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Somebody else who read Incandescence by Greg Egan help me out here - what was the relationship between the Splinter that Rakesh found and then the other Splinter where Roi was? Did Rakesh's splinter "descend" from Roi's?
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May 19, 2015 22:46
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muscles like this? posted:The Last Wish is kind of a weird book to start with for people who have played the games because from what I remember it doesn't exactly take place in the same setting. Like the basics are there but its more generic Europe than the countries from the games. There's less of the world-building elements at large since it's an anthology and it doesn't matter so much, but a few of the stories still set up plot for the saga proper (especially with regards to Ciri's parentage and how her destiny became linked with Geralt). The games also make a fair number of call backs to the stories in the two anthologies.
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May 19, 2015 23:28
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Grimson posted:Somebody else who read Incandescence by Greg Egan help me out here - what was the relationship between the Splinter that Rakesh found and then the other Splinter where Roi was? Did Rakesh's splinter "descend" from Roi's? Yeah, that was my impression, it was the same asteroid or (less likely) a different one, some time in the distant future. IIRC one of the clues was that it had more varieties of animals/livestock than the one in the Roi chapters, and they were described as having evolved from a smaller number of parent species. I think Roi's research group eventually hit the singularity and built (or transcended into) the comms relay system around the galactic core.
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May 20, 2015 01:54
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coyo7e posted:I personally cannot stand Elric but read 2 or 3 books to make sure I wasn't missing something vital and unexplained. He seems to just be the prototypical white haired emo with stupidly overdone powers. Also anime. Well, stupidly overdone powers is not really Elric. He spends most of the books being rather weak physically due to his albinism. Even though he is a very proficient sorcerer, doing sorcery drains him of his powers. The interesting part about the series is his symbiosis and parasitism with Stormbringer, where Stormbringer gives Elric strength by draining the souls of the people Stormbringer kills. Which in many cases ends up being his friends and lovers. The books can basically be divided into sections of Elric being miserable and whiny and sections where he goes on a murderous killing spree. But as you say, he is the prototypical doomed and morally ambiguous hero, and his influence on modern fantasy is pretty large.
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May 20, 2015 08:16
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Yah, I'm pretty sure Elric was more or less created as a deliberate point-by-point inversion of the Conan type of hero. Or even of Conan, specifically.
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May 20, 2015 08:38
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With all the discussion about Elric, I realized I've never read any Moorcock. I thought I'd go pick a logical point to start but holy Christ is he ever prolific. What's the best place to begin? http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Moorcock_bibliography Also, due to having not read Moorcock but playing lots of D&D as a kid I was initially conflating Elric with Elmister and quite confused about why people were suddenly so into discussing D&D novels.
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May 20, 2015 09:11
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The blog Ferretbrain has slowly been attempting to read everything Moorcock over a period of many years, so that might be helpful for finding suggestions. http://ferretbrain.com/themes/59 Reading those articles eventually really shows how utterly convoluted the multiverse stuff in his books can get.
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May 20, 2015 11:01
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Anyone reading Seveneves?
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May 20, 2015 12:31
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gohmak posted:Anyone reading Seveneves? I'm planning to start this next. Any good so far?
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May 20, 2015 14:02
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Currently reading Devices and Desires and I have to say it's way more enjoyable than the typical K. J. Parker book: so far there's only one protagonist I want to punch in the face.
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May 20, 2015 15:07
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Kalenn Istarion posted:With all the discussion about Elric, I realized I've never read any Moorcock. I thought I'd go pick a logical point to start but holy Christ is he ever prolific. What's the best place to begin? Hmm. If you want to read just one Moorcock to see how you like him, I'd suggest The War Hound and the World's Pain. It's a solid read and the Von Bek books stand on their own so you don't have to get dragged into the whole Eternal Champion / Multiverse business.
