What did you just read?
- Thread starter Fippy Darkpaw
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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!
Fury
Silver Knight of the Realm
- 499
- 25
Finally finished the Void series from Hamilton. I didn't really find it all that less interesting or enjoyable than the Commonweath books. If you like Hamilton, then I recommend them to all his fans.
Started reading Midnight Riot (4 book series) by Ben Aaronovitch after getting some good feedback from friends.
Started reading Midnight Riot (4 book series) by Ben Aaronovitch after getting some good feedback from friends.
Campbell1oo4
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
- 1,930
- 6,137
I'm reading the March Upcountry series by David Weber and John Ringo. I've finished the first two, and I'm about halfway through the third.
They're excellent. They have a heavy emphasis on problem solving, diplomacy, logistics and character development. Battles due happen, but it's not war-porn; which I am thankful for.
I recommend it on audiobook.
They're excellent. They have a heavy emphasis on problem solving, diplomacy, logistics and character development. Battles due happen, but it's not war-porn; which I am thankful for.
I recommend it on audiobook.
Vlett
Lord Nagafen Raider
- 817
- 69
Message board I used to follow for new releases finally flopped out. Where do you guys find decent new list that tracks authors. I hate the goodread monthly releases update, it usually only has 1 of 5 that are something I'll enjoy.
Yes, Google works fine. Just interested in seeing RR opinions.
Yes, Google works fine. Just interested in seeing RR opinions.
I use amazon's newly released recommendations list. You have to put a bit of work into putting a list of stuff you like, which is a downside, but it's 100% on giving new releases on authors you liked, and has a reasonably good hit rate on related recommendations.
Ukerric
Bearded Ape
- 8,322
- 10,299
Seconded. The fun bit is that Amazon usually displays upcoming Baen & Tor books two months before their own websites list them.
It used to be that you could search for books and tick them as "I have it" directly, but they dropped that (why? oh why?) and you can only do that from recommendations now. If you haven't purchased much stuff from Amazon, start by placing a bunch of books you already own in your shopping cart, then head to the recommended section, which will show more books based on that cart, you can now tick them as "I own them", then empty your cart, go back and tick those as "I own them" as well, and you're going to have a good suggestion list which will include the books you're interested.
I used to keep a wish list as a tracker, but they also removed the capacity of ticking "I own them" there a few months ago, so there's now basically no way to keeping your library up to date for having a better suggestion list. These days, I move the books straight from recommended list to pre-order, or let them stay in the recommendations until I purchase them either from Amazon or somewhere else (like Baen ebooks bundles).
Are you reading any of the stand alone books after the First Law Series? While the trilogy is enjoyable, I feel like the stand alone books are stronger. I particularly enjoyed Best Served Cold. The Heroes is very good too.
Grimmlokk
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
- 12,190
- 134
I like the monthly Goodreads list of new books by people you've read. Other than that I just kind of take some suggestions from you fuckos and a bunch of other fuckos I used to play EQ with on our little server-based messageboard. It usually works out other than all you assholes gushing in to your panties overSnow Crash.
"The Drafter" - Kim Harrison
Start of a new series after finishing the hollows series. Setting is a government run group of pretty limited time travellers - drafters can rewind a limited amount of time, while keeping their memories of what happened. They have trouble staying sane with the multiple conflicting memories, so rely on partners that anchor them and rewrite their memories afterwards. This one was ok, but did not really grab me.
"The Fifth Season" - N.K. Jemisin
Not set in the same world as the her other books - this one is again a pretty unique setting - it's a bit post apocalyptic, but with the apocalypses happening often enough that everyone pretty much takes it in stride. It has extremely strong magic in a limited number of people - they are organized as sort of second class citizens though, with the choice between joining the public service, or being killed, and their main jobs being stopping earthquakes etc. It was unusual in that it has three stories going at once in different times - the connection is reasonably obvious so it's an odd way to present it, but it seemed to work. I thought this one was good, but not as good as the hundred thousand kingdoms. The story is obviously unfinished so will read sequels.
"Sorcerer to the Crown" - Zen Cho
Set in regency london with established magicians guild. Mostly about an unusually skilled female mage confronting the inherent sexism of the magicians guild. It was ok, but a bit cliched, and some parts annoyed me. I don't think I will read sequels.
