The Sci-Fi Discussion Thread [Archive] - Page 5

D_Davis

04-30-2013, 01:50 AM

Not sure you will, based on this:

"One of the things I like about genre fiction is that it embraces and elevates plot; one of the things I tend to dislike about literary fiction is that it obfuscates plot."

I like all kinds of fiction at different points. Many of my favorite authors deal more in mood and atmosphere than they do plot and character. Most of the weird fiction I read is all about atmosphere and mood, and rarely about plot (Thomas Ligotti, Algernon Blackwood, Oliver Onion, later Michael Cisco, more experimental JG Ballard, Arthur Machen, MR James, Lord Dunsany etc). What I dislike one month or week might be my favorite thing ever the next month or week. I'm always changing my mind and evolving as I learn about and discover new things. That's why I constantly try things again and again that I may not have liked at one time in my life. I never know when something is going to speak to me.

But don't worry about me, just focus on what you like!

Winston*

04-30-2013, 02:12 AM

But don't worry about me, just focus on what you like!

That's not what the internet's for!

Irish

04-30-2013, 05:02 AM

[...] he just hasn't spoken to me yet.

Love this approach.

The City and the City is incredible and expertly plotted. Not sure where that criticism comes from.

Not sure either. Just something I picked up on disreputable book forums, I guess.

Thanks for the heads up. I'll be grabbing a copy of "The City and the City" ASAP.

D_Davis

04-30-2013, 01:34 PM

Love this approach.

It's the Robert Anton Wilson approach -adding "yet" turns a negative into a potential positive. Completely changed my reality tunnel.

D_Davis

05-02-2013, 03:57 PM

Dhalgren continues to blow my mind. Top 10 material right here. I'm placing this right up there with Lonesome Dove and The Great Lover. It is profoundly good.

D_Davis

05-09-2013, 03:31 PM

Just about finished with Dhalgren; I'm starting the final segment, "Anathemata: A Plague Journal." Talk about an evocative title!

Anyhow, this book is a bona fide masterpiece. It's a book that we SF fans should cherish with all of our hearts. It's a book that a lot of people who would love it will never read simply because it's shelved in the SF sections of book stores. And even though people from Umberto Eco to Jonathan Lethem sing its praises, there are some people for whom a journey into the SF ghetto is just too embarrassing a trip to make.

And this is also a thing that the book is about.

Dhalgren is also about the mouth-deep bullshit of celebrity culture; it's about how art isn't special; it's about racism, and sexual freedom, it's about class warfare, it's about relationships of all kinds, and it's about perception. It's about how we all make choices, and we have to live with the choices we make; It's about how sometimes we make terrible choices, and rather than correct our ways and make a different choice, we instead decide to live within the consequences of bad choice. It's about how some of us have no choice at all; it's about nature versus nurture. It's about the sociological impact of the modern urban city; it's about gangs and street cred; it's about creating an identity for one's self; it's about standing out and fitting in, it's about taking a stand and looking the other way.

I imagine that almost everyone who reads will say that it's about something completely different, because it's a book about everything. It encompasses the totality of life better than any other book I've read. It's an epic story about humanity, with some of the most fascinating, complex, and vividly drawn characters I've ever encountered. Delany writes these characters with a masterful eye for detail, and he defines the characters through their actions and dialog, and he plays with the reader's preconceived notions in interesting ways. We are told over and over (repetition is a huge part of the Delany's style here) that characters are white, or black. And yet through the characters actions and dialog, it often becomes impossible to tell if they are white or black. And then it hits you in the face - just how am I imagining a white or black character to act (the power of archetypes and stereotypes!)? Delany uses a limit of printed fiction - the lack of visual images - in a way to create racial ambiguity. I was reminded of the recent internet-rage when one of the characters in The Hunger Games movie was made to be black; readers were SHOCKED! because they imagined the character white, and felt betrayed, thus revealing their own intrinsic racism.

And what's best about it all is there are still a million things that I don't get. The book is overflowing with ambiguity, cryptic symbolism, mystery, riddles, and puzzles. I don't really get what it's all about, and all this means to me is that I will be reading it many multiple times for the remainder of my life. This is powerful fiction; Dhalgren is one of those "life changing" books. It is one of those books that has raised the bar for what I look for in a novel.

D_Davis

05-14-2013, 03:22 PM

I cannot stop thinking about Dhalgren, about what it all means. There is so much cryptic symbolism, even the book's title (a play on Grendel -
GrendelGrendelGren (put the space here) delGrendelGrendelGrendelGrende lGrendelGrendel) is a puzzle, but I wonder if it really has a meaning? What's with the Kid's hands? Why is their being deformed important? He encases one of his hands in a weapon called a Brass Orchid, and only wears one shoe on the opposite foot. What do the homoerotic posters of George mean? Why is the second moon called George? What is the meaning of the rape incident involving George and June (June rhyming moon)? What is the city of Bellona? What's up with its localized apocalypse? What are the chains, mirrors and prisms? What's up with the red eyes? What's the relationship between what the Kid writes and his reality? What's with the list of names? Why is the Kid's name so important?

Question after question....

I feel like I could and should read this book a dozen more times before I die.

megladon8

06-20-2013, 07:57 PM

Took me a heck of a long time to decide what to read next.

