The Science Fiction and Fantasy Thread: Read the OP, Bridge of Birds, and Murderbot

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Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

Great OP, just thought of two things you should add:

A big fat visible link to the Help Me Identify This Book thread, so this thread isn't flooded with that kind of post.

A link to the Internet Science Fiction Database (isfdb.org) which is the best place for author bibliographies, comprehensive lists of short stories by authors, tables of contents of anthologies, and so on. Invaluable resource. You can also go to the entry for a particular short story and find out every anthology and collection it's available in.

# ¿ Jun 16, 2013 13:36

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# ¿ Apr 23, 2024 23:08

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

Did you guys see the Locus award winners?

Best YA novel was Railsea, well deserved, but best SF novel went to Redshirts. How the gently caress that unfunny, unoriginal, poorly written piece of poo poo won over books like 2312 and The Hydrogen Sonata is kind of breaking my brain right now. Is Locus voted by the public? Because that might explain it. I hope professional critics really aren't praising Redshirts as the SF book of the year.

Please console me as to why that book could have won :smith:

edit: full list of nominees and winners: http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/06/announcing-the-2013-locus-award-winners

# ¿ Jun 30, 2013 11:00

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

I will happily admit that 2312 has a grating main character* and about as much actual plot as a short story, and that plot is almost entirely in the background to the setting. But what a goddamn setting. My mind was reeling with every chapter from the ideas. When I read it I said it was my favourite science fiction novel ever, and I might not make the same claim now but it's definitely up there and I predict it'll be this decade's/century's Dune.

*The annoying one being Swan. The other main character, Wahram, is a total delight, and nuanced, and fascinating.

edit: Hell, for posterity, here's the slightly incoherent Goodreads review I wrote immediately after finishing the book last year. I stand by most of this still:

I posted:

Right off the bat: this is probably the best science fiction book I've ever read. I cannot possibly give this book enough praise, but let me ramble a bit:

It's an absolute masterpiece, so dense with world building and SF ideas and amazing characterisation. It's this century's Dune. It's a loving tribute to science and ecology and art and music and our solar system and our species. It's a brilliant love story.

The book has roughly a short story worth of plot, but a whole trilogy worth of ideas and imagery and detail. The plot is secondary, almost unimportant, to the setting, the science, and the relationship between the two main characters. I loved these characters. They felt so real. The exploration of gender and sex and sexuality in the future was also really fascinating.

The pace is meditatively slow. Anyone reading the blurb and expecting a thriller/mystery and a fast-paced ride through the solar system will be disappointed. This book needs to be savoured, a few pages at a time. The excerpts and lists and random chunks interspersed with the narrative are just as enthralling as the narrative itself.

Kim Stanley Robinson has made me fall in love with our solar system, has given me hope for the future of humanity, and has made me wish I knew more about classical music. I have found an author whose entire back catalogue I must devour now.

Okay I think that's enough gushing.

Also, here are two contrasting views from the top two reviews of the book on Goodreads:

A 1-star review posted:

The only people I can recommend this book to are extreme liberals. Unwashed hippies, reeking of patchouli. This book postulates a world where conservatism, libertarianism, anarchy and capitalism are evil and never work. Except for some reason they do because old rich people demand they do. And in come our heroes of the nanny state liberal totalitarians to save the day. No mater what people want. If that sounds like heaven, read this book.

A 5-star review posted:

This is one of the best books I have read in a long time. It has an extremely interesting structure that verges on the allegorical. There's an alchemical marriage of Mercury and Saturn, The dynamic of old and emerging structures embedded in the present, three prose styles,- all very clever. A duet of Swan and Frog.

The lovers spin like Pluto and Charon, around the two plot Lagrange points of an endless walk beneath the surface of Mercury, and waiting to be rescued in the blackness of space- two personal moments that are stretched out like long breathes in the whirl impersonal/planetary action.

If any of what I've said or quoted makes you interested in the book, by all means read it! It's a divisive book and it's very worthy of being discussed and debated over.

Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 13:28 on Jun 30, 2013

# ¿ Jun 30, 2013 13:21

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

Vacuum Diagrams by Stephen Baxter is meant to be amazing, simultaneously a short story collection and a chronological encyclopaedia of an entire universe's history. I want to read it soon.

Galactic North by Alastair Reynolds is his Rev Space shorts collected, but they work better once you've read at least the first novel. The universe told in the stories is creepy and gothic, one of the best examples of dark sf.

I really enjoyed The Draco Tavern by Larry Niven. A standalone universe not connected to Ringworld. The book is a bunch of stories about the only bar on earth that caters to aliens. Lots of humour and fun alien cultures.

Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 01:46 on Jul 4, 2013

# ¿ Jul 4, 2013 01:38

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

Can I get a goonsensus on why I should avoid Ilium and Olympos by Dan Simmons? I remember there being a reason people don't like them but I can't remember what it was and I'm hearing great things about it on another forum. And I love the idea of posthumans recreating the Trojan war on Mars. It sounds loving awesome. I'm really enjoying The Terror by Simmons so far, and Hyperion will be the next book of his I tackle, but I'm wondering why people say stop there.

