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mllaneza posted:Seconding ST/FW as a good pair even if they weren't meant that way. I'll recommend David Drake, he wrote a lot of stories trying to exorcise he demons he brought back from Vietnam. Glen Cook has some good stuff in milsf; Passage at Arms, Black Company, Shadowline all spring to mind. I'm not a big fan of black company as mil sf, because way too much involves the narrator loving sex goddesses. Why does this Mary Sue poo poo get a pass? "Boo hoo I went to Vietnam and secretly wanted to gently caress sorceresses and write iffy history like Xenophon instead!" coyo7e fucked around with this message at 07:17 on Aug 30, 2016 |
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Aug 30, 2016 07:13
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coyo7e posted:I'm not a big fan of black company as mil sf, because way too much involves the narrator loving sex goddesses. There's not any actual onscreen sex tho.
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Aug 30, 2016 07:33
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Oh so as long as the icky sticky words aren't there, you're okay with Mary Sue protagonist/narrators who gently caress all the bitches and never really come close to any real harm? Please tell me more  If you're going to recommend Black COmpany, it had better be goddamned after Germline, if you want an immortal narrator who doesn't actually contribute much, plus he's not much of a Mary Sue. And if someone  out on how Croaker isn't the narrator in every novel, I'm going to put them in a leather sex doll outfit and then fire them from a catapult, into a loving Aztec pyramid siege battle scene, because who could stand more than 2 or 3 or 4 of those books
coyo7e fucked around with this message at 07:41 on Aug 30, 2016 |
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Aug 30, 2016 07:38
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coyo7e posted:Oh so as long as the icky sticky words aren't there, you're okay with Mary Sue protagonist/narrators who gently caress all the bitches and never really come close to any real harm? Please tell me more Ok. I'm gonna fight you about this, but it's gonna have to wait until my days off. Watch this space on Thursday.
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Aug 30, 2016 10:49
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coyo7e posted:First, you misspelt Gulik. Secondly, you may not be using the phrase "kung fu" appropriately. Judge Dee has very strong kung fu. less laughter posted:It's van Gulik, which means "from/of Gulik" Ugh, thanks guys. Isn't it ironic when you fix a typo and make another one? Nevvy Z posted:Do it now. I loved that book and still don't know if the main character was actually crazy or actually magic Well, I'm glad I re-read it, because I liked it a lot more the second time and it's nice not to have to tell people the book they liked sucks! First up, it's unambiguously fantasy. When Mor is showing Wim fairies, his descriptions of them correspond with hers, before she's said anything. The text could be unreliable here, but not in an interesting way. Why the confusion? Mor is, understandably, not in the best of mental health. The magic is subtle, not bound by causality, and ambiguous, e.g. the way Liz's night attacks appear a lot like night terrors. The weird rituals also look like something out of We Have Always Lived In The Castle, because they are only meaningful to Mor herself; but magic here is significance and information, the fairies are creatures of information, and it's private; so although it's real, it looks crazy. The Tempest performance and reference in the penultimate paragraph is basically the crux of the story and the reason it has a happy ending. Mor doesn't leave magic and fairies (and by implication literature) behind, but she grows away from them, and more critical of them. At the beginning she's basically Don Quixote – who might be in a world where magic exists, but does not have a handle on how it works or how to behave in it. Her guide to everything is literature, which isn't a great guide. The most obvious example is where her dad tries to rape her and her reaction is a) ambiguous and b) inspired by literature, Heinlein and Sturgeon. (The text is critical of this attitude, though; Mor mentions Marion Zimmer Bradley a few days later, and the first time they meet she even compares herself and Daniel to Lazarus Long and his clone-daughters Laz and Lor, whom he fucks.) Nor can she relate to most of the other girls in her school, not that I'd want to much, either, myself, but you gotta know how to do it because otherwise you'll go nuts. Anyway, Daniel, a really flat character, like most of them in this book. Alcoholic, sf-loving, dominated by his sisters, dispensing £10 with unnerving abandon. That's pretty much him, and most of the other characters don't fare much better. Part of this is due to Mor's character, part of it's due to the diary format, but it's not pleasant reading. Walton does use the diary format well in other ways, though – I especially liked the narration by omission in 15th-22nd October. Funnily enough, Among Others isn't an actual diary, it's an edited memoir, though why and for whom aren't stated. Minor thoughts: it's great to see so many Welsh characters in a novel, and Englishness is an insult at best. Cool. I think Mor's style slips when she says things are “epic”, that seems much too modern. Like an Ursula le Guin novel, Mor is a product of her environment – post-industrial, polluted Wales, and traumatised Mor. There are some nice subtle nods to other stories – “Tam Lin” at the first Hallowe'en, and Wim's resemblance to Alcibiades – late to a symposium, sexually untrustworthy. The sex is generally well-written, when's the last time we said that in this thread? Large chunks of the drat thing are nothing but empty fanservice, depressingly like the way characters communicate affection by giving each other books in lieu of actual relationships. Is this really Hugo quality? Well, the happy ending does make it critical of that attitude, at least. I'm the Book Barn IK. Feel free to PM me or email bookbarnsecretsanta@gmail.com if I can help you with anything.
