Science fiction discussion

[2mm and 99 others]

I have a public list of what's in my physical library somewhere, and several people already contacted me if I can sell them my copy of Perdido street station or The scar. So, they are hard to get, apparently (at least in my language).
Afaik, Miéville got cancelled for extensive manwhoring, likely he had deceived someone too influential. But even before that happened, the short stories in the collection Three moments of explosion seem to me incoherent and unfinished, as if he was trying what he can get away with and no one had read it before publishing. Like, that couldn't be the same guy who wrote Perdido street station.

 

[teriyakiburns]

the short stories in the collection Three moments of explosion seem to me incoherent and unfinished, as if he was trying what he can get away with and no one had read it before publishing. Like, that couldn't be the same guy who wrote Perdido street station.

Knowing his politics, he likely wrote them that way deliberately, as a sort of dada-esque deconstruction style thing. Either that or he threw it together for a quick payday.

 

[Old King Koaleamos]

So, I've finished some old SF. Leigh Brackett's Starmen of Llyrdis and Frederik Pohl's Plague of Pythons. I've noticed that both, while not the best books, executed everything pretty well.

TBR SF List for the next year's worth.

• Vance's third and fourth Dying Earth books
• Retief! by Laumer (omnibus)
• Dune
• Neuromancer
• A Canticle for Leibowitz
• Ellison's Greatest Hits
• Stand on Zanzibar
• Solaris
• Inverted World
• Downward to the Earth
• Body Snatchers
• Ubik
• Chronopolis (Ballard)

 

[McMitch]

So I've been getting into the "Humans are space orcs" genre of internet scifi, mostly because it has quick and easy readings on Youtube, perfect for powering through when running the dog. The problem is: the base concept is Reddit as fuck, relying on information gleaned form pop-science listicles and reusing the same tropes ad-infinitum. Everything has "class 69 Deathworld" and all the other intelligent species are prey species made of glass who measure a species' technological ability by measuring how long it took to get to space starting from "when the species first evolved" (a fucking retarded metric that has no objective start point; Animorphs has the best standard of time from heavier-than-air flight as a starting metric).

But I like the core concept: taking elements that elevated humanity as the apex species and applying it to an interplanetary (just make it intergalactic, life in general is probably rare enough to require it and you're already dealing with FTL travel) confederation of species.

It's too bad science fiction has been thoroughly hijacked by writers who struggle to reach top of the bell curve.

 

[teriyakiburns]

The problem is: the base concept is Reddit as fuck,

Which you can tell from the popular name of the genre: Humanity, Fuck Yeah!

It's great as fantastic wish fulfilment, but so much of it strays into bizarre, ever-escalating power fantasies. I like the basic concept, that humans have a physical endurance far beyond most other species, and an ability to cooperate at scale and kludge together dakka in the face of a threat, but as you say, so much of what gets written in the genre just turns to retardation.

My favourite of the genre is Turtledove's The Road Not Taken, the ur-example that everyone tries (and usually fails) to emulate, whether they know it or not, and its sequel Herbig-Haro, which turns the tables.

 

[Sweeter and Savoury]

'Dune' is an insufferable book about arabs in space
There is a different fauna presented in the book, so instead of a goat fucking MC does worm riding

Hard Sci-fi is even more insufferable. It is mostly written by high functioning autists who believe in space, atoms, trains and shit. It's mostly filled with reddit-speak and these books' characters are mostly redditors.

I'd recommend pushing on. Dune is mostly world building, shit doesn't really get good and deep until Messiah then goes of the deep end in God Emperor.

GEoD is probably one of my all time favorite books but you gotta think about what Leto is saying and doing. It's something you'll read and then days later figure out

Leto is both one of the most awesome villains in a novel and the most powerless one, both at the same time.

Plus Ducan, you get a lot more Duncan Idaho to help ground the story as Duncan is both the youngest and most naive character and also the oldest and wisest one. Herbert loves his contradictions.

plus if you can find the Sci-Fi channel adaption somewhere it's pretty damn good as long as you keep in mind it was made in the 90s. And I'm not just saying that because I'd give my left nut to to nail the actress who plays adult Alia

Hell I'd give both my nuts, it'd be worth it.



