SF & F Mega-thread: I had to google 'spock pirate depilatory'

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > SF & F Mega-thread: I had to google 'spock pirate depilatory'

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

Hey, asked an offsite for book recommendations for a present. Anyone read To Say Nothing of the Dog? It sounds like a good fit and I'd like impressions

# ¿ Dec 16, 2019 00:28

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 09:05

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

The Machine That Won the War is timeless

# ¿ Jan 15, 2020 05:03

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

I know I am years late to the party but I blew through Traitor Baru Cormorant in a day and am now pretty bummed, but in a good way

# ¿ Mar 31, 2021 01:55

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

packetmantis posted:

I still haven't read the second one because the first one wrecked me so bad.

Yeah like the one hesitation I have about going onto the sequel is that it feels like doing Godfather part 2 when the original already ends with Michael killing Fredo

# ¿ Mar 31, 2021 02:19

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

I remember picking up Friday when i was like 13 and reading the first few chapters about the cool hypercompetent spy protagonist getting kidnapped and repeatedly raped and it put me off Heinlein forever so it kinda deserves the cover imo

# ¿ Mar 31, 2021 03:23

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

yeah it's a shame the reaction to the story is overwhelming the story itself, because the discourse is very bad and the story is very good

# ¿ Jul 1, 2021 03:13

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

completely apropos of all the controversy I just wanna say I loved the story's description of the US going to war with a glorified Matlab script

# ¿ Jul 1, 2021 03:50

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

Happiness Commando posted:

These are two separate threads, but I've always thought Peter Watt's stuff is pretty goddamn dark.

The only funny bit of the discourse around the helicopter story was the attempt to synthesize the positions of "this is creepy and problematic" and "this is interesting and well meaning" into "this must be written by Peter Watts"

# ¿ Jul 1, 2021 15:31

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

Collateral posted:

This thread is becoming more toxic that a soviet nuclear safety test in the 80's.

we're only seeing 3.6 meltdowns; not great, not terrible

# ¿ Jul 1, 2021 17:03

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

twitter: it's not good, folks

# ¿ Jul 1, 2021 17:29

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

Yeah at the end of the day I hope the story can stand on its own merits and I hope the author is in a better place now.

To actually change the subject, anyone read Matthew Stover's Iron Dawn/Jericho Moon? I love his Star Wars stuff and Heroes Die was fun if a bit too grimdark, wondering if it's worth hunting those down

# ¿ Jul 1, 2021 19:36

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

so does anyone have matt stover opinions then?

# ¿ Jul 1, 2021 23:20

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

No, I was just asking about the Pict books last page and wanted to make sure it got seen lol. I'll have to hunt down copies sometime then

E: some good news I got pointed to a bit back:

https://mobile.twitter.com/MWStover/status/1393899958940704771

StashAugustine fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Jul 1, 2021

# ¿ Jul 1, 2021 23:49

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

on the topic of better books, I recently read Octavia Butler's short story collection Bloodchild and it's fantastic, especially the title story

# ¿ Aug 8, 2021 15:19

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

Captain Monkey posted:

I’m rereading Acts of Caine and it’s amazing how good and bad these books can be at the same time.

Ive only read Heroes Die but yeah it was just barely on the "actually cool" side of edgelord. I actually kinda think Stover's stuff in Star Wars works a little better since he has to tone it down a little and his protagonists are space monks as opposed to cynical rogues

# ¿ Aug 14, 2021 01:21

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

Kalman posted:

In the spirit of our current discussion of women authors, I just wanted to second this - really enjoyed Hench.

Also, for those who liked There Is No Antimemetics Division (I did too) and more generally for those who like paranoid modern Cthulhu genre fiction, Caitlin Kiernan�s Tinfoil Dossier trilogy is worth a read.

yeah i need to check out more of their work, i came across Tidal Forces and it was really interesting

# ¿ Aug 14, 2021 18:02

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

General Battuta posted:

This all touches vaguely on a thriving tendency lately (or maybe forever) to read works as if the author must be experiencing the same emotions the reader is: they put the sex scene in because they were horny, they put the violence in because they were angry, they put the despair in because they believe there's no hope. It don't work that way.

Books aren't hash functions of an author's soul. They're intentional works. Authors assemble words in specific sequences to create effect. Their primary emotion while doing this is probably self-loathing or frustration, not lust/rage/despair (well, maybe despair). That sex scene was probably written by an author thinking about clause length and synonym fatigue, not writhing bodies. That ultraviolent fetishistic paragraph that got picked over on Twitter was probably picked over just as much by a nervous author, adding and deleting words, rephrasing it in search of some intangible middle way where not a single image or simile can be read as a dogwhistle message to one hate group or another. (Obviously the author failed.)

