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mllaneza posted:And I've figured out how to kill Michael Bay: hand him the Neutronium Alchemist series and a budget. He'll stroke out trying to figure out how to get all that amazing poo poo filmed. Ha, as long as he directs and doesn't write the screenplay, that'd be fun. quote:Hamilton writes pulp page-turners, but very few people can conceive and write set pice action sequences like he can. Or cliffhangers. I'm patiently waiting for him to finish the Dreaming Void trilogy before starting it; after he sends a couple of characters off a waterfall and into motherfucking space in the last series, I liked that because it was a literal cliffhanger.  The Void trilogy's cliffhangers so far have not been nearly as cliffhangery as that one was, but they're certainly there. But I unabashedly love everything I've read of his (except Misspent Youth - what the hell was the point of that), so I'm not being objective or anything. I don't even mind the end of the Night's Dawn trilogy at all, because when a bunch of characters spend the last third of the trilogy searching for God, it's not a total deus ex machina when they succeed in finding it. The only big thing that I actually found I didn't like about the trilogy when I went through it a second time is that the whole thing with the Neutronium Alchemist didn't actually matter at all. They spend two books looking for it, find it, use it, it doesn't make any difference to the larger plot or conflict, and it's never mentioned again. And if having Mzu along when they went looking for the Naked God had been important, I'd look past it, but she was just kind of there. Honestly, I'll bet that you could edit out that entire subplot and the character of Mzu and the series as a whole wouldn't suffer for it, and would get quite a bit shorter and more accessible. Aside from that, though, I have no complaints about it at all.
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Nov 20, 2009 16:38
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Moist von Lipwig posted:This is a good idea, I've been so anxious about the next book in the series coming out because he pulls a typical Hamilton and leaves us on a massive cliffhanger. AaDB is technically in the Culture 'verse, there's a mention of a Lazy Gun in one of the books, I forget which one. It's also possibly his best book, it certainly has a shitload of quality scenes and characterization in it. And yes, Banks is required reading for any SF fan.
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Nov 20, 2009 20:32
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Ortsacras posted:I don't even mind the end of the Night's Dawn trilogy at all, because when a bunch of characters spend the last third of the trilogy searching for God, it's not a total deus ex machina when they succeed in finding it. The only big thing that I actually found I didn't like about the trilogy when I went through it a second time is that the whole thing with the Neutronium Alchemist didn't actually matter at all. They spend two books looking for it, find it, use it, it doesn't make any difference to the larger plot or conflict, and it's never mentioned again. And if having Mzu along when they went looking for the Naked God had been important, I'd look past it, but she was just kind of there. Honestly, I'll bet that you could edit out that entire subplot and the character of Mzu and the series as a whole wouldn't suffer for it, and would get quite a bit shorter and more accessible. Aside from that, though, I have no complaints about it at all. I completely forgot about that part of the story. It's like Hamilton had an idea for another novel but wanted to beat out Proust for the highest average page count in a series award or something.
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Nov 23, 2009 13:26
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Can someone remind me of what the Neutronium Alchemist actually did? I recall getting to the end of the series and thinking "Wait, did they do something with that? I don't even remember"
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Nov 23, 2009 21:08
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Magnificent Quiver posted:Can someone remind me of what the Neutronium Alchemist actually did? I recall getting to the end of the series and thinking "Wait, did they do something with that? I don't even remember" It has multiple settings to kill a star, either snuffing it or making it go nova, iirc. Edit: http://nightsdawn.wikia.com/wiki/Neutronium_Alchemist coyo7e fucked around with this message at 23:40 on Nov 23, 2009 |
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Nov 23, 2009 23:28
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Magnificent Quiver posted:Can someone remind me of what the Neutronium Alchemist actually did? I recall getting to the end of the series and thinking "Wait, did they do something with that? I don't even remember" It blew up a gas giant or something and the fireball took out the zombie ships that were pursuing Joshua's ship. That's it. It did something cool with physics but was nothing more than a MacGuffin for the first two books that wasn't necessary. (edit: now if it had been used to kill a star or something more important to the plot, it could have been cool, but it was basically a big dead end as it was.)