Started "All You Need is KILL" today.

D_Davis

06-20-2013, 09:39 PM

Took me a heck of a long time to decide what to read next.

Started "All You Need is KILL" today.

Nice! Hope you like it as much as I did. It really surprised me.

megladon8

06-20-2013, 09:45 PM

Nice! Hope you like it as much as I did. It really surprised me.

I'm enjoying it a lot so far (about 40 pages in). A bit of clunkiness in the prose, but I suppose that could be attributed to translation. A few uses of metaphors and similes that are tired and cliché ("like a deer caught in the headlights" and that sort of thing). But the ideas and overall story are really cool.

There seems to be a bit of an insurgence over the last decade of Japanese sci fi that hearkens back to mid-late century writers like PKD and Ballard who wrote sci fi based on ideas and mind-bending concepts, often posing socio-political allegory. I want to check some more of this stuff out.

Irish

06-20-2013, 09:46 PM

Meg, check out the review on Davis' website. It's good stuff & worth a read. "Kill" has been on my list for awhile now because of that post.

megladon8

06-20-2013, 09:50 PM

Meg, check out the review on Davis' website. It's good stuff & worth a read. "Kill" has been on my list for awhile now because of that post.

I have! He's the reason I know about the book!

(I used to write for his website, too :P)

D_Davis

06-20-2013, 10:08 PM

I've been less than trilled from all of the translations used by that publisher/imprint, but KILL was the least offensive. I quit reading books from them, because of it.

D_Davis

06-20-2013, 10:08 PM

Meg, check out the review on Davis' website. It's good stuff & worth a read. "Kill" has been on my list for awhile now because of that post.

I don't think it's up anymore - is it?

And yes, Meg wrote a few reviews for us. :)

megladon8

06-27-2013, 04:16 AM

Finished "All You Need is KILL". Really enjoyed it, though I have to admit I'm not sure I completely, 100% understood the mind-bending towards the end.

Raises some very interesting questions about choice and the idea of "destiny", and thankfully never resorts to gun-sturbation or endless battle-wank. It treats war as something awful and scarring, which I appreciated greatly.

D_Davis

06-27-2013, 02:26 PM

megladon8

06-27-2013, 04:51 PM

What I liked most were the quiet times spent between the two characters. I'd love to it as an OVA series, or a big budget anime film.

Yes. I loved the coffee scene.

D_Davis

06-27-2013, 05:33 PM

Yes. I loved the coffee scene.

Same here. And you just know that all of that will be cut from the film.

Dead & Messed Up

09-12-2013, 03:14 PM

Listening to an audio CD of Finney's Body Snatchers. Eminently decent. Hard to not envision the original film when listening. Also hard to not wonder if it's just duplicating beats from The Puppet Masters, a book I haven't read yet.

Makes me wonder what ground zero was for the "pod person" trope. I feel like Campbell's "Who Goes There?" (1938) might be the first real example of an alien being pretending to be a human. Although the Yithians in Lovecraft's The Shadow Out of Time (1936) can take over the bodies of humans as well, similar to the slugs in Puppet Masters and The Faculty. Which suggests a split between the pod-person as invader and the pod-person as imitator.

This sub-sub-genre is an interesting little bastard.

D_Davis

09-12-2013, 03:17 PM

Dead & Messed Up

09-13-2013, 03:27 AM

Love Body Snatchers.

I think the idea goes as far back as mythology, with beings pretending to be human. Although it became more of a politically and socially important thematic device in science fiction.

Definitely. I was thinking more about aliens specifically, but while I was typing that, I thought of trickster gods, but that also seems to serve a different emotional purpose.

Irish

10-05-2013, 07:29 PM

http://31.media.tumblr.com/ae3d62802dab6cfb11038762fee605 f5/tumblr_mu24deya5e1svh2oco1_128 0.jpg

Davis, this website is right up your alley:

http://70sscifiart.tumblr.com

Mysterious Dude

10-05-2013, 10:43 PM

The hell?

http://24.media.tumblr.com/3e25b9127bfc13d9aa67a50994522a 0a/tumblr_mp7zhlwZLt1rvyb0co1_128 0.jpg

D_Davis

10-06-2013, 01:18 AM

That makes WAY more sense for Dune - LOL.

megladon8

10-06-2013, 03:17 AM

That makes WAY more sense for Dune - LOL.

I dunno. One of my favorite parts of "Palmer Eldritch" was the sand-spewing dick ship.

D_Davis

10-06-2013, 03:39 PM

I dunno. One of my favorite parts of "Palmer Eldritch" was the sand-spewing dick ship.

Man - totally forgot about that! LOL

Dead & Messed Up

10-07-2013, 05:51 AM

Listening to an audio CD of Finney's Body Snatchers. Eminently decent. Hard to not envision the original film when listening. Also hard to not wonder if it's just duplicating beats from The Puppet Masters, a book I haven't read yet.

Man, this story just ended in the dullest possible manner, with

the aliens saying "screw it" and leaving, because of the resilience of humanity or some such nonsense. I guess taking over all but a few people in a small town is some sort of war-tipping defeat for them. And the fact that they just float right out, after all that business discussing being pushed around by photons, felt like some serious deus ex machina crap.

