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Xotl
May 28, 2001

Be seeing you.

McCoy Pauley posted:

The Terry Brooks Shannara series is the first one that would come to mind. The trilogy certainly reminded me a lot of LOTR when I turned to it as a kid looking for a next thing to read after Tolkien.

And feel like I've read somewhere that the Del Rey's found the book after looking around and realizing that people didn't want to read more fantasy books kind of like LOTR, but rather wanted more books that basically were LOTR. And I assume Shannara was super successful for Brooks given how many more of those he cranked out.

Not just super-successful, but enormously super-successful and changed the face of fantasy publishing: 125,000 copies in its first month alone. Compare the fantasy fields of 1976 and 1986 and they're immensely different. Before Shannara, everyone respected Tolkien and what he did. After Shannara, everyone copied Tolkien and (broadly) what he did: fantasy epics became the norm, although soon people were incestuously copying the successful knock-offs rather than looking to Tolkien directly because the latter is much easier to process. Shannara was such a mediocre series, but an incredibly transformative one.

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ToxicFrog
Apr 26, 2008


DigitalRaven posted:

Brunner wrote the rules, and apparently wanted to release it as a stand-alone boardgame. The rules are at https://sal.host.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Fencing.html, and there was even a version released for DOS in 1990 according to https://www.mobygames.com/game/fencing. However, it was never to see the light of day: per Dave Langford in SFX #60


No information about what the perfect strategy consists of seems to exist, however.

Then again, get some half-decent art and "premium components" and a little thing like the presence of a perfect strategy (even if widely-known) wouldn't stop you reaching six figures on Kickstarter. Though maybe I'm a tradgames cynic.

The hidden-information requirement and the size of the board seems like it would make it cumbersome to play in physical form, and that's probably the main obstacle. It wouldn't be hard to implement digitally, though.

As for the existence of a perfect strategy -- there are lots of classic board games that have a perfect (or at least currently believed to be optimal) strategy. If there are no random elements this usually means always-draw (e.g. tictactoe) or a specific player always wins. If there are random elements (e.g. Clue) this basically means you're playing the world's longest game of coinflip. In either case, though, it hasn't stopped these games from becoming extremely popular.

It might actually be a problem now that the board game market has exploded and people are familiar with games that aren't the Nightmare Trifecta of Monopoly, Scrabble, and Clue, but back when TSWR was published I don't think it would have been an issue.

quantumfoam
Dec 25, 2003

anilEhilated posted:

You should, they're good. The quirky humor is a huge departure from GRRM's usual abject misery stuff and it's mostly just fun in space.
He actually used to be a decent writer of short stories before the whole fantasy saga thing.

Also,

what

Quoting this because I want to capture this post before you finish reading the rest of the post you posted.
tldr: GRRM's Haviland Tuf comes up again 6 or so items later in the SFL Archives Vol 11 update 02 post.


Sarern posted:

It was interesting to read that shout out for Judy-Lynn Del Rey; the only place I know her and her husband's names from is their role in the Belgariad and the Eddings's careers generally, which at this point is probably not a positive thing to most of the posters in this thread.

Judy-Lynn Del Rey being mostly remembered nowadays for marriage to her (even for that era) sketchy as hell SF author-editor husband is very sad. Judy Lynn did a crazy amount of PR outreach-work with SF fandom and SF writer talent hunts that got heavily marginalized by other SF&F editors as being beneath themselves to personally do.

Even if you think most outreach PR work is bullshit, Judy-Lynn broke the editor/upper management gender line in the SF&F similar to how Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier that segregated professional baseball.

quantumfoam fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Sep 10, 2020

Xotl
May 28, 2001

Be seeing you.
What has happened to Judy-Lynn (and even her husband) isn't uncommon. Both were legends in their day, Lester in terms of writing and Judy in terms of editing (she received a posthumous Hugo for her work), but a lot of that generation is sort of disappearing into the mists. The genres in their modern forms are comparatively young so we're still seeing exactly how the winnowing is shaking out, but it doesn't look like a lot of what was considered foundational is going to carry forward in the same way that, say, classic rock music has. SF&F appears to have a pretty short memory.

shirunei
Sep 7, 2018

I tried to run away. To take the easy way out. I'll live through the suffering. When I die, I want to feel like I did my best.

eke out posted:

i just looked up what this was and it's totally wild that OSC was doing a whole act making fun of evangelical preachers in the 80s

when exactly did his brain completely break, was it 9/11?

