Science fiction discussion

[VeteranOfTheRetardWars]

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.

That's why I personally think sci-fi is the greatest genre of fiction, the only rule is that there are no rules.

Richard Matheson's "I am Legend" is a good one. It's the origin of all those zombie/vampire infection stories.

I second this recommendation, the movies are nothing like the book and the book is legit great. Our main character's growth and change throughout the story was handled very well, and the way he reacted to everything made sense.

 

[Old King Koaleamos]

I second this recommendation, the movies are nothing like the book and the book is legit great. Our main character's growth and change throughout the story was handled very well, and the way he reacted to everything made sense.

every adaptation of the film had Neville be changed from an everyman into some specialist.

 

[gildersleeve]

Speaking of this, I read Project Hail Mary.

The most unrealistic aspect of Project Hail Mary was building the black panels for astrophage production in the Sahara. As a part of the dialog between Strauss and the new zealander was about dealing with all the bribery and inefficiency of dealing with African states, Straus argues that the bribe will be owning the production for the most energy rich substance on the planet. And enriching them and their countries in the process to which the new zealander states something along the lines of "and singlehandedly raising all of Africa out of poverty"
Lol no. Not a snowballs chance in hell. They won't do anything with it. It'll fall apart. And Africa will be exactly in the same place it was before. That and the weather changes they were talking about like tornados in italy/changes in monsoon seasons would demand its removal. Its a throwaway line never touched on again but its dumb in the moment.

 

[VeteranOfTheRetardWars]

I’m re-reading the whole Dune series on a trip, and bro I’ll just sum up like most of the first book for you all I forgot how hilarious these books are.

Baron Harkonnen: Man I’m glad we killed all those fags. After I molest this young boy I’ll decide whether or not I want to kill my nephew.
NEXT CHAPTER
Cut to Paul tripping absolute worm dick in a tent, as he has apparently been doing for years.
Paul: Where am I in history, am I God, what year is it, how will I die, and where’s my bitch?
Paul’s bitch: Hello honey, the jihadis are ready to jihad.
Paul: Mother of my future children, I do not want a jihad. Tell the jihadis we will jihad soon, and fetch me my worm.
Paul immediately starts tweaking the fuck out again, riding a worm into the sunset looking for more people to stab.
NEXT CHAPTER
Jessica: Man I ain’t got no idea what the fuck is going on here.
Some two year old: I do.
Jessica: Shut up you’re being weird.

No wonder the Emperor was paranoid this universe is whack and I love it.

 

[Kofi Drinka]

What are the best sci fi audio books? I'm into more retro sci fi than modern but I specifically want books that are made better by the reader.

 

[Flaming Carrot]

I haven't listened to a lot of science fiction audio books, but a guy named Michael Hanson did a show on public radio called Mindwebs, and I thought he had a pretty good voice. There's a complete archive here -

https://archive.org/details/MindWebs_201410

https://archive.is/76gab

 

[crowabunga]

I couldn't keep the momentum on Stephen Baxter, but I think I found the motivation to give him a second chance.

In this episode of "I spew hot takes on 20 year old science fiction", I'll be examining Greg Egan! He's the prototype of a new atheist Redditor, or at least, that's the impression I get from "The Planck Dive." (I call him the prototype Redditor not only because he precedes them but also because I am informed that he actually grasps the science and doesn't just fellate it, which made him too expensive a template for the Redditor mass production model)

"The Planck Dive" is a short story by Greg. In it, Greg tries to explain speculative black hole physics to a stand-in for the reader in the most insufferable way possible: the reader stand-in is the rebellious traveling companion for a painfully ignorant and narcissistic parody of a classical studies enthusiast, and Greg sets up the latter to be bowled over by his entourage of rational enlightened scientists, scientists driven by naught but the thirst for knowledge, a thirst that once slaked leaves them content to fall into oblivion. Because what's the point of living once you know how the cosmos works? You probably care about unscientific things, yuck.

You might get the wrong impression of me from that diatribe: I am disgusted with humanities-departments-as-adult-daycare and the quality of "scholars" such departments produce, so it's all the more impressive that Greg has created such unsympathetic protagonists that I'm suddenly rooting for the distillation of the worst dregs of the former group as a quixotic.