Oops got sidetracked by my dick there a bit

I'd recommend the Hyperion Cantos and the Gripping Hand. Both are follow up novels to pretty good books that turned out better then the entry book. Both are pretty hard SF and it's hard to find a more interesting protagonist then His Excellency Sir Horce Bury

 

[BABANGUIDE64]

I'd recommend pushing on. Dune is mostly world building, shit doesn't really get good and deep until Messiah then goes of the deep end in God Emperor.

GEoD is probably one of my all time favorite books but you gotta think about what Leto is saying and doing. It's something you'll read and then days later figure out

Leto is both one of the most awesome villains in a novel and the most powerless one, both at the same time.

Plus Ducan, you get a lot more Duncan Idaho to help ground the story as Duncan is both the youngest and most naive character and also the oldest and wisest one. Herbert loves his contradictions.

plus if you can find the Sci-Fi channel adaption somewhere it's pretty damn good as long as you keep in mind it was made in the 90s. And I'm not just saying that because I'd give my left nut to to nail the actress who plays adult Alia

Hell I'd give both my nuts, it'd be worth it.



Oops got sidetracked by my dick there a bit

I'd recommend the Hyperion Cantos and the Gripping Hand. Both are follow up novels to pretty good books that turned out better then the entry book. Both are pretty hard SF and it's hard to find a more interesting protagonist then His Excellency Sir Horce Bury

I dunno about Dune, I just couldn't stand it, but I really liked the first book of Hyperion Cantos (I read two of this tetralogy almost ten years ago or so).

 

[Old King Koaleamos]

So I've been getting into the "Humans are space orcs" genre of internet scifi, mostly because it has quick and easy readings on Youtube, perfect for powering through when running the dog. The problem is: the base concept is Reddit as fuck, relying on information gleaned form pop-science listicles and reusing the same tropes ad-infinitum. Everything has "class 69 Deathworld" and all the other intelligent species are prey species made of glass who measure a species' technological ability by measuring how long it took to get to space starting from "when the species first evolved" (a fucking retarded metric that has no objective start point; Animorphs has the best standard of time from heavier-than-air flight as a starting metric).

But I like the core concept: taking elements that elevated humanity as the apex species and applying it to an interplanetary (just make it intergalactic, life in general is probably rare enough to require it and you're already dealing with FTL travel) confederation of species.

It's too bad science fiction has been thoroughly hijacked by writers who struggle to reach top of the bell curve.

I think what's kinda wild to me is how the older mid-late 20th century generation of SF writers were just so capable. I mean, Harry Harrison wasn't someone you'd praise for raw skill, but he was able to effectively entertain with all his pulp and satire. Hell, "Make Room, Make Room!" became Soylent Green (the film) and that's been kind of a famous dystopian future movie. What just keeps me enjoying that long stretch of sci-fi from the 20th century is the sheer variety. There's something for every mood, every variation, every level of read one could want. Want pessimistic speculation on the future? John Brunner's there. Want something classic with lots of puzzle/mystery elements? Asimov exists. Want something written by a philosopher that wanted to explore grand ideas and philosophy through sci-fi? Olaf Stapledon's still heralded as the bar to beat. God knows there's all sorts of subgenres from Time Travel, Alt-history, Sword and Planet, Space Opera, Military SF, Anthropological SF, and so on.

Modern science fiction seems to be limited to like, maybe a dozen competent writers that are active. All of which seem to be in their 50s or older.

Which you can tell from the popular name of the genre: Humanity, Fuck Yeah!

It's great as fantastic wish fulfilment, but so much of it strays into bizarre, ever-escalating power fantasies. I like the basic concept, that humans have a physical endurance far beyond most other species, and an ability to cooperate at scale and kludge together dakka in the face of a threat, but as you say, so much of what gets written in the genre just turns to retardation.

My favourite of the genre is Turtledove's The Road Not Taken, the ur-example that everyone tries (and usually fails) to emulate, whether they know it or not, and its sequel Herbig-Haro, which turns the tables.

There's a lot of subsets of this. I guess you could maybe pin some blame on John W. Campbell forcing the '40s SF writers at Astounding Science Fiction to always depict humanity triumphing over aliens.