"Reflex" - Steven Gould
The sequels to Jumper. These aren't a continuation of the story from the first book, but separate stories with a pretty significant time jump. In this one Davy is 30 ish and is jumped by a quasi-goverment conspiracy that have some ideas about how they can control teleporters. It's mostly from Millie's point of view as she tries to find and rescue him. This one is probably the darkest of the series, there's a lot of torture and such going on. I liked it enough to continue straight onto the rest of the series though.
"Impulse" - Steven Gould
This one is mostly from the point of view of Davy's teenage daughter Cent. There's a significant change in tone from the previous book, with this one being more about experimentation and discovery. I liked this one a lot - in the previous books Davy pretty much takes his ability for granted without a great deal of curiosity. Cent spends a lot of time applying scientific reasoning to how teleportation works and comes up with some interesting new applications. I was a little dubious at the start because it looked like it was going to be a high school setting, but that turned out to be unwarranted.
"Exo" - Steven Gould
This one is from the POV of an older Cent. It's the most positive of the books and I really loved it. In this one Davy has cause to regret encouraging Cent's interest in space travel when she decides to launch her own space program. Obviously this doesn't work well with the policy of staying secret and off the grid - I still grin remembering the conversation with the satellite phone provider in their first orbital test.
"Half Life" - S.L. Huang
Sequel to Zero Sum Game, continuing the story of the dangerously unstable sociopath 'superhero' Cass Russel. This one is unrelated to the events of the first book, centering around humanoid androids and corporate espionage. Cass is trying to avoid killing people to make her new friends happy, with mixed success. I liked this one a lot - not least because in a minor spoiler, the androids aren't sentient. There's some interesting thoughts within the story about how much that actually matters. If you have a little kid that looks like a little kid, and acts like a little kid, and you know that it's all programming and they aren't actually real - how much does that impact your actions ?
"Rio adopts a puppy" - S.L. Huang
This is a short story set in the same world about one of the side characters. It's pretty grimdark, and I give it an honorable mention for having a title that is absolutely hilarious if you have read the other books.
"The Unquiet Past" - Kelley Armstrong
I'm not sure I remember what this one is about. I guess that automatically rates it as a 'meh'.
"Kingdom of Lies" - Debra Dunbar
Seventh book in the Imp series. They remain a good, fun read. One of the success stories of self published ebooks I think. This one has the angel of chaos paying off a debt by tracking down a experimental magical gem, while also dealing with a lot of side complications.
"Vaz", "Tiona", "Disc" - Laurence Dahners
Ok, these ones I am conflicted about. Objectively they are terribly written - the plot is absurd, the characters are all cardboard cutouts and/or ridiculous ( for example Vaz is a genius research scientist/MMA fighter/inventor/bodybuilder who is held back by his hopelessly stupid pointy haired bosses ). Despite this, I still liked them enough to read all three of them anyway. Your mileage may vary, but how often do you have books where one of the characters single-handedly declares war on North Korea ? ;p
"War Dogs" - Greg Bear
About "Skyrines" ( aka space marines ) and an ongoing war on mars. Pretty bleak, but interesting. I found it a bit trippy for my taste near the end, but liked it enough to read sequels.
"Armada" - Ernest Cline
This is like an 80s kids movie. That's probably deliberate, but that didn't make me enjoy it. For reference I enjoyed "Ready Player One", but the pop culture references worked there, here they are just gratuitous. I think I will check reviews before getting any more of his books.
"Time Salvager" - Wesly Chu
This definitely wins the award for nastiest setting this year. It's far future earth, everything has completely gone to shit and people are barely surviving by having time travellers go back in time and loot stuff ( mostly fusion generators etc ) from the past. Given the obvious logical problems with that as a solution, it was a bit of an eyeroll when the main character is shocked to find that everything isn't on the up-and-up about this setup and most of what he's been told is bullshit. It was good fun though, will read sequels.
"Silver on the Road" - Laura Ann Gilman
New series - set in early america, a young girl from the town of Flood decides to work for the devil as an enforcer and gets sent to fix a growing problem in the territory. This one was interesting, it wasn't entirely clear if the devil actually is the biblical devil or not, it is left deliberately ambiguous I think. It was a bit slow as the only downside. Will probably read sequels.