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Nov 23, 2009 23:29
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Zophar posted:I read the first one and absolutely loved it, but the cliffhanger ending upset me enough that I lost all interest in reading The Fall of Hyperion. This is from a few pages back, but I have to say that I personally loved the ending to Hyperion. It punctuated perfectly that the book isn't about the end result of the pilgrims, but about their journey. Fall of Hyperion was great, until the last third. Then it turned into fantasy masturbatory trash and I regret finishing it.
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Nov 27, 2009 00:03
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Mike the TV posted:This is from a few pages back, but I have to say that I personally loved the ending to Hyperion. It punctuated perfectly that the book isn't about the end result of the pilgrims, but about their journey. I think the space Catholicism of the last two books in the series is interesting, but like the church, Aenea is also the biggest threat to the book's being good.
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Nov 28, 2009 07:07
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Tanith posted:I think the space Catholicism of the last two books in the series is interesting, but like the church, Aenea is also the biggest threat to the book's being good. Tanith posted:What surprises me is that no one has mentioned Walter Jon Williams' Dread Empire's Fall trilogy, which has all sorts of neat things like physics playing a huge role in his conceptualization of space combat.
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Dec 2, 2009 19:03
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I couldn't get through the first book of the Night's Dawn trilogy. Hamilton has a talent for setting and environment and background, but the plot and characters are terrible. He specifically states that the company knows the planet wouldn't be profitable for hundreds of years until it's industrialized, so they colonize Lalonde as an agrarian society. This makes no sense. The author has pretty obviously inserted himself into the character of Calvert, which makes the numerous and descriptive sex scenes that much more creepy. Every young female character is described with a sexual component. It's like some dude writing Internet erotica decided to write a novel during those sections of the book. What really stopped me from reading more was this discussion between my friend and I: friend: yeah al copne takes over a planet friend: and hooks up with a interplanetary pop-star friend: who's somehow super brilliant and insisive and is always right and has superhuman powers of persuasion friend: and al capone builds a navy friend: and attacks the space navy friend: it's aewsome friend: u suck friend: finish reading it me: I'm sorry my eyes are bleeding now from reading that plot synopsis
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Dec 4, 2009 22:29
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WarLocke posted:It's too bad it seems like we won't be getting an actual end to the series though. At All Costs was supposed to be Honor's Trafalgar, but Weber decided not to kill her. And now he's been working on other series (Hell's Gate and the Safehold books) with no mention of any more Honorverse books in the pipe. And he was setting up something interesting with Mesa (Manticore and Haven teaming up vs the Khan-esque genetic slavers? It's just about the only way I could see the new war ending without one or the other nations being gutted)... Actually, Weber has said he is definitely continuing the series, which is now split into the main series, following Honor, the Shadow of Saganami series, following Terekov/Henke/the Talbott Cluster, and the Crown of Slaves series, following Queen Berry and Torch. Weber's already put out the sequel to Shadow of Saganami, Storm from the Shadows, and to Crown of Slaves, Torch of Freedom. As to ending the whole series? Far from it. In fact, while Storm from the Shadows makes it clear that the war with the Peeps or Havenites or whatever is about to end, with the RMN dictating the turns from orbit around Haven, the Mesa business mentioned is going to become a Big Thing, as in direct attacks on Manticore by Mesa and, crazy though it is, eventual all-out-war with the Solarian League. So, yeah. Honor Harrington is here to stay for a great deal longer. I for one am pretty happy about that.
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Dec 12, 2009 07:30
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Guys and gals, this very well may be common knowledge, but according to the all knowing wikipedia, Vinge is currently working on a sequel to A Fire Upon the Deep, set ten years after the events of that book. Jesus I cannot wait. If it's half as creative and deep(hah) as the other two books, we may have a triple crown winner on our hands.
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Dec 14, 2009 17:00
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Of course, I just started reading that, and then when the sequel comes out I'll have to re-read it because I'll forget most of the details.
