The Sci-Fi Book Thread

Angelwatch

Angelwatch

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David Weber is a guilty pleasure of mine. His writing and dialogue can be terrible at times but I still enjoy the books. The Honorverse books aren't bad but I really like his Safehold series.

Another Sci-Fi writer I like is Ian Douglas. The Star Carrier books are pretty decent for fleet action and space combat (4 books so far, not sure when 5 is coming out). His other big series is a trilogy of trilogies (The Heritage Trilogy, Legacy Trilogy and Inheritance Trilogy). These trilogies focus more on Marines and their role in space warfare against alien races and they're good reads. However, I strongly suggest stopping with book 8 (Galactic Corps). That books wraps up the series nicely and the last book (Semper Human) is trash compared to the rest of the books.
 
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Gnomedolf

Gnomedolf

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I tried the first book in the Lost Fleet series. I finished it but I won't be reading any more of them. I found it super boring.
 
Grimmlokk

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Hyperion is good stuff. First book is pretty heavy on the philosophy and shit but the series gets a bit more linear and explanatory as it goes on. I don't actually remember if I ever read the 4th book, it's been a really long time.

Anyways, they're good stuffs. You can tell because Dan Simmons name is on the cover.
 
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Seventh

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I tend to like all the same stuff that you do (no homo) so that's good to hear. All the reviews on it are awesome, I think I'm just getting frontloaded a giant plot sandwich right now.
 
spronk

spronk

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its pretty good, its definitely high brow scifi in a style that reminded me a lot of Dune, especially with a heavy dose of religious injection. All wraps up pretty nicely I think, but probably feels a bit dated now in terms of tech applications.

trying to read the entire Ender series now, holy shit the books get progressively worse and worse. I just started skipping entire books (pirated torrent of all 15 or so books) because he backtracks to shit nobody gives a fuck about. Now the author is writing about how gay dudes secretly wanna have sex with women so they can make kids which is what every human wants, man I shoulda stopped at book 1. glad I didn't watch the movie in theaters and am gonna pirate the fuck out of it.
 
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moseby_sl

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Hyperion is one of the best pieces of SF ever written, and unfortunately like Dune the rest simply do not compare to the first. However unlike Dune the Sequels to Hyperion do not suck nearly as badly, Endymion the third book is the series is definitely the weakest of the series but they are all still very good books. If you enjoy Hyperion I strongly suggest you read Illium and Olympos. I would also suggest Richard K Morgan Altered Carbon and Fallen Angel, I will be damned if I can remember the third novel.
 
Selix

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Ironically I LOVED Richard k.Morgan and the first dune books but I just never enjoyed Hyperion I read it several times trying to see what I.missed but I just didn't enjoy it. Weird I know but I like reading in general.
 
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Seventh

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I finished Hyperion, and am about halfway through the second book. It is pretty good, but man is it wordy. I swear these books would be half as long if Simmons could cut down on the adjectives and descriptive narratives. I understand that he gets into his writing and wants to paint the most detailed picture that he can, but it gets a little tedious. Take this one sentence for example:

Chronos Keep jutted from the easternmost rim of the great Bridle Range: a grim, baroque heap of sweating stones with three hundred rooms and halls, a maze of lightless corridors leading to deep halls, towers, turrets, balconies overlooking the northern moors, airshafts rising half a kilometer to light and rumored to drop to the world's labyrinth itself, parapets scoured by cold winds from the peaks above, stairways-inside and out-carved from the mountain stone and leading nowhere, stained-glass windows a hundred meters tall set to catch the first rays of solstice sun or the moon on midwinter night, paneless windows the size of a man's fist looking out on nothing in particular, an endless array of bas-relief, grotesque sculptures in half-hidden niches, and more than a thousand gargoyles staring down from eave and parapet, transept and sepulcher, peering down through wood rafters in the great halls and positioned so as to peer in the blood-tinted windows of the northeast face, their winged and hunchbacked shadows moving like grim sundial hours, cast by sunlight in the day and gas-fed torches at night.
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That's one sentence. And he writes like that a LOT. Pretty solid book otherwise, but sometimes I feel like I'm slogging through Gravity's Rainbow.
 