The anxieties the story explores are worth exploring, and when it focused on that point, the sort of Twilight Zone small-town-fragility business, I enjoyed it. This is one of those cases where the subsequent film (like Jaws) tidies up the narrative and brings out the themes to better effect. I'm glad I gave this one a shot, but I can't imagine ever coming back to it.

D_Davis

11-21-2013, 05:08 PM

And the award for worst cover goes to Zachary Jernigan's No Return.

http://www.tor.com/images/stories/blogs/13_10/NoReturn.jpg

What is this, some kind of Mass Effect wannabe, bro-fisting space opera?

NO. IT. IS. NOT.

Do yourself a favor. Ignore the cover. Get the e-book, and then prepare to have your minds blown by a force of creativity of the likes I haven't encountered in the SF genre in a long, long time.

I've read the first 12% and I am in love. It's got the verve and force of The Stars My Destination, with the lyrical prose of McDermott, and so far has mixed in elements of religious SF with fantasy and weird fiction with some brutal violence. I cannot wait to read more.

So far there are giant mummified beings that the local inhabitants use for food - they eat their skin and grind up their bones. Also, they harvest the organs of these mummies, and use things like their eyes as security cameras.

There is a mage with metal hands who is the lead of a sect of religious warriors. When he rubs his fingers together, they make the sounds of singing bowls; when he claps his hands together, they make the sounds of meditation bells; and when he makes fists, he uses them as clubs.

In this world, God exists. He's a superman who lives in the stratosphere, flying around spinning these moon-sized metal spheres. He's really pissed off at humanity, and is on the verge of destroying the planet. On the planet, there are many sects who go about worshiping this god (Adrash) in different ways. They have these strictly governed sectarian battles in different monasteries that are also battle arenas, and the monks fight for the favor of Adrash.

In one of the monasteries there lives a mechanical giant who's origins are unknown. He doesn't actually like god, but for some reason he fights to protect this certain sect.

Then there are also sects of warrior monks who hate god, and they fight against the others.

There is just so much good stuff.

D_Davis

11-25-2013, 03:15 PM

No Return makes a strong and powerful first impression. Unfortunately, it is inconsistent and too frequently fails to live up to the promise of its opening few chapters. The book is overflowing with cool and novel ideas, and, unlike a work from a debut author, it never draws attention to its cool ideas - they are presented, and then the thing moves on. I like this approach, a lot. It mixes in elements of religious science fiction, fantasy, eroticism, ultra-violence, and distopian fiction, and the entire thing feels unique. The problem is that Jernigan simply can't keep up the good parts for an extended length of time. Even at under 300 pages, there are parts that drag, and, as the book goes on, I felt like I was having to slog through more and more to get to the good parts. Let's say that the book is extremely front-loaded.

I am very excited to see where this author goes, though. No Return is a mostly exciting debut novel. It is very rare that I am wowed at all by much modern science fiction, so that it wowed me as much as it did is a very good thing.

D_Davis

11-25-2013, 03:22 PM

Finally found an old copy of this yesterday:

http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/4/40/THSHPLKPMB1973.jpg

Started it this morning. It's very good. It's the very definition of 1970s new wave SF, in that it deals with social unrest, the environment, corporate corruption, sexual revolution, and civil disobedience. It's set in a world plagued by rampant pollution, excessive advertising, corrupted morals, dirt, grime, and unease. It's also prophetic in its depiction of an Occupy-like youth movement and their utter disdain for our modern system of government and economics, and their inability to really do anything constructive about it.

D_Davis

12-05-2013, 04:27 PM

My first Cherryh

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/34/CherryhGateIvrelCover.jpg/200px-CherryhGateIvrelCover.jpg

Stylistically it's a bit clunky because Cherryh uses an affected style that doesn't flow well, and she creates a ton of words for stuff in the world that are hard to pronounce and thus totally forgettable.

However, so far the story is fascinating. It's a slow burn, for sure, but it really feels like its building towards something great.

The first part of a trilogy, and part of the dying earth sub-genre of SF/F.

D_Davis

12-13-2013, 03:36 PM

Gate of Ivrel, by C.J. Cherryh

An interesting premise is marred by clunky writing, with an effected style relying on an overabundance of made up words in service of world-building, and by continuous repetition of overly simplistic themes. Cherryh sets things up for what should be a rip-roaring adventure, but then drags things around and around, causing the plot to go nowhere as the main protagonists become less and less important to the plot they find themselves in.

**********

Started this last night:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/18/The_Status_Civilization.jpg

And it's blowing my mind. Sheckley deftly mixes his wit and satirical humor with a prisonworld/deathworld plot. It's equal parts chilling, hilarious, harrowing, and thought-provoking. This is exactly the kind of classic SF I enjoy.

Dead & Messed Up

12-13-2013, 03:52 PM

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f9/Robopocalypse_Book_Cover.jpg

Maybe a third of the way in. The book takes an oral history / mixed media tack that works reasonably well, but it runs into a bit of the problem World War Z had, in that everyone speaks about the same way. Even so, it's moderately clever so far, with the highlights being one episode about an unexpected solution to surviving in major cities, and another outstanding episode about an old man who dearly loves his robot. The book mostly views the robots as single-minded aggressors going against previously uncaring humans, so showing an emotionally complex relationship is a real breath of fresh air.

