|
Arcsquad12 posted:I found a bunch of old paperbacks called The Lost Regiment today in a used book bin. They looked like MilSF. Anyone know about this series and if there's any red flags? The top review of it on goodreads written by Carol Storm (can't link because I'm on mobile and the goodreads app is garbage) describes it as the Union vs Genghis Khan in space, and as a rebuttal to Turtledove's Guns of the South. No whitewashing the Confederacy, etc. I haven't read it yet but I own it and I am deeply curious
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2019 03:09
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 28, 2024 02:00 |
|
|
StrixNebulosa posted:My library sadly doesn't have access to SEAL TEAM 666 or this book I am fortunate in that I have access to a university library that will move heaven and earth for even the dumbest ILL requests so I’ve had good luck in that. On the milsf front I’ve been reading Blaze Wards Science Officer stories. I call them milsf because of overall tone I think, they are very thoroughly action oriented and the lead is very ex-mil. Maybe they’re closer to the idea of Men’s Adventure fiction in some ways but without the pretense of being true stories. At any rate I’ve found them tolerable but the obvious eventual romance is as tiresome as a bodice ripper.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2019 03:10
|
|
|
Arcsquad12 posted:I found a bunch of old paperbacks called The Lost Regiment today in a used book bin. They looked like MilSF. Anyone know about this series and if there's any red flags? If they're by William R. Forstchen and always wanted to see what a Union regiment of Maine Yankees would look like fighting 3 meter tall Ork-Mongols who eat humans? They were entertaining enough when I was a teenager but Forstchen never met a stereotype he didn't want to beat into the ground and proceed to digging. The books suffer the usual power creep so that by the latest book you have early 20th-century level wars of genocide between both sides. Do not, for any reason, read his One Second After books. You will regret that.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2019 03:11
|
|
|
occamsnailfile posted:I am fortunate in that I have access to a university library that will move heaven and earth for even the dumbest ILL requests so I’ve had good luck in that. My library system has access to 60+ libraries wow!! ... They're all tiny upstate NY libraries so the selection is decent but I am so jealous of Syracuse. City libraries have basically anything but that's too far to drive. Instead I must surround myself in piles of books, some of them straight garbage I bought online to sate my curiosity. When will I be rid of them? Never. This is my hell. Your adventure/mil-sci-fi reminds me of the Caine Riordan books by Gannon that I'm reading - the first book effortlessly segued from thriller/conspiracy to sci-fi and now the second book is straight military sci-fi. It retains a thriller feel throughout, but, well - warzones. One of the coolest things about this second book (Trial by Fire) is that it features a unique alien invasion. The aliens are at the end of a long supply chain, they want to conquer instead of destroy, and their ground troops have rough parity with ours so it's turned into space Vietnam. They control space but not the ground and I am eating this up.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2019 03:22
|
|
|
StrixNebulosa posted:The top review of it on goodreads written by Carol Storm (can't link because I'm on mobile and the goodreads app is garbage) describes it as the Union vs Genghis Khan in space, and as a rebuttal to Turtledove's Guns of the South. No whitewashing the Confederacy, etc. You know I've wanted to read someone's Let's read of Guns of the South as I can't remember anything about the turtledove books I've read anymore.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2019 03:47
|
|
|
Kchama posted:You know I've wanted to read someone's Let's read of Guns of the South as I can't remember anything about the turtledove books I've read anymore. Guns of the South was Turtledove's most historical alt-history book, he did a lot of research into the county records of the chief regiment that were the common folk and had historical characters where possible. It's unfortunate that he just got lazier and lazier after that to the point you have "Our unit advanced on Berlin, we fought some Soviets, then the Wehrmacht...Good Germans moved up to reinforce us." I'm not 100% sure the latter happened in his most recent Hot War series about the Korean War going nuclear but it's probably 75% accurate.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2019 03:54
|
|
|
Ninurta posted:Guns of the South was Turtledove's most historical alt-history book, he did a lot of research into the county records of the chief regiment that were the common folk and had historical characters where possible. It's unfortunate that he just got lazier and lazier after that to the point you have "Our unit advanced on Berlin, we fought some Soviets, then the Wehrmacht...Good Germans moved up to reinforce us." I'm not 100% sure the latter happened in his most recent Hot War series about the Korean War going nuclear but it's probably 75% accurate. I mean less the bad research and more just how loving boring they are. I feel he sometimes has the opposite problem of Weber, too, until he got lazy and then just had the same problem.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2019 05:12
|
|
|