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Aug 30, 2016 11:56
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I wanted to browse through a few pages of Baxter's Raft last night before bed. Long story short, several hours later I'm something like 60 percent into the book and fully hooked. Even the science bits are quite readable and engaging. Love it.
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Aug 30, 2016 12:31
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The story set in the setting of Raft was the most engaging one in Vacuum Diagrams, too.
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Aug 30, 2016 14:08
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coyo7e posted:Oh so as long as the icky sticky words aren't there, you're okay with Mary Sue protagonist/narrators who gently caress all the bitches and never really come close to any real harm? Please tell me more I am and also even if the words are there
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Aug 30, 2016 14:45
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coyo7e posted:I'm not a big fan of black company as mil sf, because way too much involves the narrator loving sex goddesses. It's not SF, so that may explain your confusion. Perhaps you meant to read Passage at Arms? Also, a few pages of content about the narrator's relationship with another character, spread out over nine books, is "way too much" now, apparently. This is especially risible considering you mention it in the same sentence as Germ-"the genetically engineered army of beautiful women just can't get enough of me"-line.
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Aug 30, 2016 14:45
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MilSF reading list: Starship Troopers The Forever War Armor uh Hammer's Slammers like just start reading david drake and don't stop? Passage at Arms Watch on the Rhine by John Ringo and Tom Kratman Old Man's War Terms of Enlistment have I told you about how battlecruisers are lightly armoured but fast Bolo stuff the first couple of Halo novels the more military bits of Bujold's writing? Gaunt's Ghosts and Ciaphas Cain and Titanicus and Ian Watson's Space Marine *farts* The Black Company is good but not actually set in space and probably not set in the future. It is hilarious how the narrator writes lovely self-insert slashfic about their boss who is sauron but a woman, and she notices him. Edit: I made this terrible post primarily to suggest that people reading Starship Troopers and The Forever War also read Armor. It's relevant? 90s Cringe Rock fucked around with this message at 15:38 on Aug 30, 2016 |
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Aug 30, 2016 15:35
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chrisoya posted:MilSF reading list: ... that's a recommended reading list, right? Why the hell is Watch on the Rhine on it?
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Aug 30, 2016 15:41
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MockingQuantum posted:Asking because I accidentally started a book club because of a FB conversation: Some more milsf suggestions for your club: David Weber's Imperium of Man (Prince Rodger) series ('March to...'). There's also the Honor Harrington books... John Ringo writes a lot of bad books, but his Legacy of the Aldenata and Troy Rising series are decent (Aldenata) to good (Troy). Also his Voyage of the Space Bubble books (that series name is messed up) is some pretty awesome/ridiculous unprepared space marine stuff going on. Joel Shepherd only has two books in his Spiral Wars series released so far AFAIK, but they're good. Evan Currie has a couple milsf series I liked, his Hayden War books basically follow the adventures of Not-Commander-Shepard and the Odyssey One books are about Earth's first interstellar starship getting into all sorts of Star Trek shenanigans if the Enterprise had been a full-on military starcarrier. Ian Douglas writes the Star Carrier books about the USS America and is basically 'America, gently caress yeah' the milsf. Mike Resnick's Starship series isn't as good (IMO) as some of the above, but it's more of a case of not standing out than actually being bad. Everything BOLO-related I've read (originally by Keith Laumer? Several books by other authors after his death, such as Old Soldiers by Weber) has been good. Some of the original books have a bit of the 'old-style prose' going on though. Scott Westerfield's Risen Empire duology is great, includes undead emperors, cyber-assassins and planet-sized AIs. B.V. Larson writes a ton of milsf but don't read it, it's all formulaic and horrible. There's a ton of good SF that's not quite milsf too, if your group wants to branch out (Ann Leckie's Ancillary books, Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga come to mind). And if you really want to scrape the bottom of the barrel there's nearly 50 BattleTech books. 