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Dec 15, 2009 04:53
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Anthrovore posted:Guys and gals, this very well may be common knowledge, but according to the all knowing wikipedia, Vinge is currently working on a sequel to A Fire Upon the Deep, set ten years after the events of that book. Jesus I cannot wait. If it's half as creative and deep(hah) as the other two books, we may have a triple crown winner on our hands. As far as I know, he's been 'currently working' on that sequel ever since Rainbows End came out almost four years ago, with no details released since then. Since the gap between his novels seems to be 7 years (Fire in 1992, Deepness in 1999, Rainbows in 2006) I'd say we probably have at least a year or two before it's out. Also, I'd be much more interested in a sequel to Deepness, although since we pretty much know how things turn out I'm not sure where he could go with the human characters, anyway.
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Dec 15, 2009 15:10
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Velius posted:As far as I know, he's been 'currently working' on that sequel ever since Rainbows End came out almost four years ago, with no details released since then. Since the gap between his novels seems to be 7 years (Fire in 1992, Deepness in 1999, Rainbows in 2006) I'd say we probably have at least a year or two before it's out. Also, I'd be much more interested in a sequel to Deepness, although since we pretty much know how things turn out I'm not sure where he could go with the human characters, anyway. I figured it must have been old news. Still a nice surprise for me personally- AFUtD had a pretty solid ending, though it obviously left some things unresolved. I wonder whether the sequel will focus on the interaction between the humans and tines or events in the slow zone-spiked beyond. Or both, or neither. I agree a sequel to deepness would be somewhat difficult (though not impossible by any means) due to the way things ended up in that book. I'd really like to see another novel about the Qeng-Ho regardless, whether with Pham or without him. Vinge has really left me wanting more novels (and stories) set in his universe. On a related note, has anyone here read his short story The Blabber? I hear its set in the zones of thought universe, and I'm wondering how closely related it is to Fire and Deepness. edit: Since we've had a Vinge novel set in the slow zone and one set in the beyond, I'm hoping for a traditional fantasy set in the depths and a ridiculously high tech, Joycean philosophical novel set in the transcend. One can hope, right? free hubcaps fucked around with this message at 16:50 on Dec 15, 2009 |
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Dec 15, 2009 16:10
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Been mentioned, but the Gap Cycle is where it's at. You've got THE most fascinating character in SF (Angus), some really creepy aliens, and political intrigue so twisted it makes Zelazny look like Eric Carle. What's most awesome to me is the how organically it expands from a very personal drama about three people to an epic involving the fate of the entire human race. That said, I'd take the first four books of Feintuch's Seafort Saga over the Gap any day... at least based on my memories of them from high school. It's the last three (and the fact that he kicked the bucket while preparing to publish #8) that kinda dilute the impact.
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Dec 16, 2009 00:31
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The Blabber is great, especially if you've read A Fire Upon The Deep and A Deepness in the Sky. Tines are involved, and, though it's been a while since I've read it, I'm pretty sure a certain person we all know and love aka pseudo-Pham plays a starring role. If you can read it I would absolutely suggest it.
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Dec 16, 2009 01:10
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Anthrovore posted:On a related note, has anyone here read his short story The Blabber? I hear its set in the zones of thought universe, and I'm wondering how closely related it is to Fire and Deepness. Technically it's sort of an epilogue to A Fire Upon the Deep, although since it was written before the novel it doesn't fit perfectly. Pham isn't in The Blabber but Ravna is.
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Dec 16, 2009 12:38
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I started the In Conquest book due to this thread, according to my Kindle I'm 13% done.. and I'm finding it to be pretty boring. I haven't seen anything "space" yet, right now it's feeling like a regular adventure book. Just been race espionage so far. This picks up, right? I've also got Fire Upon the Deep now, haven't started reading that yet, was going to wait until I finished this.
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Dec 26, 2009 03:03
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A lot of people have been talking about Paul McAuley's 'The Quiet War' and Michael Cobley's 'Seeds of Earth' recently. Some say they are great no nonsense political hard-sf, but I've heard one or negative comments that they are space opera by numbers. What do goons think?
