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StrixNebulosa posted:140 pages into Bone Ships: so far this is very good gritty sea drama. If the author hasn't read Aubrey-Maturin I'll call him a liar, but it's definitely its own beast. I'm digging how we have the protagonist bossing the viewpoint character around, and the bleak island politics. his assassins books were pretty good but so bleak.
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Oct 7, 2019 00:27
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TastyShrimpPlatter posted:I bounced off The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet about halfway through, it was cozy but it never felt like there was actually anything at stake (I really wanted to like it more). I'm currently going through The Quantum Magician and it's pretty fun if not a little predictable so far. The next quantum one is out soon.
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Oct 7, 2019 11:23
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TheAardvark posted:Finished Empress of Forever and was uhh, a bit disappointed. It felt like it was trying, but worse at the contemporary voice than Gideon/Murderbot, while simultaneously having a less compelling story and cast. i read it a month ago and had to wiki it before i could remember anything. years later i can still recall the first bits of the craft sequence. YMMV.
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Oct 9, 2019 23:40
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Owlkill posted:Children of Time is fantastic - can anyone recommend any of Tchaikovsky's other stuff? He seems to be a pretty prolific writer. I liked the novella ironclads about a libertarian/corporatist future war in Europe with mecha told from a grunts eye view.
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Oct 15, 2019 11:49
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Anias posted:Their estates are in trust at Reed College in the Language Arts section, with a direction to fund student tuition for scholars seeking to study secondary languages. So you can read about blue rocks in relative peace. The relative peace of enjoying books about magical small girls who love to tease and kiss old men and sit on their laps as a form of control.
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Oct 18, 2019 23:28
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The_White_Crane posted:Sea of Rust was pretty good. Not gonna go down as one of my favourites, but it's a nice pulpy adventure story and the setting is cool. I started it a few months ago, loved the idea but I bounced of it for some reason got about 15-20% in?
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Nov 1, 2019 11:01
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Selachian posted:Evelyn Wood could supposedly read 2700 wpm. There's a stupid ad on tv for blinkist that does this for audiobooks. It's inherently aimed at the self-help market.
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Nov 8, 2019 08:53
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General Battuta posted:That’s a really cool setting. I wonder how to elevator pitch it effectively. “The world is overrun by monstrous bioweapons and the only way to fight them is to pilot AI-designed squid mechs so monstrous and alien that they devour their own pilots. Protagonist blah blah has only once chance for forgiveness for XYZ, and it’s to become a pilot.” but wait, then we'll just make 75% of it a generic SFF school setting like Starship Troopers, Harry Potter and Name of the Wind. (FWIW i liked it when it came out and preordered both the sequels)
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Dec 2, 2019 01:16
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I assume the story of the bread is told in twelve individually priced chapters that will later be combined and sold as a single book, then re written four times from the perspective of other things in his kitchen.
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Dec 5, 2019 09:32
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Phanatic posted:Quantum Thief is amazing. The first one is a really good space opera heist book with some hard SciFi. The second is also good, dealing with paradox and time loops but just didn't excite me as much. Still pre-ordering the next one.
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Dec 15, 2019 05:56
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Dark477 posted:Are you talking about the quantum thief or the quantum magician? Good pick-up, I did mean the magician. Sorry for the confusion.
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Dec 15, 2019 22:27
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Collateral posted:Embers was decent, but nothing spectacular. Big Smart Object? Is the next one, Fleet of Knives, any better? Same but not quite as good imo. Also really disliked the one about the monkey fighter pilot but YMMV.
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Dec 23, 2019 00:32
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Marketing guff. They are not bad, sometimes good, space opera. I just read the fifth one, it's a bit emo but still worth the time.
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Dec 24, 2019 22:43
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Mr. Peepers posted:OK. About a year ago I decided I wanted to read more female SF authors. Since then I've read some novels by Le Guin (The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed) and Murderbots, of course... and that's about it. Help me get back on this train. I prefer harder SF but will settle for anything good. I've been meaning to check out Cherryh since she's brought up regularly but have no idea where to start. Elizabeth bear. Jacobs ladder series. Tanya huff. Tbh there's loads of great female written SciFi and some trash - same as any other grouping of authors.
