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FPyat posted:I've read eight out of nine stories in Exhalation, Ted Chiang's second story collection. I'm coming out of these stories a lot more impressed than I was with Stories of Your Life, which had well-constructed stories that felt a bit lifeless in the final accounting. Anything that guy does is worthwhile, but I have noticed the stories I think about are from Exhalation. Except for the ones that are by George Saunders.
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Apr 5, 2021 18:58
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Come to think of it, another answer to StrixNebulosa's question about "elves not in decline" is also my favorite attempt at actually explaining why an extremely long-lived race with low fertility somehow hasn't been wiped out by all the trauma their culture endures. ElfQuest put way more thought into how its weird elf variant works than you'd expect from the look of it, because it is not-so-secretly science fantasy. It's a graphic novel series, not a book, but it's also probably in your wheelhouse Strix. That series has a functionally immortal race of "elves" (which are not actually elves, but that's another topic) with rock-bottom fertility rates whose tiny population ought to have been wiped out by attrition from a hostile world and its even more hostile human inhabitants long ago. The only thing keeping their numbers up is an unusually smart lizard brain that is able to understand how much stress and duress their local population is under. When times are good, fertility drops to almost nothing unless your lizard brain identifies a near-perfect match for your genetics that will produce strong children - counterintuitive, because you'd normally want to breed a lot during the Good Times, but their biology tuned toward maintaining a minimum viable population. When times are bad and people are dying to accidents in the forest, or being killed by humans or predators or disease, the lizard brain relaxes the fertility limiters and suddenly people start having babies again. But because it happens to everyone in the local population simultaneously and lasts a while before tapering off again, the net result of a bunch of deaths in your band is that you might end up with more people than you started with after a few years. There's a point early in the series where one group has attained a degree of safety and stability that pretty much ensures no one will ever die, and the lizard brain simply can't handle it and shuts off their ability to have children at all, apparently permanently. They're the closest thing that series has to High Elves, and the portrayal is bleak as hell: a closed world of dark grandeur that has entered a psychological death spiral. Children of Men, but no one will ever die unless they kill themselves, and there's no hope for salvation. The same sort of looming cultural crisis gets raised again much later on, and used as a weirdly compelling argument along the lines of, "to save our culture, we have to live dangerously enough to cut our immortal lives short."
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Apr 5, 2021 20:00
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Kalman posted:Though they are definitely in decline. Depends on the world from what I recall. The Air world they're doing great. The Fire world they're wiped out (until it turns out it was just that one pocket of civilization cause the world is so huge.) Earth world, everyone is dead. Water world, they're doing really well.
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Apr 5, 2021 20:41
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Oh man. I just tried to read Artifact because I mistakenly took it being mentioned as a suggestion to read it. Do not read Artifact. It’s some insanely misogynistic, xenophobic, America worshipping propaganda and it’s not even well written. I quit about a third of the way through.
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Apr 5, 2021 20:42
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KJ Parker apparently has another book in his Seige series coming out. This one is titled "A Practical Guide to Conquering the World." I've been a big fan of the previous two, the second especially as it was not as grim as Parker usually goes. And it recontextualized everything from the first book, showing how the people who actually get things done are often overlooked for reasons of race and class in favor of elevating someone who looks the part.
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Apr 5, 2021 21:08
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I always read elves-in-decline as a vague metaphor for the human world's industrialisation.
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Apr 5, 2021 21:21
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Kestral posted:Come to think of it, another answer to StrixNebulosa's question about "elves not in decline" is also my favorite attempt at actually explaining why an extremely long-lived race with low fertility somehow hasn't been wiped out by all the trauma their culture endures. ElfQuest put way more thought into how its weird elf variant works than you'd expect from the look of it, because it is not-so-secretly science fantasy. It's a graphic novel series, not a book, but it's also probably in your wheelhouse Strix. This sounds cool so I'm looking it up and lol, tvtropes: " ElfQuest surprised the market with its strong focus on character drama and pathos, discussing topics such as polyamory, racism and genocide right from the start." ah yes, poly, just as bad as racism and genocide. 
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Apr 5, 2021 21:23
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Surprised that TVTropes blurb doesn't mention bestiality awooooo (wolf howl)
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Apr 5, 2021 21:58
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The City & The City by China Miéville - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001NLKYQ0/ Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077WXP3KG/ The Alchemy Wars series by Ian Tregillis - $2.99/$1.99/$2.99 The Mechanical - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IRIR85M/ The Rising - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00W22IMAO/ The Liberation - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01BKSLGTE/ The Powder Mage Trilogy: Promise of Blood, The Crimson Campaign, The Autumn Republic by Brian McClellan - $6.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07NZNTK6V/ This was just on sale, but now it's cheaper. For some reason. I guess try to return and rebuy if you bought it before.
