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I've said this before in other threads, but don't forget how utopian societies produce effeminate weak bitchbois that don't know how to defend themselves, and real men from current era China are needed to protect humanity. edit: oh gently caress that's a bad snipe. Content: The descriptions of scale and power from the Culture series, and how the largest spaceships have no need for an actual human-visible hull - the GSVs are like giant continents floating in empty space, except three dimensional. I like to think to the naked human eye they would look like a rocky green boulder, except they host millions of souls and can effortlessly gently caress entire solar systems. TURTLE SLUT fucked around with this message at 19:33 on Jun 18, 2021 |
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Jun 18, 2021 19:28
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Don't the warships, at least, canonically look like dildos per that exact "can gently caress whole solar systems" conversation? 
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Jun 18, 2021 20:28
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Fivemarks posted:Doesn't it then go into some pretty Authoritarian and nationalist wank, like entire paragraphs about how humanity will be cured of a desire for democracy because they'll see it doesn't work? Isn't Liu Cixin like, a huge piece of poo poo? if you look at the improvement in living conditions and life expectancy in China the last half century+ it seems pretty rational for someone who lives there to come to that conclusion given that the only other example in history that comes close to the standard China set is another authoritarian nondemocratic nationalist state (the USSR). He may be a piece of poo poo but I wouldn’t hold that particular belief against him
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Jun 19, 2021 03:38
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Polaron posted:Don't the warships, at least, canonically look like dildos per that exact "can gently caress whole solar systems" conversation? That's Honor Harrington. indigi posted:if you look at the improvement in living conditions and life expectancy in China the last half century+ it seems pretty rational for someone who lives there to come to that conclusion given that the only other example in history that comes close to the standard China set is another authoritarian nondemocratic nationalist state (the USSR). He may be a piece of poo poo but I wouldn’t hold that particular belief against him That doesn't justify him treating chinese americans as traitors who've been too brainwashed by western ideals to "See the truth." Or being 100% down with the Uighur Genocide. A CHUD sci-fi author is a CHUD sci-fi author, it doesn't matter if they're an American like Heinlein or E.E Doc Smith, or Chinese like Liu Cixin.
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Jun 19, 2021 05:55
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I mean, wouldn't he just disappear forever into a work camp if he came out swinging against the CCP? I feel like we have to factor that into account.
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Jun 19, 2021 22:24
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JOHN SKELETON posted:
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Jun 20, 2021 00:33
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Bug Squash posted:I mean, wouldn't he just disappear forever into a work camp if he came out swinging against the CCP? I feel like we have to factor that into account. They haven't dissappeared the writers of the current smash hit gay romance wuxia despite crackdowns against that elsewhere. There is a difference between "not running counter to the CCP's breakpoints" and "gently caress Yeah CCP Forever!" and pleeeeeeenty of other creators can manage.
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Jun 20, 2021 02:27
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Maybe the author simply didn't want to risk being dragged from his bed in the middle of the night, tortured and thrown in a hole for the rest of this life for the crime of not showing sufficient enthusiasm to the authoritarian state run by a monster in which he lived?
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Jun 20, 2021 03:35
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Megillah Gorilla posted:Maybe the author simply didn't want to risk being dragged from his bed in the middle of the night, tortured and thrown in a hole for the rest of this life for the crime of not showing sufficient enthusiasm to the authoritarian state run by a monster in which he lived? I consume a decent amount of chinese media and cultural products. There are very definite gaps between something like this and Wolf Warrior 2 and other media, just as there exists in the US a difference between Act of Valor and other war films. Like people who get unpersoned/rejected in china are the people doing documentaries on how hosed up air pollution is, not people whose sci-fi stories lack enough endorsement of CCP. This is not a situation where a censor demanded these things, this author just is into that.
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Jun 20, 2021 04:10
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Yeah, sorry that was me overreacting after spending too much time arguing with tankies over the whole Apple Daily thing. But that's my damage and I should have taken a deep breathe before posting. Your reading of things makes much more sense.
