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90s Cringe Rock posted:He's Grendel. oh for god's sake, it's so obvious now that you said it, I'm a dum-dum Doktor Avalanche fucked around with this message at 12:39 on Jun 5, 2019 |
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Jun 5, 2019 12:36
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dirty lousy tramp posted:oh for god's sake, it's so obvious now that you said it
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Jun 5, 2019 12:38
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General Battuta posted:I respect Drake because of all the Baen military SF stable he seems like the one who's most genuinely hosed up about violence. drake has also written a bit of Weird Horror (i think mostly as anthology contributions?) that's better than his MilSF work whereas these other milSF guys don't really do anything other than their main schtick
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Jun 5, 2019 13:34
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Gluten Freeman posted:From wikipedia, the essay definitely exists: I believe the revisit to the essay goes by the same title: it's got additional commentary in the revision but is the same work. Apparently it can be found in the revised early 90s edition of The Language of the Night.
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Jun 5, 2019 14:57
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branedotorg posted:Linda nagata's near future military stuff is excellent, her SciFi is good but weaker for me. I have the new one queued up too Seconded. I file her near Asher in my mind - decently-written action-filled sci fi with a few good ideas in each book, albeit it never thinks on any of them long enough to ascend to being truly outstanding.
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Jun 5, 2019 16:45
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awhile ago i found out there was a public library for ebooks and they had like 1000 free ebooks and there was a sci fi series that was really old. I wanna say 1930-1950. It was pulpy as gently caress and about this guy who is a buck rogers type and his wife was a secratary DR. They have children and those children eventually save the universe. half of the series follows the buck rogers type guy and his wife as they spy on an evil alien race and help form an alliance with many types of other aliens and the other half is the war against those aliens and it ends with the children telling their story. The children were twins i think as well but boy and girl. I remember it had this part where it went into huge detail about how they had ships that harnesses meteors and would launch them at planets to obliterate all life on them then the evil alien race made a ship that turn your sun into a black hole but the main character spyed on them? destroyed their data and took it back to earth where they secretly built the ships and those ships were able to get the evil people to pull back to their home galaxy. He ends up dying in the war and his children are the ones who eventually lead the spear head on the evil race. the evil race might of been robots now that i think about it. what is this series its driving me insane
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Jun 5, 2019 23:29
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snergle posted:awhile ago i found out there was a public library for ebooks and they had like 1000 free ebooks and there was a sci fi series that was really old. I wanna say 1930-1950. It was pulpy as gently caress and about this guy who is a buck rogers type and his wife was a secratary DR. They have children and those children eventually save the universe. half of the series follows the buck rogers type guy and his wife as they spy on an evil alien race and help form an alliance with many types of other aliens and the other half is the war against those aliens and it ends with the children telling their story. The children were twins i think as well but boy and girl. I remember it had this part where it went into huge detail about how they had ships that harnesses meteors and would launch them at planets to obliterate all life on them then the evil alien race made a ship that turn your sun into a black hole but the main character spyed on them? destroyed their data and took it back to earth where they secretly built the ships and those ships were able to get the evil people to pull back to their home galaxy. He ends up dying in the war and his children are the ones who eventually lead the spear head on the evil race. the evil race might of been robots now that i think about it. Stainless Steel Rat?
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Jun 5, 2019 23:40
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StrixNebulosa posted:Stainless Steel Rat? no. if it helps there was also a good counter part to the bad alien and they give the buck rogers guy a braclet or something to help him create the alliance of good guys
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Jun 6, 2019 00:05
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snergle posted:awhile ago i found out there was a public library for ebooks and they had like 1000 free ebooks and there was a sci fi series that was really old. I wanna say 1930-1950. It was pulpy as gently caress and about this guy who is a buck rogers type and his wife was a secratary DR. They have children and those children eventually save the universe. half of the series follows the buck rogers type guy and his wife as they spy on an evil alien race and help form an alliance with many types of other aliens and the other half is the war against those aliens and it ends with the children telling their story. The children were twins i think as well but boy and girl. I remember it had this part where it went into huge detail about how they had ships that harnesses meteors and would launch them at planets to obliterate all life on them then the evil alien race made a ship that turn your sun into a black hole but the main character spyed on them? destroyed their data and took it back to earth where they secretly built the ships and those ships were able to get the evil people to pull back to their home galaxy. He ends up dying in the war and his children are the ones who eventually lead the spear head on the evil race. the evil race might of been robots now that i think about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lensman_series perhaps? That's the biggest Golden Age of Scifi series I can think of.