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velk

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Seventh_sl said:
I finished Hyperion, and am about halfway through the second book. It is pretty good, but man is it wordy. I swear these books would be half as long if Simmons could cut down on the adjectives and descriptive narratives. I understand that he gets into his writing and wants to paint the most detailed picture that he can, but it gets a little tedious. Take this one sentence for example:
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IIRC Hyperion is deliberately mimicking the style of the Canterbury Tales, so is kind of overly wordy like that - Endymion is a bit more accessible, which is why there is kind of an odd split between people liking one or the other.
 
Grimmlokk

Grimmlokk

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moseby_sl said:
If you enjoy Hyperion I strongly suggest you read Illium and Olympos.
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I loved the fuck out of these two. He does such an amazing job balancing the Hellenic(am I using that right?) era stuff with the earth stuff with the Sci-Fi stuff. All while painting a picture of the history that got everything to where it is without spelling it out with flashbacks.

Plus it's just cool.
 
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velk

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Grimmlokk_sl said:
I loved the fuck out of these two. He does such an amazing job balancing the Hellenic(am I using that right?) era stuff with the earth stuff with the Sci-Fi stuff. All while painting a picture of the history that got everything to where it is without spelling it out with flashbacks.

Plus it's just cool.
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Although I was disappointed that the rest of the series didn't live up to Hockenberries rant at the start of Ilium - ".. I'd be just as happy now if a B52 flew over and dropped an atomic bomb on both the Greeks and the Trojans. Fuck all these heroes and the wooden chariots they rode in on"
cool.png
 
Kreugen

Kreugen

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I just finished Ender's Game (book not series) and..

It seemed silly/unexplained/rushed that suddenly at the end Ender (heh) could understand the buggers thoughts and vice-versa. The entire war was a literal failure to communicate, but suddenly they are able to tell him their entire history by leaving him a baby? They could read his thoughts (images, really) across the universe but couldn't project back to him until he came into contact with one? Or his nightmares were them trying but they couldn't work it out in time? Anyway, a bit of a leap there. Still, cool book and cool concept. I only knew the twist because I knew there was a twist. I thought the very first battles with his squad were still simulations though. It was the very first practice run - NOPE all real. Did the other kids know and that's why they were burning out?

Also, I'm assuming they lied and Ender wasn't the last attempt at a commander but actually the only attempt. At least at the point where he started the "simulations." Because if there were others, then all those fleets would have been lost. It was a one shot deal. Quite a gamble.

I got a good laugh out of his naive version of the internet though. Things like that are always fun in old sci-fi. Yeah, a kid trolling message forums on the internet takes over the world. Emperor Lumie yo.
 
Janx

Janx

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I found Evan Curries Warrior's Wings series to be pretty good. Terms of Enlistment by Marko Kloos. Had a guilty pleasure reading Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.
 
Void

Void

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Nostalgiadork checking in. I loved that book, read it all in a day. Of course, I recognized almost every single reference, so that probably helped the nostalgia.
 
gogusrl

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Been reading a lot lately, going through the major sci fi / fantasy awards and picking from them.

Currently : Peter F. Hamilton - The Reality Dysfunction vol 2 (amazing)

Finished :

Alexis Panshin - Rite of Passage (not that great)
Frederik Pohl - Man Plus (not that great)
Fritz Leiber - The Big Time (kinda shitty)
Gene Wolfe - The Book of the New Sun (awesome)
Vernor Vinge - A Fire Upon the Deep (awesome)
Robin Hobb - The Farseer Trilogy (decent)

Just discovered there's more volumes in the same universe as The book of the New Sun so I know what I'm reading next. I know there's more from Farseer as well but I'm not that excited about that.
 
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nescio_sl

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I love hyperion and fall of hyperion! I'd skip over Endymion and the rise of endymion though. they aren't bad, but they are nowhere as good as the first two books. I read all 4 in a row though, could have been dan simmons fatigue.
 
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