# ¿ Jul 7, 2013 15:03

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

My personal policy for self published books is avoid at all costs.

The only argument in favour of self published authors I hear time and time again is "But what about Author X? His books were self published and were so successful that a publisher signed him up!" Yeah, hence he's no longer self published, and I'd be happy to give him a go now.

Publishers are there for a reason and that's to pick out the quality stories and edit them into a readable state. I'm happy to let them do that job so I do t have to waste a loving second reading "indie" trash.

# ¿ Jul 9, 2013 03:21

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

Self-published ebooks are not analogous with indie music, not at all. The difference with music is you still need to have some level of proficiency/talent with musical instruments, recording equipment, etc, to release even the most lo-fi of indie records*.

You need zero proficiency with grammar and spelling (not to mention plot and character development, dialogue, description, research, worldbuilding, etc) to self-publish an ebook on Amazon.

_{*I guess the exception would be The Shaggs.}

Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 04:56 on Jul 9, 2013

# ¿ Jul 9, 2013 04:41

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

Geek U.S.A. posted:

Christ, I have bought the three Gaiman works that everyone recommends and they are still sitting on my bookshelf untouched. I really should get around to starting them some time.

Which would you guys pick for a first read: American Gods, Stardust or Neverwhere?

Neverwhere's probably the best. Read it then immediately read Kraken by China Mieville to compare/contrast (Mieville's better still).

# ¿ Jul 10, 2013 05:21

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

Here's a little excerpt for a new "Where to start with China Mi�ville?" feature I'm writing for the Mi�ville thread and/or my blog. I plan to do this for all of his novels, but here's a taste:

-----

THE BAS-LAG BOOKS

The Bas-Lag books are a series of three fantasy novels, each standalone, but all set within the world of Bas-Lag (and centering around the city-state New Crobuzon).

Bas-Lag is not an Earth-substitute. It's a planet (or something else entirely? The Scar may have clues) with some weird (and often nightmarish) physics, and bursting with wildly different forms of magic and technology. It's not a steampunk world, so if anyone tells you it is, punch them in the face.

Bas-Lag is populated by many sentient races including humans, Khepri (scarab-headed people), Garuda (bird people), Cactacae (physically imposing plant-people), Vodyanoi (bloated frog shamans), Hotchi (adorable hedgehog people), Grindylow (underwater nightmare fuckers), Llorgis (???), and many more. Humans may also come in Remade configurations, where machinery or non-human biology is grafted to them as a permanent punishment for a crime.

There are three books so far in the Bas-Lag series:

PERDIDO STREET STATION
2000
WHAT IT'S ABOUT - Isaac is a layabout scientist who lives with his Khepri girlfriend in New Crobuzon, a vast and ugly city populated by humans and many other species. He meets a Garuda from a far-off desert tribe whose wings have been cut off for a vaguely described crime, who commissions him to restore his flight by any means. In his research, Isaac accidentally unleashes an alien terror on the city and has to ally himself with dangerous forces to save the city.
WHAT YOU'LL FIND INSIDE - psychic vampire moths, bug-headed women, birdmen, walking cacti, seditionist scientists and artists, mobsters who are more mosaic than man, hell's ambassadors, hive-mind machine intelligences, multidimensional spider gods, xenian sex, grime and filth
READ THIS IF - you want to get in on the ground floor with Bas-Lag; you want the weirdest urban fantasy you've ever seen; you're sick of "it's medieval Europe!" fantasy worlds

THE SCAR
2002
WHAT IT'S ABOUT - Bellis is a linguist who has fled the city New Crobuzon by ship, after the events of Perdido Street Station. Her ship is captured by scouts for the pirate nation Armada, a gigantic floating city made up of hundreds of ships of all kinds. Bellis is pressganged into citizenry of Armada, and soon finds herself on the periphery of a plan by the city's rulers to raise something ancient and unfathomable from the depths of the ocean. But that's only the beginning of a much more dangerous plan...
WHAT YOU'LL FIND INSIDE - a city of stolen ships, pirates in pantaloons, libraries, an island of ravenous mosquito women, terrifying sea monsters, a voluntary Remaking, blood taxes, civil uprising, naval battles, parallel dimensions of possibility, a jackass of a dolphin, the word "puissance" a lot, pus
READ THIS IF - you want to read the best of the best in fantasy; you love monsters; the ocean scares you; you thought Pirates of the Caribbean wasn't weird enough

IRON COUNCIL
2004
WHAT IT'S ABOUT - Decades after Perdido Street Station and The Scar, New Crobuzon is at war with the witch-city Tesh. At the same time, civil unrest is brewing inside the city. Various factions make plans: one group plots to kill the corrupt mayor; another party journeys into the continent's uncharted heart to find the Iron Council � a renegade train, once owned by New Crobuzon but stolen by its workers, that lays its own rails and represents the last hope for the oppressed masses... that is, if it can make it home through the wilderness.
WHAT YOU'LL FIND INSIDE - trains, golems, elementals, monsters galore, hedgehog men riding giant roosters, whores and railway workers starting revolutions, mysterious graffiti spirals, puppetry, a journey through a horrifying wasteland which is like a tumour on reality, telewitchcraft, assassination plots, war, gay sex
READ THIS IF - you've already read Perdido Street Station; you wonder what a Cormac McCarthy fantasy novel would be like; you want Mi�ville at his most baroque and dense

