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Ccs posted:It seemed like very light imperialism to me. Like, the way Falcrest takes over Baru's homeland seems so much more modern-day technocratic and less bloody than historical imperialism. Did you miss the thousands dead from disease or directly slaughtered while Baru was in school?
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May 15, 2020 20:39
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What about the thought police running reeducation camps?
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May 15, 2020 20:45
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Or the fact that Baru herself basically was in a Rez School where girls were raped into being straight?
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May 15, 2020 20:50
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I suspect what gives Ccs that impression is that the Masquerade isn't much beyond 19th-century-imperialism levels of evil, at least on the surface. They're not the blowing-up-planets kind of evil a lot of SF readers expect.
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May 15, 2020 21:13
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They put a nice mask on it (as opposed to the Portuguese, who would literally hang your elders from the masttops and then send a boatful of severed heads ashore, or demand to be repaid for the powder and shot they'd spent leveling your town). But you pretty much end up in the same place. I don't like exactly copying historical circumstances, because real colonizations are always specific and part of a real people's history, and you don't want to just lift that for your fantasy novel. It's also tricky to strike a balance between portraying what actually happened in history and what modern readers find credible—not only was colonialism incredibly barbaric, to a level that would read as comically evil today (many reviewers said this anyway about Baru's villains), but general norms about the value of human life and the sanctity of individual freedom were either different or absent.
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May 15, 2020 21:22
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Yeah, that's part of why I found Baru so drat dark - it was too plausible that it could be some random set of islands the British ran into and had fun with. And I know Baru aims to take it down from the inside (I think) but the whole... everything.... god
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May 15, 2020 21:33
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I'm a bit bummed the only Dickinson I've seen on my local (northern Finnish) book store English paperbacks shelf has been Monster (Baru Cormorant), while the Traitor on in the normal fashion I have never seen there. Not the only multi-part series this has happened with. Have to put it on some of my online orders I guess.
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May 15, 2020 23:34
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Lunsku posted:I'm a bit bummed the only Dickinson I've seen on my local (northern Finnish) book store English paperbacks shelf has been Monster (Baru Cormorant), while the Traitor on in the normal fashion I have never seen there. Not the only multi-part series this has happened with. Have to put it on some of my online orders I guess. Ah, that's a guarantee for my local bookstores, used or new: there will NEVER be #1 in a series I'm interested in. Sometimes I have started series purely on the strength of their cover art + summary - I bought #3 in the Charles Gannon Caine series and had to go home and order 1+2 used.
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May 15, 2020 23:43
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I have to say that I absolutely love the first bit of Monster, but I'm not exactly sure how to describe why. Other than it gave me that same feeling I get when big corporations are shocked and appalled when their own bad behavior actually comes back and gets them.
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May 15, 2020 23:47
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I still haven't even read Monster! I bought the ebook ages ago, but I'll want to reread Traitor first and that is some heavy going. I may wait for Tyrant, since IIRC GB said that Monster + Tyrant were originally meant to be a single book, then hit up my recommendations for something cozy to read as a chaser and burn through all three.
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May 16, 2020 00:22
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Baru 1 at first reminded me of Ian R Macleod's Breathmoss. Then Baru 1 turned into a above-average Crusader Kings 2 novelization where the focal character was a steward/secret agent instead of a ruler. Both things worked for me. Charles Stross released his short story collection Toast under a Creative Commons license. The first short story in it, Antibodies, is the basis for Stross's Singularity Skies universe and also pretty much where I see his Laundry Files series eventually going.
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May 16, 2020 04:40
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I'm looking for some unusual or darker nautical/piratical fiction, along the lines of On Stranger Tides, Nathan Ballingrud's "Butcher's Table", or Michel Bernanos's "The Other Side of the Mountain". I have a feeling there's not a lot out there like the latter two, but really any fantasy/sf/horror flavored would be good. I just played Return of the Obra Dinn and honestly even as silly as the whole idea is, I love any kind of fiction that plays along those lines. Any recommendations? (and before you say it, Hieronymous-- a friend's gonna lend me the first Aubrey/Maturin novel in the next couple of weeks here)
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May 16, 2020 05:30
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Have you read The Scar by China Mieville. Also The Terror by Dan "Flashback" Simmons. e: if you're willing to go Cold War, Fire Lance by David Mace, it's like The Hunt for Red October from hell.