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Jun 20, 2021 04:35
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Fivemarks posted:That's Honor Harrington. quote:Ulver laughed. "It looks," she snorted, "like a dildo!" 
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Jun 21, 2021 14:57
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Fivemarks posted:That doesn't justify him treating chinese americans as traitors who've been too brainwashed by western ideals to "See the truth." yeah it kinda does e: weird sinophobia in this thread all of a sudden lol
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Jun 21, 2021 15:32
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Sino-politics is not sino-people, guy. Critique of the first is not hate of the second. Don't be a conservative
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Jun 21, 2021 15:41
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sorry I thought engaging in sweeping stereotypes about a nation counted as sinophobia
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Jun 21, 2021 19:33
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Fivemarks posted:That doesn't justify him treating chinese americans as traitors who've been too brainwashed by western ideals to "See the truth." Or being 100% down with the Uighur Genocide. A CHUD sci-fi author is a CHUD sci-fi author, it doesn't matter if they're an American like Heinlein or E.E Doc Smith, or Chinese like Liu Cixin. The whole “Dark Forest” theme is kind of messed up. Every alien race is a bunch of genocidal assholes and the only hope is to hide or kill them first? That’s xenophobic as gently caress, not to mention kinda suspect how it reads if you transfer it to real world racial politics and a lot of other particular philosophies that accept zero-sum as the only possible interactions. Also, as I’ve noted elsewhere it only works if the darkness part of it covers the murderer; if as is more likely a genocidal attack is likely to be not only visible to non-targets but traceable back (i.e. look which way the relativistic kill attack came from or similar), that approach is a good way for any xenophobes to get killed themselves.
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Jun 21, 2021 19:48
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indigi posted:sorry I thought engaging in sweeping stereotypes about a nation counted as sinophobia What, like your support of the man calling an ethnicity disunited behind
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Jun 21, 2021 19:57
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MadDogMike posted:The whole “Dark Forest” theme is kind of messed up. Every alien race is a bunch of genocidal assholes and the only hope is to hide or kill them first? That’s xenophobic as gently caress, not to mention kinda suspect how it reads if you transfer it to real world racial politics and a lot of other particular philosophies that accept zero-sum as the only possible interactions. Also, as I’ve noted elsewhere it only works if the darkness part of it covers the murderer; if as is more likely a genocidal attack is likely to be not only visible to non-targets but traceable back (i.e. look which way the relativistic kill attack came from or similar), that approach is a good way for any xenophobes to get killed themselves. The Dark Forest theory long predates the Dark Forest book. It just forms a central theme. We wouldn't even be blinking if an American had written a book with that premise.
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Jun 21, 2021 21:01
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Critiquing political implications of nerd culture? On MY Something awful?!
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Jun 21, 2021 21:11
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Bug Squash posted:The Dark Forest theory long predates the Dark Forest book. It just forms a central theme. We wouldn't even be blinking if an American had written a book with that premise. I wanna say that Heinlein does exactly that in a few of his books but it's been ages since I read them and I could be thinking of someone else. JOHN SKELETON posted:The descriptions of scale and power from the Culture series, and how the largest spaceships have no need for an actual human-visible hull - the GSVs are like giant continents floating in empty space, except three dimensional. I like to think to the naked human eye they would look like a rocky green boulder, except they host millions of souls and can effortlessly gently caress entire solar systems. I think Iain Banks' Culture series explores some of the really fun sci fi concepts better than a lot of other authors. I liked the description of the ringworld with vast rivers and oceans that it took years if not decades for a cruise ship to sail through and visit all the various cities and settlements along the way. Which, yeah, of course it would on a ringworld.
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Jun 21, 2021 21:12
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frogge posted:I wanna say that Heinlein does exactly that in a few of his books but it's been ages since I read them and I could be thinking of someone else. The basic idea goes back at least to 1945's "First Contact" by Murray Leinster, in which a human ship and an alien ship encounter each other in space, and each concludes they'll have to kill the other to keep from being followed back to their home planet. In the end they work out a way to avoid killing the other, though they still keep the locations of their planets secret.
