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Alistair Reynolds has some really good poo poo. Like, the dialogue isn't great but the sci-fi storytelling is top-notch
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Aug 6, 2014 00:11
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Gonna recommend all of Alastair Reynolds. The Revelation Space series, the one off books (Pushing Ice, House of Suns and Century Rain are some of my favorites), and Blue Remembered Earth are all utterly fantastic. I've been reading all of his books this year and having completed almost all of them I'm sad that I won't have any more of his material to read. He's quickly become my favorite sci-fi author of all time.
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Aug 6, 2014 00:11
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Bold Robot posted:This is a good post, except that House of Suns didn't do much for me and nobody should read the Dune sequels. Agreed. Dune and first two sequels only if you must. The rest is crap Asimovs's first Foundation series is good. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama. Only the first series he published. Avoid the prequels A Canticle For Leibowitz, great book but sad These are classics for good reason Weener Beater fucked around with this message at 00:19 on Aug 6, 2014 |
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Aug 6, 2014 00:16
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I liked all the Dune sequels but a lotta people don't so
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Aug 6, 2014 00:18
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Ian McDonald is good, especially River of Gods and The Dervish House. Brasyl didn't do much for me though.
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Aug 6, 2014 00:19
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Maoist Pussy posted:Alistair Reynolds has some really good poo poo. i have an irrational hatred of one element in Revelation Space that almost ruins the series for me the loving pigs
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Aug 6, 2014 00:22
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Affe mk2 posted:I'm in the middle of A Fire Upon the Deep. It's pretty badass, but its idea of the internet is hilariously 90s. Reading this right now for the second time and its great.
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Aug 6, 2014 00:37
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I enjoyed Snow Crash, even more so now that Oculus Rift is a thing
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Aug 6, 2014 01:51
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calusari posted:I enjoyed Snow Crash, even more so now that
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Aug 6, 2014 01:57
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my bony fealty posted:i have an irrational hatred of one element in Revelation Space that almost ruins the series for me the loving pigs Yeah, that is a little bit of wtf, but I think he was trying to introduce a "gritty throwback with useful qualities" element in human society to save itself from the flighty, hyperevolved jiggery-pokery taking precedence.
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Aug 6, 2014 02:02
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Man never let me go was a dnf for me. It felt like they were teasing something that you could have figured out in the first chapter. Eh, the only mystery I cared about was the art collection. My friend really recommended it too and I felt bad.
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Aug 6, 2014 02:05
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havent reead scifi in a while but heres some of my favs roadside picnic solaris ringworld the warlord of the air (not really scifi, basically steampunk before steampunk was a thing)
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Aug 6, 2014 02:07
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Almost everything by Iain Banks is pretty good, also Alfred Bester.
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Aug 6, 2014 02:16
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Callick posted:Gonna recommend all of Alastair Reynolds. The Revelation Space series, the one off books (Pushing Ice, House of Suns and Century Rain are some of my favorites), and Blue Remembered Earth are all utterly fantastic. I've been reading all of his books this year and having completed almost all of them I'm sad that I won't have any more of his material to read. He's quickly become my favorite sci-fi author of all time. Alastair Reynolds suffers a bit from throwing too many poo poo into the pile and then not being able to get himself out of the mess and that was particularly notorious in Revelation Space. He just kept pilling up crazy stuff without much concern for how to tie it all up and by the time you get to the middle of the last book you start to realize it isn't going to end up well at all. It's been several years since I read it but I remember thinking at several points as I was reading it "why would the Inhibitors make a plan this stupid and convoluted". And then he just kept adding poorly developed and explained layers on top of that. We gonna contact these Shadow guys, they are our only salvation from the Inhibitors, surely the ominous name couldn't possibly hint at anything. Oh poo poo no, that wasn't any good, we should instead contact the Nestbuilders, these guys finally seem on the level. Jump 500 years into the future "...and everyone was unintentionally hosed".  Don't get me wrong, there were some amazing set pieces and concepts in the series. The stuff with the generation ship on book two was really interesting, I could read a whole book about that and everything to do with the ghost ship exploration was really tense and creepy. Then you get to the reveal of that and welp  .Things gradually descend into bad weird and I feel it's because he didn't really have any idea where he wanted to go with the story and then couldn't wrap it up. The stand alone books (in which I'm including the The Prefect, prequel to Revelation Space) come off much better probably because they had to be wrapped up by the end of the book but while Pushing Ice and Century Rain also had great premises and several cool ideas they kind of fizzled out by the end. You didn't mention Terminal World, didn't like it or didn't read it? MeLKoR fucked around with this message at 02:24 on Aug 6, 2014 |
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Aug 6, 2014 02:18
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I can agree with that assessment. loving great getting there, though.