Presumably Greg's other works include some positive vision for (post)human culture, of arts and values and quirks that give a raison d'etre beyond mere survival and scientific understanding. At least, I hope so. Otherwise, I fail to see how the radical transhumanist-pragmatism depicted by "The Planck Dive"'s protagonists oughtn't entail "rational" paring of emotion, and culture, and other such sloppy artefacts of hominid evolution, until naught is left but some hyperintelligent mindless thing resembling the alien from the novel Blindsight, a tide of posthuman intelligences motivated by nothing but the most computationally efficient functional reduction of the outdated homo sapiens heuristic "curiosity."

See, this problem is one that Alastair Reynolds understands. Reynolds also loves his ruthless pragmatist transhumanists, but he also loves showing how their radical transhumanist-pragmatism can be a tool for expanding cultural horizons and finding new heights of aesthetic appreciation: I quite liked the Slashers of Century Rain for being shown as capable of simulating any experience, and instead of settling with degenerate pleasures they moved past it to find new, complex aesthetics to explore; I also appreciated Redemption Ark, where Conjoiner culture is depicted as something unsettling but still a culture, more than a bughive.

Greg gave me none of that positive posthuman cultural development. Greg loves the science. Greg also gave a sneering depiction of the one character with any positive attitude towards some (bastardized, narcissistic, idiotic variant of) human culture. Ergo, I think Greg is a faggot.

TL;DR Egan was either seething over a nearby humanities department when he wrote this short story, or else he's so inept at everything other than the science that he couldn't think of a better way to introduce a sufficiently ignorant reader stand-in to explain the science to. I'm going to give Stephen Baxter another shot.

 

[Dreamland]

Anyone else read Dragon's Egg? I thought it was a pretty fascinating book. Just found out it has a sequel so I will be reading that.

I have, the second is somewhat weaker

Spoiler

why does a congress need a year to decide what to do with a de-orbiting spaceship

. But it still pretty nice.

If "strange creatures living in strange worlds" is your vibe try out Integral trees/Smoke ring and Dichronauts.

 

[DefinitelyNotMe]

yesterday i was so bored in the office that i stumbled upon a series of short stories with the whole "humans are space orcs" idea, and binged a lot of it.
most of it was written by retards however. and i dont even mean from realism standpoint, i don't have much problem having suspension of disbelief in sci-fi story.
I dont even know how to explain it other then it was written by teens.
but i like the idea of the whole "human are cosmic horrors for other races". is there any good stories with the same idea?

 

[Cnidarian]

yesterday i was so bored in the office that i stumbled upon a series of short stories with the whole "humans are space orcs" idea, and binged a lot of it.
most of it was written by retards however. and i dont even mean from realism standpoint, i don't have much problem having suspension of disbelief in sci-fi story.
I dont even know how to explain it other then it was written by teens.
but i like the idea of the whole "human are cosmic horrors for other races". is there any good stories with the same idea?

https://nightland.website/index.php/stories/night-land-stories/the-days-of-darkening/16-lute

 

[Sheriff Mike Chitwood]

a number of years ago i fell for the reading meme and i read the first dune book and i robot, and that dune book has like some weird dude who is described as a genetic eunuch and he goes to this planet so his wife can bang some dude and get inseminated. then in that i robot book the forward talks about some book series foundation or something, which apparently has a dr money-esque planet of hermaphrodites and some robot goes there to steal the body of one of em so it can feel what its like to be a human with a pussy and a dick or some sick shit.

all of these sci fi books are super woke and gay, and all of this shit was written decades ago, none of these movie studios actually have the courage to put the super woke source material like this into the movies or shows, and then people complain about a few random blacks they put in, none of the people who complain about these shows or movies have read this actual pervert shit

i started reading non fiction because the only time you will come across woke pervert shit is if you're reading an autobiography about a woke pervert

 