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Aug 30, 2016 17:43
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All this discussion of milsf is so foreign to me that I actually thought you guys were talking about a genre of 'milf sf' and I both could and couldn't believe that genre existed and was so big.
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Aug 30, 2016 18:32
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Naerasa posted:All this discussion of milsf is so foreign to me that I actually thought you guys were talking about a genre of 'milf sf' and I both could and couldn't believe that genre existed and was so big. 
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Aug 30, 2016 18:45
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WarLocke posted:Some more milsf suggestions for your club: This but for goodness sake, make sure you stop after March to the Stars. Patrick Spens fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Aug 30, 2016 |
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Aug 30, 2016 18:51
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Patrick Spens posted:This but for goodness sake, make sure you stop after *March to the Stars.* I don't remember We Few being all that bad (other than that one reveal right at the end  )
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Aug 30, 2016 18:55
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Naerasa posted:All this discussion of milsf is so foreign to me that I actually thought you guys were talking about a genre of 'milf sf' and I both could and couldn't believe that genre existed and was so big. The ghost of Heinlein still lingers.
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Aug 30, 2016 19:01
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If I was a dude who loves The Time Traveler's Wife because it had time travel and the romance is actually pretty good, what similar books would you recommend?
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Aug 30, 2016 19:01
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The parts where her nipples leak hydraulic fluid before she fucks a space ferry were extremely erotic. And people say the sex bot aspect isn't prominent!
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Aug 30, 2016 19:08
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ToxicFrog posted:This is especially risible considering you mention it in the same sentence as Germ-"the genetically engineered army of beautiful women just can't get enough of me"-line. Oh god, Germline.
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Aug 30, 2016 19:09
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Since we're on about mil sf… Let's Read (about) The Fleet ! Good MilSF is always in demand, so here's a tragically obscure recommendation: the Fleet series. Starting in 1988 Ace Books published five anthologies chronicling the struggle between the civilized Alliance and the completely vile barbarian Khalia. The Khalia - or 'Weasels' - are a species of primitives who gained advanced technology from an unknown benefactor. They're pirates at best; they raid, plunder, enslave, and occasionally eat their way through human colonies on the fringe of settled space. Some of the authors develop characters and follow them through multiple stories, others are one shots. One of the editors, Bill Fawcett, apparently knew absolutely everyone in Science Fiction. Filling out the authors list are such luminaries as Poul Anderson, Larry Niven, Anne McCaffrey, Margaret Weis, and none other than E. Gary Gygax. Fawcett writes a series of interludes between each story. These frame the progress of the storyline from the perspective of a Fleet PR officer charged with selling the tax increases needed to pay for beating the Khalia. These stories average out to quite good. It's not as good as the Slammers for following a war. The other editor is David Drake, who needs no introduction for military science fiction. He also contributes the last story in each volume. Presumably he also keeps each contributor from going too far off into bullshit territory (Steve Perry, Piers Anthony, I'm looking in your direction). He also gets to write stuff that's even more cynical than the Slammers or even Redliners. I'm not proposing a full Let's Read of the series, but this is such an eclectic collection of authors that I have to go through and comment on the stories. Book 1: The Fleet The Collaborator by Janet Morris. Right out of the gate we get a story about how the Weasels don't look that bad if you're a serf on a pastoral planet. Up until they start culling the young, old, and weak from the slave coffles anyway. This one is pretty dark in tone. It also sets up one of the recurring characters. The Two That It Took by John Brunner. Here's a name I didn't expect to see in a milsf anthology. This is an interesting first contact story (with the Khalia), crossed with a series of bad decisions by one of the characters. To top it all off, a legend is born, but not knew you'd want associated with your name. Tradition by Bill Fawcett. This is a really neat puzzle story about a quartermaster playing mind games with an alien empire. I wouldn't have thought repainting warships could be so intimidating. This isn't classic competency porn, it's unconventional competency porn. Bolthole by Jody Lynn Nye. This story introduces another recurring character, a Fleet doctor. He gets caught up in a Khalian raid on a colony. This is a good action story with lots of desperate