D_Davis

12-16-2013, 03:24 PM

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/18/The_Status_Civilization.jpg

Robert Sheckley's The Status Civilization is the perfect kind of classic science fiction. It combines an adventurous deathworld/planetworld setting/plot with an examination of the political and social climate of the time in which it was written. Through his signature use of satire, wit, and bold, direct prose, Sheckley creates a book that is simultaneously hilarious and harrowing, exciting and thought-provoking.

I was surprised by its ending - the final reveal - in that it was both unique and far more positive than what I was expecting. The book was written at a time when science fiction authors still had hopes and dreams that humanity could pull itself out of its self-created quagmire and rise above the social and political nonsense we shackle ourselves with. If the book were written ten years later, during the new wave era, I imagine its ending would have been far more bleak and grim.

D_Davis

12-16-2013, 03:46 PM

Going to do a blog this year for all of the classic science fiction I'm reading and collecting. All pre-1980, mass market paperback stuff. I'll probably cross-post stuff here, but I thought I'd post a link so people can share if they want.

http://storieslikestars.blogspot.com/

D_Davis

12-16-2013, 07:17 PM

Just go this beautiful first edition:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/0a/DrBloodmoney%281stEd%29.jpg/200px-DrBloodmoney%281stEd%29.jpg

D_Davis

12-16-2013, 07:24 PM

Up next:

http://www.sfreviews.net/large_covers/jagged_orbit.jpg

D_Davis

12-17-2013, 09:00 PM

I think it's time to admit to myself and the world that I am just not a fan of John Brunner. I've tried multiple times to read his major works - Stand an Zanzibar, The Sheep Look Up, and Jagged Orbit - and I can't get into any of them. They all sound so good and meaty with their lofty ambition, multiple characters, and examination of things like pollution, consumer culture, overpopulation, and racism, and yet I simply cannot get a foot in the door.

Dukefrukem

12-22-2013, 04:42 PM

What are everyone's thoughts on this book list? (aside from iRobot)

http://io9.com/15-books-that-will-change-the-way-you-look-at-robots-1487332829/@gmanaugh

D_Davis

12-22-2013, 06:53 PM

I've heard of 5 of those. Like the Rucker series a lot. Old Rucker can't be beat. Weird list though. Lots of classics they overlooked. But it's cool they picked some different stuff and there are a few on there I'd like to check out.

Dukefrukem

12-22-2013, 07:02 PM

It is also appropriate that I mentioned I finished B]All You Need Is Kill[/B] this week.

D_Davis

01-02-2014, 03:44 PM

With this book I'm reading now, I'm doing three things I rarely do, 1) read modern SF, 2) read space opera, 3) start a long series.

So far, I'm liking it a lot.

http://www.orbitbooks.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Leviathan-Wakes.jpg

D_Davis

01-06-2014, 03:52 AM

And now I remember why I rarely read modern space opera. After the initial excitement of the possible possibilities wore off, I was again left with a story about space battles with a bunch of techno-babble and jargon mentioned this many or that many G's, air locks, capsules, and stationary orbital battle cruisers, and a story about a bunch of characters I simply don't care about.

Ugh.

Got about 75 pages into this one. With each passing page, I enjoyed it less.

I'd love to read some contemporary space opera, so if anyone has some great examples, please suggest some things for me.

D_Davis

01-10-2014, 03:38 AM

http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1326761207l/3372058.jpg

Redbeard takes place in the post-apocalyptic American East Coast, and details the struggles between the mutants born from the atomic fallout, and the Normans (the normal people who survived). The titular character is a hotheaded, savage blowhard too stupid to realize that he's being played by both sides of the conflict, and just street-smart and lucky enough to survive and somehow rise in the political and social ranks of the ruling lords.

It's not a great book by any stretch, but it is a fun read. It's brash and violent, like a mix between Conan and the Horse Clan books with Groo the Wanderer in the lead role. I wouldn't seek it out, but if you stumble across a copy you could spend your time with worse books.

D_Davis

01-13-2014, 10:11 PM

http://www.coverbrowser.com/image/pyramid-books/367-1.jpg

Joyleg is the story of an old bootlegger who has lived on an $11 a month pension for....a couple hundred years. Just who is Joyleg, how old is he, and of what war is he a veteran?

Joyleg is basically a political satire (a "folly" it states inside its pages) with a slight SFF premise to work as a Macguffin - with "slight" being the key word. It also states on the copyright page that the novel was previously published in a magazine as a shorter version, and I have a feeling that the short story version is the one to read. It's all pleasant enough, and some of the folksy charm and comedy is genuinely good, but there just isn't enough there to warrant much of a recommendation.

While reading, I kept waiting for something surprising to happen, but the whole thing plays out exactly how I thought it would, by the numbers. Granted, that in and of itself isn't grounds for dismissal (I'm not one to criticize something just for being predictable), but I expected more great things from two SF greats (Moore and Davidson).

D_Davis

01-13-2014, 10:13 PM

And now I'm about to do something that I like to do at least once a year, and that's give a book another chance.

And that book is Dune.

I first read it when I was quite young, and it did nothing at all for me. I'm hoping I like it more now.

