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C.M. Kruger posted:Bolo Shovelware, leader of the revolutionary cyber-army known as the Reapers. Ah yes, "reapers".  We have dismissed that claim. Edit, content: Has anyone else read the Star Risk series by Chris Bunch? I thought they were pretty good (not great) pulpy mil-sci adventures.
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Jul 15, 2019 09:45
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The_White_Crane posted:Ah yes, "reapers". My god, you came so close to pulp shovelware Mil-SciFi nirvana. Chris Bunch co-wrote the Sten Chronicles...uh,... Also have 2 alternative titles now for this thread just in case action is required. Literary WarCrimes (pun intended):The Mil-SciFi + Mil-Fiction Thread. Bolo Shovelware Already Hacked UR Comms....The Mil-SciFi + Mil-Fiction Thread.
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Jul 15, 2019 14:27
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Kchama posted:
Bear in mind this is adaptation taking place on a generational level. Several hundred or maybe thousands of generations is really a blip in the lifespan of species evolution. Stories like The Expanse or most MilSF that connects to us with a set date is still probably too close to reality chronologically to see major physical adaptation to new planets. That's where genetic engineering comes in.
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Jul 15, 2019 15:09
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Arcsquad12 posted:Bear in mind this is adaptation taking place on a generational level. Several hundred or maybe thousands of generations is really a blip in the lifespan of species evolution. Stories like The Expanse or most MilSF that connects to us with a set date is still probably too close to reality chronologically to see major physical adaptation to new planets. That's where genetic engineering comes in. I like in hh where they're like always kind of pretending they didn't genetically engineer everyone bc genetic supersoldiers made the idea distasteful
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Jul 15, 2019 22:32
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Not to jump on the HH hatwagon, but don't most of the genetically superior people kinda suck? Except for Honor of course.
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Jul 16, 2019 01:02
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its revealed eventually that they did genetic engineering almost anyone who settled on a planet more than like...1% different from earth, so no the graysons are an exception, which is one reason why they are all short and ugly
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Jul 16, 2019 01:04
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For all that Weber's a hack (and Honor Harrington purportedly a Mary Sue  ), at least he's not Jean Johnson, who wrote a whole series where the MC is explicitly a Mary Sue.
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Jul 16, 2019 01:20
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Aerdan posted:For all that Weber's a hack (and Honor Harrington purportedly a Mary Sue Hey! Jean Johnson didn't just make her a Mary Sue, she went all out and was obviously having so much fun with it that I can't hate her for it. Mary Su Ia surfboarded a flood wave, killed more aliens than you ever will, and beat up the resident squid overpowered aliens just because she caaaaan. It's fabulously terrible. Far better an author who goes full silly/dramatic than one who does it unintentionally.
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Jul 16, 2019 01:21
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yeah i can respect an author openly going "my protagonist is the best, smartest and hottest person, they can fight better than anybody, also they play all four instruments in a classical string quartet, speak 19 languages, and can wiggle their ears, also they're the long-lost heir to the alien throne of Monarchia, also they can tie a cherry stem into a gaucho knot with their tongue" what's worse is when an author does essentially that, but throws in a bunch of mealy-mouthed substanceless qualifiers so they can pretend there's depth where there ain't ex: the protagonist is mega attractive, but unconventionally attractive the protagonist is incredibly good at everything but doesn't realize it etc
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Jul 16, 2019 01:41
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PupsOfWar posted:yeah i can respect an author openly going "my protagonist is the best, smartest and hottest person, they can fight better than anybody, also they play all four instruments in a classical string quartet, speak 19 languages, and can wiggle their ears, etcetera Encountering that kind of main character is how I know it's safe to abandon a book or book series. I've slagged Kage Baker previously in the main SF + Fantasy thread, but Kage Baker's The Company series gradually built up to that level. I mean when the main character of the series literally gives birth to the catholic holy trinity, uh how the gently caress do you top that? The Company series has a interesting plot hook: using history books + time-travel loot the past hours before natural disasters/wars/pivotal events wipe out areas, stash the loot for 5+ centuries, then sell for 300x (at a minimum) profit ....but the books devolved fast into a Anne Ricean obsession with a) the main character (that looks just like the author at 22), b) the central California region where the author grew up/lived, c) secret timewars involving Cro-Magnon cyborg-enforcers, and d) William Randolph Hearst who has a whole secondary mary sue/gary stu thing going on.
