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Pentecoastal Elites posted:if you liked the big ideas in 3BP I'd suggest Greg Egan (the GOAT, but be forewarned that his work is pretty much all big ideas and very little connective tissue), Ted Chiang, and Greg Bear (his non-IP stuff obviously) Yeah, I thought of Greg Bear's duology The Forge of God and Anvil of Stars, explores some similar themes. I.e. the first interstellar contact takes the form of a xenocidal attack launched by a paranoid civilization. Then the consequences. Greg Egan is... I really like his stuff, but I understand he's not for everyone... most "hard SF" writers will come up with an idea based on some half-baked science idea and run with it without looking too hard at the finer details; Egan will bloody well show you his math. Ted Chiang is in the running for finest short-story writer in the SF field today. He's not very prolific and has not published anything long-form at all, just two collections' worth of short stories so far... but they're very very good short stories. Groke fucked around with this message at 10:54 on Apr 19, 2023 |
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Apr 19, 2023 10:52
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The switch between translators in book 2 is real apparent, that cat sucked, glad they went back to the og for the third
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Apr 19, 2023 13:00
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not dark forest, but similar depressing take on colony ships being the last humans alive in the universe is Tau Zero by Poul Anderson. scratches the same itch of applied theoretical physics causing a massive change in human society, in this case a colony ship unable to brake once in lightspeed and traveling in time until the galaxy burns out
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Apr 19, 2023 14:48
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Pentecoastal Elites posted:if you liked the big ideas in 3BP I'd suggest Greg Egan Not smart enough, I'm afraid
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Apr 19, 2023 16:28
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zoux posted:Not smart enough, I'm afraid If you've already tried and bounced off his later novels I strongly urge you to check out the short story collection, "Axiomatic." Before Egan started building towering math edifices into his work he still had the one two punch of the wow what a cool idea/ unnerving or horrifying subtext that made 3BP enjoyable. In particular, I think "Learning to Be Me," "The Safe-Deposit Box," and 'Axiomatic' are the best in that collection. Plus "The Moral Virologist" is a good, clean, funny anti-fundie bash.
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Apr 19, 2023 16:51
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Famethrowa posted:not dark forest, but similar depressing take on colony ships being the last humans alive in the universe is Tau Zero by Poul Anderson. scratches the same itch of applied theoretical physics causing a massive change in human society, in this case a colony ship unable to brake once in lightspeed and traveling in time until the galaxy burns out great book
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Apr 19, 2023 17:50
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Yadoppsi posted:If you've already tried and bounced off his later novels I strongly urge you to check out the short story collection, "Axiomatic." Before Egan started building towering math edifices into his work he still had the one two punch of the wow what a cool idea/ unnerving or horrifying subtext that made 3BP enjoyable. In particular, I think "Learning to Be Me," "The Safe-Deposit Box," and 'Axiomatic' are the best in that collection. big time agree on this one, axiomatic rips
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Apr 19, 2023 18:41
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Groke posted:Yeah, I thought of Greg Bear's duology The Forge of God and Anvil of Stars, explores some similar themes. I.e. the first interstellar contact takes the form of a xenocidal attack launched by a paranoid civilization. Then the consequences. I read a short story collection by Egan or Bear or perhaps someone else about 20 years ago that I want to revisit, but cannot remember what it was called. I remember one story involved a spaceship avoiding combat by slingshotting around a blackhole but suffering from relatavistic effects, and another story about gas planet aliens who communicate by smell or colour (I think) - it was all mind bending stuff, as most was from the POV of superevolved or alien protagonists. Does anyone know what book I'm looking for?
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Apr 21, 2023 09:24
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The black hole sounds like the forever war by Joe haldeman. Ted Chiang is good, but ... maybe a tiny bit overrated? I feel like his absolutely lovely top tier prose obscures the basically pulp simplicity of his stories, like ooh get to the top of the tower and UR BACK AT THE BOTTOM WOW or where the two super intelligent people have a legitimately cool super brain fight, then one of them wins, oh well . Or Arrival, which does have a good twist but once you clock what's happening structurally and nod to yourself it's a little shrug worthy. Idk, I will give him another go and maybe I'm missing some layers but he is no Borges, and I think the level of praise had me expecting him to be on that level?
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Apr 21, 2023 09:49
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i enjoyed exhalation, pretty much all of the stories were novel and interesting and well written, but yeah, it wasn't lifechanging or anything. i'm happy with "just" a good book though
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Apr 21, 2023 09:59
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Yeah they are Good for sure, I just don't quite get the level of praise he receives. Possibly something to do with having crossover lit cred because he writes well? Coming at something that's been massively praised is always a bit of a crapshoot though.