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May 20, 2015 15:47
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What are you, chicken? The Quest for Tanelorn or go home  Kalenn Istarion posted:With all the discussion about Elric, I realized I've never read any Moorcock. I thought I'd go pick a logical point to start but holy Christ is he ever prolific. What's the best place to begin? Seriously though: depends what you're after, but the first volume of a series begun in the 60s or 70s. Elric, Hawkmoon, John Daker, Jerry Cornelius, stuff like that; not the Second Ether or Colonel Pyat. （E: Yeah, The Warhound and the World's Pain too.) ~ SF news: The indiegogo for the Samuel R. Delany festschrift is on its last day - I forgot to post about it earlier, oops. It's funded, but won't hit the stretch goal, alas. Still looks more than worth its :tenbux:.
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May 20, 2015 16:43
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gohmak posted:Anyone reading Seveneves? Any good side stories yet? Like "sexy gomer bolstrood furniture" or "the Art of eating captain crunch"?
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May 20, 2015 17:59
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I just hope it's better than Reamde
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May 20, 2015 22:02
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Seveneves was great (there's some discussion of it already in the Neal Stephenson thread). It is a completely different sort of novel than Reamde. But there are still martial-artist-expert Russians. And crazy pacific northwesterners.
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May 20, 2015 23:14
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Whoever recommended Ted Chiang for people who liked Greg Egan a few months ago: I'm most of the way through a book of his short stories and I see where you were coming from; he's definitely a better writer than Egan, while not being nearly as smart.
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May 20, 2015 23:52
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Selachian posted:Yeah, Corum has the same "last vestige of a dying race" thing going as Elric, but without the angst. You must have been reading different Corum books. He spends more of the first book angsting about his mutilation than about the rape and murder of his entire family, and literally gets angsted to death in the Second Chronicles. With the possible exceptions of Dorian Hawkmoon and Jerry Cornelius, angst is the lot of the Eternal Champion - and Cornelius is one of the few incarnations where the Companion is the hero, so he doesn't count. Whoever said Elric was set up deliberately as the antithesis of Conan is quite correct, and I recall Moorcock has said as much. Heroes in early sword and sorcery fantasy - and Conan especially - were musclebound barbarians who would slay an evil sorcerer to rescue a princess on their way to claiming a kingdom. Elric is so weak he can barely stand without drugs or Stormbringer and comes from an ancient, decadent civilisation; on top of that he is an evil sorcerer who gives away the kingdom he already had then slays his princess in the course of destroying it.
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May 21, 2015 00:30
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Going back to Reynolds chat, the comment that the series is like Mass Effect is 100% true. I have a feeling some of the Bioware writers saw the series and were like huh this is cool lets make a game and draw some inspiration from it. Hell both series end on a disappointing note too... I thought Absolution Gap was solid up until the last few chapters which lead to the plot being resolved kinda poorly by button pressing. I think my favorite book of the series is Chasm City though, I really like the intertwining of the two stories and the twist that happens in the book. Overall everything he has written in the series is good and would recommend it. Also House of Suns was very good as well and I would say it is either my second or third favorite Reynolds book.
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May 21, 2015 07:00
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Just a reminder that last year Reynolds wrote a new Revelation Space short story which is awesomely creepy. Link for anyone who hasn't read it yet: https://subterraneanpress.com/magazine/summer_2014/the_last_log_of_the_lachrimosa_by_alastair_reynolds (it also works as a standalone and a good introduction to the world & tone of Revelation Space, for anyone who's considering reading the books)
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May 21, 2015 07:05
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anilEhilated posted:I am curious: does this come from Witcher 3? I only played the first two games and still don't really see how the transference from the ending of the saga to the start of the game happened and TW2 only really hints at it. The games make explicit references to the various battles and treaties in the novels, as well as some of Geralt's adventures. Both also reference the ending of the books either with flashbacks or conversations along the lines of "I heard you got a pitchfork through the chest?" "Yeah....I got better" but for the most part it's left as a mystery how Geralt got from the end of the books to where he was at the start of the games. Flashbacks and conversations with the Nilfgaardians in Assassins of Kings then spell out the exact sequence of events between the books and the games: Geralt is killed in the riots at the end of the books, and Yennefer exhausts herself trying to revive him. Cirri manages to heal them both and stashes them in the Isle of Avalach to recuperate. An indeterminate time later Yennefer is captured by the Wild Hunt and Geralt teams up with Letho to rescue her. He trades himself for her, and joins the Hunt. Somehow he escapes, and appears at Kaer Morhen with amnesia, starting the first game.