"Red Rising" - Pierce Brown
I picked this one up after "Golden Son" showed up on the nominees for goodreads fantasy of 2015 and I saw I hadn't read it. I almost didn't after seeing the cover blurb compare it to the hunger games and divergent, and was very dubious to start. This lasted for the first couple of chapters in the mine, and then went into rapid reversal after the first reveal. This was a fantastic book and I really liked it.
Setting is far future - a bunch of genetically engineered 'supermen' kicked the shit out of earth ages ago and have taken over the solar system. They are known as 'Golds' and have spread their love of genetic engineering into making a bunch of slave races designed for particular tasks. The main character is a Red - a miner, although the mining in this case is he2 mining on mas with massive mechanical drills. He gets caught up in the inevitable rebellion but not in the way I was expecting.
"Golden Son" - Pierce Brown
This was probably the best book I read last year. It's wins for best fantasy of 2015 from goodreads and amazon were well deserved I think. It's the sequel to "Red Rising", and follows immediately on from the events of that book. Without going too much into spoilers for the first book, it's mostly about conflict between the governor of mars and the monarch of the golds, as well as a bunch of feuds that get stretched to breaking point, while the red rebellion carries on in the background. Unlike Red Rising it ends with a shocker of a cliffhanger, so be aware ;p There is obviously no question I will read the last book of the trilogy, or anything else this guy puts out.
"The Fold" - Peter Clines
Genius that is wasting his potential as a school teacher is sent by his buddy in the DOD to try and get the real story on a secret government project that seems to have invented a reliable method of teleportation but are being very cagey with important details. This was enjoyable, although it was immediately obvious what was wrong with the project right from the prologue so it seems a bit unlikely that the main character takes so long to pick up on it. I liked the first part better thant he ending, which falls a bit into the "You found something great and world-changing ! but it's CURSED ! AAHAHAHAHAHAAH!" bucket that gets used way too often in science fiction/fantasy. Would probably read other books by this guy.
"The Greek Key" - K.B. Spangler
This is the author of the "A Girl and her Fed" web comic, and the previous books about Rachel Peng, the cyborg liason to the FBI. This one is about Hope Blackwell, the main character of the web comic, and I was a bit dubious about how it would work. In my opinion, Spangler is a much better author than comic writer, the Rachel Peng books are really good but are very grounded in reality, where the web comic very much is not ( main characters include Ben Franklin's ghost and a talking koala ). It actually worked really well as a book though - I liked this one a lot despite it going all-in on the crazy.
"Nemesis Games" - James S.A. Corey
Fifth book in the expanse series. I took a while to get to this one as I found the fourth book ( also known as James Holden fails to fuck everything up, to the disappointment of everyone, including the reader ) kind of boring. This one was a return to form though, and really good. The crew of the Rocinante split up to go on various errands while the Roci is being repaired from the damage done during the last book, and come together in the aftermath of some pretty catastrophic events. Each of the crew have different stories from their own viewpoint, Amos' one is particularly entertaining.
"Zero World" - Jason Hough
This one gets my award from this roundup for the most times the plot completely blindsided me. It's rare I misjudge where things are going so badly in a book, let alone repeatedly in the same book. I didn't read a lot about it beforehand which probably contributed, but I think it works well like that, so if you are interested don't read up too much beforehand ;p I look forward to any sequels that show up.
This one is about a hitman with a cybernetic brain implant that manufactures various combat drugs, but also protects client confidentiality by setting a 'checkpoint' before he accepts a contract, and then erasing his memory back to that point afterwards, so he never knows the details of jobs he's carried out. At the start of the book he gets a priority job to join the crew of a salvage ship that's heading to recover a research spaceship that has been missing under mysterious circumstances for years.
Start of a new series after finishing the hollows series. Setting is a government run group of pretty limited time travellers - drafters can rewind a limited amount of time, while keeping their memories of what happened. They have trouble staying sane with the multiple conflicting memories, so rely on partners that anchor them and rewrite their memories afterwards. This one was ok, but did not really grab me.