-----

STANDALONE NOVELS

THE CITY & THE CITY
2009
WHAT IT'S ABOUT - Beszel, a crumbling city-state in Eastern Europe, has a rather unique relationship with its neighbour Ul Qoma (a bright, economic boomtown). The nature of that relationship becomes clear throughout the novel, but suffice to say it's more complicated than borders and politics. Remember, Mi�ville is a SF/F writer, after all. When a visiting archaeology student is murdered in one city but her body dumped in the other, the crime becomes much more than just another routine murder case. Inspector Borl� of Beszel has to deal with the shady forces that concern themselves with the relationship between the two cities.
WHAT YOU'LL FIND INSIDE - murder, mystery, mindboggling geography, conspiracy theories, secret organisations, psychological SF, two well-crafted fictional European nations, characters with hard-to-pronounce names, Schroedinger's pedestrian
READ THIS IF - you want to see what happens when you mash crime, sci-fi and literature together; most fantasy fiction isn't cerebral enough for you; you like to tax your brain with a good puzzle

KRAKEN
2010
WHAT IT'S ABOUT - At the British Museum of Natural History, London, a 40-foot giant squid specimen has literally just vanished. This is only the start of a series of bizarre incidences which pull museum employee Billy into London's strange underworld of cults, magic, and other supernatural weirdness. And it may also be the start of the end of the world.
WHAT YOU'LL FIND INSIDE - squids, tentacles, museums, bottles, cults, magic, witches obsessed with Star Trek, unionized familiars, ghost cops, human origami, indoor oceans, evil ink, cockney horrors, competing apocalypses
READ THIS IF - you like Neil Gaiman; you want to try one of Mi�ville's darkest and funniest works; you want to know what the hell human origami is

-----

Let me know if this interests you and I'll write up the rest of the books.

Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 15:49 on Jul 13, 2013

# ¿ Jul 13, 2013 15:46

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

Nondescript Van posted:

I'm a big fan of Alastair Reynolds and i've read and really liked (almost) everything he has written. I wasn't a fan of terminal world because I don't like steampunk

I'm looking for an author or book(s) in a similar fashion. I've seen a few suggestions throughout the thread but I don't know where to start. I'd prefer it be kept in the hard scifi genre since I enjoy the plausible future of humanity angle and I think no FTL travel makes things a bit more interesting.

edit: VV cool. I'll check those out.

Reynolds has a new book (sequel to Blue Remembered Earth) coming out next month! To tide you over, how about Nexus: Ascension by Robert Boyczuk. A lesser known book but if you like dark, relatively hard, space-set SF, then you'll probably enjoy it. I reviewed it in the previous SFF thread:

I posted:

Bleak. Bleak, bleak, bleak. This book is like being repeatedly hit in the face with a giant hammer which has "bleak" stamped all over it. But although you may want to kill yourself once you've read it, it also happens to be a gripping dark sci-fi debut novel.

From the blurb I assumed this book would be straight-forward horror, but it really isn't. It's rather a hybrid of different styles. I would consider it 20% post-apocalyptic sci-fi, 20% survival novel, 20% revenge story, 20% psychological horror, and 20% political space opera.

It's set in a galaxy controlled by a vast empire, called Nexus. The secret of Nexus's success is that they have special humans called Speakers who can communicate psychically and instantaneously over hundreds of light years. These Speakers allow Nexus to monitor and control events on planets spread across the galaxy. Nexus also controls the distribution of technology to its many worlds, allowing only a tiny trickle of new technology over many centuries (this is called the Ascension project). As a result, a lot of worlds rebel against Nexus by stealing advanced technology and reverse-engineering it.

The main characters, from whose viewpoints we experience the plot, are two crewmembers of a long-haul cargo ship: Sav and Liis. They return to their home planet after 30 years in space (most of it spent in stasis) to find everyone on the surface, hundreds of millions of people, are dead. There are just a handful of other survivors: some are passengers of their ship, others show up later in the story.

The story begins as they explore and try to find out what happened, then morphs into a desperate race for survival once they discover the forces behind the destruction of their home. Just about halfway through the book, Sav and Liis split up, each dragged along on missions to other parts of the galaxy. Their viewpoints then alternate until the book reaches its conclusion. A lot of the struggle they experience is with their fellow survivors, let alone the external, much more powerful forces they seek retribution from. Nearly everybody in this book has their own secret agendas, and plans get very complicated near the end.

The book has a lot of action and scenery to offer, which it moves through rather episodically, shifting styles with each new setting. There's the lonely, creepy exploration on the dead planet in the story's beginning; then later on, spaceship-set battles and political intrigue; a survival trek across the surface of an ice-world; and a chase through a secret facility filled with incomprehensible, almost alien, architecture and machinery. There's a lot of very evocative imagery. Oh, and the climactic scene is utterly gross.