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Jul 16, 2019 14:49
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PupsOfWar posted:its revealed eventually that they did genetic engineering almost anyone who settled on a planet more than like...1% different from earth, so no Actually Graysons did genetically engineer themselves into being death world tolerant, after they landed. And after they had gotten rid of all of their biogenetic engineers and all equipment and expertise. It's just that easy it relearn and rebuild everything on a death world!
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Jul 17, 2019 17:02
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Ah deathworlds. I retain a fond spot in my mind for Deathworld @1960 by Harry Harrison. It's got heavy-worlder miners fighting a unwinnable war on a 3g planet. It's got psychic powers. It's got In the hands of a lesser author, or an author focused on their specific passion-subjects, Deathworld would be loving terrible.....but it isn't, and is still vaguely entertaining for a modern reader, especially since it doesn't go the way you'd expect a book called Deathworld to go. That is why I said "magic happens". quantumfoam fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Jul 17, 2019 |
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Jul 17, 2019 18:54
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You mean the Deathworld trilogy! But yeah Harry Harrison is a Good Bad Author; he knew he wrote pulp and he revelled in it. Almost camp in a way.
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Jul 17, 2019 19:00
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:You mean the Deathworld trilogy! Yeah, do not skip the second two. The middle book in fact is one of my favorite sf stories. The protagonists finds himself in a completely hosed situation and has to improvise or just plain tough his way out of all kinds of poo poo.
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Jul 17, 2019 19:10
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Shades of Simon R Green, who wrote one or two entertaining pulp books and then realised he never needed to write a new story again if he could just rewrite them periodically.
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Jul 17, 2019 19:26
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Wanted to ease people into the Deathworld Trilogy, Hieronymous Alloy + mllaneza. ....plus Deathworld 3 repeated a lot of things from Deathworld 1 + 2. Harry Harrison was a unique genre defying author, and one of my favorite authors ever. Definitely check out the 2014 post-humous biography about/by him...posted a review of it in the 'What did you just finish' thread. Granted, Harrison's writing style isn't for everyone, and Harrison did write some goddamn terrible books, mainly his Eden series which I will NEVER recommend to anyone. quantumfoam fucked around with this message at 19:36 on Jul 17, 2019 |
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Jul 17, 2019 19:30
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And the Stars and Stripes Trilogy, which remain the worst Alt-Hist I've ever read*, which is weird because the Hammer and the Cross, also an Alt-Hist trilogy which he published immediately before wasn't bad. *And I've read some Turtledove books written in the last decade.
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Jul 17, 2019 20:07
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mllaneza posted:Yeah, do not skip the second two. The middle book in fact is one of my favorite sf stories. The protagonists finds himself in a completely hosed situation and has to improvise or just plain tough his way out of all kinds of poo poo. WHEELWORLD! Ol' Jan does well in that one. I always loved the first two, the conclusion Starworld never grabbed me in the same way.
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Jul 18, 2019 00:25
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:Wanted to ease people into the Deathworld Trilogy, Hieronymous Alloy + mllaneza. I have a huge soft spot for the hammer & the cross series of alt history vikings. A young slave in the 9th century in the UK, with the help of his brain and a mysterious god, rises to become king. defeating the ragnarssons. the second book is him in Scandinavian and the third they go to the Mediterranean. he invents steel, crossbows, siege weapons etc. it's fun and a little silly. I reread it every couple of years.
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Jul 18, 2019 00:31
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Has anyone ever done an epistolary MilSF novel. It's be like Ken Burns civil war documentary with space marines.
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Jul 18, 2019 17:38
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Arcsquad12 posted:Has anyone ever done an epistolary MilSF novel. It's be like Ken Burns civil war documentary with space marines. How do you define "epistolary", friend? Kicking out modern timeframes, War with the Newts vaguely fits that bill (even has WAR in the title). Could have sworn one of Scalzi's Old man war sequels had a memiors/letters framing device, as well as one of Orson Card's earlier Ender books (emails setting off a global revolution, I think). An old old favorite story written in the form of a memoir that features warfare with alien races, dimensional travel and various space battles ranging from the Earth's moon to interstellar war; yet defies genre placement because of its age/subject matter. I have been describing A True Story by Lucian in case anyone is interested.