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Apr 5, 2021 22:29
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Bujold/Chalion talk reminds me of a nearly lost memory: is the first rule of The Sharing Knife that no one talks about The Sharing Knife in order to preserve her reputation?
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Apr 5, 2021 22:32
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Snuffman posted:Depends on the world from what I recall. Being pedantic, the Tribus Elves on Arianus are in the first stages of decline. But they controlled the entire world within living memory, and even when the human kingdoms broke away the elves won on the battlefield, losing total victory only to a completely unforeseeable chain of events.
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Apr 5, 2021 22:51
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pradmer posted:
cool, been meaning to get the final two of this, thanks.
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Apr 5, 2021 22:52
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pradmer posted:The City & The City by China Miéville - $2.99 if that stops you, let that stop you if not, I think it's really good even if it's very definitely "literary and therefore not science fiction and could win awards" normal book material, it's really good
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Apr 5, 2021 23:00
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Ccs posted:KJ Parker apparently has another book in his Seige series coming out. This one is titled "A Practical Guide to Conquering the World." Presumably the protag is the childhood friend
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Apr 5, 2021 23:03
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Apparatchik Magnet posted:Bujold/Chalion talk reminds me of a nearly lost memory: is the first rule of The Sharing Knife that no one talks about The Sharing Knife in order to preserve her reputation? What's wrong with The Sharing Knife? I read the series a while back and thought as a whole it wasn't bad, but it's not like I'm in a hurry to read it again. (Also, it seems to be billed it as a romance/fantasy series, but honestly, I wouldn't read it for the romance. I found the worldbuilding much more interesting) Also, I picked it up because it was recommended in this thread, so 
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Apr 6, 2021 00:57
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Apparatchik Magnet posted:Bujold/Chalion talk reminds me of a nearly lost memory: is the first rule of The Sharing Knife that no one talks about The Sharing Knife in order to preserve her reputation? I liked The Sharing Knife. I mean, it's not her best, but it struck me as perfectly fine low-key, low-stakes fantasy. Okay, it is a bit weird that the central romance is between a guy in his 60s and an eighteen-year-old girl. (For those who haven't read the series, the guy is from a culture that's a shameless ripoff of Tolkien's Dunedain, down to the extended lifespan.) But they do deal with that in the books, and Bujold seems to like May-December romances anyway -- like The Curse of Chalion, or Aral Vorkosigan being something like 10-15 years older than Cordelia Naismith when they met.
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Apr 6, 2021 02:21
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StrixNebulosa posted:This sounds cool so I'm looking it up and lol, tvtropes: Yeah, badly written sentence there. Being charitable, I'd like to think they meant to refer to how its handling of poly relationships is honestly pretty shockingly progressive even by today's standards, let alone when it came out in the 1970s. It's a story that is deeply sympathetic to love in all its forms. Anyway, if it interests you, the entire series is available for free!
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Apr 6, 2021 02:54
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Ccs posted:Is Robin Hobb’s much lauded trilogy about an assassin any better? Or distinct from run of the mill fantasy? I see a lot of praise for her work, to the point that some will say she’s the best author in the genre, but I haven’t read any since they rarely go on sale. I think the Liveship/Rain Wilds stuff is better* and more interesting than most of the stuff focused on Fitz, though it's worth reading them all if you go through the Fitz series. Especially since all the liveship and rain wilds stuff ties directly into the final trilogy and it's a lot more impactful, especially for characters like Paragon. All of the books are pretty dark at a lot of points. It definitely is not a setting full of sunshine and rainbows. The final trilogy wraps up everything but it's the weakest point in the series. Liveship traders is the best trilogy, but only after the slow start with a bunch characters acting like poo poo. *after the first 100 or so pages where everyone's competing to be the biggest, dumbest rear end in a top hat possible despite a clear winner being apparent from the start. StrixNebulosa posted:As I enjoy Lord of the Rings I reflect on elves and - are there any elves in fiction where they aren't depicted as a civilization/species in decline? Why were they in decline in lotr, anyways, if they're so wonderful? The elves seem like they're in decline in LOTR because the Third Age is coming to an end and they're migrating en masse from Middle Earth to Valinor, with the Fourth Age essentially being the Age of Man and starting after Sauron's fall. The elves are only in decline in Middle Earth from the perspective of mankind while for the elves, returning to Valinor is A Very Big Deal. Especially for a few people like Galadriel who essentially redeemed themselves for past acts (leaving Valinor against the Valar's wishes, kinslaying) by helping out in the War of the Ring and who is old enough to have actually been born in and lived in Valinor in ages past.
