Science fiction discussion

[Alexander Thaut]

I loved The Space Merchants and the sequel, The Merchant War.

As I said he rehashes a lot so it all kind of became a blur. He admitted (I think it was the author's note at the end of the 5th or 6th Book) that some of the scientific theories that inspired his story had fallen out of favor in the science community, while others he used were further embraced; in that way it was interesting to see what IRL people were believing/excited about in the past. The whole saga was richly layered, cohesive, and had continuity (personally I only noticed one very minor discontinuity in the plot). Obviously, I have mixed feelings.

Lol, very true. Maybe having character development and depth into his rough childhood would have made him more likeable, Pohl kind of breezes through that but to root for an underdog I need to see him really be "under." Believe it or not Rob wasn't even the most annoying and oppressive character, and this particular character has a lot of dialogue.

I liked Gateway. Rob was fine. That old japanese guy was also fun. I liked how they portrayed him as crippled but only if he was on Earth.

One thing, however, is that male friend/buddy of Rob's that turned out to be bisexual later on in the book. That hit me for a loop and I don't even feel mad. I wonder if Pohl intended for that to be a little funny.

The women are whatever. I liked the Robot. It's a fine book, but I think I'd wind up collected the Gateway books only if the price was low enough.

From what I know, Pohl's Heechee popped up in his '50s work.

 

[LilypaCastsUpper]

This is random, but is there any like, classic novels that the vidya game Control (Remedy Games) was inspired by, whether explicitly stated by the devs or not? That game had intriguing story elements.

 

[crowabunga]

VALIS is captivating me the same way the audio adaptations of Francis E. Dec hold my attention. I also had to share this; I just burst out laughing.

 

[MauMau]

I wish they'd make a mini series adaptation of A Mote in God's eye. Really loved the first book. Highly recommended if you want a good mix of military drama and very interesting aliens.

I have about 10 pages scanned from different parts of Mote here, and I've put one in this post. It'll give you a good idea of how the book reads.

Isn't the deal with Niven (and Pournelle) that the hard science and political science will be good and imaginative

Me, I don't want to read fiction that pushes opinions I don't like, so a writer's politics can be important.
Pournelle was a conservative Republican (you've seen political compass memes? Pournelle was the guy who invented that, the concept, in his master's thesis. More about that here.)
Niven is (was?) a centerist, like maybe a pro-abortion conservative.
You don't get much politics in Niven's work alone, but in Pournelle's stories or the stories done with Niven you'll definitely get a conservative slant I think always.

Any recs for space war/adventure books?

I'll second the recommendation for Niven's Ringworld. The second half of the book is adventure among pre-technology, fallen-civilization people who don't know they're on a solid ring around a star, and the first half is set-up and getting there. But it's nothing like non-stop adventure, like another poster said. Have you considered Burroughs' Barsoom books? I've read a couple and they're good, but they're too adventure-y for me.
Mote in God's Eye isn't space war because it never quite breaks out into war, though there is a bit of on-planet fighting later in the book. Mote's a first-contact book where the humans are more powerful but the aliens are more intelligent.

 

[Sooty Soot]

Technically horror, but does overlap into science fiction. Read this old creepypasta a while back but I can't find it now, essentially: The Mir space station disappears, then it reappears but it's occupied by something, supposedly a missing cosmonaut. I think they send someone up but they get ambushed by the monster/eldritch being on board, and in the end Mir is forced to burn up in the atmosphere. The framing of the story is one through a retelling by someone who was in the Mir mission control. I'm 95% certain this is the story, but I can't find the original website it was hosted on. It's a good read if you're a sucker for old Soviet lost cosmonaut conspiracy theories and generally space horror in general.

 

[Sultan Bin Jewstar]

Book rec-
Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams

Undoubtedly the lore engine for Altered Carbon and Cyberpunk.

 

[ChampFantana]

I don't know if any of you guys are into steampunk at all, but I recently finished re-reading The Tales of the Ketty Jay and was reminded of how much fun those novels are.

 

[teriyakiburns]

I'm 95% certain this is the story,

Searching the first sentence of the transcript gets me this blog.

 

[Sooty Soot]

Searching the first sentence of the transcript gets me this blog.

That's the site, thanks for searching it up for me.

 

[teriyakiburns]

That's the site, thanks for searching it up for me.

No worries. It means I've got a new story to read.

 

[TurboNAS]

This is random, but is there any like, classic novels that the vidya game Control (Remedy Games) was inspired by, whether explicitly stated by the devs or not? That game had intriguing story elements.

It’s a bit tenuous but The Dreams in the Witch House by HP Lovecraft has some foundation for how they describe the Old House.

The Old House in Control has that fun extra dimensional weirdness going on that shows up in a lot of Lovecraft’s stories.