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Jun 6, 2019 00:10
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Megazver posted:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lensman_series perhaps? That's the biggest Golden Age of Scifi series I can think of. thanks thats it
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Jun 6, 2019 00:22
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David Drake is definitely one of the cooler old-school milscifi writers, and it will be a sad day when he eventually kicks off. Drake never really glorified war in his stories, there was always dehumanizing costs in them that most of milscifi authors of his age-group skimmed over. Always wanted to lump Gordon R. Dickson's Dorsai series into the same glorification of war kiddie-pool that Kratman/Ringo/Weber/Turtledove and loving NEWT GINGRICH wade in...but the Dorsai series started about a generation before most of them started writing milscifi professionally. However you better bet that Dickson's Dorsai series was the genre ur-bible for them similar to JRR Tolkien's LOTR was the ur-bible for generations of fantasy authors.
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Jun 6, 2019 05:44
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How much did Dickson get for an advance on the first book? Did he get a Dorsai fin?
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Jun 6, 2019 05:49
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Kesper North posted:How much did Dickson get for an advance on the first book? Think it was serialized originally, so besides a John W. Campbell verbal BJ, maybe a few hundred dollars?
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Jun 6, 2019 05:58
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Empire of Silence starts pretty rough with a bunch of obvious Dune lifts right in the first pages and an awful Patrick Rothfuss framing. Since I like cosmic fantasy I continued on and it wasn't bad. I liked the world and when the narration doesn't tail chase the writing isn't bad either. It ended up being not half as derivative of Dune as the intro indicated. I could see the sequel coming in a month being better if he goes easier on the narrator. I finished up the Asher Scorpion book and it had a decent ending though I still think most of the book isn't very good. I'll probably go check out the better regarded books at some point. I just started up a Memory Called Empire and it's drat good.
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Jun 6, 2019 09:51
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Megazver posted:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lensman_series perhaps? That's the biggest Golden Age of Scifi series I can think of. I know it's been answered, but even having never read Lensman it became obvious when the planetary ping pong was mentioned. The series is infamous for its weapons escalation.
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Jun 6, 2019 10:38
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David Drake: I've read about half of his Redliners book and it's about a military unit that's pulled from active service because they're essentially too traumatized to be useful, and Drake illustrates some of this by having them start one hell of a violent barfight as they don't restrain themselves. It's not glorified at all, and the plot dumps them into protection duty for a colony ship, and things go to hell. I should get back and finish it, but what I read of it was good. No "war is great", just awful violence and trauma and civilians not understanding what soldiers have been through.
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Jun 6, 2019 11:35
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Drake's a Vietnam draftee, that's bound to give you a different perspective on the "glories" of war than some chickenhawk with miraculously concepted bone spurs.
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Jun 6, 2019 12:00
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The older milscifi writers that I've read tend to fall into three categories. Never served/medical issues forced early separation from armed forces, thus denying them the awesome life + careers they should have lived: Weber, Heinlein. Served reluctantly via GI Bill/ROTC style educational gambits that backfired or joined to preempt soulless draft board assignment bingo: Cook(?), Drake. Built their entire identity around military service/family legacy of service, tend to be utter gently caress-ups in life outside of government or military service: Ringo, Kratman. Category three people can be amazing to be around, just to Malazan style WITNESS the amazingly stupid life choices they make. Talking about going above and beyond the normal military-idiot stuff like "bought a blinged out car/truck whose monthly loan payments are ONLY $700+"(their monthly pay is $1030), or marrying a stripper/local girl to escape military barracks life.