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Aug 6, 2014 02:33
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2001: A Space Odyssey is really really good, whether or not you've seen the movie. If you've seen the movie it's different. Not better or worse, just different. The Forever War as said before is just outstanding. Homosex.
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Aug 6, 2014 02:37
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It's technically fantasy but like a lot of novels of the time (apparently) it blends sci-fi and fantasy per that famous Arthur C. Clarke quote that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic: The Dying Earth and to a lesser extent Eyes of the Overworld and Cugel's Saga by Jack Vance, although even by Overworld a lot of the whole "sci-fi" aspect is lost in favor of pure fantasy with a sci-fi concept at its core. Just skip Rhialto the Marvelous, it's not bad but it's clearly just Vance having one last wank in The Dying Earth world and he sadly chooses to fart around with the politics of a wizard community. The Dying Earth is seriously tits though. It's about the Earth in the faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar future after countless civilizations have risen and fallen, the sun is in its last days and glows red in the sky, and the only creatures left are a weird assortment of monsters and humans living in the ruins of better aeons past. Magic and technology are seen as indistinguishable and almost always salvaged/discovered remnants of prior ages, with some uses of magic being very obvious uses of high-tech technology its users simply don't understand. There are constant allusions to genetic tampering creating the various monster races that inhabit the Earth, as well as lore which states that at least some of the various civilizations in Earth's past colonized space and left their homeworld behind even if that capability has been long lost. Most of the powerful people are various forms of wizards, sorcerers, and magicians who salvage and use the artifacts of old Earth to hoard power, and style themselves as basically the dickish descendants of Merlin. In all four Dying Earth books Vance deals in three exclusive types of protagonists--varying types of wizards, truly detestable rogues, and cipher straight-men/woman heroes. After The Dying Earth he pretty much stops writing cipher heroes though, and by Rhialto he just straight-up combines his wizard and rogue archetypes into one character, but they're all still enjoyable. It's especially nice to see him write rogues that are genuine rogues-- they're seriously horrible people and you often find yourself wanting to strangle them through the page, and very glad to see them get punished for being such assholes. The end to Eyes of the Overworld especially has the best "It was all about the ride, hope you had fun" endings I've ever seen. They've got seriously florid language with a "balls out there" vocabulary, imaginative settings, and were clearly influential as all gently caress even though no one I know has ever even heard of them. For gently caress's sake the magic system in D&D takes its cues from the rules Vance set down in The Dying Earth, where "magic" users can only cast "spells" by memorizing complex linguistics that leave their head immediately after recitation. There is some troubling sexual and racial subtext in The Dying Earth, mostly surrounding obvious sexual insecurity, Madonna/whore complexes, and fear of the black man as some sort of unknown entity, but it never gets in the way of the narrative (I swapped the genders of the protagonist and love interest for one of the short stories in Dying Earth as a thought experiment and not a drat thing in the narrative changes) and is actually pretty mild when you consider it was written in the 1940s and 50s while Vance was out in and recovering from WWII. It mercifully doesn't show up in later books. I know it's pretty loose sci-fi but it still loving counts and I'm going to pimp this out because gently caress it goons will love it if they don't already know about it, although I suspect at least one of you assholes will tell me that Vance is totally old hat and "everyone" already knows what I just wrote.