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Jun 21, 2021 22:45
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There is plenty of other sci-fi in China and so many goddamn online only novels that there is no unfairness in critiquing this author the exact same as we critique western authors by writing The Iron Dream which is a devastatingly good book. Liu Cixin wrote a shitload of other books and short stories (honestly the Three Body Problem would possibly cause trouble for them if published today due to the setting backstory details) and actually gets mad if you try to only discuss Three Body Problem and argues his whole body of work better reflects his views. The rest of his books I've perused are just as heavy handed "I've created a scenario to exposit a moral point to you and tough men must make tough decisions" so to me he has an oeuvre.
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Jun 22, 2021 02:22
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Bug Squash posted:The Dark Forest theory long predates the Dark Forest book. It just forms a central theme. We wouldn't even be blinking if an American had written a book with that premise. Yes we would. If Someone brought up The Killing Star, I'd raise a fuss about how it's central premise is inherently xenophobic and depressingly cynical. I talk about how E.E Doc Smith and H. Beam Piper both have terrible ideas that they put in their works and how it ruins them. This isn't sinophobia- this is disliking regressive and xenophobic politics and outlooks regardless of the source.
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Jun 22, 2021 17:07
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Okay real talk, I've got an example of my mind being blown that happened like five minutes ago. I got to Musashi's sacrifice in the final volume of the original Getter Robo. Holy poo poo.
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Jun 22, 2021 19:34
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Fivemarks posted:Yes we would. If Someone brought up The Killing Star, I'd raise a fuss about how it's central premise is inherently xenophobic and depressingly cynical. I talk about how E.E Doc Smith and H. Beam Piper both have terrible ideas that they put in their works and how it ruins them. This isn't sinophobia- this is disliking regressive and xenophobic politics and outlooks regardless of the source. It's not that you're wrong about the author, but this is the same arguement we see from freeze peach defenders. Lots of noise about how in theory they would rush to defend a Marxist, yet strangely only ever seen to defend fascism. I'm happy to go over Bad Politics Authors, but in the context of rising and virulent sinophobia it's a bad look that it's only the 3BP guy getting savaged.
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Jun 23, 2021 10:39
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Yeah, nobody on SA ever criticizes western media for its reactionary political themes.
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Jun 26, 2021 07:54
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Bug Squash posted:It's not that you're wrong about the author, but this is the same arguement we see from freeze peach defenders. Lots of noise about how in theory they would rush to defend a Marxist, yet strangely only ever seen to defend fascism. I'm happy to go over Bad Politics Authors, but in the context of rising and virulent sinophobia it's a bad look that it's only the 3BP guy getting savaged. This is absolutely disingenuous and you know it. "You can't criticize this author because then its SINOPHOBIA" is a bullshit defense akin to people saying you can't criticize Israeli actions towards the Palestinians because that would be Antisemitism.
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Jun 26, 2021 14:30
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Trying to slog through the Rendezvous with Rama sequels (which I actually didn't realize were written by Gentry Lee and not Arthur C Clarke) and it is the most painful reading I've ever done. It's horrifically dated. The characters and language just keep getting more and more vile. I thought I was reading something from the 50's, but then looked it up and it was written in the 90's. Mind blown.
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Jun 26, 2021 17:33
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Chocobo posted:Trying to slog through the Rendezvous with Rama sequels (which I actually didn't realize were written by Gentry Lee and not Arthur C Clarke) and it is the most painful reading I've ever done. It's horrifically dated. The characters and language just keep getting more and more vile. I thought I was reading something from the 50's, but then looked it up and it was written in the 90's. Mind blown. "Moments in Sci-FI that Blew Your Mind" doesn't mean "Moments that Made Me Wanna Blow My Brains Out" ya know
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Jun 26, 2021 19:19
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Chocobo posted:Trying to slog through the Rendezvous with Rama sequels (which I actually didn't realize were written by Gentry Lee and not Arthur C Clarke) and it is the most painful reading I've ever done. It's horrifically dated. The characters and language just keep getting more and more vile. I thought I was reading something from the 50's, but then looked it up and it was written in the 90's. Mind blown. The genius of Rendezvous (and Fiasco, by Lem) is that the protagonists are just discovering what are probably entirely prosaic structures for the aliens. There's an element of mystery and puzzle box, but the novel gives the impression that there are completely sensible explainations for everything that we can sort of get a feel for, but not fully understand. Contrast with new Battlestar Galactica which just piles up the mystery box but it's obvious just puzzles with no real answers for the sake of it. I can respect Clarke for selling off the series and living large on the profits. Ideally that would have involved less underage prostitutes though.