D_Davis

01-13-2014, 11:16 PM

Anyone ever read anything by Andre Norton? She wrote like 400 books, and I've never read a single thing from her. They all mostly look and sound dreadful, so I'm wondering if she wrote anything that is a must read.

dreamdead

01-15-2014, 12:53 AM

Picked up Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man at a bookstore over the weekend and am now halfway through it. I was nervous about the narrative focus on Reich to begin, but man the central dynamics and cat-and-mouse game that ratchets in about halfway through is just fantastic to read. Not quite as formally innovative, but still plenty assured.

D_Davis

01-15-2014, 01:10 PM

dreamdead

01-16-2014, 02:10 AM

It's good. Not The Stars Me Destination good, but still really good. Bester was a great writer. The opening few lines of the book are amazing.

Yeah, this is all about right. The middle half of the book, with Powell and Reich battling out their wits, is flat out amazing, and the best sort of combination between noir and sci fi. Sadly, the climax turns a little too explanatory, psychologizing things a bit too much and undercutting the central mystery. Some of the linguistic play, where Bester intercuts mental conversations, has a great rhythm to it. But overall it never quite achieves the transcendent yearning and exploration that The Stars My Destination holds. Still, glad I read this one.

D_Davis

01-16-2014, 04:16 PM

I'm liking Dune a lot more than when I first read it as a young boy.

D_Davis

01-21-2014, 05:40 PM

OK. So Dune is kind of kicking my ass.

dreamdead

02-03-2014, 05:17 PM

This sounds rather fascinating (http://thedissolve.com/features/movie-this-book/396-why-her-suggests-its-time-for-a-steel-beach-movie-/). Anyone read Varley's novel?

D_Davis

02-10-2014, 04:08 PM

So glad I gave Dune a second chance. What an absolutely remarkable book it is. It's one of the most perfectly plotted books I've ever read; as a matter of fact, it alone could be an entire masterclass on the subject of how to plot an epic genre story. It is epic, and yet it never gets bogged down in the minutia of unimportant details. It creates a sense of time and space by skipping entire sequences, and expects the reader to be able to keep up. It's political and dramatic without becoming a tedious soap opera. It's weird and bold, and embraces it's imaginative world without a hint of embarrassment - that is to say, it's not at all ashamed of being an unabashed work of science fiction and space opera. And most importantly, it contains one of the greatest characters I've ever encountered: Paul. My god! I haven't encountered such a bold and interesting creation since Alfred Bester's Gully Foyle in The Stars my Destination.

D_Davis

02-12-2014, 04:14 PM

Leigh Brackett's The Ginger Star is a mega disappointment. For a work of heroic science-fantasy, it is completely devoid of heroics. The main character, one of Brackett's "best loved creations," Eric John Stark, does absolutely nothing heroic. Hell, it doesn't really do anything at all. He's a passenger along for the ride. He spends half the book captured by different enemies, and each time his captors just so happen to take him closer to where he needs to be next. He rarely makes a single crucial decision, and the few times he does Brackett writes him out of any consequences. Except for Stark being "the one," you could completely remove him from the book and nothing much would change. Heroic fiction is only as compelling and exciting as the hero, and Eric John Stark has the personality of moist cardboard. I expect more from Brackett, and know that she can deliver a truly remarkable work of pulp fiction. Unfortunately, The Ginger Star is a total failure.

Winston*

03-22-2014, 10:57 PM

Fun reading:

https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRIyLbdg27jG y-EHs7nEWk2keI_s9Hu2zNFe4nuulKii F1ftKs6

D_Davis, I think you might like this. Quote on the back compares it to Charlie Huston, which seems fair.

D_Davis

03-24-2014, 03:27 PM

I just added that to my wish list last night - crazy!

Sounds pretty cool.

Sven

05-10-2014, 10:59 PM

Almost finished China Mieville's Embassytown. It is awesome. Clear influence of Delaney's Babel-17, D_Davis: Asian female protagonist, central focus on language issues between humans and Alien races. Mieville is fantastic: thematically dense, unpredictably plotted genre works with impeccable prose. What more could you want?

This is one of the most brilliant things I've ever read, by the way. Utterly, utterly, genius.

megladon8

05-11-2014, 04:34 PM

This is one of the most brilliant things I've ever read, by the way. Utterly, utterly, genius.

Please, PLEASE read "Kraken"!!!

Sven

05-12-2014, 04:13 PM

Please, PLEASE read "Kraken"!!!

I'm halfway through it now, actually. It's pretty good. Fun structure, integrating nicely Mieville's stylish wordsmithing and semiotic conceptualizing with zippy thrills and witty twists on the end of it all.

Watashi

05-22-2014, 08:53 PM

The Forever War is one of my favorite books ever, but it's the only Joe Haldeman I've read. I've always been meaning to check out his other work. Any recommendations?

megladon8

06-11-2014, 09:12 PM

I've begun reading "Jack Glass" by Adam Roberts. It's fascinating.

megladon8

06-14-2014, 07:19 PM

I am just loving "Jack Glass".

Very good read so far. Hope it keeps it up.

Skitch

06-14-2014, 09:29 PM

Found a copy of Heinlein's Stranger In A Strange Land at Goodwill for a buck. Ten pages in and I am loving it.