combat against alien pirates. The Thirty-Nine Buttons by Margaret Weis. Weis takes a close look at whether you really can find honor in the service of death. She chooses life and slaps you in the face pretty hard about it. Klaxon by Robert Sheckley. I wouldn't have expected to find him writing milsf either. It turns out he didn't. Sure, the action takes place on a military base, an admiral finds himself in a very precarious position, but first contact is made and the day is saved by a non-military person applying out of the box thinking. Contrapuntal by Steve Perry. He writes good violence, but usually smaller scale than military action. Is it really him ? Mystical order of assassins ? Check. Intricate descriptions of fictional martial arts ? Check. Incoherent conversation between two characters who both understand the subtle hints and intricate intimations the other is making ? Check. Is that conversational style an art with a name ? Check. Is the story supposed to be about a species subjugated by the Khalians but he uses his own name for the Weasels ? Check. Is there some transgressive sexual content ? Check (It's only incest). Yeah, it's a Steve Perry story alright. It's short. It adds nothing to the setting besides "the Khalians sometimes enslave whole pre-space flight planets". I suppose that counts as foreshadowing. If you've read any of the Matador Cycle, skip it - you've seen this at least twice already. If you haven't ready any, it's a quick way to catch up on his whole oeuvre in 16 pages. Pay Tribute To The Fleet by E. Gary Gygax. Space libertarians save their planet and thumb their noses at the Alliance. It's got some competent action sequences in it and on the whole it's better than any fiction he ever published in Dragon. The Only Bed to Lie In by Poul Anderson. In which veterans of a semi-colonial posting can't find comfort on other worlds after being adapted to local conditions. They wax nostalgic about their time defending a your civilization against barbarians and make plans to return against Fleet's wishes. Duty Calls by Anne McCaffrey. A brainship and a non-human brawn go undercover on a Khalian-held planet as pathfinders for an invasion. We'll see more brainships and a few more members of the new species. Rescue Mission by David Drake. The invasion happens. We meet recurring characters in the 121st Marine Reaction Company aka the Headhunters. Excellent ground action with a dark and cynical twist. As an editor Drake has a lot of freedom for what he writes and he's using it. The Headhunters stories will carry a lot of the plot and will always be among the best stories in each volume. So, anyone care about volume 2 or want more about a particular story ?
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Aug 30, 2016 19:29
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Darth Walrus posted:... that's a recommended reading list, right? Why the hell is Watch on the Rhine on it?
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Aug 30, 2016 19:34
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mllaneza posted:Since we're on about mil sf… Oh hey, I picked up one of these (The Fleet IV, I think?) in a book sale ages ago but never got around to reading it. I should do that next time I'm in the mood for some old-school milSF. At the moment I'm reading A Matter of Oaths by Helen S. Wright, which was recommended to me as "if you like C.J. Cherryh and Melissa Scott you should also read...", and that was a solid recommendation. Shame she never wrote anything else. The focus is more on intrigue on board and between ships (and within the Webber's Guild responsible for FTL travel) and less on the war (well, wars, but so far I've only seen one up close) that makes up the backdrop.
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Aug 30, 2016 19:56
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ToxicFrog posted:Oh hey, I picked up one of these (The Fleet IV, I think?) in a book sale ages ago but never got around to reading it. I should do that next time I'm in the mood for some old-school milSF. IV has Niven collaborating with Drake, Poul Anderson, another McCaffrey story, Christopher Stasheff, and Jody Lyn Nye. It's possibly the best lineup in the series.
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Aug 30, 2016 20:25
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It's not even Kratman's worst, and I am compelled to share the horror. (he does not write good milsf, milfic, sf, or milfsf)
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Aug 30, 2016 20:57
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mllaneza posted:IV has Niven collaborating with Drake, Poul Anderson, another McCaffrey story, Christopher Stasheff, and Jody Lyn Nye. It's possibly the best lineup in the series. Is there any sort of overarching storyline across books that makes it important to read I-III first, or should I just dive in with whatever I have?
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Aug 30, 2016 23:01
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WarLocke posted:I don't remember We Few being all that bad (other than that one reveal right at the end We Few includes
It is a bad goddamn book, and the reason I no longer read John Ringo.
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Aug 31, 2016 00:35
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Patrick Spens posted:We Few includes What's this bit at the end? It's been mentioned twice with no explanation and I must know how it ruins the series.