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May 21, 2015 11:04
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Jack2142 posted:Going back to Reynolds chat, the comment that the series is like Mass Effect is 100% true. I have a feeling some of the Bioware writers saw the series and were like huh this is cool lets make a game and draw some inspiration from it. Hell both series end on a disappointing note too... I thought Absolution Gap was solid up until the last few chapters which lead to the plot being resolved kinda poorly by button pressing. I think my favorite book of the series is Chasm City though, I really like the intertwining of the two stories and the twist that happens in the book. Overall everything he has written in the series is good and would recommend it. Both use the idea from Fred Saberhagen's Berserker series, though both do it better than he did. Though tbf Saberhagen's wrote in a different publishing environment
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May 21, 2015 15:43
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Hedrigall posted:Just a reminder that last year Reynolds wrote a new Revelation Space short story which is awesomely creepy. Link for anyone who hasn't read it yet: https://subterraneanpress.com/magazine/summer_2014/the_last_log_of_the_lachrimosa_by_alastair_reynolds Thanks a lot for that link. The story is really good, and I have put Reynolds in my reading queue for sure.
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May 21, 2015 15:43
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House of Suns (spoiler because if you're going to read this book I wouldn't want this to be spoiled for you even those it's not a 'new' book) Holy poo poo, after all the supreme intelligence and civilized behavior displayed by the Gentian's, the sectioning of Grilse took me by surprise. What a disturbing mental image.
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May 21, 2015 16:01
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Fiendish Dr. Wu posted:House of Suns (spoiler because if you're going to read this book I wouldn't want this to be spoiled for you even those it's not a 'new' book) Holy poo poo, after all the supreme intelligence and civilized behavior displayed by the Gentian's, the sectioning of Grilse took me by surprise. What a disturbing mental image. Yeah Reynolds likes to sneak a little bit of his trademark horridness even into his more optimistic works... although I can't think of anything that bad in the Poseidon's Children trilogy, apart from (3rd book spoilers)someone getting dissolved in a tankful of nanobots.
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May 21, 2015 16:09
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Just finished The Iron Dragon's Daughter. Have to say that after reading Harry Potter it was refreshing to read about students at a magical university that are more concerned about loving and doing drugs than saving the world. It was also kinda neat how it showed that living in an eldritch society would probably suck (the prom queen is burned for example).
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May 21, 2015 18:24
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Jedit posted:You must have been reading different Corum books. He spends more of the first book angsting about his mutilation than about the rape and murder of his entire family, and literally gets angsted to death in the Second Chronicles. With the possible exceptions of Dorian Hawkmoon and Jerry Cornelius, angst is the lot of the Eternal Champion - and Cornelius is one of the few incarnations where the Companion is the hero, so he doesn't count.
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May 21, 2015 19:03
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Alhazred posted:Just finished The Iron Dragon's Daughter. Have to say that after reading Harry Potter it was refreshing to read about students at a magical university that are more concerned about loving and doing drugs than saving the world. It was also kinda neat how it showed that living in an eldritch society would probably suck (the prom queen is burned for example). The Magicians explores a similar premise. Pretty polarizing around here, but I enjoyed them a great deal.