Dead & Messed Up

06-15-2014, 12:26 AM

Found a copy of Heinlein's Stranger In A Strange Land at Goodwill for a buck. Ten pages in and I am loving it.

:fresh:

I really dug that one.

megladon8

07-03-2014, 11:20 PM

Man, "Jack Glass" is something else. Less than 100 pages to go now.

Wish D_Davis was still around, I think he'd dig the heck out of it.

Anyone looking for a great sci-fi read, look no further. Read "Jack Glass" immediately.

megladon8

07-09-2014, 05:52 PM

"Jack Glass" was pretty wonderful. A mystery whose answer is simultaneously as large as a supernova, and as small and personal as the most base human emotions.

Really great stuff. Loved the world it built, and the story it told within that world.

D_Davis

07-22-2014, 06:09 PM

Meg, Jack Glass sounds pretty interesting.

I've added it to my list.

Thanks!

megladon8

07-23-2014, 07:31 PM

Meg, Jack Glass sounds pretty interesting.

I've added it to my list.

Thanks!

No worries! I hope you enjoy it!

I actually have a small pile of new sci-fi to read on my bed table. "Ancillary Justice" and "Bald New World" are the top 2 :)

megladon8

07-27-2014, 10:30 PM

Going to read this next...

http://s27.postimg.org/cacknbaqb/51_H_472_d_L.jpg

On a remote, icy planet, the soldier known as Breq is drawing closer to completing her quest.

Once, she was the Justice of Toren - a colossal starship with an artificial intelligence linking thousands of soldiers in the service of the Radch, the empire that conquered the galaxy.

Now, an act of treachery has ripped it all away, leaving her with one fragile human body, unanswered questions, and a burning desire for vengeance.

Won a bunch of awards last year.

megladon8

07-28-2014, 05:31 PM

Less than 20 pages in and it's already riddled with cool ideas.

The main character is the thousands of years old consciousness of a galactic starship placed in the body of a human.

And in this empire there is no importance seen in distinguishing between genders, so the only pronoun used is "she".

D_Davis

07-28-2014, 05:34 PM

Looks interesting.

I'll have to add it to my list.

megladon8

08-03-2014, 10:55 PM

Man, "Ancillary Justice" is so damn cool. A really great balance of hard sci-fi and space opera. LOVE the main character, Breq.

Marley

02-21-2015, 03:36 AM

Man, "Ancillary Justice" is so damn cool. A really great balance of hard sci-fi and space opera. LOVE the main character, Breq.

You got me hyped up for this one so I bought it off Amazon. Did you finish it yet by any chance? I'm going to start it tonight.

Skitch

02-21-2015, 11:58 AM

I'm almost done with Stanger in a Strange Land (fantastic), and next up will be 2061: Odyssey Three or Rendezvous With Rama. Anyone read these?

megladon8

02-22-2015, 02:48 AM

You got me hyped up for this one so I bought it off Amazon. Did you finish it yet by any chance? I'm going to start it tonight.

No, about 2/3 through it dropped and became a convoluted mess. Completely killed my reading streak.

Sorry :(

Dead & Messed Up

02-22-2015, 08:25 PM

I'm almost done with Stanger in a Strange Land (fantastic)

Right? Great one. Crazy ending.

and next up will be 2061: Odyssey Three or Rendezvous With Rama. Anyone read these?

Been wanting to read "Rama" for a while, but haven't taken the plyunge.

Currently reading 11/22/63. Not too far in, but enjoying it so far. What do you want, it's King, he write good.

Marley

02-24-2015, 12:07 AM

That's ok, it wasn't expensive. I am liking it so far though.

megladon8

05-16-2015, 06:56 PM

I keep getting recommendations on Amazon and Goodreads for this author Hannu Rajaniemi.

Anyone read this author?

D_Davis

05-18-2015, 10:55 PM

Never read Hannu Rajaniemi, but my buddy at work likes Quantum Thief a lot.

Dukefrukem

05-21-2015, 03:45 PM

Anyone ever read Pushing Ice?

Irish

06-09-2015, 11:41 PM

Davis, I assume you've seen this?

http://www.penguinsciencefiction.org

Also:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Penguin-Science-Fiction-Postcard-Box/dp/1405920734

D_Davis

06-10-2015, 01:19 AM

I have not but it is very cool

D_Davis

06-10-2015, 03:24 PM

I really need to get back into reading some classic SF, and so I started Joanna Russ's And Chaos Died this morning.

https://i2.wp.com/www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/2/21/NDCHSDD1970.jpg

I'll never get tired of these Dillon covers.

D_Davis

01-12-2016, 11:11 PM

Got this today.

http://41.media.tumblr.com/ee1f9251053119eaf55fa97c55a59c 4b/tumblr_ntl4z7qirv1sqqnhuo1_128 0.jpg

D_Davis

01-19-2016, 09:14 PM

The Einstein Intersection, by Samuel R. Delany

https://yellowedandcreased.files.wordp ress.com/2012/03/the_einstein_intersection.jpg

When I first read Dhalgren, also by Delany, I was surprised to discover how much Gene Wolfe had cribbed for his Book of the New Sun.