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Apr 21, 2023 10:02
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i'm so wary of short story books after reading Liu Cixin's crappy short story book.
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Apr 21, 2023 10:13
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Quantum of Phallus posted:i'm so wary of short story books after reading Liu Cixin's crappy short story book. try reading one that isn't by Liu Cixin!
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Apr 21, 2023 12:40
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sebmojo posted:Yeah they are Good for sure, I just don't quite get the level of praise he receives. Possibly something to do with having crossover lit cred because he writes well? Coming at something that's been massively praised is always a bit of a crapshoot though. he used to work as a journalist, so my guess is that when he started his fiction writing career he already had a rolodex of useful writing industry contacts when it came time to promote his stuff it's not totally undeserved -- he's pretty good imo -- but I think that's why he blew up so big and so fast despite having an extremely small body of work for an sf writer
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Apr 21, 2023 15:21
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Syenite posted:The hard sci-fi was neat but I also remember the author being really obviously misogynistic and homophobic in several places so I liked the books but poo poo like the big alien plan to defeat the humans by literally feminizing all the men with mass media read like Jordan Peterson fever dream.
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Apr 21, 2023 16:41
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You know what? gently caress you. (Removes your capacity to exist in a dimension of depth)
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Apr 21, 2023 20:46
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Your Uncle Dracula posted:You know what? gently caress you. (Removes your capacity to exist in a dimension of depth) Arghghhh myyy dimmmeeennnnnsiooonnnsss
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Apr 21, 2023 21:42
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That’s my secret, Cap: I’m always two-dimensional.
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Apr 21, 2023 22:59
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Famethrowa posted:not dark forest, but similar depressing take on colony ships being the last humans alive in the universe is Tau Zero by Poul Anderson. scratches the same itch of applied theoretical physics causing a massive change in human society, in this case a colony ship unable to brake once in lightspeed and traveling in time until the galaxy burns out Picked this one up last night and reached the 33% mark. I adore the science writing, it manages to be both nerdy hard sciencey and poetic at once but it has some really (and unintentionally) hilarious characterization and dialogue lol. your average conversation, almost verbatim: "ah, is that the spaceship? the one which you have been assigned officer to?" "yes, it is, the same spaceship you are a constable on. however, unlike me, your past remains a mystery" "indeed. perhaps that is because I am not a Swede, for as we both know, Sweden is head of the new world order after a period of conflict and strife, for Sweden was big enough to enforce order without being too big to be threatening. though the world government is perhaps not as stable as you think" "perhaps. let us be romantic partners now, for we will need to procreate to sustain a human colony." but then he gets to talk about space and the prose suddenly turns into "And the Milky Way belted heaven with ice and silver, and the Magellanic Clouds were not vague shimmers but roiling and glowing; and the Andromeda galaxy gleamed sharp across more than a million light-years; and you felt your soul drowning in those depths and hastily pulled your vision back to the snug cabin that held you." it's actually pretty charming, because you get the sense Poul Anderson just wants to talk about space and spaceships and science stuff, and humans are just the somewhat unnecessary vehicle to get there
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Apr 23, 2023 02:30
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Poul Anderson was an odd duck, sometimes you get these weird political opinions (kind of 1950s-1960s conservative BUT starting from a Scandinavian origin rather than an American one) and sometimes he goes way out poetic. He had several loosely-connected stories set in the future long after a nuclear war, where the less-damaged parts of the planet begin rebuilding civilization... and one of the most advanced and not-horrible future societies is basically Polynesian. That, from a white guy writing in the 1950s-1980s.
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Apr 26, 2023 11:39
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My will to finish the series died with the human fleet at the end of book 2 as the alien probe thingy just kool-aid man'd its way through them all in a matter of minutes. I didn't much care for the stilted characters or their motivations and didn't find much of it engaging, so I dipped. Tau Zero does sound fun so maybe I'll give that a go.
