Apr 16, 2020 00:28
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Just finished The Ten Thousand Doors of January. Great book, highly recommend.
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Apr 27, 2020 01:57
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What kind of adult that can read sci-fi written in English wouldn't know that 550lbs is a lot? I could accept a kid or translation though.
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Apr 30, 2020 16:50
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DigitalRaven posted:As already pointed out, someone not from the United States of lovely Units? I just don't think the kind of person who would read an American English hard sci-fi novel has any crossover with "person who has no concept of what a pound or mile is". Having a lot of trouble imagining an American Sci-Fi reader being unaware that say, 200 kilograms, is an insane amount for a person to weigh. But maybe the U.S. just does better at educating us on other countries' measurement systems. Edit: Back to thread content, I started The Reality Dysfunction recently and if I miss a day of reading this book I can't remember who or what anyone is. Might give up on it. AARD VARKMAN fucked around with this message at 23:39 on Apr 30, 2020 |
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Apr 30, 2020 22:43
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The Reality Dysfunction by Peter F. Hamilton I never thought Hamilton was a sex creep but uhh 50% in: Three instances of forced sex, a 18-125 year old sexual relationship, 16 year olds described by how hot they are. Oh and MC fucks at least once a chapter, always another woman and half of them he treats like poo poo.
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May 4, 2020 23:38
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mewse posted:I'm reading this right now as well and it is very rapey also there was a scene where some random lady on lalonde was like knee deep in an obviously insane murder death scenario and her thought was "If only that darned governor kept a firmer hand." and all i could think was, that's Hamilton messaging about how women just don't know what men are really dealing with. i couldn't get it out of my head
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May 4, 2020 23:56
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I think there was a sale on it mentioned in the thread recently so when I perused my books it was there. I was in the mood for far sci-fi so there you go.
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May 5, 2020 00:13
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algebra testes posted:I just ordered Pandora's Star and I am not thrilled about this!! I don't remember sex creep problems with that series at all. I'm more cognizant of that stuff in my reading now but I would definitely remember this, so I think you're safe.
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May 5, 2020 14:42
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jng2058 posted:For one thing, I don't hate the TV version of the main character like I do in the books! You're making me want to start the TV show. I read all but the last book and Holden sucks rear end in the books. If they improved that I am interested.
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May 5, 2020 15:55
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I wish I wasn't so interested in the world/ongoing plot of Reality Dysfunction because knowing I'm always within 10 pages of an awkward sex scene is a tough read. Also there was just a paragraph where main character talked about how he wanted to smack a little girl for being a brat, but had to content himself with staring at the way her older sister's fabric moved over her body. Within 5 pages he's loving both the older sister and her mother and making promises that he loves them.  I'm 52% into a book twice as long as anything I've read recently and I very rarely drop a book but ugh.
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May 5, 2020 19:21
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feedmegin posted:...most of the population of Europe under the age of about 50? Even in the UK which isn't full bore metric we measure people's weight in stone not lbs. Just casually gliding over that figure without thinking to do the maths it's not going to be obvious. I'm willing to stand corrected on this. I just always thought the "basically 2 to one ratio" and "a bit under 2 to one ratio" that's been baked in my head for as long as I can remember would be similarly common among Europeans, or at least the ones reading American hard sci-fi. Celsius/Fahrenheit on the other hand I would never expect anyone to have a mental picture of, that poo poo's just hosed.
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May 5, 2020 23:32
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freebooter posted:
In American English I think you'd say "a few inches of water". What would you use in a metric country? Obviously "ankle deep" or something works for anyone.
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May 6, 2020 01:04
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If nothing else it's nice having the generality of "It's in the 60s" or "It's in the 70s" instead of "It's between 15 and 20" Kind of the same thing as the "a few inches" vs "10 centimetres" in that it's just nicer for speaking, and has honestly no downsides. There are a million downsides of Imperial measurement, but I've never once in my life asked "why are we still on Fahrenheit?"
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May 6, 2020 20:54
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Sorry for continuing the derails. For content, I finally gave up on Reality Dysfunction. I got to a scene where three hot chicks were all hanging off the main character's dick and realized I don't like reading anything Peter F. Hamilton has to say about women, ever again. Proceeded to start The Last Policeman and read over half of it in a sitting. Somehow much happier even though the world is deeply depressing. 
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May 6, 2020 20:57
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freebooter posted:Yes! These are great. I think I actually read the second book in one day (granted, I was lying on a beach for most of it). Hell yeah, these definitely feel like beach books. One thing I want to highlight about the series is that the author thought about his main character's gimmicks. He's tall, and he has a "I like this guy" or "I don't like this guy" thing going on. It never comes up unless it feels natural. I feel like every sci-fi author writes up a list of character traits and tries to check them off every chapter. This series' author seems much more interested in the world and the big mysterys.
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May 7, 2020 03:51
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edit: wrong thread
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May 7, 2020 04:19
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KOGAHAZAN!! posted:I find it interesting that you guys gender Murderbot as male. Mostly because my brain has decided it's female and I cannot for the life of me figure out why. The books definitely do a good job making Murderbot genderless, but I also see it as "feminine". I actively try not to but it creeps in. I think it's because it is difficult for me to imagine a perfectly androgenous being, as it's not something I've ever interacted with, so my brain just defaults to a mental image that happens to be feminine.
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May 8, 2020 18:40
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anilEhilated posted:It's the opposite of androgynous though: neither rather than both. The problem is Murderbot has a human face, and it's a hell of a lot harder to imagine a human face as perfectly genderless than it is a robot.
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May 8, 2020 19:44
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Finished the Last Policeman trilogy. drat, that just got more and more depressing, and then more and more depressing. The end.
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May 10, 2020 18:11
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I read City In The Middle Of The Night this week. I loved the world, the idea, and the some of the characters. Unfortunately, the main character is incapable of making a good decision, ever, and it infuriated me. Anyone else read it?
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May 16, 2020 07:37
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Also (City in the middle of the Night spoilers) the reveal that "the invention" was a book of poetry extremely irked me because it felt like the author had decided on calling it "the invention", then decided what it was going to be, then decided not to rename it. There was zero reason it should have been called that and it never came up. I honestly thought "is this copy of the book messed up?"
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May 16, 2020 07:44
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Safety Biscuits posted:As a group, they look a bit like the ironic, whimsical, and/or allusive names of ships in the Culture series; that's all. Huh, I thought those kind of ship names originated from Banks. Was it a trope even before '74/The Centauri Device?
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May 20, 2020 17:33
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I never made the connection between fishing boat names and dumb spaceship names  I think it's just because the Culture is the only series I've read that used them for spaceships, and I've read a hell of a lot of space opera.
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May 20, 2020 17:51
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If nothing else I loved the shark substory. I'm a huge sucker for books with multiple semi-connected stories, though. I loved the first 2 Hyperion books.
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Jun 8, 2020 22:02
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