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Dec 25, 2019 23:05
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StrixNebulosa posted:God I need to read Trouble and Her Friends, I own it, I could start it now, but.... backlog.... Trouble and her friends is good but it's very dated like most genuine cyberpunk. Definitely a modern take on gender and sexuality too if that's your thing. It's similar to pat cadigan - not as actiony as early William Gibson. It's actually pretty dense and slow.
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Dec 25, 2019 23:13
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Last night after my partner, baby and houseguests went to bed I read Sisters of the vast black by Linda Rather. Future Catholic nuns travel around a post civil war frontier in an organic space ship. If you don't know half of Australia is on fire and this book was a really fun way to take a mental break. Happy NY book nerds.
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Jan 1, 2020 02:37
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StrixNebulosa posted:https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1250260256/ it's pretty fun, as i posted last week, but it is still a short novella FWIW
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Jan 7, 2020 00:57
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StrixNebulosa posted:I was just linked to a short story anthology themed about robots and it drops in March and the author list is real interesting: Jonathan Strachan gives good antho. I preordered that one when Amazon recommended it too.
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Jan 18, 2020 09:58
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cptn_dr posted:Is Greatcoats any good? I had someone passionately trying to convince me that once I read it I'd realise my previous love for Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell was all wrong and I'd see that I should be loving Greatcoats instead. He also tried to explain that Strange & Norrell is bad because it doesn't have a well defined magic system. Sebastien de Castell also wrote a fun YA series about an outlaw kid and his talking ferret thing. It was indie published, after greatcoats.
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Jan 30, 2020 05:50
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Fart of Presto posted:Tor.com released a short story collection for free in eBook format on all major platforms And unlike most of the offers in this thread it's available for Australian's too! Thanks for the heads up
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Jan 31, 2020 08:39
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Solitair posted:Are Jonathan Strahan's Best Science Fiction of the Year collections worth getting? I've always found him to be a reliable anthologist. I've usually bought his themed ones though, rather than the yearly ones.
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Feb 3, 2020 12:04
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Just found out the second book in the Cry Pilot series got released. It's called Burn Cycle. I'm about 10% in it's a direct continuation. Nothing's happened yet after the big ending of the first.
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Feb 7, 2020 10:34
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Black Griffon posted:What's your favorite "scientist sci-fi"? By this I'm talking about sci-fi that takes a scientific, exploratory approach to the plot, in either characters, writing style or both. It would probably involve discovery (see earlier Big Dumb Object discussion), but not necessarily always. Tbh the story of how he lost a Nobel prize by feuding with everyone is pretty good. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/oct/03/fred-hoyle-nobel-prize
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Feb 9, 2020 09:41
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i liked those Kresnov ones although i prefer his spiral wars books. Her gimmick and limitations do become a little like WoT's braid tugging after awhile although YMMV I think you'll have fun
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Feb 12, 2020 23:15
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freebooter posted:Ditto. I only read City of Stairs and it wasn't quite my jam but struck me as the work of a young man who definitely had greater work coming down the line, and his Foundryside trilogy is on my TBR pile for that reason. Foundryside is a bit YA and I didn't like as much - may have been the expectations after really enjoying the city of series. I liked the mythology of foundryside sort of steampunk heist but didn't vibe the writing.
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Feb 17, 2020 07:30
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buffalo all day posted:Nebula award finalists announced: The Gannon stuff is appalling I read the first one it was poor. Can't believe its on any awards list. Gideon & memory called empire were both very good. branedotorg fucked around with this message at 00:30 on Feb 21, 2020 |
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Feb 21, 2020 00:27
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90s Cringe Rock posted:Thank you. They aren't very good though. Great concept, poor execution. Just finished RJ Parker's boneships. That guy writes grim fantasy worlds so well, this one's a dying planet / Patrick O'Brien fantasy pastiche and it ticked a lot of boxes for me.
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Feb 23, 2020 02:58
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gvibes posted:For those who are curious, it's Barker, not Parker. I only checked because I thought it would be pretty unfortunate for there to be both a RJ Parker and a KJ Parker. Thanks, the AutoComplete on my surface makes the strangest changes. RJ Barker is an old goth and writes good but depressing fantasy. Is funny on twitter too.
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Feb 25, 2020 10:35
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StrixNebulosa posted:
Earthsea is legitimately good but doesn't for me have the same beats as Tolkien. Read it. I read it at about the same time as the dying earth books by Jack Vance so my brain files them together more than lotr. The 70s/80s threw up a lot of lotr clones with one of the most obvious being Terry Brooks' Shannara books. They aren't as good obv. Semi comedy option: Dragonlance Chronicles by Weiss and Hickman TSR spin-offs. Lord Soth is a nazgul with a back story.