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Jun 6, 2019 13:21
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:The older milscifi writers that I've read tend to fall into three categories. As far as I know, Glen Cook never served - but he absolutely understands how to write realistic military fiction and he never glorifies it. If you want to enjoy stories about type three people, this thread in GIP has you covered. The stories in there are amazingly stupid.
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Jun 6, 2019 13:42
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StrixNebulosa posted:As far as I know, Glen Cook never served - but he absolutely understands how to write realistic military fiction and he never glorifies it. Cook was in the Navy at least briefly. His son is Army I believe also.
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Jun 6, 2019 13:46
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The one thing I like about you Strix is that you are consistently half-clued in. Cook did serve in the us navy, just wasn't sure if he was drafted or volunteered. Yeah, the gip Idiots thread is amusing and has cycled through real fuckups to enhanced for the lolz content to absolute 150% fake stories a couple of dozen times now. 50FootAnt/Humpermonkey went the SA superstar poster route. Honestly the best gip thread is the pet pictures thread, everything else is a quasi Peter Pan's clubhouse/Internet VFW/AA support group. Mostly a bunch of decent dudes in there, with it's share of terrible shunned posters too. Debating whether to read Ubik a 3rd time or giving the Divine Invasion/Valis/Transmigration trilogy a re-read before starting the Exgenesis of Philip K. Dick. Sometimes going in blind to a detailed non-fiction book allows you to catch certain things that would be skimmed over normally, at least for me.
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Jun 6, 2019 14:08
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:Built their entire identity around military service/family legacy of service, tend to be utter gently caress-ups in life outside of government or military service: Ringo, Kratman. Ringo was sorta barely a troop though served 4 years made specialist (note: 4 years is certainly enough time to make corporal, even enough time to make sergeant if you're lucky and on the ball) "fought" in grenada reading about ringo reminds me of a manager I had once never broke a sweat working, always bragged to other managers that he'd been a hardass marine drill sergeant and that was why he was so qualified to keep menial workers in line, later it turned out he was in for 3 years before being discharged as a lance corporal whatever the case it's not as if ringo was some hardened lifer PupsOfWar fucked around with this message at 14:55 on Jun 6, 2019 |
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Jun 6, 2019 14:52
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I like more than one thing about you Strix
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Jun 6, 2019 14:53
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PupsOfWar posted:Ringo was sorta barely a troop though Actual hardass marine segment make pretty cool Civ bosses, I'm going to assume that this manager was in fact not a cool boss.
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Jun 6, 2019 15:18
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PupsOfWar posted:Ringo was sorta barely a troop though Agreed mostly. Ringo was apparently a army brat growing up/us army kool-aid chugger before he signed up. Plus a army Specialist(E-4) is the "technically the same" rank as corporal in the US Army(E-4) though. 4 years means he served out his contract during a mostly peace-time army, and everything beyond that decision to stay in or not is a vast unknown without going into forensic doxxing territory. Then again what do I know, I went enlisted marines and always thought the Army specialist rank structure made no goddamn sense just like wtf is behind warrant officers existing. quantumfoam fucked around with this message at 15:42 on Jun 6, 2019 |
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Jun 6, 2019 15:40
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:The one thing I like about you Strix is that you are consistently half-clued in. Cook did serve in the us navy, just wasn't sure if he was drafted or volunteered. :| Sorry for not having his military service memorized I guess. General Battuta posted:I like more than one thing about you Strix Thanks, you're pretty cool too!
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Jun 6, 2019 17:08
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I think Kratman as terrible as he is actually made it up to colonel? Let. Colonel? in either special forces or paratroopers. I mean he is a horrible fascist, but he seems to have actual military experience.
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Jun 6, 2019 18:29
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Artificial Condition: The Murderbot Diaries (#2) is finally down to a reasonably $2.99 on Kindle. It doesn't say how long the discount lasts. https://www.amazon.com/Artificial-Condition-Murderbot-Martha-Wells-ebook/dp/B075DGHHQL/
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Jun 6, 2019 18:35
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:The older milscifi writers that I've read tend to fall into three categories. I'm pretty sure Weber is just a fanboy/historian and never was never becoming military.