The good thing about Weber's and Turtledove's careers is that 3/4 of their career's literary output can safely be skipped, and in another 5-10 years, fully expect to see both Weber + Turtledove memory-holed. Mostly due to their megafans dying off, and not being replaced in similar numbers . Secondarily because computer games like Paradox's Europa Universalis/Crusader Kings series, Stellaris and the Slitherine Distant Worlds series, and other grognardy as hell titles already deliver the same alt-history, alt-fiction and alt-mil-scifi scenarios that Turtledove + Weber have specialized in writing. And most of those games have a near infinite ability to generate new scenarios and settings within minutes and are highly customizable and very interactive and possibly fun to play?.....................vs spending 4-8hrs plowing through dry boring, regurgitated setting factoids and blander characters interspersed with battle scenarios + bland blow-by-blow descriptions of battle outcomes even the authors dread (proof)reading. tldr: Weber + Turtledove fanbase is dying off, new readers interested in the genre have way better options in Paradox studio's + Slitherine's catalog of sim-games.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2019 06:16
|
|
|
StrixNebulosa posted:I bought Grunt Life by Weston Ochse on ebay. It's coming in a few weeks. It's by the author of SEAL TEAM 666. THANKS OMBRA NoNostalgia4Grover posted:The good thing about Weber's and Turtledove's careers is that 3/4 of their career's literary output can safely be skipped, and in another 5-10 years, fully expect to see both Weber + Turtledove memory-holed. Mostly due to their megafans dying off, and not being replaced in similar numbers . And you can mod games too if you've got a specific vision that the game doesn't offer, and strategy games like that are relatively easy to tinker with. IIRC there's a couple Doom WADs the modder made to promote their post-apocalyptic novels.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2019 08:31
|
|
|
Kchama posted:Man, I want a writeup on that. I like the part where he did the maths wrong on mass v volume and it turns out all his ships are lighter than air
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2019 09:41
|
|
|
feedmegin posted:I like the part where he did the maths wrong on mass v volume and it turns out all his ships are lighter than air His fix was just to shrink the ships, which now means they have more mass in missiles than they do ship.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2019 10:38
|
|
|
Kchama posted:His fix was just to shrink the ships, which now means they have more mass in missiles than they do ship.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2019 11:00
|
|
|
I don't think it's fair to Turtledove to compare Turtledove and Weber (and disclaimer here...I like Turtledove). Weber's problems are, first, his Mary-Sueism (Honor Harrington is the galaxy's most perfect soldier and everyone loves her and everyone who she doesn't like is automatically evil and a strawman), and second, the weapons porn...where you're not sure if you're reading an novel or a Jane's guide. (His missiles have more personality than his characters). Turtledove's problems, especially when it comes to multinovel series, are first, he kind of lazily grabs historical events and rubs the names off ("So, this is a fantasy world, much like earth, except they never invented the waffle iron, and they fight a war that's completely not the Peloponesian War"), and second, that his writing tends to be repetitive: Book One: Al Jones looked at the draft notice in his hand, not paying attention to the fact that he was still wearing his uniform for the Toledo Mud Hens. "Well, I guess I'll never play for the Yankees now." Book Five: "The unit had finally been pulled off the line for some R&R, and the men were taking it easy. "Looks like the Yankees won the World Series!", said Bill Smith, reading Stars and Stripes. Al looked glum at that news. "I could have been there, Bill. I played for the Toledo Mud Hens and was going to become a Yankee when I got drafted." Book Ten: "Come on, boys!", said Drill Sgt. Al Jones, "It's easy to throw a grenade! No harder than throwing a baseball." Al made this comparison because he used to play semi-pro ball for the Toledo Mud Hens until he was drafted, ruining his chances of playing for the Yankees." That being said, when he doesn't do that, his stuff tends to be pretty good.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2019 06:10
|
|
|
I admit I was being generous, should have said "The good thing about Weber's and Turtledove's careers is that Stand by everything else in that original statement. Mack Reynolds is one memory-holed author I wish people would post about more/read. Mack Reynolds wrote a couple of mil-fiction/mil-scifi novelettes and stories. Going to be honest, the overt socialism AND the extremely cringey race-politics cosplay in Mack Reynolds work is why Mack Reynolds the author got memory holed.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2019 13:26
|
|
|
PupsOfWar posted:we'll probably end up talking about david gerrold at some point for instance drat, talk about authors who got memory-holed... Gerrold, like Piers Anthony, is an author I read when I was around twelve and thought was really clever, then looked back on as an adult with dawning horror.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2019 14:41
|
|
|
Have learned to "never google author backgrounds if those authors are mentioned in the same breath as Piers Anthony", so David Gerrold must be a real freak, I guess. Or retroactively revealed to be utterly terrible like David Eddings was in the main scifi + fantasy thread recently?
