The Sci-Fi Book Thread
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Guest, it's time once again for the massively important and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!
Go here and give us your nominations!Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Give us your worst ones!
khorum
Murder Apologist
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Cyberpunk has more or less graduated to near-future "Singularity" fiction.
Of those I'd recommend Vernor Vinge's Hugo-winning Rainbows End.... which has proven amazingly prophetic. It's about a celebrated poet who had long ago fallen to dementia and alzheimers but as a cure is discovered, he gets his memory and consciousness back. It plays out like a rip van winkle as the poet doesn't remember the intervening 20+ years but emerges into a world at the cusp of the Singularity where there are weaponized memes and an emerging Super AI fighting a culture war.
Then I'd say give Charles Stross' Halting State series a try too. It's a fun near-future heist novel about cybercrime in virtual worlds but has ramifications for a future with competing virtual currencies. Stross is a hardcore SJW (he's Paul Krugman's favorite sci-fi author) so be wary of that, but it's definitely entertaining.
More recent books are After On by Rob Reid (founder of Rhapsody and the algo model behind spotify/itunes etc)--it's about the emergence of a super-AI from the social monetization space. He's a light touch but the ideas are tremendous.
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So lately I was reminded of a book I read likely ~20 years ago and I'm hoping someone else knows the name:
There is an alien(?) tower found on a planet, each floor has a puzzle once they enter the floor they cannot leave, the puzzle is timed and failure or being too slow resulted in maiming / death.
There is an alien(?) tower found on a planet, each floor has a puzzle once they enter the floor they cannot leave, the puzzle is timed and failure or being too slow resulted in maiming / death.
My recollection is the person whose PoV you read from realizes that one of the team members had been there before.
gogusrl
Molten Core Raider
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Thanks, that does sound like it. Checking my basement it looks like I may have it on a shelf but some drywall is in the way!
Kindle edition of Thirteen on sale for 1.99 today.
https://www.amazon.com/Thirteen-Ric...swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1519005708&sr=8-5
https://www.amazon.com/Thirteen-Ric...swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1519005708&sr=8-5
TJT
Mr. Poopybutthole
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I really love Charles Stross stuff but he's becoming more SJW lately. It is cringey levels in the Merchant Princes series two. But I soldier on as its mostly good.
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khorum
Murder Apologist
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Stross has always been SJW. He basically set out to be the anti-Richard K. Morgan.
If you were looking for a less adorkable/boing-boing crew modern cyberpunk that is the opposite of Stross’ SJW shit, go read Black Man (titled Thirteen in the US) right now. It’s by Altered Carbon author Richard K Morgan and it is his superior book by far.
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
I just finished this and I loved Diamond Age, Snow Crash but this was just okay. Maybe I am just worn out on HORAH humanity triumphs books.
The interesting part was the zero-g chain mechanics, asteroid mining, and bots.
I just finished this and I loved Diamond Age, Snow Crash but this was just okay. Maybe I am just worn out on HORAH humanity triumphs books.
The interesting part was the zero-g chain mechanics, asteroid mining, and bots.
For me it was one of the few books I've never bothered to finish, I found Snow Crash to be merely OK and Anathem to be total garbage though I still finished reading it.
Ukerric
Bearded Ape
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As an aside, it appears that Snow Crash is going to be developed as a show by Amazon.
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So I just burned through Hyperion & The Fall of Hyperion. I loved them. I felt the technology held up well, the characters were solid enough, and The Shrike is the definition of Grendel.
A few questions: Is the next two Endymion books as good/worth reading? How is Simmons' Ilium & Olympos books?
A few questions: Is the next two Endymion books as good/worth reading? How is Simmons' Ilium & Olympos books?
At the end of the second book, it hasn't been made clear yet, what exactly The Shrike is? Correct?? Or did I completely miss it? It's my understanding the future Human/Ouster societies & the Techno-Core/AI are still unsure exactly where it originated, or what it's exact purpose is?
Ukerric
Bearded Ape
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I don't really remember the Endymion books, it's been soooo long. I do remember slogging thru them, far more than Hyperion. Ilium was good, Olympos less so. If you liked Hyperion, odds are you're going to like Ilium (I loved the climactic end).
A number of readers at the time thought that Ilium was basically "Hyperion again".
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Ukerric
Bearded Ape
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Time to resurrect this thread.
Just finished The Accidental War by Walter Jon Williams. He's one of the veterans of the genre... of all kind of genres (he does milfi, he does "real SF", he does fantasy. Everything and well).
After a couple novellas that are not entirely necessary (but still very, very useful to read), WJW returns to the Praxis universe, in which a species of super-aliens created an empire devoted to ensuring technological and social stability. Scientific research is forbidden, technology is so mature that no one does any improvement anymore, and the social order is locked into a rigid aristocratic order.
Since the last of the aliens passed away just at the opening of the first trilogy, the Dread Empire is breaking up slowly. The previous trilogy was fighting a civil war against the Naxids trying to usurp their master's power. This one shapes up as a new civil war pitting the Humans against the rest of the Empire (which of course means we will probably win, unlike the Naxids). It's also funny because you don't often see the subprime crisis (slightly disguised) sparking an interstellar civil war with possible genocide behind.
The usual cast of characters is still there, with a handful of new ones. And now that both Caroline "Gredel" Sula and Gareth Martinez are back at the helm, we can expect good space battles in the coming books.
Oh, and heavily recommended, of course.
Just finished The Accidental War by Walter Jon Williams. He's one of the veterans of the genre... of all kind of genres (he does milfi, he does "real SF", he does fantasy. Everything and well).
After a couple novellas that are not entirely necessary (but still very, very useful to read), WJW returns to the Praxis universe, in which a species of super-aliens created an empire devoted to ensuring technological and social stability. Scientific research is forbidden, technology is so mature that no one does any improvement anymore, and the social order is locked into a rigid aristocratic order.
Since the last of the aliens passed away just at the opening of the first trilogy, the Dread Empire is breaking up slowly. The previous trilogy was fighting a civil war against the Naxids trying to usurp their master's power. This one shapes up as a new civil war pitting the Humans against the rest of the Empire (which of course means we will probably win, unlike the Naxids). It's also funny because you don't often see the subprime crisis (slightly disguised) sparking an interstellar civil war with possible genocide behind.
The usual cast of characters is still there, with a handful of new ones. And now that both Caroline "Gredel" Sula and Gareth Martinez are back at the helm, we can expect good space battles in the coming books.
Oh, and heavily recommended, of course.
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Rime
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I thoroughly enjoyed Seveneves until the last section of the book. Total trash.
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Same. It was still worth the read, but the first and second parts way outclass the third part. The different evolution stuff is interesting, but the story part is meh.
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Rime
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It is a shame, as well. I enjoyed the first part and I loved the second part. If the third part would have been at least reasonable or made some tiny amount of possible sense, I would have been fine with it overall. But it did not and it ruined an otherwise amazing book.
Cukernaut
Sharpie Markers Aren't Pens
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I read through this entire thread looking for recommendations and found that I’ve never read Hyperion series so I’m going to check that out. One glaring omission on this thread for my space opera friends is no mention of the works surrounding the vorkosagan saga. Amazing probably my favorite end to end set of books space opera wise.