I had a few problems with the book, mainly the unwieldiness of some of the descriptions, and also some strange illogical decisions made by the characters. But overall I really liked this book (I think, though, I need a light-hearted antidote to the bleakness of this one). I recommend it to fans of dark sci-fi, especially if you enjoy the tone of books by Alastair Reynolds or Peter Watts.

Also, Peter Watts, Blindsight.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2013 03:12

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

I just read the Kiernan story "I am the Abyss, I am the Light" in the (awesome) anthology Aliens: Recent Encounters. It was okay but not enough to make me want to read all her other stuff. It contains the description "the thorny, cilia-lined slit that can no longer be described as a human vagina" though so if that's your kind of thing go for it!

Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 04:40 on Jul 20, 2013

# ¿ Jul 20, 2013 03:50

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

Hey remember the alien rape-y good times that was "Spar" by Kij Johnson?

Well she wrote a bacon remix.

# ¿ Jul 21, 2013 11:33

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

Stuporstar posted:

You and me both, man. I want so much more out of my sci-fi these days. I'm thinking of trying John Varley again, but I've only read his short stories. His writing isn't up to Silverberg/Leguin quality, but he has a lot to say about being human. Anyone know if his novels are up to the same quality, or does his weird sex poo poo become too much to take at that length?

Titanides come in two sexes, male and female. Both sexes have a rear vagina and uterus, and a large penis in the position where a horse's penis would be. Both sexes also possess humanoid breasts and can thus give birth to and suckle young.

Male Titanides have a frontal penis analogous to a human penis, and female Titanides have a frontal vagina. While sexual intercourse using the horse organs is indulged in casually between individuals of all sexes, so-called frontal intercourse is reserved for intimate relationships. The product of frontal intercourse is always a small, spherical egg a few centimetres in diameter. These eggs are often kept as keepsakes or mementos of special occasions. They are sterile unless first treated with the Wizard's saliva.

An egg which has been made fertile can be implanted in a rear vagina and "quickened" by rear intercourse. After that, the egg will develop into a young Titanide.

All Titanides can have eggs implanted. The Titanide who receives the egg is called the "hindmother". The Titanide who quickens the egg is called the "hindfather". The Titanides whose original act of intercourse produced the egg are the "foremother" and "forefather".

There is special case: a female Titanide may use semen from her ventral penis to produce an egg, transferring it by hand. If the egg is made fertile, she may then implant it in herself and quicken it with the same source of semen. The resulting offspring is a clone of the mother. Semen from the ventral penis can only produce an egg in the same individual who produces the semen. This is the so-called "Aeolian Solo" method of reproduction.

# ¿ Jul 23, 2013 03:30

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

Aston posted:

Does anybody have good recommendations for time travel books?

Just heard about this today:

quote:

The Time Traveler's Almanac

On the heels of the World Fantasy Award winning The Weird, the next genre-defining anthology from award-winning team Ann and Jeff VanderMeer explores the popular world of time travel fiction

The Time Traveler�s Almanac is the largest, most definitive collection of time travel stories ever assembled. Gathered into one volume by intrepid chrononauts and world-renowned anthologists Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, this almanac compiles more than a century�s worth of literary travels into the past and the future to reacquaint readers with beloved classics and introduce them to thrilling contemporary examples of the time travel genre.

Featuring over seventy journeys into time from Douglas Adams, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, William Gibson, Ursula K. Le Guin, George R. R. Martin, Michael Moorcock, H. G. Wells, Connie Willis, Charles Yu, and many more, The Time Traveler�s Almanac covers millions of years of Earth�s history, from the age of the dinosaurs through to strange and fascinating futures.

In fact, The Time Traveler�s Almanac will serve as a time machine of its very own: the ultimate treasury of time travel stories, spanning the distance from the beginning of time to its very end.

In addition to collecting some of the best time travel fiction from over the past 100 years, the VanderMeers have commissioned original non-fiction, including an introduction by Rian Johnson, the writer and director of the recent Bruce Willis time travel movie Looper as well as an essay on the science of time travel by Stan Love, an astronaut from NASA. Other contributors are Charles Yu, Genevieve Valentine and Jason Heller.

Want to see the table of contents?

quote:

FICTION
�Young Zaphod Plays It Safe� by Douglas Adams
�Termin�s� by Dean Francis Alfar
�What If?� by Issac Asimov
�Noble Mold� by Kage Baker
�A Night on the Barbary Coast� by Kage Baker
�Life Trap� by Barrington J Bayley
�This Tragic Glass� by Elizabeth Bear
�Enoch Soames� by Max Beerbohn
�The Most Important Thing in the World� by Steve Bein
�In The Tube� by E.F. Benson
�The Mask of the Rex� by Richard Bowes
�A Sound of Thunder� by Ray Bradbury
�Bad Timing� by Molly Brown
�The Gulf of the Years� by George-Olivier Ch�teaureynaud
�The Threads of Time� by C.J. Cherryh
�Thirty Seconds From Now� by John Chu
�Palindromic� by Peter Crowther
�Domine� by Rjurik Davidson
�The Lost Continent� by Greg Egan
�The Gernsback Continuum� by William Gibson
�3 RMS, Good View� by Karen Haber
�Message in a Bottle� by Nalo Hopkinson
�The Great Clock� by Langdon Jones
�Hwang�s Billion Brilliant Daughters� by Alice Sola Kim
�On the Watchtower at Plataea� by Garry Kilworth
�Time Gypsies� by Ellen Klages
�Vintage Seasons� by Henry & C.L. Moore Kuttner
�At Dorado� by Geoffrey Landis
�Ripples in the Dirac Sea� by Geoffrey Landis
�The Final Days� by David Langford
�Fish Night� by Joe Lansdale
�As Time Goes By� by Tanith Lee
�Another Story� by Ursula K. LeGuin
�Loob� by Bob Leman
�Alexia and Graham Bell� by Rosaleen Love
�Traveller�s Rest� by David Masson
�Death Ship� by Richard Matheson
�Under Siege� by George R.R. Martin
�The Clock That Went Backwards� by Edward Page Mitchell
�Pale Rose� by Michael Moorcock
�The House that Made the Sixteen Loops of Time� by Tamsyn Muir
�Is There Anybody There?� by Kim Newman
�Come-From-Always� by Tony Pi
�The Time Telephone� by Adam Roberts
�Red Letter Day� by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
�The Waitabits� by Eric Frank Russell
�If Ever I Should Leave You� by Pamela Sargent
�How the Future Got Better� by Eric Schaller
�Needle in a Timestack� by Robert Silverberg
�Delhi� by Vandana Singh
�Himself in Anachron� by Cordwainer Smith
�The Weed of Time� by Norman Spinrad
�Palimpsest� by Charlie Stross
�Yesterday Was Monday� by Theodore Sturgeon
�Triceratops Summer� by Michael Swanwick
�The Mouse Ran Down� by Adrian Tchaikovsky
�Augusta Prima� by Karin Tidbeck
�Twenty-One and Counting Up� by Harry Turtledove
�Forty, Counting Down� by Harry Turtledove
�Where or When� by Steve Utley
�Swing Time� by Carrie Vaughn
�(excerpt from) The Time Machine� by H.G. Wells
�Fire Watch� by Connie Willis
�Against the Lafayette Escadrille� by Gene Wolfe
�The Lost Pilgrim� by Gene Wolfe

NON-FICTION
Introduction by Rian Johnson
Music for Time Travelers by Jason Heller
The Science of Time Travel by Stan Love
Trousseau, Fashion for Time Travelers by Genevieve Valentine
Top Ten Tips for Time Travelers by Charles Yu

(apparently that's not the final order, they've just listed the stories alphabetically by author)

To be honest an 800 page anthology is not for me because I would never, ever loving finish the thing. But if you want time travel SF, then, gently caress, it should have all bases covered.

edit: it comes out March 2014 though

Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 03:10 on Aug 15, 2013

# ¿ Aug 15, 2013 03:08

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

Rurik posted:

I got Perdido Street Station a few days ago and it's really, really good. The best book I probably read this year.

My only problem is that I've been watching a lot of Family Guy recently and since Isaac is described as really fat I can't stop imagining him looking like Peter Griffin.

Isaac is clearly

Hedrigall posted:

Chiwetel Ejiofor if he eats like 40 cakes.

I mean, can you not see him all dissheveled and absent-minded-scientist-y and saying things like "Yag, old fellow" or whatever Isaac says?

# ¿ Aug 17, 2013 23:21

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

General Battuta posted:

If any of you are into short fiction I have a piece up on Strange Horizons, one of my favorite pro markets. Even comes with a podcast!

I see you are a fan of Kij Johnson :raise:

# ¿ Aug 20, 2013 23:46

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

Nondescript Van posted:

Am I correct in thinking the plot of 2312 is very similar to Blue Remembered Earth? I just started to former and it so far seems like a repeat.

They both came out very close to each other last year and the consensus back then was "Don't read them one after another".

I read them a year or so apart, personally. And it's true, both start with the death of a grandmother that leads to a journey of discovery around the solar system. But then they diverge quite a lot, so don't worry.

2312 does the "tour of the solar system" a lot better, I must say. That book is so full of imagination and beauty. I loved it. Reynolds' book is more of his standard thrill ride fare, the settings being imaginative but taking a backseat to the plot; whereas Robinson's style is slow and ponderous and leisurely. It's all about the settings, the plot is almost inconsequential. You can't really rush through 2312, you have to savour morsels of it at a time. Some people HATE the characters though. Personally I didn't find Swan too bad, and I really loved Warham.

I also refer you to what I said earlier in this thread about 2312: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3554972&userid=133813#post417005969 ... it really is a divisive novel and, in my opinion, unfairly maligned.

# ¿ Aug 24, 2013 15:29

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

I'm nearly finished The Uplift War by David Brin. It's good but not as good as Startide Rising - probably just because I like the fins more than the chims.