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May 16, 2020 05:42
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General Battuta posted:Have you read The Scar by China Mieville. I have read Scar and The Terror, yes! I forgot about Scar and might just re-read that. Honestly I might never re-read The Terror now that the AMC show exists, IMO it cut so much dumb chaff and fixed a lot of the book's worst Simmons-isms that it sort of made the book not worth reading for me. I'll take a look at Fire Lance, thanks!
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May 16, 2020 05:46
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It's less horror and more spooky ghost pirate adventures, but here's a story about fantasy pearl divers: http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/breathless-in-the-deep/
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May 16, 2020 05:56
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MockingQuantum posted:I'm looking for some unusual or darker nautical/piratical fiction, along the lines of On Stranger Tides, Nathan Ballingrud's "Butcher's Table", or Michel Bernanos's "The Other Side of the Mountain". I have a feeling there's not a lot out there like the latter two, but really any fantasy/sf/horror flavored would be good. I just played Return of the Obra Dinn and honestly even as silly as the whole idea is, I love any kind of fiction that plays along those lines. Any recommendations? The Chartrand voyage 4 book series and one of the more special series I have read.
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May 16, 2020 06:07
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StrixNebulosa posted:Ah, that's a guarantee for my local bookstores, used or new: there will NEVER be #1 in a series I'm interested in. Sometimes I have started series purely on the strength of their cover art + summary - I bought #3 in the Charles Gannon Caine series and had to go home and order 1+2 used. This is how Eric Flint sold Baen on the initial concept of the Free Library: if all book stores have is the third volume in a series, nobody who didn't but the first two will buy it. Give away the first one or two and you now have a customer for 4, 5, 6... The participating authors reported solid boosts to sales of their back library, so giving stuff away can in fact make you more money.
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May 16, 2020 06:15
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I read City In The Middle Of The Night this week. I loved the world, the idea, and the some of the characters. Unfortunately, the main character is incapable of making a good decision, ever, and it infuriated me. Anyone else read it?
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May 16, 2020 07:37
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Also (City in the middle of the Night spoilers) the reveal that "the invention" was a book of poetry extremely irked me because it felt like the author had decided on calling it "the invention", then decided what it was going to be, then decided not to rename it. There was zero reason it should have been called that and it never came up. I honestly thought "is this copy of the book messed up?"
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May 16, 2020 07:44
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MockingQuantum posted:I'm looking for some unusual or darker nautical/piratical fiction, along the lines of On Stranger Tides, Nathan Ballingrud's "Butcher's Table", or Michel Bernanos's "The Other Side of the Mountain". I have a feeling there's not a lot out there like the latter two, but really any fantasy/sf/horror flavored would be good. I just played Return of the Obra Dinn and honestly even as silly as the whole idea is, I love any kind of fiction that plays along those lines. Any recommendations? anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 20:01 on May 16, 2020 |
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May 16, 2020 08:53
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MockingQuantum posted:I'm looking for some unusual or darker nautical/piratical fiction, along the lines of On Stranger Tides, Nathan Ballingrud's "Butcher's Table", or Michel Bernanos's "The Other Side of the Mountain". I have a feeling there's not a lot out there like the latter two, but really any fantasy/sf/horror flavored would be good. I just played Return of the Obra Dinn and honestly even as silly as the whole idea is, I love any kind of fiction that plays along those lines. Any recommendations? The bone ships by r j barker - dark fantasy naval war in ships made of leviathan bone, where the ability to make new ships has been lost. It was in one of the on sale posts this week
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May 16, 2020 13:15
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branedotorg posted:The bone ships by r j barker - dark fantasy naval war in ships made of leviathan bone, where the ability to make new ships has been lost. If you like the Aubrey/Maturin books you’ll probably like this one (and vice versa).
