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graventy posted:I mean I get that the details there are weird, but man or woman if you wake up in a strange body aren't you going to check yourself out? Uh no, obviously if you woke up in a female body the very first thing you would do is start playing with your own breasts then lasciviously describe their shape, firmness, texture, color, aureola color, nipple color, nipple sensitivity, nipple size, nipple length, and you'd obviously want to invest some time playing with them to see how responsive they, how that makes you feel etc.. Have you not like literally created a checklist for yourself for what you would do if you woke up in a female body? FYI, if you haven't you'll never be a successful sci-fi author, this is literally a huge part of the SFWA application.
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Oct 14, 2019 23:51
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ReWinter posted:I'm not really sure what a reading speed means judged by pages/hour unless everything you read is written at the same level. I'm all about pacing but if you're reading, like, Sebald at 150 pages an hour then you're just letting the words go in and out. Bad pacing is a common problem in SFF like everywhere else but I think evaluating it has gotta be more complicated than "slow = bad." The goon reads how they read and they judge books by how fast they read them. They probably aren't reading Ulysees. If that is how someone wants to read it's their business.
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Nov 7, 2019 15:15
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pradmer posted:Another series on sale today, Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson. $3 each. This is not the lit rpg thread
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Nov 24, 2019 23:09
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XBenedict posted:Clearly Amazon AI hasn't read God Emperor. Still, book series is actually a useful application of that type of thing. I've read so many book series that I often don't know when a new book in the series comes out. I'm pretty sure the Amazon AI is the God-Emperor.
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Dec 10, 2019 16:17
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Absurd Alhazred posted:To be fair, real-life ideas for how to use nuclear power were pretty out there around the late '40s to early '60s or so. Read up on Project Orion for a real head-scratcher. What’s wrong with project Orion?
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Dec 26, 2019 04:09
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coffeetable posted:Graydon Saunders has just released A Mist of Grit and Splinters, book #5 in his Commonweal series. If you're not familiar with it, the first book is The March North, and is best described as granite-hard military fantasy. They're heavy on the worldbuilding, heavy on the logistics, and replete with show-don't-tell. I think the best indicators for liking it would be liking Watts or Rajaniemi, who similarly omit a lot of context and expect the reader to keep up. Is he good like they are? I really like both those writers, but I'm worried that you're comparing them on the axis of "doesn't excessively world build" but I'm worried that on the "prose is good" axis you're not saying anything.
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Jan 19, 2020 15:17
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ulmont posted:Agreed with all of this other than the "most boring way" part. God that review is loving insufferable.
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Jan 19, 2020 15:53
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ulmont posted:Turtledove's entire shtick his entire career has been to take history as it actually happened, change one or two things, and publish it as alt history. He also did WWII as fantasy. It was so .. so so bad. Like 5 books he doesn't once describe what a "behemoth" (tank) actually looks like or anything. It's mind-boggling to me he's a published author.
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Jan 23, 2020 15:08
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FPyat posted:Finished Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky. Like the book it's a prequel to, the book is rather long yet feels like it had a shorter, simpler plot when I recall it in my head. The aliens didn't capture my imagination like the other book's Tines did, just superficially too much like 1950s Americans. And yes, I am aware of the metatextual angle that explains it. A fire upon the deep set the bar so high it’s hard for Vinge.
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Jan 31, 2020 21:35
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Does Blindsight count as a big dumb object? Cause if so, that. Otherwise Ringworld I guess, though that certainly has a lot of flaws.
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Feb 4, 2020 15:58
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wizzardstaff posted:"Muse of Fire" by Dan Simmons (found in the New Space Opera anthology by Dozois) might scratch that itch. A human company of Shakespeare players perform for their alien feudal lords and end up taking their performance all the way up the hierarchy. Dan Simmons is a pretty awful person and as much as I love Hyperion and Ilium, you shouldn't recommend him. If you must read them buy second hand or steal.
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Feb 9, 2020 03:22
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BurgerQuest posted:I need more space opera... good or bad? This may be verboten to say, but the Star Wars sequel trilogy written by Timothy Zahn is pretty good. He also wrote another series of space opera, not Star Wars, which was.. okay. The first book was good but then you figure out what's going on and it just drags on forever - the Conquerors Trilogy. Though I read his stuff close to 20 years ago so I might be more critical if i Reread it with older eyes.
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Feb 9, 2020 15:11
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Ornamented Death posted:It's a lot better. Common wisdom holds that it's best to start here and skip the first two books. I think the common wisdom is to skip Butcher entirely and read a good writer.