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Apr 6, 2021 03:56
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DACK FAYDEN posted:I think this is one of his best works but also he's a loving sex monster so uh Wait what did Mieville get cancelled? edit - I'm googling it and not finding anything other than extremely fringe Tumblr stuff like this: https://uncommonsockeater.wordpress.com/2014/12/12/thought-you-should-know-bidishas-emotional/ freebooter fucked around with this message at 09:50 on Apr 6, 2021 |
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Apr 6, 2021 09:44
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freebooter posted:Wait what did Mieville get cancelled? Why is Mieville haunting every thread I'm on? Piss off Mieville! Gats Akimbo posted:http://bidisha-online.blogspot.com/2012/12/emotional-violence-and-social-power.html (Yes, it's Mieville she's talking about, his name was removed due to his legal threats. Which is also why you can't find much about it.)
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Apr 6, 2021 10:18
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Gats Akimbo posted:Why is Mieville haunting every thread I'm on? Piss off Mieville! Not sure what other threads you're reading but this is probably the main (only?) thread to discuss his books?
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Apr 6, 2021 14:09
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buffalo all day posted:Not sure what other threads you're reading but this is probably the main (only?) thread to discuss his books? There's a dedicated Mieville thread but since he hasn't released new fiction in a long time and seem unlikely to in the future, it's mostly devolved into arguing how many times he uses 'puissance" in his work. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2994531&pagenumber=67
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Apr 6, 2021 14:14
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Ccs posted:There's a dedicated Mieville thread but since he hasn't released new fiction in a long time and seem unlikely to in the future, it's mostly devolved into arguing how many times he uses 'puissance" in his work.  chargin up my possiblity sword and rushing into the puissance thread
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Apr 6, 2021 14:18
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Gats Akimbo posted:Why is Mieville haunting every thread I'm on? Piss off Mieville! That's horrifying. I hate finding more authors to stop reading, but...damnit, don't be an awful person.
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Apr 6, 2021 14:25
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Authors are people too, just as fallable. Not to get police about it but the quality of their guilt is if they try to cover it up.
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Apr 6, 2021 15:21
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buffalo all day posted:Not sure what other threads you're reading but this is probably the main (only?) thread to discuss his books? The post I linked to is in the PYF terrible books thread (though he came up there in the context of hot authors who are terrible people). I just enjoyed the chance to do my Korg impression.
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Apr 6, 2021 16:00
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Hey, I liked Elfquest back in the 80s... Holy gently caress, they're still making new material? drat. (Autocorrect tried to write "elfwurst" but I swear I am not an elf-eating troll or anything.)
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Apr 6, 2021 16:01
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Gats Akimbo posted:The post I linked to is in the PYF terrible books thread (though he came up there in the context of hot authors who are terrible people). I just enjoyed the chance to do my Korg impression.
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Apr 6, 2021 16:16
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Gats Akimbo posted:The post I linked to is in the PYF terrible books thread (though he came up there in the context of hot authors who are terrible people). I just enjoyed the chance to do my Korg impression. Link me to the discussion of hot authors please 
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Apr 6, 2021 17:17
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General Battuta posted:Link me to the discussion of hot authors please Pretty much ended there; I don't think anyone could think of any others. (Why is there no Muttley snicker emoji?) Carnival of Shrews posted:This is a question for the ages. Which would I rather be told by someone I myself fancied:
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Apr 6, 2021 18:01
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I've never been to a Swindon Travelogue so I'll take that gamble.
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Apr 6, 2021 18:03
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Groke posted:Hey, I liked Elfquest back in the 80s... Holy gently caress, they're still making new material? drat. Yep, still going strong. It gets a bit less consistently strong in the 90s when they suddenly have four lines going at once and have to bring on other artists and writers to work under the Pinis' direction, but IMO they pulled it off. The tone has changed as the Pinis have gotten older and I'm not as much of a fan of their post-Metamorphossi stuff, but I suspect the things I find less appealing are actually big pluses to a lot of the EQ audience. Anyway, it's a great story with an astonishing scope, one of the few places where I've seen fantasy address deep time and the personal implications of immortality.