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2019 15:18
|
|
|
Mack Reynolds was great, but you're right, a lot of his stories are both so political and so tied to the Cold War that it's hard for people to appreciate him now. Also, as a fun fact, Mack Reynolds wrote the first Star Trek tie in novel, Mission to Horatius, which was pretty universally panned. One of the writers/directors wrote to Roddenberry that the novel was "not technically in bad taste, but is extremely dull, and even considering the juvenile market, badly written". On an unrelated thing...John Ringo. He wrote those Posleen books, which everybody talks about (mostly in horror...that whole Watch on Rhine book where he and Krautman bring back the SS, because they were "real soldiers" unlike the liberal wimps we have today), but nobody ever talks about Alan Dean Foster's "The Damned Trilogy", which is thematically similar to the Posleen books. (Space UN/Federation is under attack by imperialistic aliens, but they're all pacifist, and then they find earth and use humans as soldiers, but there might be more to this than meets the eye), and I sort of wonder why Foster doesn't get more attention.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2019 16:07
|
|
|
Who wrote the draka series, worst books ever
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2019 16:17
|
|
|
shovelbum posted:Who wrote the draka series, worst books ever SM Stirling. Also notorious for being a right rear end in a top hat in Internet comment sections.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2019 16:22
|
|
|
Epicurius posted:On an unrelated thing...John Ringo. He wrote those Posleen books, which everybody talks about (mostly in horror...that whole Watch on Rhine book where he and Krautman bring back the SS, because they were "real soldiers" unlike the liberal wimps we have today), but nobody ever talks about Alan Dean Foster's "The Damned Trilogy", which is thematically similar to the Posleen books. (Space UN/Federation is under attack by imperialistic aliens, but they're all pacifist, and then they find earth and use humans as soldiers, but there might be more to this than meets the eye), and I sort of wonder why Foster doesn't get more attention. I've never heard of it, so clearly that's why nobody talks about it. Also it probably doesn't have Nazi worship. Unless it does? Keep us posted!
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2019 16:55
|
|
|
Kchama posted:I've never heard of it, so clearly that's why nobody talks about it. Mind controlling theocratic space octopuses, but no Nazis! But the books are worth reading. I'm tempted almost to do a Lets Read of them, but they're neither good enough that people will be impressed or bad enough that people will be horrified. Still, worth reading if you're a military science fiction fan.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2019 17:05
|
|
|
Epicurius posted:..but nobody ever talks about Alan Dean Foster's "The Damned Trilogy", which is thematically similar to the Posleen books. (Space UN/Federation is under attack by imperialistic aliens, but they're all pacifist, and then they find earth and use humans as soldiers, but there might be more to this than meets the eye), and I sort of wonder why Foster doesn't get more attention. Never heard of or read that series. Keeping the honesty streak alive, always conflate/mentally combine Alan Dean Foster and Craig Shaw Gardner into one generic fantasy fiction author, with the CSG pen-name focusing on fantasy parodies, while the ADF pen-name did slighly more serious fantasy + movie2book adaptations..
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2019 18:44
|
|
|
NoNostalgia4Grover posted:Or retroactively revealed to be utterly terrible like David Eddings was in the main scifi + fantasy thread recently? I missed this, Link? Epicurius posted:but nobody ever talks about Alan Dean Foster's "The Damned Trilogy", which is thematically similar to the Posleen books. (Space UN/Federation is under attack by imperialistic aliens, but they're all pacifist, and then they find earth and use humans as soldiers, but there might be more to this than meets the eye), and I sort of wonder why Foster doesn't get more attention. Coincedentally, the whole trilogy just got released on Audible as a complete set. 36 hours for 1 credit. I really doubt they hold up though. It's classic, almost 50's Sci-Fi style, 'Man is the most dangerous animal in the Universe'  in a way which even teenage me thought a bit shlocky.