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May 16, 2020 13:22
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General Battuta posted:e: if you're willing to go Cold War, Fire Lance by David Mace, it's like The Hunt for Red October from hell. Nightrider by David Mace wrecked me. It was so good and creative and dark, and I want to read the rest of his ouevre but also god no Nightrider got me by portraying space war, but in a kind of... realistic way? It felt like Apollo 13 (the movie), with the attention to technical detail and "realistic" tech. You don't really see that in sci-fi much, imo, as it tends to go star trek, and doesn't feel "realistic" or "heavy". Using quotation marks because that's not quite right but eh. It's the feel of the thing.
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May 16, 2020 13:43
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MockingQuantum posted:? My work is done here
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May 16, 2020 15:01
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The new murderbot was intensely satisfying and I am delighted to have finished it. I had some lingering unhappiness with the previous one but this one completely blew it out of the water. highlights were definitely the awful scene of the poor secunit who was left to stand there and die helplessly, ART absolutely losing its poo poo and threatening to essentially nuke the colony, and just actually ART and Murderbot interacting in general.
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May 16, 2020 15:36
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StrixNebulosa posted:Nightrider by David Mace wrecked me. It was so good and creative and dark, and I want to read the rest of his ouevre but also god no Nightrider is great. The scene of the ship looping over a barren planet searching for some tiny speck of human life (to destroy) is pure 80s nightmare. You can just imagine the wireframe images of the planet's surface scrolling past. I think one really good thing about the 'space is cold and vast' approach is that it makes characters' decision to separate seem really consequential and dangerous. It's hard to imagine anyone ever finding their way back together in all that nothingness.
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May 16, 2020 15:44
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Wow i'm reading the Traitor Baru right now and really enjoying it, had no idea the author was a goon!! Thanks for this good book. I feel like I check this thread every 2-3 months, add a bunch of books to my reading list, forget to read any of them due to real life, and then come back for more. So thanks for the Gideon the 9th rec way back when thread, it was great and I can't wait for Harrow despite the delay. Also, I would like to delve deeper into cyberpunk - any recs or thread favorites? Neuromancer is one of my favorite books (i know, how original), i've read snow crash and a few others along the way, but would love some recs for other stuff to check out!
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May 16, 2020 17:10
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Iron Lung posted:Wow i'm reading the Traitor Baru right now and really enjoying it, had no idea the author was a goon!! Thanks for this good book. maaan I gotta read more cyberpunk so I can give you recs instead of "here's what I want to read" sigh. anyways: Synners by Pat Cadigan is weird 90s cyberpunk that I want to read Trouble and her Friends by Melissa scott is weird 90s lesbian cyberpunk that I want to read Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams is weird 80s cyberpunk by a really fascinating author (that I want to read) Shockwave Rider by John Brunner is 70s cyberpunk about a society in decline, and a man who changes identities frequently. I've read the first third? or so of it and loved it. River of Gods by Ian McDonald is 2000s cyberpunk set in India, and it follows a lot of people in a complicated plot and I really liked the prose but dropped it because ??? reasons. I want to get back to it. and then finally: Halting State by Charles Stross is a wild second person pov cyberpunk about an MMO being hacked. It presents a very optimistic view of the future, which is funny as Stross is usually cited as an accurate prophet - and I mean he is, with the amount of surveillance going on and how VR could work - but yeah. I really enjoyed this one, but be warned that the main character is your usual nerd, which is really boring. Starfish by Peter Watts is apparently cyberpunk? You weird, goodreads. But I have read this one at least three times and it's dark as hell. It's about cyborgs at the bottom of the ocean doing maintenance work on a power station, and they're all psychologically broken. The two sequels might be more cyberpunk, I haven't read them yet. Gridlinked by Neal Asher is not cyberpunk, so goodreads is definitely drunk here. It's a stupid grimdark future thriller with aliens and One Competent Man With A Gun and I enjoyed it but it's a firm 3/5 stars book, as it's so bad at certain things: women, empathy, writing characters you care about.... but hell, the alien dragon thing was cool and the action is gory. "i love cyberpunk" says woman who never actually reads it
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May 16, 2020 17:53
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I would kinda recommend against the Starfish sequels, especially the third one (split in half, but essentially all one book). They get extremely gross.