"The Fifth Season" - N.K. Jemisin
Not set in the same world as the her other books - this one is again a pretty unique setting - it's a bit post apocalyptic, but with the apocalypses happening often enough that everyone pretty much takes it in stride. It has extremely strong magic in a limited number of people - they are organized as sort of second class citizens though, with the choice between joining the public service, or being killed, and their main jobs being stopping earthquakes etc. It was unusual in that it has three stories going at once in different times - the connection is reasonably obvious so it's an odd way to present it, but it seemed to work. I thought this one was good, but not as good as the hundred thousand kingdoms. The story is obviously unfinished so will read sequels.
"Sorcerer to the Crown" - Zen Cho
Set in regency london with established magicians guild. Mostly about an unusually skilled female mage confronting the inherent sexism of the magicians guild. It was ok, but a bit cliched, and some parts annoyed me. I don't think I will read sequels.
"Reflex" - Steven Gould
The sequels to Jumper. These aren't a continuation of the story from the first book, but separate stories with a pretty significant time jump. In this one Davy is 30 ish and is jumped by a quasi-goverment conspiracy that have some ideas about how they can control teleporters. It's mostly from Millie's point of view as she tries to find and rescue him. This one is probably the darkest of the series, there's a lot of torture and such going on. I liked it enough to continue straight onto the rest of the series though.
"Impulse" - Steven Gould
This one is mostly from the point of view of Davy's teenage daughter Cent. There's a significant change in tone from the previous book, with this one being more about experimentation and discovery. I liked this one a lot - in the previous books Davy pretty much takes his ability for granted without a great deal of curiosity. Cent spends a lot of time applying scientific reasoning to how teleportation works and comes up with some interesting new applications. I was a little dubious at the start because it looked like it was going to be a high school setting, but that turned out to be unwarranted.
"Exo" - Steven Gould
This one is from the POV of an older Cent. It's the most positive of the books and I really loved it. In this one Davy has cause to regret encouraging Cent's interest in space travel when she decides to launch her own space program. Obviously this doesn't work well with the policy of staying secret and off the grid - I still grin remembering the conversation with the satellite phone provider in their first orbital test.
"Half Life" - S.L. Huang
Sequel to Zero Sum Game, continuing the story of the dangerously unstable sociopath 'superhero' Cass Russel. This one is unrelated to the events of the first book, centering around humanoid androids and corporate espionage. Cass is trying to avoid killing people to make her new friends happy, with mixed success. I liked this one a lot - not least because in a minor spoiler, the androids aren't sentient. There's some interesting thoughts within the story about how much that actually matters. If you have a little kid that looks like a little kid, and acts like a little kid, and you know that it's all programming and they aren't actually real - how much does that impact your actions ?
"Rio adopts a puppy" - S.L. Huang
This is a short story set in the same world about one of the side characters. It's pretty grimdark, and I give it an honorable mention for having a title that is absolutely hilarious if you have read the other books.
"The Unquiet Past" - Kelley Armstrong
I'm not sure I remember what this one is about. I guess that automatically rates it as a 'meh'.
"Kingdom of Lies" - Debra Dunbar
Seventh book in the Imp series. They remain a good, fun read. One of the success stories of self published ebooks I think. This one has the angel of chaos paying off a debt by tracking down a experimental magical gem, while also dealing with a lot of side complications.
"Vaz", "Tiona", "Disc" - Laurence Dahners
Ok, these ones I am conflicted about. Objectively they are terribly written - the plot is absurd, the characters are all cardboard cutouts and/or ridiculous ( for example Vaz is a genius research scientist/MMA fighter/inventor/bodybuilder who is held back by his hopelessly stupid pointy haired bosses ). Despite this, I still liked them enough to read all three of them anyway. Your mileage may vary, but how often do you have books where one of the characters single-handedly declares war on North Korea ? ;p
"War Dogs" - Greg Bear
About "Skyrines" ( aka space marines ) and an ongoing war on mars. Pretty bleak, but interesting. I found it a bit trippy for my taste near the end, but liked it enough to read sequels.
"Armada" - Ernest Cline
This is like an 80s kids movie. That's probably deliberate, but that didn't make me enjoy it. For reference I enjoyed "Ready Player One", but the pop culture references worked there, here they are just gratuitous. I think I will check reviews before getting any more of his books.