Deptfordx fucked around with this message at 20:29 on Aug 3, 2019 |
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2019 20:24
|
|
|
Deptfordx posted:I missed this, Link? Right off of their wikipedia: They adopted one boy in 1966, Scott David.[9][10] They adopted a younger girl between 1966 and 1969.[10] In 1969 they lost custody of both children and each were sentenced to a year in jail from separate trials after pleading guilty to child abuse.[11][12] There are newspaper articles detailing that the children were bruised to hell and terrified
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2019 20:28
|
|
|
Deptfordx posted:I missed this, Link? Google David Eddings name, read his wikipedia page, and shudder at the contents. #metoo movement is legit.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2019 22:30
|
|
|
NoNostalgia4Grover posted:Have learned to "never google author backgrounds if those authors are mentioned in the same breath as Piers Anthony", so David Gerrold must be a real freak, I guess. Or retroactively revealed to be utterly terrible like David Eddings was in the main scifi + fantasy thread recently? The most WTF bit, which even at the time was weird to me, was an extended but where a therapist explained to the main character that the orphan child he’d been caring for had been abused do much that he felt that his self-worth came from being used for sex, so by not having sex with him the main character was harming his self-esteem and that if the hero loved the kid he would have sex with him to show it. And the main character is like “well poo poo, I guess I have to gently caress a child.” This may or may not be the same book where every chapter ends with an X-rated limerick. It’s all his “War against the Chtorr” series. May it never see print again.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2019 23:11
|
|
|
...was...was that author published by NAMBLA something? Book industry editors have always known where the bodies were buried/who the utter creeps were, but did nothing. Or committed the crimes themselves (Ace Books pirating the entire Lord of the Rings series for example). Additionally out of nowhere I am reminded of the edgelord short story complations that harlan ellison edited/curated named Dangerous Visions 1 + 2..which featured a couple of incest stories and probably horse loving too, if I were to ever (no, hell no) revisit them.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2019 23:50
|
|
|
So all the talk of horrible authors and their terribly creepy fetishes is reminding me of the Kris Longknife series, which is basically Honor Harrington lite. A space princess joins the navy, runs around murdering things with guns, runs around murdering things with spaceships, drinks the drinks, sexes the sex, and occasionally takes a break to talk about the author's favorite political or economic theories. General havoc and hedonism ensue. The books were never good, but the early ones were consistent enough brainless popcorn thrillers that about once a year I'd get super-bored, grab a random book in the series, and enjoy reading about a beautiful murder socialite shooting and exploding things. Then one day I said to myself "Maybe you should actually read the series in order from beginning to end," and holy crap. It starts on about the trajectory you would expect (first 30% are really fun, next 30% are kinda okay), but right around the 60% mark the books go crazy. The space princess lady marries her Hot Hunky Bodyguard man, a saboteur executes a hilariously elaborate plan to sabotage her birth control patch, she gets pregnant, and then babbies ensue. Turns out, babies need to be breastfed. How much do babies need to be breastfed? A lot. I swear something like 15% of the entire book was dedicated to uncomfortably detailed descriptions of her breastfeeding her baby in the middle of meetings/arguments/assassination attempts/spaceship battles and so forth. I started the next book, found more of the same, and tapped the heck out... turns out, the book where we went from dumb-yet-fun spaceship battles to weird fetish nonsense marked the first book the dude wrote after leaving his publisher, and apparently self-edited or paid an editor who answered to him instead of marketing. It really makes me appreciate all of the effort that goes on behind the scenes to rein in some of the crazier stuff before they make it to print. Omi no Kami fucked around with this message at 01:37 on Aug 4, 2019 |
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2019 01:34
|
|
|
NoNostalgia4Grover posted:...was...was that author published by NAMBLA something? Harlan Ellison's a huge god drat creeper and it's a shame people seem to prefer to pretend he hasn't been one.
|
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2019 01:37
|
|
|
Harlan Ellison was a massive asswipe, and I am firmly glad that he is dead. Think of Ellison as his era's Peter Watts, with double the edgelord qualities and replace Watts fetish for footnote with a fetish for lawsuits.
|
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2019 01:52
|
|
|
NoNostalgia4Grover posted:Harlan Ellison was a massive asswipe, and I am firmly glad that he is dead. Asimov was a huge creeper too and had a bunch of people catering specifically to his creeping because nobody cared at the time. The only thing I appreciate about Weber is that as far as I know, he's been unable to creep.
