The Kiwifarms Unofficial Sci-Fi/Fantasy Book Club

[RodgerDodger]

Ver archivo adjunto 9082063
The vote has wrapped up, and the winner is Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett.
Looking forward to this one, Discworld is legendary for a reason and, come to think of it, this is our first book that’s very much fantasy as opposed to very much sci-fi.

Good choice. Diskworld is great. The Watch books are the best of that. And Guards Guards is a contender for best in series.

 

[Betonhaus]

The Audiobooks have a great voice for Death, so much so that books with a female narrator like Wyrd Sister or Equal Rites, that have just a few lines from Death have him come back for them.

Oh that must slap hard especially when you're not expecting it.

How do books get added to the voting list anyways?

 

[RodgerDodger]

What are your guys' thoughts on some of his later books where this famed nuance vanishes and the writing quality itself falls off a fucking cliff? Somewhere around Unseen Academicals something went terribly wrong. Alzheimer's progressed too far but no one was willing to edit him? Ghost writing?

That was the Alzheimer’s progressing. He was having to write more and more from his notes, just to remember where he was wanting the story to go. His mental picture of some of his characters got a little fuzzy. Hence some out of character stuff for Moist in Raising Steam. I believe his primary help in keeping it together and smoothing out the writing was his daughter Rhianna. She is or was a Video Game writer, and a fairly good one back in the day. The PS3 Launch title Heavenly Sword was one of hers. She wrote a couple of Tomb Raider games. She was a Goth Feminist back in the day. But wasn’t completely insufferable. She used to hang out and post of The Escapist forums before that culture war event which shall remain nameless.

 

[Mister Mint]

Ver archivo adjunto 9082063
The vote has wrapped up, and the winner is Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett.
Looking forward to this one, Discworld is legendary for a reason and, come to think of it, this is our first book that’s very much fantasy as opposed to very much sci-fi.

I may participate with this one. I've been wanting to get into discworld for a long time now and I hear Guards Guards is the best starting point to jump into the infamously confusing to start series.

Free audiobook version for poorfags read by Neil from The Young Ones.

 

[Polyboros2]

Oh that must slap hard especially when you're not expecting it.

How do books get added to the voting list anyways?

I was wondering that too. Someone mentioned Detective scifi/fantasy earlier in the month and @VeteranOfTheRetardWars came up with the list. So I'm guessing general suggestions are taken but there list comes with the theme vote.

I too thought would support a suggestion period between a theme being chosen and the list going up for a vote. I wouldn't of had anything for this theme, but I could see others where I would(especially May's theme but I join the group after it started).

I may participate with this one. I've been wanting to get into discworld for a long time now and I hear Guards Guards is the best starting point to jump into the infamously confusing to start series.

Free audiobook version for poorfags read by Neil from The Young Ones.

I honestly believe the first book, The Color of Magic, is the best starting place for getting to know the world. Plus The Luggage is one of the GOATs of the series.

 

[VeteranOfTheRetardWars]

How do books get added to the voting list anyways?

Just so everything is fair and not just books I know about I come up with a theme for a month and feed that into ChatGPT and ask for a list. I go over that list to make sure it’s not total nonsense, and almost always throw in specific books or series or authors that people have brought up ITT. For example, I specifically put in Discworld and Dirk Gently because I know they’re bangers that can lead to good discussion.
The themes are whatever sounds good tbh, like October was spooky and one month was lolcows and another was Dan Simmons because he passed, and this month was because someone suggested the really good idea of detective stories because of the detective story in Hyperion. My original plan was going to be ‘Homophobic Authors’ for Pride Month but I much preferred the detective novels idea because it was a better idea and frankly more interesting.
I used to keep a list of all book suggestions, but honestly it’s easier for me to just read the thread and work with that when compiling the voting choices and @Nick Obre is a real G for putting together downloads of all the choices a given month.
And as always, if anything is particularly interesting to you just post it here and it will be up for consideration. I really like how this thread is going and it’s exposed me personally to books I never would have gotten too but ended up really enjoying, so I’m not planning on falling off this thing any time soon.