My other issue in all this is that a lot of contemporary popular genre writing, webnovels and light novels and etc. included, just don't know how to really keep that balance. If someone just took the vibe of Conan the Barbarian and threw it into a filthy and grungy sci-fi alien world, that'd probably work out way better for my taste.

I kinda wish we had a sort of modern equivalent to Michael Crichton. He counts as SF, but he also took stuff that felt theoretically possible and expanded on it. I don't hear about this kinda stuff anymore.

 

[>IMPLYING]

Finished Children of Time. Took me way too long to do so but that wasn't a problem of the book. I read the first half in one sitting, then the last quarters a week apart from each other.

Overall, I enjoyed it. I think in the end I slightly preferred the human chapters but I liked seeing the uplifted society develop and change in what was a relatively (to the humans) a small amount of time. I felt the ending was a tad rushed and although they did technically set up the capability of carrying out said ending far earlier in the story, it still felt like bit of an asspull as a result. Knowing the series is a trilogy I was guessing the story would go in a radically different direction than it did but I'm always pleasantly surprised when I'm able to not predict the ending, but that can be a double-edged sword (too predictable vs. trying too hard to subvert expectations, etcetera). Apparently you ought to give some time before reading the sequel or something, I don't know though.

I feel like a way you can tell the ending was rushed is the fact Tchaikovsky just straight up head jumps into another character's POV mid-human-chapter, which he only does for one chapter near the end. Also he chucks in the potential plot of a virus by Vitas which felt like the hook to something but it never sees fruition. Lots of things were also bypassed, such as getting Kern into the living computer mind, Holsten's great-great-great granddaughter, lack of filling in the gaps between the ship landing and the ending, and so on. I still regard it positively but I feel like the story should've ended on the cliff-hanger of Kern telling the Spiders that the Gilgamesh was coming, and end on something touching and sombre with Holsten climbing into his pod after saying one final goodbye to Lain. There was so much stuff that could've been done in-between. I would've preferred the Spiders and Humans learn to communicate and gradually live alongside each other naturally rather than just get vax'd into being all kumbaya. That was probably my biggest disappointment honestly. I would've rather they landed planet side, had some conflict, and learned to communicate; I'm picturing Holsten doing so covertly with another covert actor on the spider's side to try and bring the conflict to an end, but from the way the story ended I think the Spider's would've been too overwhelming numbers-wise planet side — mostly by sending swarms of ants.

Still a good read though.

Karst was best character.

I'll see what Tchaikovsky's other works are like. I did start Shards of Earth but I'm kind of wary of continuing for some reason.

 

[Randall Fragg]

Please recommend me cyberpunk literature (besides Neuromancer because I've already read that scads of times and loved it).

Hardwired is great pulpy cyberpunk. I just finished reading it and I actually liked it better than Neuromancer. It was a major inspiration for the original Cyberpunk TTRPG.

Spoiler

It also predicted troons. In an early chapter, one of the characters assassinates a rich executive who uploaded himself into a female body to live out his fetishes

 

[crowabunga]

I've been spending my recent evenings building model kits and listening to interviews with Sci-Fi authors. I had no idea Jerry Pournelle was so based. In some ways he reminds me of both my grandfather, and great-grandfather (or at least, what my grandpa's told me of the latter).

 

[Old King Koaleamos]

https://youtube.com/watch?v=F1dPkUcgjB8I've been spending my recent evenings building model kits and listening to interviews with Sci-Fi authors. I had no idea Jerry Pournelle was so based. In some ways he reminds me of both my grandfather, and great-grandfather (or at least, what my grandpa's told me of the latter).

A lot of the older ones are quite interesting. Frederick Pohl has a surprising amount of interviews and shit if you can find them as he was a regular on some radio talk shows in the 70s. He also had a blog and whatnot. So did Alexei Panshin.

Of course, Asimov/Clarke/Heinlein/Bradbury had a fair amount of interviews as the big names. Vonnegut/le Guin/Frank Herbert too. Don't think Philip K. Dick has a lot.