The Homecoming saga was in the early 90's so if anything the seeds were already planted long before that.

anilEhilated
Feb 17, 2014

But I say fuck the rain.

Grimey Drawer

quantumfoam posted:

Quoting this because I want to capture this post before you finish reading the rest of the post you posted.
tldr: GRRM's Haviland Tuf comes up again 6 or so items later in the SFL Archives Vol 11 update 02 post.
Right, missed the second mention. I think it's still worth remembering that there once was a GRRM who wrote actually interesting stuff.

anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 21:07 on Sep 10, 2020

mllaneza
Apr 28, 2007

Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1993-1952




anilEhilated posted:

Right, missed the second mention. I think it's still worth remembering that there once was a GRRM who wrote actually interesting stuff.

Yup.The Haviland Tuf stories are great science fiction. No misery, except for what you get if you mess with Tuf and his cats.

Arc Hammer
Mar 4, 2013

Got any deathsticks?
Anyone have some recommendations for SF novels following Generation Ships? I had a recent thought about a premise where a Generation ship sets off for a new solar system but in the proceeding centuries faster travel methods have allowed ships to make it there before the initial ship so they send someone to pick up the original colony mission and get them there hundreds of years ahead of schedule. I figure someone must have done a story like that already and I'd be interested to see how it played out.

Selachian
Oct 9, 2012

Arcsquad12 posted:

Anyone have some recommendations for SF novels following Generation Ships? I had a recent thought about a premise where a Generation ship sets off for a new solar system but in the proceeding centuries faster travel methods have allowed ships to make it there before the initial ship so they send someone to pick up the original colony mission and get them there hundreds of years ahead of schedule. I figure someone must have done a story like that already and I'd be interested to see how it played out.

I know Star Trek has used the premise quite a few times, with the crew of the Enterprise or whatever stumbling over a forgotten generation or sleeper ship (see "Space Seed" or "For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky" from TOS, for instance).

General Battuta
Feb 7, 2011

This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Arcsquad12 posted:

Anyone have some recommendations for SF novels following Generation Ships? I had a recent thought about a premise where a Generation ship sets off for a new solar system but in the proceeding centuries faster travel methods have allowed ships to make it there before the initial ship so they send someone to pick up the original colony mission and get them there hundreds of years ahead of schedule. I figure someone must have done a story like that already and I'd be interested to see how it played out.

There's a very old short story about the generation/sleeper ship being outraced by later colonists something about Arcturus maybe? I read it as a kid. Sorry that is the least helpful recommendation ever.

A significant part of Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds is set on a generation ship, it's quite horrifying!

Hull Zero Three is a terrible book about a generation ship gone wrong, don't read it.

Okay, thinking about it, none of the ships in the past three paragraphs are true generation ships, they're more of the cryosleep/artificial womb variety.

AARD VARKMAN
May 17, 1993

General Battuta posted:

The Lastronaut was pretty good. Kind of an airport thriller Blindsight, which I guess is what I was looking for. There's just one very literal plot hole I can't figure out, an actual hole of relevance to the plot why the heck did oumuamua 2: the wormening have airlocks? which were easily operable by people? Narratively I like the way this seems to point towards a friendly alien first contact, but practically speaking I can't figure out the reasons for them. Maybe they're just for scooping up rocks, comets, assorted snacks?

About forty times less bad than Hull Zero Three, ugh.

Just finished Lastronaut last night. Agree on the "airport thriller" thing, some real cliche dialog/instant romance kinda stuff.