 

[Betonhaus]

Just so everything is fair and not just books I know about I come up with a theme for a month and feed that into ChatGPT and ask for a list. I go over that list to make sure it’s not total nonsense, and almost always throw in specific books or series or authors that people have brought up ITT. For example, I specifically put in Discworld and Dirk Gently because I know they’re bangers that can lead to good discussion.
The themes are whatever sounds good tbh, like October was spooky and one month was lolcows and another was Dan Simmons because he passed, and this month was because someone suggested the really good idea of detective stories because of the detective story in Hyperion. My original plan was going to be ‘Homophobic Authors’ for Pride Month but I much preferred the detective novels idea because it was a better idea and frankly more interesting.
I used to keep a list of all book suggestions, but honestly it’s easier for me to just read the thread and work with that when compiling the voting choices and @Nick Obre is a real G for putting together downloads of all the choices a given month.
And as always, if anything is particularly interesting to you just post it here and it will be up for consideration. I really like how this thread is going and it’s exposed me personally to books I never would have gotten too but ended up really enjoying, so I’m not planning on falling off this thing any time soon.

Ok, could we suggest naval battles or something for the next series?


One book I'd like to recommend is Dauntless by Jack Campbell, the first book of the Lost Fleet series written by John G Hemry under a pen name. Basically the survivor of a previous space battle was in a cyrostasis pod and wakes up two hundred years later when found by a battlefleet preparing to attack again. Turns out he was declared a hero and is treated like a god, while he's slowly realising that the quality of the brand new ships have deteriorated because they get made so fast and destroyed, and when the fleet is attacked in an ambush and gets all it's highest ranking officers killed everyone turns to him to lead the fleet to safety. The books and series do focus on the logistics and tactics required to pull off their escape, and a lot of the actual maneuvers during the skirmishes get explained in detail, with the personalities of the different fleets and ships involved being reflected in their movements. The general setting is fairly conservative with a lot of emphasis is put on worshipping their ancestors. As far as I can tell there is no homosexuals or trannies in the series (or their presence aren't mentioned, though a later book has them discovering that confidential information was being leaked through a secret network used to distribute "vile" content which is never clarified), and the main character is basically a good man and a good officer (plus some things with his Captain that some people might catch onto right away but I didn't clue into until it was spelled out in the last book when he realised it himself)

 

[Polyboros2]

One book I'd like to recommend is Dauntless by Jack Campbell, the first book of the Lost Fleet series written by John G Hemry under a pen name

Jack Campbell is one of my recommendations too.

The other I had for something like alien Aliens, or if there is ever a sports theme, is The Rookie in the Galactic Football League series by Scott Sigler. I'm not a sports guy, but with several space aliens included it's the most I've ever cared about Football.

 

[Nick Obre]

My original plan was going to be ‘Homophobic Authors’ for Pride Month

A good chance for something by Scott Orson Card

 

[Morridowfag]

Ok, could we suggest naval battles or something for the next series?

If we go that route then I'm obligated to recommend Off Armageddon Reef by David Weber. Safehold as a series is what got me interested in naval warfare and despite the initial premise it is far from fedorawank.

 

[Greedy Fly]

Ok, could we suggest naval battles or something for the next series?

Ooh yeah, milsci fi is a great theme. Then maybe a separate month we can do mil fantasy and read some Black Company or Malazan.

 

[Polyboros2]

@Betonhaus isn't actually talking about naval battles, though that could be a theme. Dauntless/the Lost Fleet has one of the most interesting and well though out space combat versus entire fleets of capital ships I've ever encountered in a book.

John G Henry was a Marine stationed on boats, and the obviously thought a lot about how naval combat would translate to 3 dimensions and relativistic speeds.

 

[Betonhaus]

@Betonhaus isn't actually talking about naval battles, though that could be a theme. Dauntless/the Lost Fleet has one of the most interesting and well though out space combat versus entire fleets of capital ships I've ever encountered in a book.

John G Henry was a Marine stationed on boats, and the obviously thought a lot about how naval combat would translate to 3 dimensions and relativistic speeds.

Yeah he imposed some constraints like having to account for the time delay from light travelling long distances and how the vastness of space means that it could take hours and days to charge for an attack that takes a split second and needs to be prepared beforehand. It's really fascinating seeing the details he goes into. He's one of the few authors that seems to truly understand that travelling the vast distances of space takes time even if you can travel at near light speed.