"Time Salvager" - Wesly Chu
This definitely wins the award for nastiest setting this year. It's far future earth, everything has completely gone to shit and people are barely surviving by having time travellers go back in time and loot stuff ( mostly fusion generators etc ) from the past. Given the obvious logical problems with that as a solution, it was a bit of an eyeroll when the main character is shocked to find that everything isn't on the up-and-up about this setup and most of what he's been told is bullshit. It was good fun though, will read sequels.
"Silver on the Road" - Laura Ann Gilman
New series - set in early america, a young girl from the town of Flood decides to work for the devil as an enforcer and gets sent to fix a growing problem in the territory. This one was interesting, it wasn't entirely clear if the devil actually is the biblical devil or not, it is left deliberately ambiguous I think. It was a bit slow as the only downside. Will probably read sequels.
"Red Rising" - Pierce Brown
I picked this one up after "Golden Son" showed up on the nominees for goodreads fantasy of 2015 and I saw I hadn't read it. I almost didn't after seeing the cover blurb compare it to the hunger games and divergent, and was very dubious to start. This lasted for the first couple of chapters in the mine, and then went into rapid reversal after the first reveal. This was a fantastic book and I really liked it.
Setting is far future - a bunch of genetically engineered 'supermen' kicked the shit out of earth ages ago and have taken over the solar system. They are known as 'Golds' and have spread their love of genetic engineering into making a bunch of slave races designed for particular tasks. The main character is a Red - a miner, although the mining in this case is he2 mining on mas with massive mechanical drills. He gets caught up in the inevitable rebellion but not in the way I was expecting.
"Golden Son" - Pierce Brown
This was probably the best book I read last year. It's wins for best fantasy of 2015 from goodreads and amazon were well deserved I think. It's the sequel to "Red Rising", and follows immediately on from the events of that book. Without going too much into spoilers for the first book, it's mostly about conflict between the governor of mars and the monarch of the golds, as well as a bunch of feuds that get stretched to breaking point, while the red rebellion carries on in the background. Unlike Red Rising it ends with a shocker of a cliffhanger, so be aware ;p There is obviously no question I will read the last book of the trilogy, or anything else this guy puts out.
"The Fold" - Peter Clines
Genius that is wasting his potential as a school teacher is sent by his buddy in the DOD to try and get the real story on a secret government project that seems to have invented a reliable method of teleportation but are being very cagey with important details. This was enjoyable, although it was immediately obvious what was wrong with the project right from the prologue so it seems a bit unlikely that the main character takes so long to pick up on it. I liked the first part better thant he ending, which falls a bit into the "You found something great and world-changing ! but it's CURSED ! AAHAHAHAHAHAAH!" bucket that gets used way too often in science fiction/fantasy. Would probably read other books by this guy.
"The Greek Key" - K.B. Spangler
This is the author of the "A Girl and her Fed" web comic, and the previous books about Rachel Peng, the cyborg liason to the FBI. This one is about Hope Blackwell, the main character of the web comic, and I was a bit dubious about how it would work. In my opinion, Spangler is a much better author than comic writer, the Rachel Peng books are really good but are very grounded in reality, where the web comic very much is not ( main characters include Ben Franklin's ghost and a talking koala ). It actually worked really well as a book though - I liked this one a lot despite it going all-in on the crazy.
"Nemesis Games" - James S.A. Corey
Fifth book in the expanse series. I took a while to get to this one as I found the fourth book ( also known as James Holden fails to fuck everything up, to the disappointment of everyone, including the reader ) kind of boring. This one was a return to form though, and really good. The crew of the Rocinante split up to go on various errands while the Roci is being repaired from the damage done during the last book, and come together in the aftermath of some pretty catastrophic events. Each of the crew have different stories from their own viewpoint, Amos' one is particularly entertaining.
"Zero World" - Jason Hough
This one gets my award from this roundup for the most times the plot completely blindsided me. It's rare I misjudge where things are going so badly in a book, let alone repeatedly in the same book. I didn't read a lot about it beforehand which probably contributed, but I think it works well like that, so if you are interested don't read up too much beforehand ;p I look forward to any sequels that show up.
This one is about a hitman with a cybernetic brain implant that manufactures various combat drugs, but also protects client confidentiality by setting a 'checkpoint' before he accepts a contract, and then erasing his memory back to that point afterwards, so he never knows the details of jobs he's carried out. At the start of the book he gets a priority job to join the crew of a salvage ship that's heading to recover a research spaceship that has been missing under mysterious circumstances for years.