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Aug 31, 2016 01:14
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Spoilers for We FewPrince Roger comes home, foils a coup and finds that leader of the coup drugged and sexually assaulted his mother, and essentially broke her. So we had three books of people talking about his mother as though she's a competent monarch. But the only time we actually see her, she's a drug-addled mess who keeps wandering off because she wants to cuddle with her rapist. It's not enough to ruin the series by itself, but after the aforementioned Despereaux transformation, it's just the perfectly lovely end to a lousy book.
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Aug 31, 2016 02:09
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As far as military SF goes, I may have talked about these books before, but I read Terms of Enlistment and Lines of Departure by Marko Kloos, and Fire with Fire and Trial by Fire by Charles E. Gannon. They're no Forever War, but they're pretty good.
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Aug 31, 2016 02:23
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Patrick Spens posted:Spoilers for We FewPrince Roger comes home, foils a coup and finds that leader of the coup drugged and sexually assaulted his mother, and essentially broke her. So we had three books of people talking about his mother as though she's a competent monarch. But the only time we actually see her, she's a drug-addled mess who keeps wandering off because she wants to cuddle with her rapist. It's not enough to ruin the series by itself, but after the aforementioned Despereaux transformation, it's just the perfectly lovely end to a lousy book.  After listening through the Brigador audiobook (it's pretty good!) I was in a mood to read more mil scifi so I've got a Bolo book and Redliners pulled out, along with March Upcountry - and welp, this resolves my little issue with trying to remember where I stashed We Few. I was afraid I might've given it away last time I cleaned out my book collection, and now I know it's no big loss, so - thanks!
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Aug 31, 2016 02:45
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coyo7e posted:I'm not a big fan of black company as mil sf, because way too much involves the narrator loving sex goddesses. You must have read a different Black Company series than I did. The one I read had the narrator falling in love with the literal Evil Overlord, perpetually in fear of getting killed by any of a dozen undead sorcerers, betraying the Evil Overlord, finding the religious fanatic descendants of what might have been the predecessors of the Black Company once upon a time, the Evil Overlord bitching about losing the ability to nuke countries and getting fat, and being turned into a magical golem, all the while entire nations are being run over in a series of neverending wars and One-Eye and Goblin are engaging in a series of magical practical jokes. Hell, I'm gonna re-read it now.
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Aug 31, 2016 04:04
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I love Black Company and we may read the first book in our book club pretty early on even though four of the five of us have already read it, just because we feel like that fifth dude's life is a little empty without having read it. That's all, I don't have anything clever to say about the books, I just enjoyed them more than probably any series I've ever read. I will say I enjoyed some of the later books less, and I think it was strongest when Croaker was the narrator, but I would and will re-read them probably multiple times in my life.
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Aug 31, 2016 07:06
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Probably better to play Myth 1 and 2 than to read past The White Rose tbh.
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Aug 31, 2016 10:43
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Someone gifted me an omnibus of the first three Black Company books a while ago and I should get started on it.
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Aug 31, 2016 16:25
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mllaneza posted:So, anyone care about volume 2 or want more about a particular story ? Love to hear about volume 2.
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Aug 31, 2016 16:42
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ToxicFrog posted:Is there any sort of overarching storyline across books that makes it important to read I-III first, or should I just dive in with whatever I have? There kinda is. The Janet Morris and David Drake stories tie in closest to the overarching plot, but I'd say about half the stories in each volume are standalone. vulturesrow posted:Love to hear about volume 2. I'll start taking notes !
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Aug 31, 2016 18:19
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I just finished Engines of God and really liked it. It does archaeologists in space pretty good. A lot more interesting than marines or random dudes stumble upon thing in space.
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Sep 1, 2016 02:17
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Solitair posted:As far as military SF goes, I may have talked about these books before, but I read Terms of Enlistment and Lines of Departure by Marko Kloos, and Fire with Fire and Trial by Fire by Charles E. Gannon. They're no Forever War, but they're pretty good. I read Terms of Enlistment and really didn't like the part where the main character basically commits a war crime and his sergeant goes well out of her way to make sure he gets no punishment for it. In fact he gets rewarded. Also how he has no sympathy at all for anyone living in the "welfare cities."
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Sep 1, 2016 02:26
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muscles like this? posted:I read Terms of Enlistment and really didn't like the part where the main character basically commits a war crime and his sergeant goes well out of her way to make sure he gets no punishment for it. In fact he gets rewarded. Also how he has no sympathy at all for anyone living in the "welfare cities." You misread it.
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Sep 1, 2016 02:50
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