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Apr 6, 2021 18:29
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https://twitter.com/GuardianAus/status/1379291389213609984?s=20
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Apr 6, 2021 19:23
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Sharps by KJ Parker - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005WK2ZXS/ Against a Dark Background by Iain M Banks - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002CT0TXK/ Germline (Subterrene War #1) by TC McCarthy - $0.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0047Y16NU/
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Apr 6, 2021 22:40
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So I recently read one of the books that comes up on this forum a lot: The Stars are Legion by Kameron Hurley. From what I’d heard going in and the fact that I’d already read another Hurley novel (God’s War, which I *think* was one of her first novels) I was prepared for something super-gross and weird, but I was not prepared for how…well, good it was overall. I was expecting a lot of edgy-for-edginess’s sake content, but all of the extreme grossness (body horror, gory violence, meditations on how gross basic biological processes that we don’t much about actually are if everything’s altered just a little bit to make it more alien) was internally consistent and well-imagined. I remember God’s War being kind of clunky and uninteresting (which is why I never read the rest of the series) but The Stars are Legion was tight as gently caress. Great setting, great prevailing mystery, great execution. Just a great overall David Cronenberg space-opera. I also just discovered that another book that comes up on this forum a lot –Armor by John Steakley—is available for free if you have an audible membership. Years ago I remember reading a lot of recommendations for it, trying to find the book and finding out that it was out of print. Glad it’s available now. So I’ve started listening to Armor, about three out of thirteenish hours in, and I’ve also been shocked by how good it is. Maybe it will bog down or take a weird twist later on and disappoint me, but so far this is the best military sci-fi book I’ve ever read, and it’s kind of shocking that it was written in 1984 and is considered really obscure. (I’ve never read The Forever War, which I’m told is kind of the pinnacle of the genre. It’s a book I plan to read eventually). Armor is also such a weird contrast to Old Man’s War, which I read recently and just couldn’t stand. I know Old Man’s War was maybe trying to be satirical and anti-war and all that too, but it was just so badly written and full of flat characters that I just didn’t care. Also weird how a novel that was written in the early 2000’s can feel horribly dated, while one with a similar theme written in the 80’s can feel very immediate and understandable.
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Apr 7, 2021 03:10
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Blastedhellscape posted:So I’ve started listening to Armor, about three out of thirteenish hours in, and I’ve also been shocked by how good it is. Maybe it will bog down or take a weird twist later on and disappoint me, but so far this is the best military sci-fi book I’ve ever read, and it’s kind of shocking that it was written in 1984 and is considered really obscure. (I’ve never read The Forever War, which I’m told is kind of the pinnacle of the genre. It’s a book I plan to read eventually). Armor was written as the anti-Starship Troopers, and it does it's job exceedingly well.
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Apr 7, 2021 04:46
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Read the bobiverse books, and saw the guy had some others out. Read The Singularity Trap, and he's really in love with the whole engineer becoming a computer plot idea. I don't hate the books, but they seem to be repeats of one another plot wise. Bob fixes poo poo, humans act dumb, Bob has a plan, Bob shows dumb humans what, humans do dumber poo poo, Bob fixes it back to pretty much status quo. Even Heaven's River was a retreat of the whole Bawbe subplot from the earlier books. As much as I loved the belgariad and mallorean, and the entirety of gemmell's work as far as plot retellings go, this just seems firmly "meh". I'm not recommending em, but there are worst ways to read about sci fi brain to computer transfers, I guess.
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Apr 7, 2021 05:31
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pradmer posted:Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik - $2.99 Don't sleep on this one, I really enjoyed it!
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Apr 7, 2021 07:49
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Armor has two interwoven stories in it. One is amazing, the other unfortunately is 'meh'. The strength of the former manages to carry the book and it has earned a spot among my favorite sci-fi novels.
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Apr 7, 2021 14:42
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Ccs posted:KJ Parker apparently has another book in his Seige series coming out. This one is titled "A Practical Guide to Conquering the World." Never understood how his books fit together. Literally every series of different descriptions of the same place ( in one series the mesoge is soggy and bleak, then it’s a tropical paradise), and I’ve never understood which city the City is from the other books. It can’t be Mezentinia, or Perimedia or Ap Escatoy or whatever. Still, a wonderful writer and I’ll be reading his book when it comes out.
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Apr 7, 2021 15:25
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