[Betonhaus]

yesterday i was so bored in the office that i stumbled upon a series of short stories with the whole "humans are space orcs" idea, and binged a lot of it.
most of it was written by retards however. and i dont even mean from realism standpoint, i don't have much problem having suspension of disbelief in sci-fi story.
I dont even know how to explain it other then it was written by teens.
but i like the idea of the whole "human are cosmic horrors for other races". is there any good stories with the same idea?

https://deathworlders.com/

 

[McMitch]

https://deathworlders.com/

The core aspect of HFY stories I take issue with the most is the idea the Earth is a “deathworld,” as well as that usage as an official designation in-story. It necessitates aliens to be make of glass and marshmallows while also remaining ignorant to the weather of other planets, when the conditions on Earth should largely be uniform across any life that has achieved space travel.

 

[Old King Koaleamos]

The core aspect of HFY stories I take issue with the most is the idea the Earth is a “deathworld,” as well as that usage as an official designation in-story. It necessitates aliens to be make of glass and marshmallows while also remaining ignorant to the weather of other planets, when the conditions on Earth should largely be uniform across any life that has achieved space travel.

I like the clarification in some settings, like Saberhagen's "Berserker" is that humans have kept their warlike nature long enough to be able to lead the fight against the Berserkers.

 

[Betonhaus]

The core aspect of HFY stories I take issue with the most is the idea the Earth is a “deathworld,” as well as that usage as an official designation in-story. It necessitates aliens to be make of glass and marshmallows while also remaining ignorant to the weather of other planets, when the conditions on Earth should largely be uniform across any life that has achieved space travel.

You might be surprised to find that the reason why that is gets covered in the series. Basically an AI species monitors the galaxy for intelligent life and finds ways to neuter or destroy them, but earth got missed.

 

[McMitch]

I like the clarification in some settings, like Saberhagen's "Berserker" is that humans have kept their warlike nature long enough to be able to lead the fight against the Berserkers.

You might be surprised to find that the reason why that is gets covered in the series. Basically an AI species monitors the galaxy for intelligent life and finds ways to neuter or destroy them, but earth got missed.

These provide reasons inherent to humanity which are more tolerable, whereas the issue I have is stories where humanity surviving hurricanes or deserts or snow is what makes humans special.

 

[DefinitelyNotMe]

The core aspect of HFY stories I take issue with the most is the idea the Earth is a “deathworld,” as well as that usage as an official designation in-story. It necessitates aliens to be make of glass and marshmallows while also remaining ignorant to the weather of other planets, when the conditions on Earth should largely be uniform across any life that has achieved space travel.

i like more the other flavor of HFY
it's when human seen as special because of how active our bodies are. we are constantly warm, constantly moving, constantly making sound and constantly thinking, which would make overwhelming for other races to even look at us. not to mention that human body produces drugs that it injects in itself and spewing hormones around itself, and unprepared mind can just get addicted to being around a human.
you know kinda how we describe our eldritch horrors, just swap mind control and addiction part.

 

[copy_my_floppy]

snowcrash and altered carbon

Already read Snow Crash back in the day, have not read Altered Carbon, thx for rec

Loved Snow Crash, it is 100% a product of it's time, 1992, but that said, it did scratch that itch that I wanted. The ending left so much to be desired, but how are you supposed to end a story like that.
Love the tie-in of mythology and thriller elements.

 

[Sweeter and Savoury]

ugh I just finished Blindsight last night because people just would not shut up about it...and it was free.

It's...good and all but damn is it dark. Like after putting it down I needed a drink of good scotch. That end is bleak as all hell and what the author states about intelligence and the universe makes enough sense to give me chills.

So yah read it but it's not a fun ride. I'm a need something a little more light now to balance things out.

 

[Old King Koaleamos]

ugh I just finished Blindsight last night because people just would not shut up about it...and it was free.

It's...good and all but damn is it dark. Like after putting it down I needed a drink of good scotch. That end is bleak as all hell and what the author states about intelligence and the universe makes enough sense to give me chills.

So yah read it but it's not a fun ride. I'm a need something a little more light now to balance things out.

Something fun and light? I'd love to recommend Keith Laumer or Harry Harrison.