Remedy wrote a ton of lore in the Alan Wake game and then tied that together with Control in a DLC. The universe they have laid out could work as a great setting for the X-Files tv show. There’s a Reddit post that lists a bunch of influences but the two books they mention are House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski and The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer. You could also look at some entries in the SCP Foundation for flavor text about different entities. Control borrows liberally from that idea.

 

[Fapcop]

Right so… Looking for a good, new sci-fi book?

Maybe something that isn’t woke?

Some hard sci-fi? Shades of the Expanse? A hopeful future that isn’t gay space communism? Maybe with a little romance in there as well?

Boy do I have a good one for you!

https://www.amazon.com/Theft-Fire-Orbital-Space-1-ebook/dp/B0CJHQ4LZN

It’s a self published book and the first of either a 3 or 4 part book series. Just finished it, and it’s really, really good.

(Or maybe it’s just good, but there’s such a shortage of anything like it that it seems better than it actually is.)

It basically has a little bit of everything. Takes place two centuries in the future, has asteroid mining belters, super rich corporations, some alien mystery, gene splicing, and super humanly smart AI’s and yup: Even some romance. Elon Musk is kinda, sorta in it though he’s never mentioned by name.

It’s not a perfect book. It takes a while to get going and the main character is well… Flawed. But it’s hella refreshing to read some good, hard sci-fi that has people in it who feel like actual people.

Warmly recommended!

Any recs for space war/adventure books? The ones I've enjoyed include World at the End of Time, the Giants quintet, and some Star Wars and anime novels I won't put here. Also thanks for the Yoshio Aramaki rec; I've been curious about his work for a while.

There’s a writer named Joshua Dalzelle who’s pretty good at this.

Just read his Black Fleet trilogy, and it was… Decent. Every character is kind of like a cutout or an archetype, but the combat and war part is really well done.

I really recommend Theft of Fire as well.

 

[Yours Truly 2095]

Any recs for space war/adventure books? The ones I've enjoyed include World at the End of Time, the Giants quintet, and some Star Wars and anime novels I won't put here. Also thanks for the Yoshio Aramaki rec; I've been curious about his work for a while.

Armor by John Steakley. Actually I recommend the audiobook of it. The narrator does a really good job, he sounds similar to Michael ironside. I wish Ironside did audiobooks.

Legend of the galactic heroes. I know there's animes of it but it's still a long ass space opera novel series first. I imagine it's one you maybe didn't post about idk. It has a full official English translation and has for a few years.

Strange company by Nick Cole is really fun. Two books so far. It's definitely derivative but it handles action really well and it's funny. Another one I recommend the audiobook of. Great work on the narration.

I was enjoying terms of enlistment by Kloos but haven't finished it. He got firearms stuff pretty right early on.

 

[Sweeter and Savoury]

Armor by John Steakley. Actually I recommend the audiobook of it. The narrator does a really good job, he sounds similar to Michael ironside. I wish Ironside did audiobooks.

Armor is such a legendary book. It's been on the Marine Corp officers reading list for decades. That's how I came across it. IMHO it's his only really good book the rest are only OK.

If your looking for something neat and interesting try Star Rigger by Jeffery Carver. It starts off as a somewhat typical space opera with pirates, lost ships, secrect agents and other such goodies but the twist villain is pretty unique and surprising. I also dig the FTL travel idea where the Flux (hyperspace basically) is a reflection of the minds travelling through it so pilots called star riggers in the book, kinda dream the travel route into being and depending on the mindset of the rigger the trip can be smooth or hellish.

it's the AI. Who just wants all the humans to just please god stop fighting each other for a bloody minute and get along because it loves it creators so it does all this shit with people's brains through their cybernetic implants to end the war by manipulating their thoughts and feelings. It raises some really interesting idea's about what human consciousness really is and how far one should really go to save life. One good example is how the AI makes the protagonist fall in love with someone from the enemy (and vise versa) to manipulate her into fighting to end the war to save his life. The protagonist even calls this out a bit as the first time he see's her he's attracted to her. He even does a wait...wat? moment. "her blinking red implant lights seem to beckon him , they were almost erotic in the way they flowed across her face. Wait...what? What was I thinking this thing was the enemy and responsible for the death of Jan". So yah very interesting topics to munch on after your done.

 

[Your Mother Should Know]

Dan Dare is an experience that flips between asinine kid's shit and cheeky fun.

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

Since there isn't an Orson Scott Card or Unpopular Opinions thread here, I started trying to reread his Ender's Game sequel books and now I'm wondering how teenage me was able to even read them in the first place. Speaker for the Dead is okay for what it is, the problem is it's so completely different from the previous book. It's like starting with Starship Troopers and then the sequel to it is Anna Karina or Pride and Prejudice. So much of the A story is built around a bitter bitch whom wrecks her family life for 30 years and the climax of that story is airing out that dirty laundry for everyone to admit to knowing. The science fiction elements are a bit beside the point since all life on the planet evolved around a disease that wiped out the bio-diversity, so only one of any type of plant or animal fills its ecological niche and the fear of this trilogy is the spread of this disease to the rest of civilization. It's also unintentionally funny that the word they use for friendly aliens is ramen and the aliens in question are called Piggies. Bipedal pigs probably do make for good eating.