Now, after finishing The Einstein Intersection, I am beginning to think that Wolfe might just be a Delaney impersonator.

Between the two books, Delany covers much of the same ground as Wolfe in the way that he examines, subverts, builds up and destroys our past and present mythologies, while simultaneously building his own. In The Einstein Intersection, Delaney juxtaposes science fiction with fantasy and the myths of Orpheus and Eurydice with Elvis and the Beatles, and Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett, all set in a post-post apocalyptic setting in which a race of aliens with unstable genetic codes have usurped humanity's place on Earth. To describe the plot in any kind of cohesive detail would take a feat of mental gymnastics that I am unprepared for at this time, nor would the effort do the work justice. There is a ton of stuff crammed into this short 130 page novel.

To put it simply: it's a total mind-melter.

It's also poetic and beautiful, violent and nasty, and simultaneously mean and uplifting. There were more than a dozen times in which I put the book down just to think about a certain idea or phrase, and it is ultimately rewarding and thought-provoking. Also, like Dhalgren, I'll be thinking about this one a lot, and plan to re-read it in the near future.

D_Davis

01-26-2016, 10:07 PM

No matter how many times I re-read it, Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles never fails to astound me. Truly one of the great works of American literature.

Sven

01-27-2016, 07:26 PM

My favorite story is the one where the two vehicles meet on the dark highway.

Edit: I believe the story is called "Night Meeting". It's been a while since I've read it...

D_Davis

01-27-2016, 07:28 PM

My favorite story is the one where the two vehicles meet on the dark highway.

With the ghosts?

Sven

01-27-2016, 07:32 PM

With the ghosts?

Yeah, that's the one I think. "Night Meeting". Gosh, I may have to take it off the bookshelf and read it again.

D_Davis

01-27-2016, 07:41 PM

Yeah, that's the one I think. "Night Meeting". Gosh, I may have to take it off the bookshelf and read it again.

That's it.

Great story. Bradbury weaves so many themes into these tales.

Dead & Messed Up

03-07-2016, 05:05 AM

Read my first fiction book in a long damn time, probably since From Hell in 2014 (which I re-read in 2015), and that book was...

11/22/63

Which was mostly a great story but rushed the ending just a touch - I wanted more sense of...

the alternate world that Jake created, replete with its earthquakes, radiation, mutant teenagers, and social collapse... and its Takuro Spirit! Ka is a wheel, and all things serve the fuckin' Beam.

But that could've been another book in itself.

Weirdly, my favorite stuff was the idyllic life in Jodie where Jake meets Sadie and they just hang for a while and fall in love. One of King's best romances, in spite of, or maybe because of just how much punishment Sadie and Jake endure in the process. The past just keeps pressing against them. Even though their pairing makes that twist in the climax a bit of a foregone conclusion, although it sorta works as dramatic irony, given what we know about the past.

Funny that the TV show is more forthright about the racism of the '60s, though. King's tried to capture some of that before, particularly with Detta/Odetta in The Drawing of the Three, but he sorta just glides over it in the novel. The racism functions mostly to add dimension to Oswald, whose rejection of American norms include the subjugation of black people.

If we had a race between this and King's other brick-sized political novel of recent years, Under the Dome, I'd probably go with Dome, which is simply more fun and ramshackle and insane.

D_Davis

03-17-2016, 05:03 PM

Dead & Messed Up

03-18-2016, 07:20 AM

Under the Dome is so freaking good.

It's a masterpiece of setting and location. The way King depicts the small town and the way he has the characters interact with it and each other is masterful; I imagine he must have drawn a huge poster-sized map of the town and had each character depicted by a different color set of foot prints to show where and when the were at certain places, ala Family Circus.

The first 250 pages might be the best 250 pages King has ever written.

The more I think about the book, the more I like it. The opening sections are fantastic and remarkably well-paced, completely agree, and they play to King's ability to create immediate characters - not ocean-deep people, but vivid, distinct, instantly-recognizable people with firm motivations, archetypes with just enough dimension, and he builds the entire town with a sort of madcap glee, like he can't wait to knock the dominoes over.

You're right, he definitely had to pore over the geography and sort it all out, but it doesn't feel leaden or pre-ordained. And then all of a sudden someone will look across the street and see someone walking somewhere, and that's enough to turn the entire story 90 degrees.

And the meth explosion fireball is one of his all-time great horror sequences. It's hard to put into words just how effectively that pulled me along, the jaw-dropping tension and horror and tragedy, and the buried laughter underneath, like the laughter of a guy who can't believe he's getting away with it all.

megladon8

03-18-2016, 10:00 AM

I think King is at his best when he writes his sprawling stories of entire communities of unique characters. I actually much prefer his long novels to his short fiction (in general, of course).

I can only think of a handful of other writers who can write such an enormous cast of characters so clearly, without any confusion for the reader at all.

George R. R. Martin ain't got shit on Stephen King.

D_Davis

03-18-2016, 03:31 PM

I agree - I greatly prefer King when he's writing about a larger group of characters in an epic way.

I'm less fond of his novels when they're on a more personal level, with a few exceptions like Insomnia.

I think this this goes to show that he's better at painting with a wider brush, as opposed to detailed examinations.