If followed further, this rhetorical pathway leads you to the belief that authors are actually doing things to people in their books: murdering people, mutilating people, rewarding people, praising people. Killed a character because you needed to break up a stagnant character dynamic? "Cool motive, still murder." Didn't arc a character into a full understanding of their wrongs, and a total repudiation of their past mistakes? "You're letting them get away with it." And if you accept that authors are basically gods over little pocket universes, of course you want them to be just and righteous gods who assign punishment and reward based on characters' karma. I've certainly felt that myself, I've been angry with authors who I felt neglected or wrote off characters I cared about.

I'm not even mocking this—there's nothing wrong with wanting justice in what you read. But not everything people write is necessarily going to be for you. I don't know, I don't really have anything cogent to say past this point. I just wanted to lay out some thoughts.

yeah this is a good post and all, but you're still not letting Baru out of this alive right

nb have only read the first one so far

# ¿ Aug 16, 2021 22:15

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

I also think this is an argument custom designed to be the worst possible thing to argue about on social media, especially when you factor importance in

# ¿ Aug 16, 2021 23:34

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

Traitor, Terror, Monster, Spy

# ¿ Aug 27, 2021 20:24

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

Yeah where's my adaptation of Bloodchild

# ¿ May 21, 2022 04:12

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

GTD Aquitaine posted:

I suspect this is a big reason why she was already on thin ice with some people.

Commonwealth of Independent States, naturally.

Confederacy of Independent Systems?

# ¿ May 25, 2022 01:52

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

zoux posted:

The horror thread is (rightfully) constantly going gaga over Between Two Fires, Buehlmann rules.

I'm reading Blindsight for the second time, excited to actually understand what's going on this time. But it made me curious, are there other future sci-fi books that have vampires in them that aren't from some 20-book romance series?

The Stainless Steel Leech is a very short story but check it out

# ¿ May 26, 2022 21:34

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

Kazzah posted:

I watched the movie RRR: Rise Roar Revolt the other night and I tell ya, I wasn't expecting the big traitor-Baru twist halfway through

It was really good but yeah that was kinda unintentionally funny

# ¿ Jun 15, 2022 02:03

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

General Battuta posted:

There�s a lot to unpack in there but I�ll admit the idea of buying indulgences to offset the harm done by Tacitus some two thousand years ago feels vain in both senses of the word.

going to repair the harm done by tacitus' society by donating to modern organizations for an independent britain

# ¿ Jun 15, 2022 17:39

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

I liked Count Zero a lot, Mona Lisa Overdrive is much weaker imo but not bad

# ¿ Jun 28, 2022 13:40

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

The Wicked ZOGA posted:

...There are others?

That's what I figured from the blurbs at the back of the book. Do they do anything to explore the consequences of Neuromancer's ending?

The second one is almost entirely unrelated but is increasingly obviously being influenced by the ending of Neuromancer. MLO is more a direct sequel to Count Zero but it brings back Molly and more explicitly ties everything together, while still being primarily about new characters. But bout Neuromancer and Count Zero have decently self contained endings themselves, and like I said the conclusion is a little weak

# ¿ Jun 28, 2022 15:48

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

The Wicked ZOGA posted:

Maybe I should read the second one at least. I don't think the consequences of Neuromancer's ending needed to be spelled out, but they could have been given a lot more room to breathe, the whole thing is basically wrapped up in a couple of pages. Certainly could've been more consequential for Case, though occasionally running into Linda and... himself is arguably pretty significant!

Probably my biggest regret about the ending is it not doing anything with 3Jane - I found her easily the most interesting character by that point.

The good news is that 3Jane is briefly back in MLO, the bad news is that she's not super interesting. Count Zero is definitely worth checking out as an almost entirely self contained work though imo

# ¿ Jun 28, 2022 20:03

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

It is the poster that buys the book. But is the poster to blame? No, for it is the thread that moves the poster

# ¿ Jul 5, 2022 05:07

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

Kesper North posted:

The Star Destroyer Baru Cormorant

this short story was actually pretty good

# ¿ Jul 10, 2022 04:16

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

Hel posted:

Did we ever figure out why some many people thought Baru was sci-fi?

Because it is

# ¿ Jul 10, 2022 18:22

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

my take is that baru is alternate history

# ¿ Jul 11, 2022 05:20

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

My favorite little detail in Baru (the first anyway haven't read the others) is that they're obsessed with eugenics and have insanely advanced social conditioning but are also still operating on a Lamarckian theory of evolution

# ¿ Jul 11, 2022 19:51

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

I havent gotten into Discworld before but i just read Guards Guards and loved it. Have had Small Gods recommended, where else to keep reading?

# ¿ Aug 9, 2022 19:59

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 09:05

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

fez_machine posted:

Just reading the Taking Flight synopsis when I was doing some digging inspired by this thread set off a bunch of red flags.

I don't think there's ever been a truly good man/boy discovers magical creature (mermaid, e.t., Selkie, whatever) girl and protects her from oppression story.

Ex Machina

# ¿ Aug 13, 2022 03:07

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > SF & F Mega-thread: I had to google 'spock pirate depilatory'