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Mar 9, 2020 06:54
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Cardiac posted:Foundryside was really good and on the same level as the City series. We talked about back thread a bit. Seemed split that its as you say or pretty run-of-the-mill YA (my take). Still, it's worth that sale price.
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Mar 10, 2020 22:54
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Jedit posted:When I read TCOM and TLF for the first time, there weren't any other Discworld books to read. The best reason to start people with those two is because while they're fun, the series does nothing but get better until it peaks some time around Maskerade. I read them in publication order starting in the early 90s. I remember skipping school to buy the Discworld adventure game on floppy disk.
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Mar 18, 2020 10:42
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biracial bear for uncut posted:You might like The Laundry Files by Charles Stross. My first thought too. Be aware the first few books are homages to great British spy novelists before him in Fleming, Deighton, Price - oddly no Le Carre who was the best of them imo. Dying Earth by Jack Vance NK Jemsin trilogy that escapes me but won everything Shadows of the Apt series is a very long fantasy series about bug people in a magical world where the ability to use technology is restricted by race. Adrian Tchaikovsky. And maybe one of my favourite novels ever Lord of Light by Zelanzy
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Mar 23, 2020 12:04
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I liked the Jay posey outrider books - although I don't think he'll ever finish them. Kameron Hurley is reliable, her latest light brigade is a good read.
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Mar 29, 2020 01:44
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uber_stoat posted:it's YA about a dystopian caste system dedicated to terraforming Mars. sort of hunger games-ish. I stopped after the first one. They got better after the first one, the focus shifts to civil war among the planets led by the kids from the first one. Lots of hyper stylised set pieces and fighting. Somewhere between 40k, game of thrones and Wagner. Wants to Shakespeare's Ceasar in space but is more Titus Andronicus in space. I'm not saying it's great but I enjoyed them although haven't bothered with the latest (6th?)
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Apr 7, 2020 13:15
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pradmer posted:Powder Mage Trilogy (Promise of Blood, Crimson Campaign, Autumn Republic) by Brian McClellan - $9.99 I loved hammer and the cross as a kid and it still holds up in a HH way... Alt-history where an English slave is shown by asgard gods new technology to fight with and against the ragnarssons and Alfred the great.
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Apr 16, 2020 12:48
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Willeh posted:I have a bad case of completionism when it comes to books, and I just finished the latest Scalzi. Let this be a warning to all; don't loving do it. thanks! first was ok if a little pedestrian, the second was a slog to care enough to finish for me. the trend continues
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Apr 20, 2020 14:20
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General Battuta posted:I just checked out an ARC for an upcoming Tor debut called THE BLACKTONGUE THIEF. It wasn't really my speed, but if you like Abercrombie-style low fantasy with a bit more fun and a lot less bleak it might be your thing! No idea if it's going to get a big PR push but it's from the same editor who acquired THE BAND by Nicholas Eames, which I think did pretty well for Orbit. I saw a thing for that recently, it's not my fav genre but was mildly interested till I read ... 'and a one-eyed rescue cat'. Gave me David Webber vibes. Glad to hear there's more to it
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Apr 21, 2020 13:43
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Xtanstic posted:Definitely read Becky Chambers' trilogy it's a super fun cozy read. I think the ones post the 'big reveal' aren't anywhere near as interesting but they still have a certain pleasure to read. The new KB Wagers book about the space coastguard is very cosy sci-fi imo, there's a bad plot, a bonding plot and an overarching story, none of which get in the way of some characters all bonding.
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Apr 26, 2020 07:30
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StrixNebulosa posted:Whoa whoa whoa looked up this trilogy on goodreads and it sounds like exactly my jam, has anyone else read it? It's really grim. heart of darkness/apocalypse now in a brutal near future war. I reread it a few months ago and it was a bit of a slog. It's good but a difficult read sometimes. The sequels dial up the action but weren't as good.
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Apr 29, 2020 10:13
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fez_machine posted:334 by Thomas M. Disch might be exactly what you are looking for for someone who wants a book about science fiction, i'd really recommend his book 'the dreams our stuff is made of' it won a Hugo in the late 90s iirc.
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Apr 30, 2020 13:13
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