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Feb 17, 2020 23:06
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I really like good "urban fantasy" by which I mean books like American Gods or Kraken: An Anatomy. I really wanted to like The Dresden Files. I like the Laundry files in spite of its many flaws and annoying nerd jokes because I love the concept so much. I read the first three Dresden files books and hated them so much I was driven to write an essay about how bad they were and why. I sent that essay to a friend who had recommended and liked them. She read the essay and was like "well you're not wrong, but if you read more, like after book 7 they start getting good".
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Feb 17, 2020 23:42
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freebooter posted:This is bang on Try actually paying attention to what Ned Stark does. It's an idiot plot. Though it's not to the degree of the prince in The First Law Trilogy. That part of it was extremely boring with how generic and cliche it was. I was hoping there'd be hints later that the whole thing was orchestrated because it's very convenient to the actual mover and shaker, but there's nary a sign.
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Feb 19, 2020 16:08
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Kestral posted:On this note, I'd love to hear about more genre books without romance or sex, but which still have some emotional core and reasonably good prose. Compelling, loving, but platonic friendships and sibling / parental relationships are quite welcome. Kestral posted:Ender's Game
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Feb 23, 2020 21:25
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That's a pretty bad article. A lot of his math just makes no sense. Also he's not actually the source for the 70%, it's some agent, and who knows how she gathered that data. That being said traditional book publishing is far less glamorous and profitable than many people believe because like 90% of media attention is about people like John Grisham or J.K. Rowling, and not on the hundreds of "mid-list" authors who push out 1-2 books a year and barely earn out their advances.
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Mar 2, 2020 05:03
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90s Cringe Rock posted:It's, uh It's an even better book to not read.
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Mar 3, 2020 23:34
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freebooter posted:This was what it reminded me of, except all the other responses make me think, yeah, this is all pretty common stuff. I think the median age for a first traditional publication is 35, according to a Charles Strauss blog (iirc not firm on that).
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Mar 9, 2020 01:36
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PKD had mental illness problems exacerbated by serious drug use. I doubt he had a clear confidence in there being a single observable reality.
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Mar 17, 2020 13:36
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shrike82 posted:Are there any good virus/pandemic/apocalypse books people would recommend? A Canticle for Leibowitz and the Rifters trilogy by Peter Watts is pretty good too, though not as good as Blindsight. pseudanonymous fucked around with this message at 02:24 on Mar 19, 2020 |
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Mar 19, 2020 02:18
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pseudorandom name posted:Hugo nominees were announced today: https://conzealand.nz/blog/2020/04/08/hugo-and-retro-hugo-finalists-announced Wow avengers endgame that’s uh some list to be on
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Apr 8, 2020 00:16
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PawParole posted:anyone have a book rec about a faster than light drive being built ? There’s one called The Founder half the book is about building a ship to escape the solar system as it collapses
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Apr 9, 2020 21:51
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90s Cringe Rock posted:say one thing for the puppies, at least they proved pretty conclusively that there wasn't a pre-existing secret cabal fixing the hugo nominations yeah, kind of like Trump did for virtually every NWO, Rothschilds, etc.. theory of who was really running things.
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Apr 10, 2020 21:41
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Lester Shy posted:Does Dune work as a stand-alone novel? It's been on my to-read list forever, but I know most people are unhappy with how Herbert's son finished the story, and I don't feel like jumping into a huge epic series right now anyway. It does fairly well, in part because it's an artistic failure. Herbert didn't like the Hero's Journey, and he in part wrote Dune to refute the idea, but Dune as a stand-alone is hardly a refutation of that archetype. If you read the whole series of books a larger picture emerges. However, most people don't want to engage with larger literary ideas and analysis of culture and the myths that drive human stories, and so a lot of people love Dune and dislike the later books, especially books 4-5. Anyway, the Voidship series is a different, better take on the same idea, so if you like Dune you might also check out The Jesus Incident.
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Apr 11, 2020 21:41
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mllaneza posted:Voidship series is better than Dune, change my mind. But start with Destination: Void. I agree it’s better than Dune but imo you should read them 2-1-3-4
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Apr 12, 2020 06:11
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Um, technically, this is warez; don't say it He meant he'll share the download link with you so you can legally download it from Tor.
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Apr 21, 2020 17:55
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So now they’re only asking like 10$ more than it’s worth. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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May 3, 2020 06:01
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Jedit posted:I get you don't like Sanderson's writing, but he volunteered to give his book away and Tor aren't even replacing their regular Book Club drop with it. Was there any particular need to be a prick about this? Are you really stupid enough to think he’s not doing it to make money? He’s doing it so people read the first book then buy the rest.