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Jun 6, 2019 18:36
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:The older milscifi writers that I've read tend to fall into three categories. I'd go with Joe Haldeman instead of Cook for your second option, but IIRC they were both actually drafted. Haldeman IIRC had attempted to get a civilian job with the US Naval Observatory and then attempted to join the Peace Corps right before his draft letter showed up. From what I recall of his bios Drake had apparently finished his degree in history and was in law school when he got drafted and was a enlisted interrogator with a armored unit in Vietnam. Glen Cook, from what I can find, served in the Navy right before Vietnam and got a discharge right before things kicked off, so it's more likely he was a volunteer. Kchama posted:I'm pretty sure Weber is just a fanboy/historian and never was never becoming military. Yeah, IIRC Weber got a degree in history and then took over his family's advertising company for several decades until he started writing SF, I want to say what happened was after getting hired to do some advertising for a space combat board game and then getting into wargaming he decided that he liked writing more than game design, but I'm not 100% on that.
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Jun 6, 2019 18:53
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Is there anything like The Big Book of Science Fiction, but for fantasy short stories? Basically a big collection of shorts that spans most of the "modern" era? I guess I don't know whether fantasy has generally lent itself to short stories over the decades in the same way that sci-fi has, but I'd love a collection like that if it exists.
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Jun 6, 2019 18:57
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MockingQuantum posted:Is there anything like The Big Book of Science Fiction, but for fantasy short stories? Basically a big collection of shorts that spans most of the "modern" era? I guess I don't know whether fantasy has generally lent itself to short stories over the decades in the same way that sci-fi has, but I'd love a collection like that if it exists. Would you be interested in the VanderMeers’ The Weird? It’s an anthology with quite a large number of real gems inside. Not much swords and sorcery type of stuff, though.
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Jun 6, 2019 19:09
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Take the plunge! Okay! posted:Would you be interested in the VanderMeers’ The Weird? It’s an anthology with quite a large number of real gems inside. Not much swords and sorcery type of stuff, though. Oh I forgot to mention I have that one, too, yes. And yeah, I'm really liking it so far. I wish they had one that was even more on the traditional fantasy end of the spectrum.
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Jun 6, 2019 19:12
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Well they did The Big Book of Classic Fantasy too
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Jun 6, 2019 19:18
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my bony fealty posted:Well they did The Big Book of Classic Fantasy too Ahh for some reason that didn't come up until I specifically searched for it. Possibly because it's still a preorder? In any case, I'll grab that when it's released, thanks!
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Jun 6, 2019 19:34
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el ron hubbard was a textbook Category 3 (possibly even moreso than the notorious robert failson heinlein) but i suppose his work can't reasonably be called milSF
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Jun 6, 2019 20:06
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I love how Hubbard publicly said he was starting a cult for money and yet none of the people in Scientology seem to bat an eye at that. They must think he meant a different cult.
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Jun 6, 2019 20:52
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All good points. Was honestly expecting more "newt gingrich, former republican speaker of the house is also milfiction writer...wtf" chat. Totally blanked on Haldeman, because his milscifi Forever War series went up it's own rear end hard. So hard, I had successfully blocked out that it even existed (same with Scalzi's Old Mans War series). Thank You (or rather curse you) SciFi and Fantasy thread for those "recovered memories".....May those responsible remember every inane Weber Honorverse detail for eternity.
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Jun 6, 2019 21:10
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:Was honestly expecting more "newt gingrich, former republican speaker of the house is also milfiction writer...wtf" chat. i think so many noted conservative personalities have published awful Baen-esque sci-fi novels by now that it has become unremarkable PupsOfWar fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Jun 6, 2019 |
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Jun 6, 2019 21:14
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tooterfish posted:I love how Hubbard publicly said he was starting a cult for money and yet none of the people in Scientology seem to bat an eye at that. It's a tax haven, op. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a Scientologist who fully and in good faith (sorry) believes in all of the weirder aspects of it, although I'm sure you could find plenty of proponents for the benefits of auditing.
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Jun 6, 2019 21:21
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