I wanted to ask though (please no spoilers) do the central mysteries get answered in the second trilogy? Or is more of a side story? It definitely sounds like a side story from the blurbs I've read. By the time I finish this six book series will I know definitively: a) about the Progenitors, b) who uplifted humanity (if anyone), c) exactly what the Streaker found, and d) what happened to the Streaker and its crew after Startide Rising?

Or has Brin yet to write all of that?

# ¿ Aug 27, 2013 06:08

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

AreYouStillThere posted:

Oh, well poo poo. I picked up Mortal Engines from the library assuming it would be the best place to start. Is it that big a deal? Should I send it back and get Fever Crumb?

Relax, Mortal Engines is the first book and is great. Fever Crumb is a recent prequel. Don't ever, ever listen to people who tell you to read a book series in internal chronological order. What would you recommend to people to watch first: A New Hope or The Phantom Menace?

# ¿ Aug 29, 2013 01:29

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

specklebang posted:

I would hope that instead of taking your advice which is to "never ever, ever listen to tell you to read a book series in chronological order", a completely pointless comment that contributed nothing and uses completely unrelated examples, and instead read some books in chronological order if they are already published and available that way.

This is particularly true of The Traction Cities since understanding the history of the mobile cities, the aircraft development and this history of Shrike (or Grike) makes for a great enhancement of the
overall reading experience.

I'll guess that you never read Fever Crumb, A Web Of Air and Scrivener's Moon. You just saw an opportunity to take a shot at someone (me, in this case) so you could sound important. I hope AreYouStillThere takes my positive advice instead of your negative advice.

Counter: if an author wanted to tell a story a particular way, he/she would have written it in that order.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2013 03:06

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

I just discovered the story "Scales" by Alastair Reynolds. It's a super short (less than 2000 words) and succinct "gently caress you" to the entire Military SF genre, and it's got a great ending.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2013 03:54

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

SurreptitiousMuffin posted:

Wait, people don't like American Gods? I'm one of the most critical assholes in this thread and I can't think of anything bad to say about it.

It's meandering, Shadow is a personality-less main character, and Neil Gaiman is clearly better at writing comics than prose.

Plot is still hella-fun though.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2013 04:35

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

4th book

# ¿ Sep 5, 2013 10:38

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

Groke posted:

Jo Walton is a clever and funny person and pretty much everything she writes is worth reading; I used to hang out on a few of the same Usenet groups as her back in the day and we all thought it was pretty when she got her first book published. This reminds me she has one or two books out that I haven't read yet. Let me grab my Kindle...

I'm really excited for her new book coming out in January:

blurb posted:

As any reader of Jo Walton's Among Others might guess, Walton is both an inveterate reader of SF and fantasy, and a chronic re-reader of books. In 2008, then-new science-fiction mega-site Tor.com asked Walton to blog regularly about her re-reading�about all kinds of older fantasy and SF, ranging from acknowledged classics, to guilty pleasures, to forgotten oddities and gems. These posts have consistently been among the most popular features of Tor.com. Now this volumes presents a selection of the best of them, ranging from short essays to long reassessments of some of the field's most ambitious series.

Among Walton's many subjects here are the Zones of Thought novels of Vernor Vinge; the question of what genre readers mean by "mainstream"; the underappreciated SF adventures of C. J. Cherryh; the field's many approaches to time travel; the masterful science fiction of Samuel R. Delany; Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children; the early Hainish novels of Ursula K. Le Guin; and a Robert A. Heinlein novel you have most certainly never read.

Over 130 essays in all, What Makes This Book So Great is an immensely readable, engaging collection of provocative, opinionated thoughts about past and present-day fantasy and science fiction, from one of our best writers.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2013 14:47

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

I only read books by neutrois writers :smug:

# ¿ Sep 10, 2013 02:29

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

Cardiac posted:

I would say The Scar by Mieville. It's set in the same world as Perdido Street Station, but completely stand-alone.

Speaking of The Scar, it really is an amazing book in so many different ways. Reread it for the 3d time last week, purely based on this thread.
First of all, the Bas-Lag world is totally different from basically all other fantasy worlds. The races are imaginative and not another versions of typical elves, orcs and dwarfs. Races are not explained in detail, which just brings flavour to it. I like the fact that everything in Bas-Lag doesn't have to be explained (looking at you Sanderson). The moral ambiguity of all characters is another great thing of Mieville.
And finally the plot in The Scar is so good, layers upon layers of intrigue that works together quite seamlessly. Rereading it a third time really made appreciate the whole story.

It's a loving fantastic book. I was doing a chapter-by-chapter analysis blogging thing but kinda gave up around chapter 30 because :effort:

You should totally come post in the Mi�ville thread. It's dying because there's been no book news since Railsea came out :negative:

# ¿ Sep 10, 2013 10:00

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

Seldom Posts posted:

You could've discussed Dial H, but you didn't and now it's cancelled AND IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT.

Sorry, I am lashing out.