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Jun 26, 2021 19:55
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Asterite34 posted:"Moments in Sci-FI that Blew Your Mind" doesn't mean "Moments that Made Me Wanna Blow My Brains Out" ya know I made a post about a moment that blew my mind and the response was just about the bad author's politics, so I figured I'd skip a step this time.
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Jun 26, 2021 22:15
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Chocobo posted:Trying to slog through the Rendezvous with Rama sequels (which I actually didn't realize were written by Gentry Lee and not Arthur C Clarke) and it is the most painful reading I've ever done. It's horrifically dated. The characters and language just keep getting more and more vile. I thought I was reading something from the 50's, but then looked it up and it was written in the 90's. Mind blown. The original was great. But the sequels were trash especially when parents are leaving for some journey and they leave their 14 year old daughter behind for some reason. So they marry her off to a grown man. I don't remember the exact details, it's been a while, but I rember being loving grossed out at that.
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Jun 27, 2021 07:41
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One Nut Wonder posted:The original was great. But the sequels were trash especially when parents are leaving for some journey and they leave their 14 year old daughter behind for some reason. So they marry her off to a grown man. I unfortunately read all the Rama sequels, so I remember the answer to this. After the humans arrive at a space station where the Rama spacecraft are reconfigured, the aliens decide to send Rama back to Earth to collect a larger contingent of humans for a long-term settlement on Rama. They want some of the humans that stowed away on Rama to go back with Rama to help get the settlement going, but they're also concerned that if something happens to Rama, they'll lose the only humans they have. So the aliens want a breeding pair. And they're concerned about what might happen if they older guy in his sixties goes back to Earth; he's old enough he might not survive the trip. So the other two adult humans "logically" pair off their oldest kid with him to stay behind on the space station, for the express purpose of pumping babies out. It's actually even more super hosed up than that, though, because while her body is technically 14 years old, she's mentally much younger because several years of that time was spent in suspended animation aboard Rama - there's some bullshit about how the hibernation process arrests aging for the most part for adults, but not for children. Chocobo posted:Trying to slog through the Rendezvous with Rama sequels (which I actually didn't realize were written by Gentry Lee and not Arthur C Clarke) and it is the most painful reading I've ever done. It's horrifically dated. The characters and language just keep getting more and more vile. I thought I was reading something from the 50's, but then looked it up and it was written in the 90's. Mind blown. It's really not worth it. Like, I get it, I remember when I attempted my second read-through of Rama 2 and got sucked in to this bizarre fascination with "...god, what new poo poo is Gentry Lee going to drop after this??" but there really is no satisfying payoff.
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Jun 27, 2021 21:29
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A large part of what makes Rama great is the sense of awe and the unknown, almost veering into cosmic horror with how inconsequential humans are to the vast machine. Why the gently caress would anyone make a sequel that further explains poo poo?