Your thought was what I had regarding them being there for picking up space detritus, and I think it's mentioned at one point that it can only get 'so much' by collecting what it gets going through space? I can't explain why it apparently flies rear end in a top hat first, though, or how the things it picks up via the front airlock are actually consumed, but I had trouble picturing the gravity situation in the front. Making the back end the part with the teeth was a weird choice, though.

uber_stoat
Jan 21, 2001



Pillbug
Peter Watts wrote a novella called the Freeze Frame Revolution about a crew aboard a ship that is slow boating across the galaxy constructing a wormhole network. occasionally things emerge from the wormholes which may or may not be descended from the humans they left behind. they're planning a mutiny against the AI controlling the ship, the gimmick being that they are only conscious for short stretches of time, going back to hibernation after performing their duties.

I just read Ship of Fools which is another generation ship story but I didn't like it that much.

Black Griffon
Mar 12, 2005

Now, in the quantum moment before the closure, when all become one. One moment left. One point of space and time.

I know who you are. You are destiny.


There must be a reason I have Hull Zero Three on my kindle. Some of you liked, it right?

StrixNebulosa
Feb 14, 2012

You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Black Griffon posted:

There must be a reason I have Hull Zero Three on my kindle. Some of you liked, it right?

I generally love Greg Bear's work like Queen of Angels.

I did not like Hull Zero Three.

AARD VARKMAN
May 17, 1993

Black Griffon posted:

There must be a reason I have Hull Zero Three on my kindle. Some of you liked, it right?

From what I remember, it had a cute gimmick premise and little else going for it.

DurianGray
Dec 23, 2010

King of Fruits
Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson is about a generation ship and is told from the POV of the ship's AI. It does mostly focus on a single generation (as they reach their destination and what happens there).

pradmer
Mar 31, 2009

Follow me for more books on special!
The Girl with All the Gifts by MR Carey - $2.99
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CO7FLFG/

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky - $2.99
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DN8BQMD/

Hobnob
Feb 23, 2006

Ursa Adorandum

Arcsquad12 posted:

Anyone have some recommendations for SF novels following Generation Ships? I had a recent thought about a premise where a Generation ship sets off for a new solar system but in the proceeding centuries faster travel methods have allowed ships to make it there before the initial ship so they send someone to pick up the original colony mission and get them there hundreds of years ahead of schedule. I figure someone must have done a story like that already and I'd be interested to see how it played out.

There's definitely an A.E. van Vogt story (maybe just a short story) about something similar (though I think it's a sleeper ship rather than a generation ship), with early interstellar explorers being outpaced by FTL ships. Unfortunately I can't recall the name of the story.

It also shows up in the Traveller RPG lore, with several generation ships launched from Earth coming near their destinations after thousands of years in space, being monitored by the Imperial Scout Service. (Though with the background lore of Traveller there were already humans at their destinations before they even left, humanity having been seeded around the galaxy by aliens 300k years ago).

Arc Hammer
Mar 4, 2013

Got any deathsticks?

pradmer posted:

The Girl with All the Gifts by MR Carey - $2.99
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CO7FLFG/

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky - $2.99
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DN8BQMD/

Children of Time looks kinda like what I envisioned. You get to your new planet and find someone has already set up shop before you landed.

foutre
Sep 4, 2011

:toot: RIP ZEEZ :toot:
^^ Children of Time was the other I was going to recommend, I think it's about the closest to what you're looking for that I could think of!

Arcsquad12 posted:

Anyone have some recommendations for SF novels following Generation Ships?

An Unkindness of Ghosts doesn't have the latter bits, but is v much about the day to day life and society that develops on a generation ship.

mllaneza
Apr 28, 2007

Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1993-1952




Arcsquad12 posted:

Anyone have some recommendations for SF novels following Generation Ships? I had a recent thought about a premise where a Generation ship sets off for a new solar system but in the proceeding centuries faster travel methods have allowed ships to make it there before the initial ship so they send someone to pick up the original colony mission and get them there hundreds of years ahead of schedule. I figure someone must have done a story like that already and I'd be interested to see how it played out.