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May 16, 2020 17:58
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Iron Lung posted:Also, I would like to delve deeper into cyberpunk - any recs or thread favorites? Neuromancer is one of my favorite books (i know, how original), i've read snow crash and a few others along the way, but would love some recs for other stuff to check out! Read the next two in the Gibson's Sprawl trilogy, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive.
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May 16, 2020 18:03
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General Battuta posted:I would kinda recommend against the Starfish sequels, especially the third one (split in half, but essentially all one book). They get extremely gross. That sucks. Gross in what way?
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May 16, 2020 18:07
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coolusername posted:The new murderbot was intensely satisfying and I am delighted to have finished it. I had some lingering unhappiness with the previous one but this one completely blew it out of the water. Those were some definite highlights for me too. When I started encountering the excerpts from the helpme file I wondered where that was going, up until the very last sentence in the addendum. One of the many things I admire about those books is the way they wander along and then occasionally nail me to the wall with a single sentence.
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May 16, 2020 18:07
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StrixNebulosa posted:That sucks. Gross in what way? They're just extremely dark. Watts is a pessimist about things like human consciousness, whether we really make choices, technological solutions to problems, and human liberty. that being said I liked them and think they worth reading just.. dark. You can always alternate Brin and Watts, and you get Canadian optimism and then Canadian pessimism Scifi. Like uh.. two things that alternate.
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May 16, 2020 18:12
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Iron Lung posted:Also, I would like to delve deeper into cyberpunk - any recs or thread favorites? Neuromancer is one of my favorite books (i know, how original), i've read snow crash and a few others along the way, but would love some recs for other stuff to check out! Some unmentioned ones: George Alec Effinger's When Gravity Fails from 1987 has its cyberpunk set in middle eastern, islamic future, and I remember enjoying it a lot when reading the translation in 90s. Really should try to pick it up again, plus the follow up novels. Bruce Sterling's Artificial Kid from 1980 is sort of proto-cyberpunk and worth checking out I recall. But more than that I'd suggest finding Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology from 1986 edited by him, which is a solid collection from the formative years of the genre with Gibson, Cadigan, Sterling, and others present.
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May 16, 2020 18:28
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Hey, this isn't the right place per se but y'all might have done the same thing and know: for the first, like... five or six tor free ebooks, I downloaded them on my phone to my kindle app. I accidentally saved them to my kindle app directly instead of to my kindle library, so they aren't going to be synced up. I finally ordered an actual Kindle, so I want to make sure everything will transfer over. Anybody know how to get ebooks out of the local app so I can send them to the library? Is that even possible?
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May 16, 2020 18:36
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StrixNebulosa posted:That sucks. Gross in what way? Not because of this, which is just generally Wattsy: pseudanonymous posted:They're just extremely dark. Watts is a pessimist about things like human consciousness, whether we really make choices, technological solutions to problems, and human liberty. But because of (sexual violence cw, it's pretty intense!) one of the characters is secretly a serial killer and holds another very sympathetic character prisoner for chapter after chapter of graphic torture rape. The rest of the cast comes within a few feet of rescuing the prisoner, but, assuming she's dead, abandons her to die alone. Which she does. I would prefer to not have read it, all in all.
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May 16, 2020 18:41
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General Battuta posted:Not because of this, which is just generally Wattsy: And here I thought the Donaldson space trilogy was dark.
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May 16, 2020 18:51
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General Battuta posted:Not because of this, which is just generally Wattsy:  God that's dark even for Watts
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May 16, 2020 18:52
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None of his other books have crossed the line from enjoyably bleak to aversively bleak for me, but I think the combination of the very realistic violence/helplessness and the avoidably tragic end really got to me with that one.
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May 16, 2020 19:03
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Lunsku posted:Some unmentioned ones: I re-read that a couple of years ago, I'd say it still holds up. Consider it recommended.
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May 16, 2020 19:33
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