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Apr 29, 2023 22:20
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I thought that the dark forest analogy was the most interesting part in that it counters the pollyannaish idea of advanced aliens being necessarily peaceful, offers a plausible explanation for the Fermi Paradox, and explores a fundamentally paranoid viewpoint that I believe is characteristic of some portion of Chinese polities. On the other hand, the writing plods along cadaverously (I forgive it for this because it is translated), the characterization is almost non-existent aside from that one cop guy, characters are discarded the moment they are no longer useful, the gender politics are fully reactionary, and many of the science fiction concepts have been done before or are only mind-blowing to a fully stoned person. What if... we made everything 2d? Wow! My pupils are so dilated right now! I suspect that some of the western attention to this series relates to the explicit criticism of the Cultural Revolution. Some of the story beats might also be designed to appeal to a non-science fiction reading mainstream Chinese readership. On the other hand, I take the opposite view about the Wife Guy: he is charged with saving the world in as mysteriously a way as possible, and so he just fucks around selfishly until even the aliens discount him as a threat, then performs a coup de grace. Months after reading these, I find myself wondering about series and exactly why I did not enjoy it and whether it is because it conforms to a non-Western story arc or fails to focus on things that I expect it to based on cultural factors. Some of the themes are fully invisible to a western reader, like I perceive that the urban/rural divide is a recurring theme, but there is more there than I am comprehending. Ditto the idea that environmentalism is portrayed as anti-progress or even traitorously anti-humanity, but I don't think I really understand the subtext. I have also read that the series relates to a folk tale about digging a mountain flat over several generations, which as a western reader obviously did not resonate. e: spellink friendlyfire fucked around with this message at 05:57 on May 1, 2023 |
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Apr 30, 2023 21:12
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Arrath posted:My will to finish the series died with the human fleet at the end of book 2 as the alien probe thingy just kool-aid man'd its way through them all in a matter of minutes. that part whipped rear end
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May 1, 2023 16:16
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Given so many people seem to go to bat for these books makes me wonder about the current state of genre fiction.
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May 1, 2023 16:43
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You might enjoy this goldmined thread of genre fiction literary critique: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3833655
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May 1, 2023 17:54
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Spazzle posted:Given so many people seem to go to bat for these books makes me wonder about the current state of genre fiction. When you only read one science fiction book, it's probably pretty mind blowing!
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May 1, 2023 21:20
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I don't want to say these books were bad, just bland and covering material that had been done many times. Not that books can't retread old ideas in new ways, but they are old ideas. I always wondered if I was just missing some critical context. Maybe the stilted nature of the story comes from it being an allegory about Chinese society or something. But people never make arguments like that, they just go off about how cool and mind-blowing they found the books.
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May 1, 2023 21:32
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theyre good
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May 2, 2023 09:39
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Quantum of Phallus posted:theyre good do NOT believe this person, they are prancing on you
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May 2, 2023 16:14
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I enjoyed the first book, more or less, and really liked some of the moments of the second book (dark forest concept most especially), but kinda disliked most of the rest of the book. Never got around to the third, I think I started it and didn't see anything I liked.
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May 2, 2023 16:28
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one thing that struck me recently is how Three Body uses some hard science trappings, but the drama and setpieces seem to draw from shonen anime and manga in tone. the attack zipping through all the ships and they seem to explode in unison, the dramatic confrontations with the wallfacers, the relationship between the protags and their adoring wives
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May 2, 2023 17:18
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Probably manhua but yeah I can see that.
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May 2, 2023 18:44
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silvergoose posted:Probably manhua but yeah I can see that. fair point. I'm not familiar with manhua beyond cultivation stories, and I know there is some crossover between manga/manhua/manhwa, but shonen probably isn't the right term. (but then manhua adaptations still get called anime?)
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May 2, 2023 18:59
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Famethrowa posted:one thing that struck me recently is how Three Body uses some hard science trappings, but the drama and setpieces seem to draw from shonen anime and manga in tone. That's actually a really good point.
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May 2, 2023 20:43
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Famethrowa posted:one thing that struck me recently is how Three Body uses some hard science trappings, but the drama and setpieces seem to draw from shonen anime and manga in tone. Don't forget the melodramatic badass ninja robot that lives in a treehouse and walks around with a katana at all times and slices people in half.
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May 3, 2023 09:36
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GABA ghoul posted:Don't forget the melodramatic badass ninja robot that lives in a treehouse and walks around with a katana at all times and slices people in half. Lol
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May 3, 2023 20:27
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The more I remember about them the more wack these books were
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May 3, 2023 20:28
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Lil Swamp Booger Baby posted:The more I remember about them the more wack these books were
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May 4, 2023 02:48
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Famethrowa posted:one thing that struck me recently is how Three Body uses some hard science trappings, but the drama and setpieces seem to draw from shonen anime and manga in tone. lol goddammit
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May 4, 2023 09:10
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Famethrowa posted:one thing that struck me recently is how Three Body uses some hard science trappings, but the drama and setpieces seem to draw from shonen anime and manga in tone. What adoring wives lol?
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May 12, 2023 01:45
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