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Jun 28, 2021 09:47
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There are only two things I remember about the Rama series - mind you, I did not read it all and it was a very long time ago. The first is from the very first book with the waterfall spiralling down from the centre of Rama. This was while the entire structure is in darkness when they first enter it and they can only hear it. Some amazing mental images there. The second is that one of the human settlers decides that Rama was sent by god. One of the robot bird "biots" they interact with confirms it and goddamn that felt like some bullshit. My most charitable reading was that the biot was humouring him because he was dying, but the rest of the book seemed to treat the idea as if it was true. Religion in 'hard' science fiction always felt like oil and water to me. It's one of the reasons I really didn't care for the Battlestar Galactica remake. Sure, magic powers like the Force, whatever. But actual religion and angels and gods? Like, no, gently caress off, you've got you own poo poo over there to gently caress around with. Stay out of my nerd stuff  EDIT: Wait, now I remember - settlers on Rama couldn't stop setting poo poo on fire for no goddamn reason and it was loving up the air quality and killing them. I always thought people using fireplaces despite being able to literally see the damage it was causing them was stupid. Boy, was I wrong about that. Megillah Gorilla fucked around with this message at 13:01 on Jun 30, 2021 |
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Jun 30, 2021 12:58
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Megillah Gorilla posted:There are only two things I remember about the Rama series - mind you, I did not read it all and it was a very long time ago. Rama is the first time i remember being awed at a book. just so many cool things happening so often. one of the things i love about Iain Banks or Vernor Vinge is the ability to describe huge events in such awesome detail. The fall of Relay in fire upon the deep and the chase through the realms of thought. Or the various huge happenings in Culture books. The Megaships crashing into the icebergs in Phelbas was very cool. I have the same feelings about the hokey religion stuff in sci-fi. i love dune though so who knows
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Jun 30, 2021 18:41
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ptkfvk posted:Rama is the first time i remember being awed at a book. just so many cool things happening so often. one of the things i love about Iain Banks or Vernor Vinge is the ability to describe huge events in such awesome detail. The fall of Relay in fire upon the deep and the chase through the realms of thought. Or the various huge happenings in Culture books. The Megaships crashing into the icebergs in Phelbas was very cool. Religion in Dune is just sufficiently advanced social science. You will believe a series of tropes that provide any Bene Gesserit operative a convenient set of levers when required.
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Jun 30, 2021 18:47
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Bug Squash posted:Religion in Dune is just sufficiently advanced social science. You will believe a series of tropes that provide any Bene Gesserit operative a convenient set of levers when required. Given Dune was apparently a riff on/counterpoint to Foundation it sounds like a bit like a reverse-engeering of 'psychohistory'. Though there's certainly something to be said for religions and cultures creating narratives that their followers are trained to expect and recognise, and which it's very easy for a charismatic, unscrupulous person to exploit.
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Jul 1, 2021 08:37
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:It's actually even more super hosed up than that, though, because while her body is technically 14 years old, she's mentally much younger because several years of that time was spent in suspended animation aboard Rama - there's some bullshit about how the hibernation process arrests aging for the most part for adults, but not for children.  gently caress that is some broken-brained poo poo. Goddamn I knew they were bad but that's bad-bad.
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Jul 1, 2021 17:16
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I was thinking about The Peripheral by William Gibson, and probably my favourite thing is how nobody really understands how the time travel thing works. You can send data to the past via some kind of server, but not to your past. There's some speculation that maybe the device is physically in China, because that seems like the kind of thing they would have come up with, but nobody really knows. It works, it's exploited. In our meta world of overly analyzed science fiction tech where every laser sword hyperdrive has to have detailed schematics and rigid adherence to at least theoretical physics, it was really cool to have this future tech that nobody really understands, but uses anyway. Because, of course it's like that. You can write an app for an iPhone without having the first clue how one works. You can stare out the window of an airplane at the engine for hours without having anything more than a rudimentary idea of how that engine runs. I dunno, I found it a refreshing take.
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Jul 6, 2021 01:57
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One thing in Warhammer 40k that I think is really cool is that a lot of imperial warships are so old that the date and location of their manufacture is lost to history. It's a cool bit that does a good job of fleshing out the scale of the Imperium and how ancient it is. All sorts of important history like unit records got lost in just this past century in real life, so it makes sense that in a multi-millennia galactic scale government, things like where a battleship was built and what century it was become trivial details lost as easily as an email.
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Jul 7, 2021 04:59
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