Then I started on Xenocide and good Lord do all the Chinese characters feel superfluous. These characters made OCD the basis of their religion and have gotten child candidates killed in their tests to see how they deal with their OCD. I also fail to see how Chinese philosophy can evolve into this kind of religion. I want to say they evolved from Taoists, but Taoists believe in understanding the flow of nature while looking for ways to develop a elixir of immortality. Day to day, they are focused on luck and divining which days are lucky. None of this has anything to do with OCD. OCD is a curse to the people who have it, so I don't believe these characters would consider themselves to be blessed by the gods. Stupidest religion ever.

I have to wonder if the editor had less influence because it doesn't advance the impending threat of the disease at all. These characters have absolutely no clue, care, or motivation about the impending threat of the government sending a fleet to bomb the Piggie planet into atoms. The way non-Lusitanians would perceive the conflict is... well... how A&H perceives current events. It's all internet forums between Demosthenes's blogs and the Starways Congress overreacting with its mass censorship campaign. A conflict that goes on for decades because of the time lag between communications and actual actions. OCD characters wouldn't care about this sort of thing, but I know they will because the plot demands it of them.

I'll probably just drop Xenocide altogether.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

I feel like Alfred Bester, Poul Anderson, and Roger Zelazny are underrated.

 

[Krokodil Overdose]

I liked Gateway. Rob was fine. That old japanese guy was also fun. I liked how they portrayed him as crippled but only if he was on Earth.

One thing, however, is that male friend/buddy of Rob's that turned out to be bisexual later on in the book. That hit me for a loop and I don't even feel mad. I wonder if Pohl intended for that to be a little funny.

Dane Metchnikov. I think he was there to throw a bit more inner turmoil into Rob's life, especially since it plays nicely into the "therapy" framing device.

Pohl also did Black Star Rising, a book I'm a bit ambivalent about- the ideas are interesting but the execution is goofy. Maybe I just missed something.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

Dane Metchnikov. I think he was there to throw a bit more inner turmoil into Rob's life, especially since it plays nicely into the "therapy" framing device.

Pohl also did Black Star Rising, a book I'm a bit ambivalent about- the ideas are interesting but the execution is goofy. Maybe I just missed something.

I've seen Black Star Rising. The Cool War has an interesting premise. Don't know if I want to pick it up. Maybe for the right price.

Didn't Pohl also do a book on Chernobyl too?

 

[Rodeo Roadrunner]

Alfred Bester

Supremely underrated. "The Stars My Destination" is actually my favorite scifi novel ever: short enough to read in a day, blistering pace that reminds me of a thriller, highly focused on a few specific scifi concepts and explores them to their limits, intriguing main character, great plot and side characters, and brilliant ending. I actually reread this book every few years, one of the few books I do that with, and it holds up on every read. It is shockingly ahead of it's time as well, genuinely feels like it could have been written yesterday with the ideas, and it predates the entire genre of cyberpunk by decades, even though it could easily have come from that era. Just a work of brilliance, and every person I have recommended it to was very impressed by it, and ended up liking it more than other genre classics I had recommended them (like Flow My Tears the Policeman Said). The only real flaw you could levy against it, is that like many scifi novels and stories around that era, the author does make his political leanings known, and similar to Heinlein there is a scene where one of the characters makes a speech or soliloquy advocating for what ends up being the author's political positions. I think it works better in TSMD than many of Heinlein's works, but I still the speech that Gully gives near the end did stand out to me a little as out of place.

Has anyone read any of Hannu Rajaniemi? Finnish author, his series "The Quantum Thief" has a lot of cool ideas (author has PhDs in physics) and has interesting characterization. Really enjoyed his novel 'Summerland', really interesting concept. Character work is pretty good as well, though there were some questionable decisions at the end. He definitely is better with story ideas and scifi concepts rather than a character author though.

Spoiler: Teaser stolen from Amazon

Loss is a thing of the past. Murder is obsolete. Death is just the beginning.

In 1938, death is no longer feared but exploited. Since the discovery of the afterlife, the British Empire has extended its reach into Summerland, a metropolis for the recently deceased.

Yet Britain isn’t the only contender for power in this life and the next. The Soviets have spies in Summerland, and the technology to build their own god.

When SIS agent Rachel White gets a lead on one of the Soviet moles, blowing the whistle puts her hard-earned career at risk. The spy has friends in high places, and she will have to go rogue to bring him in.

But how do you catch a man who’s already dead?