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Jul 18, 2019 18:28
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A True Story is loving great. Lucian is such a troll it's hilarious.
Arc Hammer fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Jul 18, 2019 |
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Jul 18, 2019 18:36
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Arcsquad12 posted:Has anyone ever done an epistolary MilSF novel. It's be like Ken Burns civil war documentary with space marines. Fitzpatrick's War by Theodore Judson does the historical/personal diary of a Great Man/Future Alexander and the Wars he creates to some degree. It has the conceit that the work is banned and an angry historian refutes things in footnotes throughout the book. I thought it was an ok book, and the warcrimes do count into the millions including turning a good portion of a continent into infertile wastes while a group of religious fundamentalists ban any form of electricity from kill satellites in orbit. Sadly, it looks like the author never caught on and there isn't a legal ebook of it available. https://www.amazon.com/Fitzpatricks-War-Theodore-Judson/dp/0756401968/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=fitzpatricks+war&qid=1563477195&s=gateway&sr=8-1
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Jul 18, 2019 20:15
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You know our dear OP brought up Honor's warcrimes, but I forget if anyone mentioned her favorite one: Threatening to murder POWs. Not just the war crimes guy in book 2, but eventually her standard MO is when she captures an enemy she orders them to not do any standard 'surrendering' procedures like deleting any sensitive information in their ship computers, on pain of death... Which you know, is a war crime and the one time an opposing group does it to Manticore they all flip out about what an outrageous evil act it is, but Honor does it all the time, even to the one Havenite dude who she should have any respect for, and everyone nods sagely about how wise and smart she is to do that. Also I finally got around to reading about the final book in depth and wow, not only was the Eridani Edict retconned to include things that previously it explicitly didn't cover, but said things were actually done by Mesa and the Solarians just got all the blame. So they didn't even war crime. And really, Manticore should know this is Mesa's MO since they've said many times they know this is all a ruse to get them to bust up the Solarian League for Mesa's gain but Manticore and Honor smirkingly and happily go along with it for... some reason.
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Jul 18, 2019 20:39
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Ninurta posted:Fitzpatrick's War by Theodore Judson does the historical/personal diary of a Great Man/Future Alexander and the Wars he creates to some degree. It has the conceit that the work is banned and an angry historian refutes things in footnotes throughout the book. Endorse, I recall this being quite good.
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Jul 18, 2019 21:07
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Ninurta posted:Fitzpatrick's War by Theodore Judson does the historical/personal diary of a Great Man/Future Alexander and the Wars he creates to some degree. It has the conceit that the work is banned and an angry historian refutes things in footnotes throughout the book. You might be underselling it a little, the Great Man basically considers himself Alexander reincarnate and deliberately surrounds himself with a group that call themselves his basilei. Judson did publish one other book: The Martian General's Daughter, which is a futuristic version of the end of the Roman Empire as it collapses from plague, complete with it's own version of Marcus Aurelius. It's okay, I don't remember much about it.
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Jul 18, 2019 23:33
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The problem with all this poo poo is that you could just write about the Roman Empire. You don't actually get anything out of giving the legionaires rail cannon.
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Jul 19, 2019 01:35
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Fell Fire posted:You might be underselling it a little, the Great Man basically considers himself Alexander reincarnate and deliberately surrounds himself with a group that call themselves his basilei. Is this some kind of scifi thing? This is at least the second scifi series where someone has had the gimmick that they think they're the reincarnation of a historical general (and it's never anyone born after modern day).
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Jul 19, 2019 01:37
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Kchama posted:Is this some kind of scifi thing? This is at least the second scifi series where someone has had the gimmick that they think they're the reincarnation of a historical general (and it's never anyone born after modern day).  As I remember it, it wasn't literal, more like how Washington gets compared to Cincinnatus. Patton believed he was Caesar, or someone like that. I call being Eisenhower. Oh, that reminds me of the weirdness where the Hornblower books actually exist in the Harrington universe. That's just so the readers can feel smarter when they recognize parallels.