Dial H was awesome, and the team in the last few issues (Open Window Man et al) were really cool! There's a coda issue coming out this month, a last hurrah for Mi�ville and Dial H: http://www.dccomics.com/comics/justice-league-2011/justice-league-233-dial-e

# ¿ Sep 10, 2013 13:24

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

Does anyone know why Greg Egan doesn't allow photos of himself to appear anywhere online? My guess is he's monstrously fat.

# ¿ Sep 14, 2013 02:48

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

fookolt posted:

The first five Discworld books are $1.99 each on the Kindle daily deal for today

I was so loving excited about this because I'm amassing all the Discworld books on my Kindle and I don't have any pre-Guards! Guards! books yet.

But the deal isn't available for Australian kindle owners :smith:

# ¿ Sep 17, 2013 09:17

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

BrosephofArimathea posted:

On occasion, I have travelled to the US.

When I do, I change my location under Manage Your Kindle -> Country Settings. The address I use is for the freight forwarding service shipito

This gives me full access to the US store, with my Australian credit card, and doesn't ask for any kind of proof that I am in the US. Even if I inadvertently do it while still in Australia...

I've heard of books being deleted from people's accounts, or accounts being deactivated, for this.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2013 10:25

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

Jurassic Park is entirely lovely science, lovely characters, lovely plotting. I'll give Crichton credit for the concept, and that's about all. The sequel is far worse in all categories.

One of the few cases where the movie far outshines the book and pretty much replaces any need for the book to exist.

# ¿ Oct 9, 2013 12:37

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

8one6 posted:

Thanks. I'm only about 80 pages in so far and I'm already starting to get a feel for how Crichton uses science.

How did you like the bit where the cloning is being discussed by the adults, but it conveniently switches to Tim's bored/distracted POV every time there's a bit of science Crichton didn't bother researching?

# ¿ Oct 9, 2013 13:24

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

Stuporstar posted:

I have yet to check out Ian Banks. He seems like one of those authors I'd want to make a project out of reading. Right now I'm doing that with Margaret Atwood, so Banks will have to wait his turn.

This one looks the most interesting to me right now, and good for a break between Atwood novels. I'll check it out. Thanks.

Also, I suppose I should have mentioned that I'm most interested in reading how other authors deal with the psychology of being a spaceship (or having been one), so anything looking at that from the outside like a dude talking to a spaceship that thinks like a dude because it used to be a dude is not so interesting to me.

Ancillary Justice is pretty good, not amazing though. Kind of like a slightly more plodding Iain M Banks (and if the Culture were an evil slave-driving empire). The stuff about being a ship's AI for hundreds of years, then suddenly being reduced to one human body, is very prominent and cool though, so it's right up your alley.

Also it's book 1 of a trilogy, so be warned if you don't like starting not-yet-finished series.

Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 01:25 on Nov 11, 2013

# ¿ Nov 11, 2013 01:22

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

Hannibal Rex posted:

I read Ship of Fools by Richard Paul Russo, because I was desperately looking for anything even remotely similar to Blindsight; I absolutely can't recommend it.

I don't mind if science fiction isn't particularly 'hard'. However, when it's actually scientifically ignorant, I have a problem. Russo goes for a kind of 'space gothic' atmosphere, but he doesn't even manage to do that in an interesting way. I have read better Warhammer 40k fiction.

Try Hull Zero Three by Greg Bear.

Personally, for my space horror fix I can't wait for next March's The Burning Dark by Adam Christopher:

the blurb posted:

Adam Christopher�s dazzling first novel, Empire State, was named the Best Book of 2012 by SciFi Now magazine. Now he explores new dimensions of time and space in The Burning Dark.

Back in the day, Captain Abraham Idaho Cleveland had led the Fleet into battle against an implacable machine intelligence capable of devouring entire worlds. But after saving a planet, and getting a bum robot knee in the process, he finds himself relegated to one of the most remote backwaters in Fleetspace to oversee the decommissioning of a semi-deserted space station well past its use-by date.

But all is not well aboard the U-Star Coast City. The station�s reclusive Commandant is nowhere to be seen, leaving Cleveland to deal with a hostile crew on his own. Persistent malfunctions plague the station�s systems while interference from a toxic purple star makes even ordinary communications problematic. Alien shadows and whispers seem to haunt the lonely corridors and airlocks, fraying the nerves of everyone aboard.

Isolated and friendless, Cleveland reaches out to the universe via an old-fashioned space radio, only to tune in to a strange, enigmatic signal: a woman�s voice that seems to echo across a thousand light-years of space. But is the transmission just a random bit of static from the past�or a warning of an undying menace beyond mortal comprehension?

Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 03:22 on Nov 11, 2013

# ¿ Nov 11, 2013 03:16

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

Hannibal Rex posted:

I would like an opinion on Alistair Reynolds. I've read several of his books and short stories. And while I like the setting, I have a pretty huge problem with certain of his characters in the longer books. I don't know how to put it succinctly; he seems to have no idea how to write a convincing 'tough' character. I like his hard science background, but at his worst, his characters literally seems like some shut-in astronomy nerd's idea of tough guys. And when assassins and mercenaries are some of the major characters, that becomes a pretty glaring problem. Not the only one, but I picked this because it's exemplary. The human interaction in general is pretty weak. One night, the main character takes some aristocrat who hunts people for fun hostage, the next day she helps him and becomes his trusted friend, more or less. Both Revelation Space and especially Chasm City had this problem, so I'm a bit leery of continuing the series.