"Colony Fleet" by Susan R Matthews was pretty good.

"Soul, Say What Death Is" by Le Guin is superb. It's in the "The Found and the Lost" collection, which you should all read anyway.

uber_stoat
Jan 21, 2001



Pillbug
forgot to mention the Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun, the long sun in question being the artificial "sun" running down the length of the giant ship.

Black Griffon
Mar 12, 2005

Now, in the quantum moment before the closure, when all become one. One moment left. One point of space and time.

I know who you are. You are destiny.


StrixNebulosa posted:

I generally love Greg Bear's work like Queen of Angels.

I did not like Hull Zero Three.

TheAardvark posted:

From what I remember, it had a cute gimmick premise and little else going for it.

Ah well, god knows why I bought it considering I really didn't like the only Greg Bear book I've read (Eon, mentioned it before, weird horny stuff). Probably only paid $3 for it though.

fez_machine
Nov 27, 2004

Arcsquad12 posted:

Anyone have some recommendations for SF novels following Generation Ships? I had a recent thought about a premise where a Generation ship sets off for a new solar system but in the proceeding centuries faster travel methods have allowed ships to make it there before the initial ship so they send someone to pick up the original colony mission and get them there hundreds of years ahead of schedule. I figure someone must have done a story like that already and I'd be interested to see how it played out.

It's only a small spoiler but Non-Stop by Brian Aldis is a classic of the genre.

"Far Centaurus" by A.E. van Vogt might be the first story to feature the idea you outlined.

fez_machine fucked around with this message at 02:09 on Sep 11, 2020

Harold Fjord
Jan 3, 2004
Finally reading Tyrant and almost done. I loving love it. it's all so cool and neat especially the stuff with the command hierarchy and the trim and the sorcery. Excited to go back and read the spoiler posts.

Renascent prediction just stabbed bel where I'm at, shortly after hooking up with baru in a river

Jedit
Dec 10, 2011

Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

Sarern posted:

Does anyone know of other successful mediocre LOTR ripoffs of the era? I'm having trouble thinking of others, that's always the example I use.

The first volume of Wheel of Time is LOTR by way of Arthurian legend. The Two Rivers is the Shire, Rand is Frodo, Mat and Perrin are Merry and Pippin, Moiraine is Gandalf, Lan is Aragorn.

Qwertycoatl
Dec 31, 2008

Finished Harrow the Ninth last night. I feel I have to reread both Gideon and it again to fully grasp what's going on. It's been a while since I read Gideon and the constant gaslighting made it hard to refresh my memory of it.

One thing in particular though: Am I supposed to know who the Sleeper was?

Ceebees
Nov 2, 2011

I'm intentionally being as verbose as possible in negotiations for my own amusement.

Qwertycoatl posted:

One thing in particular though: Am I supposed to know who the Sleeper was?

Wake., geddit?

quantumfoam
Dec 25, 2003

quantumfoam posted:

I have repeatedly stated in this thread and the last SF&F thread that Cordwainer Smith aka Paul Linebarger was the god-father of the furry movement. His cat obsession and really wanting to gently caress cats, more specifically one pet cat he owned became more and more overt as he wrote.

The story his entire "rediscovery of man" cycle is based on is actually super creepy. It is 3 literal nazi child-brides from the past getting chain-married to the same immortal guy bored with utopian life that gets woke with German Nazi notNazi values leading to the rebirth of humanity thanks to World War 2 cryogenics, and Wernher von Braun.

In real life, Paul Linebarger aka Cordwainer Smith worked for the US Government during the peak white-washing Nazi's via Paperclips anti-communism years & also authored a book on disinformation called Psychological Warfare.....so it is possible that the creepiness in Cordwainer Smith's stories just got semi-explained.