Beyond them, YMMV. Guys like Harry Harrison and Philip Jose Farmer were around for a very long time and probably have plenty. Robert Silverberg's still alive and has done plenty of interviewing and blogging. Harlan Ellison also had quite an internet footprint with his youtube channel too!

I hear Dan Simmons and Orson Scott Card are quieter these days but there's definitely stuff from the early internet. Larry Niven might have some stuff but I'm not too sure.

 

[crowabunga]

I'm trying out Stephen Baxter, starting with "Creation Node": I've preferred standalone novels to narratively contiguous series for every other author I've read so far, so despite the reputation of the Xeelee Sequence I figured avoiding it was the best way for me to get a flattering impression of Baxter's authorship.

Gee, Baxter sure ain't into foreplay.

Banks, Pournelle/Niven, Reynolds, Vinge, Lem, pretty much everyone I've read in the last couple years will at least put some setting or character or mood establishing padding between me and the high-concept gimmick. Baxter slams "woman detects mysterious structured signals in a black Hole's Hawking Radiation" down on the table within the first page.

I'm intrigued to see if he can keep up the pace with that kind of opening.

 

[plgfarts]

I started A Canticle for Leibowitz a day or so ago. I've always been a science fiction fan, but lately have been reading more of the post-apocalyptic subgenre. My favorite thing about these stories is the concept of humankind forgetting what exactly happened (or why, or even who did what), and the different lore and myths that are passed down through the ages. So far, I find this story to be exactly what I like. I don't consider this a spoiler by any means (because it happens in the first few pages), but the main character being afraid of "Fallouts" is perfect. He views them as some kind of monster, something that was created in a great cleansing fire a long time ago.

I've also been listening to the Helldiver series while at work. I'm on book three. Reminds me a bit of BSG, what with the last of humanity being sequestered to life aboard a ship for hundreds of years. Same kind of thing in that book (although mankind has not forgotten nearly as much, just who started the war and why). They are kind of slop, but enjoyable slop and takes away from the drudgery of my job.

I'll take any post-apocalypse science fiction recommendations.

The problem is: the base concept is Reddit as fuck

Speaking of this, I read Project Hail Mary. Good fucking lord that was the most insufferable main character in any book I've ever read. He is Reddit IFLS incarnate. The science of the book was neat, the concept of what transpires is cool, but the main characters reactions to everything happening around him made me want to jump into his ship and call him a faggot.

 

[McMitch]

I started A Canticle for Leibowitz

Miller did post-nuclear fiction first and none has done it better since. A major part in this is because it’s not just escapism or a poorly disguised political screed but a character study of what is really an analogue to post-Roman Europe. Everything about it is top writing, one of my top 5. The sequel is okay but he wrote it while having the very crisis of faith that drive him to suicide, and you can tell the exact moment the book switches to his notes.

I'll take any post-apocalypse science fiction recommendations.

The Postman by David Brin is pretty good. It’s mostly a rejection of the second Mad Max. Find a copy printed before 2020 because he pulled a Stephen King and tried updating the dates in it to negative effect.

Speaking of this, I read Project Hail Mary. Good fucking lord that was the most insufferable main character in any book I've ever read. He is Reddit IFLS incarnate. The science of the book was neat, the concept of what transpires is cool, but the main characters reactions to everything happening around him made me want to jump into his ship and call him a faggot.

Weir hit big with The Martian whose main selling point was being hard enough sci fi that NASA thought he had an insider giving him secrets. It’s telling he only has one other notable book a full decade later in a genre notorious for producing the most prolific writers in the English language. But that was still 2011 before media shifted from being incompetently bad to maliciously bad.

 

[Old King Koaleamos]

I started A Canticle for Leibowitz a day or so ago. I've always been a science fiction fan, but lately have been reading more of the post-apocalyptic subgenre. My favorite thing about these stories is the concept of humankind forgetting what exactly happened (or why, or even who did what), and the different lore and myths that are passed down through the ages. So far, I find this story to be exactly what I like. I don't consider this a spoiler by any means (because it happens in the first few pages), but the main character being afraid of "Fallouts" is perfect. He views them as some kind of monster, something that was created in a great cleansing fire a long time ago.