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Jul 19, 2019 02:56
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Fell Fire posted:
We really lucked out when Patton's jeep got hit by a truck. He probably would have started WWIII
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Jul 19, 2019 03:07
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Fell Fire posted:
This is something Weber probably shouldn't have done because someone reading those books would immediately realize that On Basilisk Station is literally a direct rip-off with all the nuance and good stuff stripped out. This is why there are aliens awkwardly shoved in and never important again, and where the whole 'forced to attack a more powerful ship head on' part comes from. Of course in Hornblower the entire story is born out of Britian's short-sided opportunism in trying to use South American natives against the Spanish to the point that Hornblower is forced to turn over a very powerful Spanish warship he had captured to the natives, only to find out not long after as he's going home that actually his country has allied with the Spanish and now he must go fight the powerful ship in direct combat to keep it from harming his new allies. And then he gets nothing from the hell he is put through as the situation getting out would be an embarrassment. I forget if it came up in this thread, to be honest, so sorry if it did.
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Jul 19, 2019 03:15
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The Hornblower books are actually good fun mid-20th-century YA fiction though, although for serious very high quality writing go read Aubrey/Maturin. For something in the middle - sort of Sharpe-level - try Alexander Kent’s Bolitho series.
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Jul 19, 2019 04:44
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Fell Fire posted:You might be underselling it a little, the Great Man basically considers himself Alexander reincarnate and deliberately surrounds himself with a group that call themselves his basilei. Fair enough, I was phone posting and did not have my copy of the book handy. I will say that this is a book that I've kept through 3 moves, one cross-state and I have re-read it a few times. However, the material can be off-putting to someone who isn't expecting the grotesque nature of the Yukon Confederacy and it's world. The author had mentioned that he would like to write a follow up prequel but that unfortunately doesn't look like it will ever happen. He did however write a Middle-Aged White Men raging against the world in 2016 which is...unfortunately a bit too on the nose these days https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29549598-deadly-waters.
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Jul 19, 2019 06:55
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Beefeater1980 posted:The Hornblower books are actually good fun mid-20th-century YA fiction though, although for serious very high quality writing go read Aubrey/Maturin. For something in the middle - sort of Sharpe-level - try Alexander Kent’s Bolitho series. I'm actually saying the Hornblower books are good! It's just that... The Honor books completely failed to replicate any of their goodness.
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Jul 19, 2019 08:44
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We need a flashman thread obviously
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Jul 19, 2019 10:11
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shovelbum posted:We need a flashman thread obviously Flashman books are 30% decently researched-for-their-time character studies of historical figures/flashpoint events of the 19th/early 20th century, 30% Flashman being unwillingly self-inserted into those flashpoint events and giving his smug-entitled take on things, and 40% Flashman loving anything that's female (willing or unwilling) anytime/anywhere possible and then suffering the consequences of trying to gently caress anything that's female anytime/anywhere. So, uh probably a perfect honey-pot thread for identifying sex creeps or sex creep defenders.
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Jul 19, 2019 12:02
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Call that honey-pot thread Literary SexCrimes: no one published is without blame.
quantumfoam fucked around with this message at 12:15 on Jul 19, 2019 |
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Jul 19, 2019 12:13
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:Flashman books are 30% decently researched-for-their-time character studies of historical figures/flashpoint events of the 19th/early 20th century, 30% Flashman being unwillingly self-inserted into those flashpoint events and giving his smug-entitled take on things, and 40% Flashman loving anything that's female (willing or unwilling) anytime/anywhere possible and then suffering the consequences of trying to gently caress anything that's female anytime/anywhere. The_White_Crane posted:I gave the Flashman books a hard pass right after I came across the phrase "I had seldom found it necessary to rape a woman" in chapter 1 of book 1.
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Jul 19, 2019 13:32
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If you want Flashman but don't want the grossness that comes with it just try a few Ciaphas Cain books. They're not military fiction, but why the hell would you want to read that anyway?
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Jul 19, 2019 14:40
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To be fair the grossness in Flashman improves slightly over the decades - bear in mind the first book was written in 1969 when that sort of thing was considered A-OK in a book, the act of a slightly questionable scoundrel rather than a complete monster (see also: the James Bond readalong thread). But yeah I can totally see why people would nope out after reading that.
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Jul 19, 2019 14:48
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