FYI.... I found the story mentioned in my re-quoted posted inside the April 1978 issue of Galaxy Magazine someone uploaded to archive.org
https://archive.org/details/Galaxy_v39n04_1978-04/page/n1/mode/2up
It is the featured story of the month (Queen of the Afternoon by Cordwainer Smith).

quantumfoam fucked around with this message at 12:31 on Sep 11, 2020

BadMedic
Jul 22, 2007

I've never actually seen him heal anybody.
Pillbug

Arcsquad12 posted:

Anyone have some recommendations for SF novels following Generation Ships?

I have a terrible memory for names, so maybe someone else can figure out the title:
I read one novel about a generation ship, where a minor collision caused the main engines to be stuck at full throttle. The book is about them trying to figure out ways to fix the engine without dying, as the ship keeps accelerating to relativistic speeds. I remember liking the book, but that was also 20 years ago so IDK if it holds up.

Qwertycoatl
Dec 31, 2008

Ceebees posted:

Wake., geddit?

Well that makes sense

team overhead smash
Sep 2, 2006

Team-Forest-Tree-Dog:
Smashing your way into our hearts one skylight at a time

BadMedic posted:

I have a terrible memory for names, so maybe someone else can figure out the title:
I read one novel about a generation ship, where a minor collision caused the main engines to be stuck at full throttle. The book is about them trying to figure out ways to fix the engine without dying, as the ship keeps accelerating to relativistic speeds. I remember liking the book, but that was also 20 years ago so IDK if it holds up.

Tau Zero by Poul Anderson.

Leng
May 13, 2006

One song / Glory
One song before I go / Glory
One song to leave behind


No other road
No other way
No day but today
In the latest GRRM news, his attempts to build a castle are foiled again:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8711007/amp/Game-Thrones-author-George-R-R-Martin-wants-build-fantasy-castle-backyard.html

:stare: Those plans!

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound
I mean, if you have that much money, might as well build weird poo poo with it.

Surprised he hasn't just moved.to the wilderness though.

XBenedict
May 23, 2006

YOUR LIPS SAY 0, BUT YOUR EYES SAY 1.


Well, it's nice that he included a powder room.

Black Griffon
Mar 12, 2005

Now, in the quantum moment before the closure, when all become one. One moment left. One point of space and time.

I know who you are. You are destiny.



loving nimbys ruining fun yet again

Evil Fluffy
Jul 13, 2009

Scholars are some of the most pompous and pedantic people I've ever had the joy of meeting.

Black Griffon posted:

loving nimbys ruining fun yet again

"It'd spoil the view" is such a hilarious argument. Like unless his house is in an area with sweeping vistas and not just generic upper class suburbia the only view is the tops of other houses through whatever fences these people have up on their properties.

pseudanonymous
Aug 30, 2008

When you make the second entry and the debits and credits balance, and you blow them to hell.

Evil Fluffy posted:

"It'd spoil the view" is such a hilarious argument. Like unless his house is in an area with sweeping vistas and not just generic upper class suburbia the only view is the tops of other houses through whatever fences these people have up on their properties.

It's actually probably the former rather than the latter. New Mexico is really beautiful in a reddish harsh kind of way. Sante Fe is surrounded by big mesas, and I'm sure this would probably block a bunch of people's views.

StrixNebulosa
Feb 14, 2012

You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Ya know I think this goes in here too:

https://twitter.com/MikeBrooks668/status/1304347212550467585

In short, this is a novel from the alien's pov. It's about a band of space orks being violent and having fun and I cannot wait for it to drop, and if it's as much fun as I think it'll be, y'all non-Warhammer fans should check it out!

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Black Griffon
Mar 12, 2005

Now, in the quantum moment before the closure, when all become one. One moment left. One point of space and time.

I know who you are. You are destiny.


StrixNebulosa posted:

Ya know I think this goes in here too:

https://twitter.com/MikeBrooks668/status/1304347212550467585

In short, this is a novel from the alien's pov. It's about a band of space orks being violent and having fun and I cannot wait for it to drop, and if it's as much fun as I think it'll be, y'all non-Warhammer fans should check it out!

Ooh, have they finally dropped the "rule" that novel-length 40k books shan't be written from the alien POV?

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