So, post-nuclear apocalypse fiction has been done, but it took forever to coalesce into Fallout. I'd wager you do have some good options for similar stories. However, I'm going to recommend the Walter M. Miller Jr.-edited Anthology from the mid 1980s, "Beyond Armageddon" as it solely deals with these types of tales and Miller does a good job in selecting stories and giving commentary as an editor. It's got a hell of a variety of writers, from Lucas Shepard, Harlan Ellison, and Edgar Pangborn.

Aside from these, there's also Fred Saberhagen's Empire of the East trilogy of the 1970s which is a sort of science fantasy set in the far far aftermath of a post-apocalyptic nuclear-capable world. It's very sword and sorcery influenced.

I've also been listening to the Helldiver series while at work. I'm on book three. Reminds me a bit of BSG, what with the last of humanity being sequestered to life aboard a ship for hundreds of years. Same kind of thing in that book (although mankind has not forgotten nearly as much, just who started the war and why). They are kind of slop, but enjoyable slop and takes away from the drudgery of my job.

I'll take any post-apocalypse science fiction recommendations.


Speaking of this, I read Project Hail Mary. Good fucking lord that was the most insufferable main character in any book I've ever read. He is Reddit IFLS incarnate. The science of the book was neat, the concept of what transpires is cool, but the main characters reactions to everything happening around him made me want to jump into his ship and call him a faggot.

Okay, let's see

• Richard Matheson's "I am Legend" is a good one. It's the origin of all those zombie/vampire infection stories.
• J.G. Ballard has a quartet of these "disaster" novels from the 1960s. The Drowned World, The Crystal World, The Burning World, The Wind from Nowhere.
• John Brunner has his "Quartet of Rome" books that deal with more dystopian speculative stuff that could be considered apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic in a sense.

This guy has some good videos on speculative fiction and pulp fiction.

You sound like someone who'd like the Dying Earth subgenre. Try Jack Vance's Dying Earth books, Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique tales, and maybe even go for Hodgson's The Night Land or Wolfe's Book of the New Sun. Good Luck!

Miller did post-nuclear fiction first and none has done it better since. A major part in this is because it’s not just escapism or a poorly disguised political screed but a character study of what is really an analogue to post-Roman Europe. Everything about it is top writing, one of my top 5. The sequel is okay but he wrote it while having the very crisis of faith that drive him to suicide, and you can tell the exact moment the book switches to his notes.


The Postman by David Brin is pretty good. It’s mostly a rejection of the second Mad Max. Find a copy printed before 2020 because he pulled a Stephen King and tried updating the dates in it to negative effect.


Weir hit big with The Martian whose main selling point was being hard enough sci fi that NASA thought he had an insider giving him secrets. It’s telling he only has one other notable book a full decade later in a genre notorious for producing the most prolific writers in the English language. But that was still 2011 before media shifted from being incompetently bad to maliciously bad.

The sequel should be considered an unfinished draft.

Brin seems cool, but I hear he's kinda nuts now.


Weir is in a weird position as one of the last relevant SF writers from when mainstream media went from rolling down a hill to jumping off a steep cliff.

 

[ChampFantana]

I'll take any post-apocalypse science fiction recommendations.

The Deathlands series by Jack Adrian/James Axler (Pen names for a number of different authors) is dumb as a sack of bricks, but damned if it ain't also a lot of fun.

 

[Boy_Blunder]

Hodgson's The Night Land

Someone might be tempted to post about Night Land Retold. I'll preempt them by telling you that anyone that does this is not literate, and probably isn't even white.

 

[Old King Koaleamos]

Someone might be tempted to post about Night Land Retold. I'll preempt them by telling you that anyone that does this is not literate, and probably isn't even white.

I don't listen to niggers.

They'll probably try to recommend that 1984 retelling from Julia's perspective.

 

[General Emílio Médici]

I found that The Postman movie was actually superior to The Postman book. Not gonna give any spoilers, but the book feels rushed and incomplete with some of the more sci-fi elements being particularly bad in this regard and one piece of social commentary by the author... it's not even cringy or woke but so underbaked I can't even properly give a opinion on it since it went nowhere.