I don't have nearly as much time to read these days. I come to this thread to pick out something when its time.
Finally reading Hyperion now.
Finally reading Hyperion now.
Ukerric
Bearded Ape
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- 10,299
All of them are dancing around the elephant in the room.
Namely that jumping does not appear to be genetic but learned. Half a dozen years of being jumped around on a regular and frequent basis, and Millie learns it. Cent is, of course, exposed from infancy and but appear to starts learning at puberty when her brain is stable enough to be shaped by jumping so she does it after a few years. So, the only thing that prevents Joe from jumping is that she broke off with him fairly early. And I'm thinking that was entirely intentional from Gould's part.
Rime
<Donor>
- 2,638
- 1,612
Alternatively, it could be something in Davy's DNA. Semen/blood/saliva, which he shares with Millie and causes her to mutate/evolve/whatever the ability to jump. I really enjoyed the series, quick and easy reads, with Exo and all of the space involvement being my favorite. I am interested in seeing where he takes the series, assuming he continues it.
Need some suggestions...been reading some dregs that I got for cheap/free on Amazon and realized I need a little better writing. I'm getting sick of inconsistent characterization (Cycle of Arawn), stiff writing (Stiger's Tigers), and Supernatural Fanfic (Darkness Brutal). I think the last good fantasy book I read was The Shadow of What Was Lost by Islington. Just looking for some good engaging fantasy or sci-fi...need something to unwind from these 12 hour work days.
Rime
<Donor>
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The Broken Empire Trilogy- Good series, anti-hero and dark. Fantasy mixed with some post-apocalyptic setting. Ending falls a bit flat in my opinion (though many people love it).
The Black Company- One of my personal favorites. High/Dark fantasy primarily told from the point of view of (mostly) non-magical soldiers/marines.
Malazan, Book of the Fallen- Very long series (Main being 10 Books long). High Fantasy. Gets dark at parts. Some amazing moments in it. If you can slog through the first book, it is highly likely that the second book will have you hooked. (Chain of Dogs /weep)
Mistborn- Great worldbuilding, amazing magic system. Some interesting characters and a few twists that I did not expect.
These are probably the most popular/likely hits you will get for a Fantasy read.
Only sci-fi recommendation I could give you off of the top of my head (without bringing up the classics/shit from before the 90s) would be...
Old Man's War- Loved the first two books, later four books are good, mostly hit/miss, but did not keep me as engaged.
NOTE: I did not include ANY series that is not complete or 'closed' enough that if the Author dropped dead, you would not be left hanging.
Ukerric
Bearded Ape
- 8,322
- 10,299
Want fake fantasy? Grab the Merchant Princes series, which was reissued in omnibus form:The Bloodline Feudis the first volume, see the 3 books combo in "frequently purchased".
It's interesting because it was officially marketed as fantasy because Stross contracts were preventing him from putting out science-fiction that year, so the first 2 or 3 books were labeled "Tor - Fantasy", then they switched to "Tor - Science Fiction" on the spine. You don't see that often.
Caveat: There's a "next generation" trilogy coming out next year (or this year? Not sure) that deals with where you end up 10-15 years later. Eagerly awaiting it (Stross is one of my few authors who is on "automatic pre-order the hardcover when it appears on Amazon").
You are definitely barking up the right tree...I've devoured and loved all those series, some several times (thinking about starting Malazan for x3 if I don't find anything fresh). I don't mind waiting for books in series...I started reading GoT in 1997, and WoT in 1992. I've reached a point in my life I can't spend all night reading like I used to, so if I start several new series, I figure I will work my way through them by the time a new book comes out. Also, I really liked that new Butcher series, figure that will be a few years, though.
Just read Neil Stephenson's newest book Seveneves and I highly recommend it. It's really good scifi whose premise is What if a super dense meteor shot through our moon, causing it to shatter into seven pieces? SPOILER: all kinds of entertaining shit to read about goes down. In many futuristic sci fi books, the author gives you a quick tldr as to how things got to where they are from present day Earth. It felt like Stephenson took that tldr and made it the first 1/2 - 2/3 of the book so it kinda feels like there should be a sequel(s).