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Aug 6, 2014 02:37
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Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang. Basically science fiction short stories written by Doc Manhattan if he was on mescaline.
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Aug 6, 2014 02:57
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30 Goddamned Dicks posted:The Commonwealth Saga (Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained) by Peter F Hamilton are the ultimate in Sci Fi to me. Huge space opera with pretty much everything that makes Sci Fi good. Weird shapeshifting aliens? Check. Humanity has spread into the entire universe? Check. Crazy-rear end future technology? Check. Touches of Sci Fi Noir? Check. Utopian societies? Check. Merge with weird Fantasy stuff? Check. Tons of awesome individual characters who have fully complex stories and somehow all end up contributing to the main plot? Check. Fuckin mech warriors? Check. DeusEx levels of bioengineering? Check. Downloading your brain into a computer and re-implanting it into a new body grown in a vat? Check. Weird freaky poo poo? Check. I came here to post about my Huge Hardon for Peter.F.Hamilton as well. His trilogies are loving huge and awesome (see above). As well as the Commonwealth Saga, there is The Nights Dawn trilogy and The Dreaming Void trilogy. And for a standalone novel from him, I absolutely loved Fallen Dragon. Alistair Reynolds is a good author too, but not even close to Peter.F.Hamiltons greatness.
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Aug 6, 2014 03:15
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I've been considering reading some of his stuff but zombie Al Capone from space sounded like a profoundly retarded concept that didn't inspire much confidence in his other work. Judging from my posts in this thread would you advise me any of his trilogies in particular?
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Aug 6, 2014 03:19
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MeLKoR posted:I've been considering reading some of his stuff but zombie Al Capone from space sounded like a profoundly retarded concept that didn't inspire much confidence in his other work. I think that zombie Al Capone is in the Nights Dawn series, so probably the Dreaming Void or Commonwealth. I thought that D.V was better, but Commonwealth is the first series. A lot of the characters and events from that are referenced in the later series', so you should probably read that first altjough I didn't and it didn't really bother me. Try Fallen Dragon as a taster I suppose.
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Aug 6, 2014 03:28
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Anything by Matthew Stokoe. The books are 75 percent weird sex scenes.
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Aug 6, 2014 03:30
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Snow Crash The Diamond Age
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Aug 6, 2014 03:32
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Dune But just read the first book and pretend the crappy sequels and spinoffs do not exist. Asimov's stuff is often interesting in a big picture sense or on a conceptual level, but the guy is pretty terrible at creating interesting characters or believable dialogue. Dick Fagballzson fucked around with this message at 03:59 on Aug 6, 2014 |
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Aug 6, 2014 03:32
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Man in the High Castle and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch are two of my favorite PKD stories that I haven't seen mentioned yet
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Aug 6, 2014 03:46
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Second Variety is also good e: Automatic Retard posted:Try Fallen Dragon as a taster I suppose.
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Aug 6, 2014 04:24
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Zones of Thought series by Vernor Vinge, I haven't finished it yet though but it's good so far. The Gap Cycle by Stephen R. Donaldson, it's good but the first book is definitely worth skipping, you can piece together what happened from the later books, and it's hard to read. The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson is definitely a must read.
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Aug 6, 2014 04:26
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Maoist Pussy posted:I liked all the Dune sequels but a lotta people don't so I liked the first three more than the last two, but even the last two had their moments. Other than Dune Messiah, which I re-read a few years ago, it's been a long time, however.
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Aug 6, 2014 05:52
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loving hell. And here I thought Dune was a trilogy. And Neuromancer has a sequel what the jesus. Not gonna read any of that crap.
