anilEhilated posted:

Carrier posted:

I really enjoyed City of Stairs but bounced off the second one pretty hard, the changing of the main PoV really killed my interest which I know is something I really should have just given it more of a chance over but eh.

sebmojo posted:

There's nothing bizarrely sexual about children greasing themselves up and wrestling each other to death tyvm

General Battuta posted:

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Some men, Commander Norton had decided long ago, should not be allowed aboard ship; weightlessness did things to their shafts that were too drat distracting. It was bad enough when they were motionless, loose under the uniform jumpsuit and idly half-erect; blood flowed easily in zero gravity. But when they started to move, and the inertia of their pipe drifted behind each turn like a lazy python dangling from a car window, it was more than any warm-blooded male should be asked to take. He was quite sure that at least one serious space accident had been caused by acute crew distraction after some young stallion thrust himself feet-first through the hatch into the control habin, loudly slapping his drifting hang against his spacer-perfect abs.

He had once mentioned this theory to Surgeon-Commander Laurence Ernst, without revealing who had inspired this particular vein of thought. There was no need; they knew each other much too well. On Earth, years ago, in a moment of mutual loneliness and depression, they had once made love. Probably they would never repeat the experience (but could one ever be quite sure of that?) because so much had changed for both of them. Yet whenever the well-endowed Surgeon slithered into the Commander's cabin, twitching with the routine Kegels required to preserve muscle in zero gravity, Norton felt a fleeting echo of an old passion, Laurence saw that he felt it, and everyone was happy.

SurreptitiousMuffin posted:

Genres are mostly marketing bullshit, Amazon's genres doubly so. It's sci-fi with queer characters in it; the shoe fit better than the rest of their lovely options.

Dzhay posted:

I'm a massive nerd. As such, I'm a great fan of Greg Egan.

Is there any other current author who could scratch the same itch?

Urcher posted:

A Woman of the Iron People. A human exploration team arrive at an alien planet and discover aliens. They are too far from Earth to receive timely advice. Anthropology ensues. Recommended by Ursula K. LeGuin.

Kestral posted:

When you say low-stakes, are we talking low stakes in the "it's not about a star exploding or saving the galaxy" kind of way, or low stakes in the To Be Taught if Fortunate / general Becky Chambers mode, where it's essentially about following people through their pretty okay lives and nothing really happens?

withak posted:

What book does someone's dick get ripped off by an alien crab?

General Battuta posted:

Post honest reviews to Amazon, once the book hits 50 reviews the algorithm starts treating it like a real boy. Also thank you!

pseudorandom name posted:

One of the single most important life skills I learned as an adult is that you don't have to finish books once you've started them.

Rand Brittain posted:

I would really like to volunteer for Standard Books but their process basically requires you to run Linux.

Kchama posted:

Baen's Bar, the forum for the Baen publishing house, has gone 'on hiatus' after an expose about how there was a lot of talk of doing political violences.

https://www.baen.com/bb021621

http://file770.com/wp-content/uploads/Weisskopf-baens-bar-hiatus.jpg

Apparently it was too hard to moderate it (by not moderating it at all, apparently) so they're just closing the forum instead.

CommonShore posted:

Yeah granted The Neopets story feels more like a narrative parody of a Derrida essay than a plot in its own right. I still found it interesting (but the implications!?!?^1000), but I probably wouldn't insist someone else read it.

fritz posted:

Garbage World (1967)

Kestral posted:

Declare is a masterpiece and has a good audiobook, I'd second that recommendation.

The Luminous Dead is a thread favorite that just made me angry by the end. It trades its premise of "the claustrophobic horror of deep cave exploration plus otherworldly horrors" for a romance between two codependent broken people, one of whom is a nightmarishly manipulative abuser. This is a shame, because deep caving is about as close to a supernatural horror story as you can get IRL, and it's a shame to see that potential left on the table by making the book Not About That.

breadnsucc posted:

its not like the galactic federation portrayed in the prequels in star wars represented any real form of democracy of the people so far as I could see it was a bunch of loving rich fucks on metropolitan worlds coming together to poo poo on working people out in the boonies and the state of all the colonies that are visited in the star wars universe at various times kind of shows how lovely it was either way imo

Aardvark! posted:

they should make an animated Culture show

*monkey paw curls*

Starring, produced by, and funded by: ELON MUSK!!!!!!

Kchama posted:

The first four books were some of my least favorite books ever.

StrixNebulosa posted:

The problem with Cultist Simulator is that it’s made by Alexis Kennedy, notorious sexual harasser who preyed on the women in junior positions in his company.

Aardvark! posted:

well Graydon, your alt accounts have paid off again. time to figure out how to send this poo poo to my kindle

Quorum posted:

I, billionaire Mr. Edward Chili, will solve global warming by producing so many of our world famous sizzling Chili's Fajitas® that the steam will form a protective cloud barrier against solar radiation!

tildes posted:

Sealion? Is this a code word for something?

Copernic posted:

well the new neal stephenson is out

Copernic posted:

T.R. ain't the perfect man to grab it, but I don't think his whole plan is just to gently caress up the Punjab and starve India.

MockingQuantum posted:

Is there anyone who is currently writing epic or mythic grim fantasy a la the Elric books? I can't quite think of the way to articulate what I'm looking for other than Elric or "the kind of fantasy that metal bands write songs about." Something that's big and grandiose and sort of world-ending dire in its plotlines, but less of a direct descendant of Tolkien or doorstopper 90s fantasy like Jordan.

And a vaguely similar but (I think?) distinct request, who are the must-reads of early pulp fantasy? The weirder, the better, ideally. I've read a fair amount of Conan, and I've read the Dying Earth books but no other Jack Vance, but not much else from that style.