|
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2019 02:01
|
|
|
Epicurius posted:
i think when people want to mock Foster, they fixate on those furry fantasy books he wrote
|
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2019 02:32
|
|
|
Omi no Kami posted:So all the talk of horrible authors and their terribly creepy fetishes is reminding me of the Kris Longknife series, which is basically Honor Harrington lite. A space princess joins the navy, runs around murdering things with guns, runs around murdering things with spaceships, drinks the drinks, sexes the sex, and occasionally takes a break to talk about the author's favorite political or economic theories. General havoc and hedonism ensue. The books were never good, but the early ones were consistent enough brainless popcorn thrillers that about once a year I'd get super-bored, grab a random book in the series, and enjoy reading about a beautiful murder socialite shooting and exploding things. I think Lois McMaster Bujold is the only author to go 'hey in the future nobody is gonna be doing this poo poo unless they're poor' just like pretty much nobody besides very poor people and rich western hippies does unassisted home births
|
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2019 03:01
|
|
|
Mention of Kriss Longknife reminds me I found this a while back and forgot to post it: I gather it's some kind of giant shared universe thing by a bunch of Kindle Unlimited hacks. I'm sure out of the 171 releases (according to the Goodreads list of all the books) some of them are at least vaguely milSF, even the fantasy books.
|
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2019 04:23
|
|
|
Quasi-thread relevant, but I just discovered the backstory video for the craziest hybrid-FPS ever made. AKA E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy, the game where you can leap 70 feet in the air, go crazy, hack other players, take out hind gunships with a pistol, break your legs, create literal bulletsponge clones of yourself, see sounds, summon werewolves into enemies halfway across the map, etc. The gameplay is solid and starting weapons are all unique too, although the sawed off shotgun sucks and the minigun is hilarious with zoom mode. https://youtu.be/gWp3hkUrWdE Got a heavy American Pyscho vibe in the first section, while the end section is literally Predator 1987 cosplayed by the developers. quantumfoam fucked around with this message at 04:28 on Aug 4, 2019 |
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2019 04:23
|
|
|
I kinda want to do a lets read of Echoes of Honor for the thread Any takers?
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2019 04:13
|
|
|
TheGreatEvilKing posted:I kinda want to do a lets read of Echoes of Honor for the thread Why subject yourself to such a thankless task? If you do it, go for a nursery school book reading level simplification of that Let's Read idea for the proper gravitas. Mainly because nursery grade seems about the right reading level and deepness for a David Weber book. Or....(re-reads thread OP)...Probably accurate for most of the mil-fiction and military sci-fi genres too, if I continue to be honest with myself. quantumfoam fucked around with this message at 04:46 on Aug 5, 2019 |
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2019 04:42
|
|
|
TheGreatEvilKing posted:I kinda want to do a lets read of Echoes of Honor for the thread why Echoes specifically
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2019 04:50
|
|
|
PupsOfWar posted:why Echoes specifically That's the one where half the book is a pointless tour of how sad everyone is while they think she's dead and come up with poo poo like getting her mom knocked up to breed an heir right
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2019 05:17
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 28, 2024 02:00 |
|
|
Glad someone else made the Kris Longknife post for me, and saying pretty much the same thing (although the whole fetish for his protagonist thing existed from the start). 60% as bad as Weber but with more implausibly perfect characters to make up for it. On the realm of decent to maybe even good MilSciFi: Glen Cook's in the OP for Black Company, but in his early career he did some scifi. I haven't read much MilSciFi and some of Cook's seems likely to be derivative, probably the worse bits, so if anyone's read these and can provide genre context it'd be appreciated: Heirs of Babylon (1972): Alt history, post bio-global war, with 40s to 70s era plus a bit further tech absent the base to support it (so engines are converted to burn wood and coal). Suffers from a fairly dumb 1st person narrator and the end fits into the too-abrupt pattern. Starfisher Trilogy (1982): Has some weird elements, especially the Starfishers themselves, but manages to avoid being too Moby Dick in space. Suffers a bit from the legendary protagonist syndrome. I find myself forgetting the plot soon after reading. Passage at Arms (1985): Submarine warfare in space. Probably actually good MilSciFi. War leadership are right bastards who only appear in propaganda. The Dragon Never Sleeps (1988): Ridiculously full of plot, lots of factions but only a few villains. Possible overuse of clones, some issues with a creepy family (possibly influenced by Dune or another series), overuse of cloning tech, and uncomfortable sex-stuff, though it's hard to say quite how uncomfortable and the misogyny seems limited to several of the least likable characters. Military aspects are quite solid and the Guardship concept is good. Great ending. I always remember the more cringeworthy stuff when I start a reread but end up highly satisfied by the end. The cloning stuff gets redeemed, I think, though the sex stuff probably not. Dragon Never Sleeps in particular reads to me like it's respinning a lot of other authors' concepts. I can identify bits of Niven, Herbert, and maybe McCaffery's Ship Who Sang, but there's got to be more going on here. Cook also has the althistory Instrumentalities of the Night series: fantasy, not sci fi, but definitely some military elements.
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2019 05:29
|
|