Dead & Messed Up

03-18-2016, 11:55 PM

I mean... I think broad canvases worked in The Stand and 'salem's Lot, but I have no love for his small-towns-gone-bad in The Tommyknockers and Needful Things.

Dukefrukem

05-31-2016, 12:05 PM

I'm about half way through The Stand. The scope is unlike anything I could have predicted.

D_Davis

07-27-2017, 07:30 PM

I'm about half way through The Stand. The scope is unlike anything I could have predicted.

Did you finish this?

D_Davis

11-07-2017, 02:41 PM

Started reading Dune again this past week.

It might be the best book.

Dukefrukem

11-07-2017, 04:29 PM

That's always been on my To Read list...

D_Davis

11-20-2017, 03:50 PM

D_Davis

01-05-2018, 02:42 PM

Not only is Golem 100 secretly Alfred Bester's best book, it just might be the best cyberpunk book ever written. This thing is absolutely wild. The audacity of it is off the charts. It is so bold, so unique, so inventive, and so absolutely gonzo in style and plot. To think that most Bester fans actively dislike it, and go out of their way to dismiss it from Bester's oeuvre is unimaginably. Just goes to show not to blindly trust the consensus.

Update to this. Unfortunately, Bester can't keep the momentum of the first 100 pages going through to the end. It's good. It's not the terrible disaster that everyone says it is, but it's not nearly as fantastic as I thought it was going to be, based on its opening parts.

Bummer.

D_Davis

01-05-2018, 02:44 PM

"The lead guitar took a long solo, defining youth in the language of electricity."

From John Shirley's City Come A-Walkin'.

I just started re-reading this this morning, and it is still the single best, most punk-rock work of cyberpunk I know of. Shirley actually understood punk rock, urban youth culture, and the movements of the era. He lived it. He made music. He wrote about it. While all of the other cyberpunk authors were writing about the technology, focusing on the cyber-side of things, Shirley was writing about the music, the attitude, and the angst, the punk-side of things.

I wish the genre had followed Shirley's 1980 lead, rather than Gibson's later entry.

City Come A-Walkin' is, for me, the undisputed champion of cyberpunk. And like the sub-cultures that dwell within its pages, it is a book that is largely forgotten in favor of safer things.

I'm listening to Meat Beat Manifesto's album Answers Come in Dreams, while reading it, and it is absolute perfection.

"The band thundered on like a phalanx of armored tanks grinding across a battlefield. The melodies were precise and involved, but amplified and toned with an edge that, to the uninitiated, made them sound like a wall of noise. But like an armored vehicle which at first glance seems a bullish mass of metallic aggression and nothing more, the music, closely examined, was made up of many carefully-honed and securely interlocked parts. A great machine of sound."

megladon8

02-16-2018, 10:56 PM

Have started reading the first in a trilogy of books leant to me by a coworker - “Survival” by Julie E. Czerneda. The trilogy is called “Species Imperative”.

Enjoying it so far. Interesting set up for sure.

Dead & Messed Up

09-04-2018, 03:23 PM

Contact.

Solid. Wonky explanations of heady scientific/mathematical concepts kept me more interested than the characters, as I suspect they did Sagan.

Dukefrukem

09-04-2018, 04:32 PM

Saw Contact in theaters. I still love it. I put it on the same quality level as Arrival.

Peng

09-29-2019, 02:05 AM

kuehnepips

10-19-2020, 04:30 PM

I meant IRL.

:D
I want meg to read posts #771 and 772 on page 31 of this thread and then drink a Jägermeister

megladon8

10-19-2020, 11:29 PM

I...don't get it??

Peng

12-28-2024, 11:12 AM

Just finished Dune. The way the power works gets too lost up in its own New Age mysticism just a tad. The Harkonnens are also a fun bunch but sometimes the Baron is so cackling in his villainy it is almost distracting from the nuanced moods of other characters elsewhere, and him being so stereotypical is a thought I had, before I actually got to the "young boys" snippets, which feel pretty unnecessary. But man, what a feat of world-building. The planet Arrakis may be one of the most tangible, real, and impressive sci-fi creations of all-time, and how we slowly come to learn all about it, the sandworms, the Fremen, and all these traditions/beliefs/religions through the Atreides clan is just masterful. Complicates its own chosen one narrative nicely by having its hero trying mightily hard to resist the path and its fall-out too. 4/5

Well, 5 years later I finally read Dune Messiah. I've seen a few complaints about Herbert's writing in this forum, but for me it doesn't impede Dune much, where as this one though I feel it more since he switches mode from the original for ambitious, subversive end in which his writing falls short. In broad strokes, I might have liked this one better as story since it's such a thorny, genuinely questioning reflection of the previous entry. But his writing seems to suit more when its functional nature is in service of blending various elements of Dune's story momentum, sweeping scope, and dense world-building to accompany and deepen these characters, whereas here when there are far less of those elements, it makes his writing in the crucial character-based stuff, most prominent this time out, come off just more plainly stated out and not as felt as it should be? Weirdly lurching narrative too, where it doesn't feel to progress as much as having blocks of scenes which seem to elide connective issues in between to be told to us later. Still, the thematic ambition makes the book feels accumulative in details, leading to strong third act and a great final note of an ending. 3.5/5