However, I really liked the short stories of his that I've read, namely Galactic North and Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days. The weak characterization is usually much less of a problem in them.

So basically, my question is, are things going to get better with the main series? What's considered the best book of it? And if not, are there any other short story collections I should check out instead?

The next book is Redemption Ark and it's my favourite of the series. You'll hear a lot of crap heaped on the final book, Absolution Gap, but I liked that one too, even if it takes a hard left turn into new territory. You've yet to meet some of the best and most memorable characters of the series, in my opinion. One of my very favourite characters of the series has a minor part in RA, then pretty much is the main character of AG, and he's also a talking pig :3:

.

Did you not like Volyova though? She's one of the absolute standout characters of the series.

# ¿ Nov 13, 2013 01:36

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

Mustang posted:

Anyone know any good sci-fi books that involve archaeologists studying or exploring the ruins of an alien civilization?

Revelation Space features xenoarchaeology driving its main mystery. It's mysterious and spooky and brilliant.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2013 07:34

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

quote:

In The Magician�s Land, the stunning conclusion to the New York Times bestselling Magicians trilogy�on-sale from Viking on August 5�Quentin Coldwater has been cast out of Fillory, the secret magical land of his childhood dreams. With nothing left to lose he returns to where his story be�gan, the Brakebills Preparatory College of Magic. But he can�t hide from his past, and it�s not long before it comes looking for him.

Along with Plum, a brilliant young under�graduate with a dark secret of her own, Quentin sets out on a crooked path through a magical demi�monde of gray magic and desperate characters. But all roads lead back to Fillory, and his new life takes him to old haunts, like Antarctica, and to buried secrets and old friends he thought were lost for�ever. He uncovers the key to a sorcery masterwork, a spell that could create magical utopia, a new Fillory�but casting it will set in motion a chain of events that will bring Earth and Fillory crashing together. To save them he will have to risk sacrific�ing everything.

The Magician�s Land is an intricate thriller, a fantastical epic, and an epic of love and redemp�tion that brings the Magicians trilogy to a magnifi�cent conclusion, confirming it as one of the great achievements in modern fantasy. It�s the story of a boy becoming a man, an apprentice becoming a master, and a broken land finally becoming whole.

Released August 5, 2014

# ¿ Nov 22, 2013 11:59

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

mdemone posted:

It's not bad. More straightforward and thriller-ish than previous work. Believable and interesting characters/setting: climbers set out to recover something from Everest in 1925 amidst secrecy and intrigue.

And the worst macguffin in recent literary history. No seriously, this is a huge spoiler, don't read unless you have no interest in reading this book: the object of the quest turns out to be a set of photographs of Hitler loving and sucking young boys. I'm not kidding. SIMMONS!!

I would recommend reading the first three chapters and then deciding whether to finish. It's readable and worthwhile, especially if you like climbing set-pieces, but don't expect his best novel. Nice change of pace though since there is basically no supernatural element; the Yeti only appear once and off-screen and I look forward to more work in that vein.

That sounds hilarious. I kind of want to read it now.

# ¿ Nov 22, 2013 23:15

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

Tenacious J posted:

I need a recommendation.

What I'm looking for is something engrossing and long (a series), and I guess it needs to be fairly straightforward. I'd really like to read something like space-horror. Something in space in the future, and with some dark and twisted horror. I read Hull Zero Three but found it to be way too intangible/abstract - as though the author didn't quite know what he was describing. The horror was so-so as well.

If you haven't read them already, the Revelation Space series by Alastair Reynolds is long and engrossing: you get a main trilogy, two prequel novels, a collection of short stories and a collection of novellas. Moreover, they're dark, gothic and twisted; full of creepy themes, unknowable alien terrors, and gloomy propositions for the future of humanity. The main ship (Nostalgia For Infinity) is like a haunted cathedral in space. The plot is like a darker version of Mass Effect (in fact the series apparently inspired the creators of Mass Effect). They're loving great, absolutely my favourite SF series.

edit: for posterity, the books are:

Revelation Space
Redemption Ark
Absolution Gap
(read these 3 in order)

Chasm City (prequel, probably best read between the 1st and 2nd book of the trilogy)

The Prefect (prequel, read after the main series)

Galactic North (8 short stories, IMO best read either just before or just after Absolution Gap)

Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days (2 novellas, read at any time)

Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 01:34 on Dec 9, 2013

# ¿ Dec 9, 2013 01:31

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# ¿ Apr 23, 2024 23:08

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

fookolt posted:

Wait, what about Bas Lag? :o

That's my favourite fantasy series! and i know, new weird crosses genres blah blah bluh bluh, but Bas-Lag is definitely more fantasy than SF

# ¿ Dec 9, 2013 02:13

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > The Science Fiction and Fantasy Thread: Read the OP, Bridge of Birds, and Murderbot

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