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May 21, 2015 20:04
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XBenedict posted:I'm planning to start this next. Any good so far? Very early in the book but it reads like babies first hard sci-fi
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May 21, 2015 20:26
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Hedrigall posted:Yeah Reynolds likes to sneak a little bit of his trademark horridness even into his more optimistic works... although I can't think of anything that bad in the Poseidon's Children trilogy, apart from (3rd book spoilers)someone getting dissolved in a tankful of nanobots. Didn't read your spoiler because I haven't started Poseidon's Wake but in Poseidon's Children when the cousin gets vaporized by a block of ice was pretty horrid considering the tone of the novel. On a Steel Breeze had the whole I chose to have that Arc of millions of people traveling hundreds of years blown up because the other interstellar arcs have more innocent animals thing going for it.
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May 21, 2015 20:38
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Goma's kind of an rear end in a top hat in Poseidon's Wake. What's her deal?
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May 21, 2015 20:43
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Alhazred posted:Just finished The Iron Dragon's Daughter. Have to say that after reading Harry Potter it was refreshing to read about students at a magical university that are more concerned about loving and doing drugs than saving the world. It was also kinda neat how it showed that living in an eldritch society would probably suck (the prom queen is burned for example). Is this book still not available as an ebook anywhere? The sequel is, but the original book eludes me. I really don't want another physical book, and really really would prefer an ebook. Also, read The Magicians. Similar idea. I liked it.
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May 22, 2015 00:06
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I'm currently reading Something Coming Through and it is seriously dull and boring, and that is not helped by having watched MM: Fury Road. Makes me want to only write/pursue short novels with vague mythology. Just give me loving story, how is this so difficult?
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May 22, 2015 02:08
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gohmak posted:Very early in the book but it reads like babies first hard sci-fi Maybe it will get better over the next 1000 pages? Please?
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May 22, 2015 19:16
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XBenedict posted:I'm planning to start this next. Any good so far? If you have ever felt ambivalent about whether you like how Neil Stephenson writes then you may not like it. If you like length technical digressions and infodumps about orbital mechanics then you will probably like it.
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May 22, 2015 19:26
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I'm still in my particular Neal Asher reading binge. Last book I've eaten is "Dark Intelligence". It is a sequel to "The Technician", and aparently is also the first book of a new trilogy ("Transformation"). Well, it seems Mr. Asher has improved a lot his character building. The main character is definitely likeable, it has his own personality and his reasons to do the things he does are actually something the reader can simpathyze with. The villain is this time not a cartoon moustached caricature, and the some of the AIs are positively "alien" and not human (Asher's AIs are usually completely anthropomorphized). I'd catalog this book as the best of the Polity Universe I've read so far (and now I'm just missing the Spatterjay series and "Hilldiggers"). And Penny Royal is a really interesting character. During all the book his motivations are not clear at all, and at the end of the novel his alignment is still debatable; I guess (or I hope) the next "transformation" novels will center on this AI. For starters, I want to know how did it change from a damaged ship AI to a superpowered bastard, capable to put down by himself a modern attack ship and a whole planetary defense network... not to speak about his other abilities...
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May 22, 2015 21:17
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Ted Chiang's Exhalation and Story of Your Life are two of the best sci-fi short stories I've read.
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May 23, 2015 10:29
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withak posted:If you have ever felt ambivalent about whether you like how Neil Stephenson writes then you may not like it. If you like length technical digressions and infodumps about orbital mechanics then you will probably like it. I'm most of the way through it and man, this is infodumpy even for Stephenson.
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May 23, 2015 16:20
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I just reread 'Stranger in a Strange land', and is it just me, or would not Danny Pudi make a great Valentine Michael Smith?
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May 23, 2015 18:41
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cultureulterior posted:I just reread 'Stranger in a Strange land', and is it just me, or would not Danny Pudi make a great Valentine Michael Smith? May as well just use that Bajingo guy from that sciencedork sitcom if you want to ruin things.
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May 23, 2015 19:15
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cultureulterior posted:I just reread 'Stranger in a Strange land', and is it just me, or would not Danny Pudi make a great Valentine Michael Smith?
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May 23, 2015 23:44
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