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Mar 25, 2010 22:57
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Ebethron posted:A lot of people have been talking about Paul McAuley's 'The Quiet War' and Michael Cobley's 'Seeds of Earth' recently. Some say they are great no nonsense political hard-sf, but I've heard one or negative comments that they are space opera by numbers. What do goons think? It seems like the entire book was a few interesting chapters that were sandwiched by vastly more chapters where nothing was interesting.
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Mar 25, 2010 23:30
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I came out of The Quiet War with the odd feeling that i'd enjoyed it, but that perhaps not to the extent that it had been worth the effort it took to read it. The political wrangling was interesting and represented the greatest strength of the book, but it was light on action, the tech was surprisingly unengaging, and the Outers difficult to sympathise with (which left a bit of a 'so what?' taste to the whole affair). I also read the follow-up, Gardens of the Sun, which is even more of a mess storywise and definitely not recommended if you're on the fence after the first book.
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Mar 26, 2010 18:35
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Anthrovore posted:edit: Since we've had a Vinge novel set in the slow zone and one set in the beyond, I'm hoping for a traditional fantasy set in the depths and a ridiculously high tech, Joycean philosophical novel set in the transcend. One can hope, right? This is an old point, but I figured with the other bump I'd address it. The whole point of the Transcend is that it's home to beings which are by definition incomprehensible to us. From the end of Fire (extreme spoilers): The last minutes of his life were beyond any description that might be rendered in the slowness, or even in the Beyond. So try metaphor and simile. It was like ... it was like ... Pham stood with Old One on a vast and empty beach. Ravna and Tines were tiny creatures at their feet. Planets and stars were the grains of sand. And the sea had drawn briefly back, letting the brightness of thought reach here where before there had been darkness. The Transcendence would be brief. So I wouldn't wait on a Transcend novel, Vinge is pretty serious about the notion of the Singularity, and a central concept is the incomprehensibility of the post-Singular world to those not progressing through it. That's explicitly the reason the Zones of Thought exist, since he doesn't think it's possible for society to advance to interstellar levels without getting to the Singularity without some external limiting factor. In the Peace War universe that's the plagues and other global events that set everything back, in Marooned it's avoided because the protagonists most likely just missed it. Anyway, it's been kind of a lovely year or two for Space Opera. All the good new authors seem to be taking a bit longer to get their latest offerings out; Morgan, Banks, Asher, Reynolds, and Vinge haven't had books out in over a year as far as I can tell. It's pretty depressing. And Stross isn't doing Space Opera anymore. Velius fucked around with this message at 20:51 on Mar 26, 2010 |
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Mar 26, 2010 20:43
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Velius posted:stuff Yea, I wasn't really serious about him setting a novel in the transcend. In fact, I would kind of be disappointed if he did- as you say, the whole point and appeal of the transcend is just how incomprehensible and godlike the powers within it are to those outside it, and more exposition would probably retroactively lessen the impact of Fire.
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Mar 31, 2010 01:11
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In the middle of reading the Cordwainer Smith collection 'The Rediscovery of Man'. I'm really enjoying the strange whimsical style he writes in, can certainly see the influence on Banks. The physics is a bit weird though, and doesn't seem too consistent between stories. Edit: Oh and there are some jokes in Stross's 'Glass House' that make much more sense now.
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Mar 31, 2010 22:24
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How do we feel about Campbell's Lost Fleet stuff? I picked up the first one, and I want to know if I should stop before I hurt myself or want to read the next five books.
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May 12, 2010 06:21
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Tanith posted:How do we feel about Campbell's Lost Fleet stuff? I picked up the first one, and I want to know if I should stop before I hurt myself or want to read the next five books. It's repetitive military pulp fiction but I found it enjoyable enough to keep up with the whole series. There's a lot of detail to the space combat if that's your thing, and some clever touches I'd never thought of or seen before.
