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

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

Iseeyouseemeseeyou: Jan 3, 2011

Since we're on a new thread:

Humanity's Fire by Michael Cobley is a good space opera trilogy. Extremely expansive universe, arguably too many view points and excellent world building. It falls into hard sci-fi and can be a pain in the rear end at times, e.g. too many view points, certain cliches, etc., but it's an entertaining and engaging series. The best comparison I can think of for it would be Mass Effect meets The Culture.

A few of us were discussing it in the last thread so I decided to bring it back up. And as of now I am almost done with the second book :woop:

. I'll hopefully be able to finish the series this week and write up a better review of it.

e: In my opinion, it's far more enjoyable space opera than The Lost Fleet & The Expanse (Leviathan Wakes). I still enjoyed both of those series, but this is series is far more invested in world building, galactic politics & war, etc. than The Lost Fleet & The Expanse.

Iseeyouseemeseeyou fucked around with this message at 21:06 on Jun 17, 2013

# ¿ Jun 17, 2013 20:45

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 18:00

Iseeyouseemeseeyou: Jan 3, 2011

Happy Hedonist posted:

Have Spacesuit - Will Travel? It and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress are the only two Heinlein books I really enjoyed. Have Spacesuit is written as a YA novel, but I enjoyed it.

I don't know how anybody can enjoy that book

# ¿ Jul 7, 2013 21:59

Iseeyouseemeseeyou: Jan 3, 2011

Finally finally finally almost done with Humanity's Fire :unsmith:

this is an awesome space-opera trilogy

# ¿ Dec 26, 2013 04:54

Iseeyouseemeseeyou: Jan 3, 2011

General Battuta posted:

I think we've shot down this point a few times before, but I'm too lazy to look back through the thread and link one of those posts.

The short version is this: by correcting for the internal and systemic prejudices that make books by white men more visible, you help steer the discussion back towards the very egalitarian norm you're advocating. Google up a few scientific studies on what happens when a selection process - whether for jobs, tenure positions, or, yes, even book recommendations - is left intentionally 'blind'; in practice it is anything but. It's like disabling an airplane's control surfaces and calling that 'flying': you're just leaving your course up to the prevailing winds.

When your car drifts left, you need to steer right. When genre conversation is dominated by white men, you need to point out that very good books - books of, exactly as you said, literary quality - are also written by other people.

Your whole objection is based on the false supposition that we want to recommend books 'because of the writer's gender or race', rather than 'awesome books, by people the system has been designed to ignore'.

Nobody gives a poo poo and few want to read this, go back to dnd

:frogout:

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ¿ May 8, 2014 23:13

Iseeyouseemeseeyou: Jan 3, 2011

Bizob posted:

The fact that this conversation happens in this thread over and over suggests people actually do want to read this and have this discussion.

I'm not in this thread to read your armchair analysis of authors.

e: mistook you for another based on av

Iseeyouseemeseeyou fucked around with this message at 23:30 on May 8, 2014

# ¿ May 8, 2014 23:23

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