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May 3, 2020 13:56
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buffalo all day posted:A Memory Called Empire. It's a little odd to me to take aspects of two very different cultures and then put them together. Thing's dont evolve in a vacumn. If the Mayans had a naming system based on a 260 day cycle there were probably other interrelated elements.
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May 3, 2020 20:51
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sebmojo posted:What a loving monster There's nothing wrong with that motivation, but the post was arguing he was some kind of altruist for giving something away that he expects to make him money. Also, his post on Reddit or email or whatever about it (Sanderson's) had the same implicit lie: I want to give away Way of Kings so you have something to read because I'm a nice person. False. Like a lot of businesses, he's giving away something for free so you will buy more later. Most anyone who was going to read his trash has already paid for it and read it. He's hoping to rope in people who are unwilling to pay for it but might get into it and buy the rest. Like if he was really an altruist, he'd pay Tor so you could download a good e-book for free.
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May 4, 2020 14:39
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wizzardstaff posted:Do you have the same antipathy toward every book giveaway program, or do you think Sanderson is just so uniquely terrible that it's worth multiple posts railing against his temerity to promote his own work? The latter, big time. I thought the Murderbot giveaway was a wonderful thing.
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May 4, 2020 14:50
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quantumfoam posted:Got bored, re-read the Cyphernomicon FAQ out of boredom, and ......it just reemphasized for me how loving terrible Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, @1999 is. Simmons has a reference to it in Illium/Olympos, but he's a bad person don't buy his books.
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May 8, 2020 00:32
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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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General Battuta posted:Not because of this, which is just generally Wattsy: I guess it just didn't bother me that much. I don't remember chapter after chapter of sexual violence, but I sometimes tune stuff out in books when I'm reading when I get the point. I also didn't find that character that sympathetic, and frankly, I was like yeah the consequences of your own actions suck. But I also have personal experience of people who need to be severely medicated or they are dangerous and have been personally physically attacked by those people, so to me it's like uh yeah don't just take away their drugs. but it's also possible I'm misremembering plot points, I was so blown away by Blindsight that I found the Rifter's trilogy a bit disappointing and didn't fully engage. But like Heller said when someone asked why he hadn't written anything else as good as Catch-22 "who has?" (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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May 16, 2020 19:39
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General Battuta posted:I don't see how (cw sexual violence) being kidnapped by an authority figure you trusted and then locked up in their basement for sex torture and your eventual murder can possibly be considered a consequence of your own actions? I don't think you're remembering this book fully. What I recall is that the character who gets kidnapped etc.. is the one who gives the serial killer the antidote to the treatment that is keeping him from being a serial killer. But that could be wrong, as I alluded to, if I'm wrong then it's grosser than I remember it being.
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May 16, 2020 21:57
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quantumfoam posted:And now it's really impossible to tell pseudorandom name & pseudanonymous apart when reading this thread. It's both terrible, and completely apropos.
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May 25, 2020 00:36
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PawParole posted:Read the whole foreigner series and that takes place on another planet. I basically want something like Dread Empire Falls, but instead of taking place a thousand years in the future after humanity gets used to the aliens, I want it to be set during the invasoon. There's no vampires or anything that I recall in the Pleistocene saga, though the aliens aren't particularly alien.
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Jun 5, 2020 23:44
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StrixNebulosa posted:Ah wanted to reply to this one, I've read the Melanie Rawn books and they have dragons in them but they're basically fancy animals and it's more a fantasy romance with some politicking instead of anything dragon-centric. Which is fine, I enjoyed them and would go for a reread, but they're not what my brother wants. I think. I can always pull them out and ask him what he thinks, since he's living here due to covid. There's some stuff about dragons and dragon lords in the original Riftwar Saga books, though they don't really spend a huge amount of time in the dragons mind or anything like that. I really don't remember if the Pern books are any good I read them when I was 12. In retrospect, I appreciate that people actually wore straps and had dragon harnesses, it drives me nuts when people just climb in a giant firebreathing lizards scaly back and go swooping around in the air and don't fall off, but it's a "gritty realistic fantasy world". Also, there's the Hobbit.
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Jun 7, 2020 19:02
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StrixNebulosa posted:That'd be a good candidate if it contained dragons in it. (Which, technically, it does but they're so... not draconic) What is a dragon?
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Jun 8, 2020 12:57
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