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May 12, 2010 06:24
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Tanith posted:How do we feel about Campbell's Lost Fleet stuff? I picked up the first one, and I want to know if I should stop before I hurt myself or want to read the next five books. Yeah, after you read the first two or three books you'll notice there is a really set formula that Campbell follows each book. With that said though, I really love them. I am a devourer of terrible scifi though. I'm pretty much the only person I know that likes reading (and rereading, and rereading again)Ian Douglas books, Robert Buettner's books, and James Alan Gardner's books. I know they are trashy books with no real merit, but drat are they fun. Speaking of Ian Douglas, anyone read his new book; Earth Strike: Star Carrier? I kinda got a little burned out on him with "Semper Human" or whatever the third book is in his inheritance trilogy. Couldn't finish that one. Did I mention I really like lovely scifi? USMC_Karl fucked around with this message at 11:10 on May 12, 2010 |
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May 12, 2010 11:08
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Tanith posted:How do we feel about Campbell's Lost Fleet stuff? I picked up the first one, and I want to know if I should stop before I hurt myself or want to read the next five books. Read book one. I really like military sci-fi. Conclusion: "This is neat!" Read book two. I still really like military sci-fi. "hm. Kind of similar to the last book. Why do the main character and love interest keep repeating the same problem/resolution cycle?" Read book three. "I hate the woman. This constant 'intrigue' is really dumb." Read book four. "Arg." Basically, as stated in the prior replies they're incredibly repetitive in terms of the non-combat aspects. In every single book the protagonist 'struggles' with the conflict between his being a nice guy and the apparently strong temptation to become DICTATOR OF ALL, despite being in the middle of a running battle for their survival. The love interest is a huge bitch, they fight, then have make-up sex. A new group of officers undermine his authority because they're idiots, and they cause a few people to die, usually including themselves. Then a new batch start grumbling, foreshadowing the totally novel and interesting conflict for the next book. There's also two battles, one at the start, and one at the end, which are the only really entertaining parts of the series. If you like spaceship military sci-fi, your options are unfortunately quite limited. Walter Jon Williams has the Dread Empires Fall series, which starts out promising but ends up having similar issues of repetitiveness. It also suffers because there's absolutely no tension whatsoever; the premise of the series has the two main characters as literally the only beings capable of tactical innovation in a stagnant universe, so they keep winning battles over and over again pretty much effortlessly. Peter F. Hamilton has been discussed here and elsewhere, his pros and cons are pretty obvious. Weber's Honorverse is horrible tripe, but the battles in the novels are actually pretty entertaining. If his characters weren't so ridiculous it'd be a lot more tolerable. He also has a duology of "In Death Ground" and "The Shiva Option' which are also horribly written and characterized, but the books are 95% straight up battles that end up being pretty entertaining. The other series that come to mind, ones I'd actually recommend, are Elizabeth Moon's Serano/Suiza series, and the Vatta's war series. They're pretty similar to the Honorverse stuff, but without the insane anti-liberal/commie bias, and with a bit better characterization. The good guys are still pretty much always good people, but they're not inhumanly perfect. A bit more sparse on the combat side, but there's a decent enough amount. Velius fucked around with this message at 17:30 on May 12, 2010 |
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May 12, 2010 14:20
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Velius posted:The other series, ones I'd actually recommend, are Elizabeth Moon's Serano/Suiza series, and the Vatta's war series. They're pretty similar to the Honorverse stuff, but without the insane anti-liberal/commie bias, and with a bit better characterization. The good guys are still pretty much always good people, but they're not inhumanly perfect. A bit more sparse on the combat side, but there's a decent enough amount. The Serrano books are pretty drat good, they're highly recommended. I also strongly recommend "The Deed of Paksennarion", her big fantasy series. They're early works for her and a little rough in spots, but they're good books about the development of a paladin. Not as good as Bujold's "Paladin of Souls" though, that's the sequel to "Curse of Chalion" and features one of the greatest changes in main character between books I've ever seen; the madwoman in the attic in the first book is the protagonist in the second.