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Aug 6, 2014 09:29
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anything that falls into young adult genre is garbage beyond repair also david weber is trash, don't waste time on that poo poo
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Aug 6, 2014 10:27
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MeLKoR posted:I'm sure plenty of soviet geniuses dismissed western economics as well, being brilliant does not entail supporting capitalism. Given the character's upbringing I'd find it much more offensive if he suddenly "saw the light" and converted to a capitalist mode of thinking. Of course everything would look dreadful to him. my recollection is that, while the anarchist society was shown to have some flaws at a systemic level, most of the individuals from the society were depicted positively due to their upbringing in the free love anarchist society while there were very few (no?) positive depictions of anyone in the Western society who all came across like thinly veiled caricatures in line with how the 'FIRST AGAINST THE WALL' types think about people
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Aug 6, 2014 10:29
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Mary Shelley - Frankenstein - with the exception of Electric Sheep, possibly the novel I've read the most times. The Last Man - first half is a bit of a slog so just enjoy her prose. Also, pick up the collection Mathilda and other Stories as there's even more proto-SF goodness there. She was way ahead of her time. Philip K. Dick - any of his more celebrated novels (DADOES, UBIK, Scanner Darkly, Valis, Stigmata) are a safe bet. And while you'll always find good things buried in pretty much everything he wrote there is some crap, too. A typical example is We Can Build You which I've just finished. For the first few chapters you are presented with what amounts to a prequel to Electric Sheep. But just as your excitement mounts Dick ruins the mood entirely by switching the focus of the novel to vicariously psycho-analysing his own obsessions via the lead character. He did this a lot in his novels but it's especially grating in WCBY because the novel was gathering steam so well. Currently reading Girl in Landscape by Jonathan Lethem, a vocal admirer of PKD. Pretty good so far. (Have just ordered Hyperion thanks to this thread. Christ knows if I'll ever get around to reading it but it's been in my Amazon wishlist since the last ice age.)
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Aug 6, 2014 10:44
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Old Man's War, it's got geriatric super-soldier plant-people sex. It's also pretty good if you liked the Forever War.
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Aug 6, 2014 10:54
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I really enjoyed Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. It's pretty non-traditional as sci fi goes, but I thought that made it more interesting.
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Aug 6, 2014 11:08
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snow crash is great but for its typically lovely stephenson ending and its super loving creepy sex scene.
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Aug 6, 2014 11:32
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Dick, Banks and Egan. all great for different reasons
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Aug 6, 2014 11:36
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Asimov has already been mentioned, but his "End of eternity" is very good.
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Aug 6, 2014 11:41
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Is Anathem any good? It's been sat on my shelf looking all big and throbbing for a few years now but I've never cracked it open.
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Aug 6, 2014 11:44
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Bloom by Will McCarthy. The last of humanity now lives only on a moon around Saturn, Earth has been destroyed by nanomachines and is a big ball of grey goo. Blooms are where the nanomachines hit their base, thrown from Earth, and you have only seconds to react if caught in it. The bloom name is how the nanomites looks converting everything it touches. Then one day, they notice shapes and movements on the 'surface' of Earth, and need to investigate. It's a good read, a bit hokey sometimes.
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Aug 6, 2014 12:26
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Neurosis posted:my recollection is that, while the anarchist society was shown to have some flaws at a systemic level, most of the individuals from the society were depicted positively due to their upbringing in the free love anarchist society while there were very few (no?) positive depictions of anyone in the Western society who all came across like thinly veiled caricatures in line with how the 'FIRST AGAINST THE WALL' types think about people It's been years since I read it but from what I remember the part of the story that takes place on the anarchist society revolves almost exclusively around the protagonist getting hosed over by his "superiors". I don't remember the capitalist society being depicted in a particularly outrageous way, it was your standard "Victorian" classist based society where the proles got their noggins bashed in if they dared protest the status-quo. It's not like such societies haven't existed. The reason you don't get to meet many good people in the capitalist society was simply that the protagonist was kept isolated from the common people until he managed to escape near the end of the book. It's not that everyone was bad ,it's just that the only people he was allowed to have contact with where either the ruling class or secret service agents there to keep him in check. e: In short, it's obvious that the book was written from a leftist perspective but it came off as pretty honest. It didn't pretend the leftist utopia was paradise, on the contrary it gave a pessimistic view of it. MeLKoR fucked around with this message at 12:46 on Aug 6, 2014 |
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Aug 6, 2014 12:41
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