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May 12, 2010 15:42
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Magnificent Quiver posted:It's repetitive military pulp fiction but I found it enjoyable enough to keep up with the whole series. There's a lot of detail to the space combat if that's your thing, and some clever touches I'd never thought of or seen before. I'd say the same. Quite pulpy but fun for the most parts (the relationship stuff is boring), repeats quite a bit, but a book a year isn't a problem and it gives me some of the rare Mil-SF-fix. Reading all of them in a row is something you should avoid however. And I agree that some of the combat is based on things that haven't been done very often in SF - it shows that Campbell comes from a Navy background. Also, Mil-SF writers who aren't beating you over with their right-wing diatribes (Ringo) are few enough and Campbell is one of the few. I also second the recommendation for Elizabeth Moon. It's Honor Harrington done well basically. Decius fucked around with this message at 16:42 on May 12, 2010 |
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May 12, 2010 16:39
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I like the Lost Fleet series. The criticisms above are correct, but it's still compelling and the protagonist is a great character. It does seem to be dragging a bit, but there's some interesting twists that when they finally address them it will be a big turning point (the aliens and what he does when he gets home).
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May 12, 2010 16:55
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Decius posted:I also second the recommendation for Elizabeth Moon. It's Honor Harrington done well basically. Book-jacket trivia for people not yet convinced to try Moon: she was a 2nd lieutenant in the USMC, so she knows what she's talking about.
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May 12, 2010 17:43
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China Miéville has written a sci-fi novel. From how he describes it in a new interview, it sounds space-operatic!The interview posted:However he revealed his next book is already with his editor – ’science fiction, aliens and spaceships, but I don’t want to give too much away’ – and should be out next year, while adding he has a bunch of books in mind that he wants to write in the future. I'm excited.  China is my favourite author and he always does something interesting when dabbling in different genres (see: western --> Iron Council; detective noir --> The City & The City)Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 12:46 on May 13, 2010 |
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May 13, 2010 12:44
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Book two of Lost Fleet and Captain Falco... AND ALIENS?!?!?There's something that annoys me about repetitive phrasing in books, fortunately it seems to be limited to "SO COLD" and "THIS ISN'T HAPPENING IN REAL TIME!". Yes, we get the idea already. At least Campbell hasn't pulled a Hamilton and put a prodigious amount of awkward space sex in.
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May 13, 2010 18:48
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Tanith posted:Book two of Lost Fleet and Captain Falco... Captain Falco is awesome.
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May 13, 2010 22:05
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Astroman posted:Captain Falco is awesome. No, it's reading it as "Captain Falcon" and thinking "why doesn't he just punch someone or use his knee? SHOW ME YOUR MOVES!" Also Geary's descent into craziness and not realizing that he's speaking out loud is getting old.
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May 14, 2010 03:13
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Tanith posted:AND ALIENS?!?!? Who are a major plot point for the rest of the series, although without direct appearance - or nearly so. However Campbell is writing two further series in the same universe - of which premise I better don't say anything since it would spoil the rest of this series.
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May 14, 2010 06:21
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Glass of Milk posted:I couldn't get through the first book of the Night's Dawn trilogy. Hamilton has a talent for setting and environment and background, but the plot and characters are terrible. He specifically states that the company knows the planet wouldn't be profitable for hundreds of years until it's industrialized, so they colonize Lalonde as an agrarian society. This makes no sense. The author has pretty obviously inserted himself into the character of Calvert, which makes the numerous and descriptive sex scenes that much more creepy. Every young female character is described with a sexual component. It's like some dude writing Internet erotica decided to write a novel during those sections of the book. That conversation would have had me running to the store, it's every bit as confectionery and pulp as it sounds, I loved every minute of it.
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May 14, 2010 13:47
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PFCHudson posted:That conversation would have had me running to the store, it's every bit as confectionery and pulp as it sounds, I loved every minute of it. Night's dawn is really, really loving cheesy in many, many spots. It's still awesome, cheesy sex scenes aside, Hamilton has an uncanny flair for writing action scenes that would give Michael Bay a stroke trying to film them. The chase scene with and asteroid falling on everyone is a fantastic scene. The "fleet" arriving over Lalonde is also a beautiful scene.
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May 14, 2010 15:50
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