Especially compared to books like Starship Mage by Glynn Stewart where the author only has a basic grasp of how naval battles would be fought and doesn't delve into the details as much.

 

[Major Filth]

giving the impression that you, the author, are gooning to that shit

We go back and forth on this in the Worst of Stephen King threads. The consensus seems to be that he probably isn't getting off to it, but he might be working out some childhood trauma of his own.

Aside: Nothing against Pratchett* and Adams, but I was hoping for some of the lesser-known authors to get more votes. Since Leviathan Wakes came in 3rd, I'll post up the review I wrote of it a little under a year ago. Fair warning: I started it after watching the show, so it's compare-and-contrast between book and show.

---

Made it through Leviathan Wakes and man, did the show lard on a bunch of extra shit, and I'm not just talking about the 3rd main character (mentioned in passing like once in the book). I can see why they added that extra plot, since the book just switches between the other two viewpoint characters. That may make for a compelling(-enough) trilogy of movies but probably isn't enough to sustain an epic sci-fi series. Works fine in print, though.

As far as politics go, the book only gives you some minor insights into them and only via Fred Johnson who is a lot more sympathetic a character than he is in S01. He kind of rounds more into what the book has him as in S02. But beyond that, The Big Mystery is very mysterious indeed and stays that way until the very end when someone has an "aha!" moment that the show never even disclosed. Which is a shame because it's better sci-fi writing and explains a bunch of the "well, why didn't they just do...?" questions that the show leaves open.

Also, the final scene where <thing> happens to <place> is far cooler in the book than in the show, but I imagine the accountants had their say there and were like "nope, nope, nope, and...nope"

Spoiler

Comparing Book Holden to Show Holden, I'd say that Show Holden starts off weaker and doesn't quite get to Book Holden levels of competence/captaincy until at least midway through S02. Also, his military training is mentioned more in the book where the show downplays that heavily. Also also, his interactions with Alex (who is immediately revealed to be former Martian Navy rather than have it come as a dramatic, nasty shock in the show) reflect that both trust each other due to their military backgrounds. Where it doesn't quite hit is with Fred Johnson - even though Johnson was of much higher rank than Holden, they still served in the same military. Maybe just an oversight by the authors.

Spoiler

Comparing Show Miller to Book Miller is a different story. Show Miller isn't as gritty or suicidal as Book Miller is. For the most part, I like Show Miller more - he seems better rounded and not as much of a sad sack as Book Miller. The only place where this bites the show in the ass is when he wastes Dresden on the science station. Book Miller's motivations for doing so are pretty clear and are even explored more later where it's...not exactly out of the blue in the show, but it kinda is and then because he wasn't the same sad sack with baggage he is in the book, they let it drop after a couple of episodes. In the book, that act continues to be a sticking point for Holden and Johnson until almost the very end, where the show just throws its hands up and goes "welp, that happened...moving on!"

---

*Due to various Internet hijinks back in the day, I was one degree of separation from Sir Terry. His descent into shitlibbery was mirrored by his contemporaries. Indeed, they seemed to be competing to see who could shitlib the mostest. I don't think Sir Terry won that particular competition, but he was definitely in the peloton.

 

[Dante Alighieri]

It's been a while since I read the Expanse series so details elude me, but I had a very enjoyable experience with it all, and everything after the time skip felt like really good sci-fi.

 

[Major Filth]

It's been a while since I read the Expanse series so details elude me, but I had a very enjoyable experience with it all, and everything after the time skip felt like really good sci-fi.

I did indeed praise the time-skip after I saw it. With a curt "GRRM: take note."

My quibble there was with how long a time-skip it was. There's no reason for it to have been that long.

Spoiler

Basically, they could have said 10 years instead of 30 years and had it been just as believable. If you start doing the math, you realize how fucking ridiculous it is for any of the (non-PM'd) characters to be as spry as they are. And it's not like Princess Hatesmydad couldn't have been born on the ship instead of planetside. Guess that's what you get for just handwaving away a 900' wall of ice for your fat-ass boss for 20 years.

People keep telling me there's steady money in editing, but I'd have to pretend to take authors seriously. Frankly, I'd rather tell my mother I play piano in a whorehouse and retain a shred of my dignity.

 

[Willy McGilly]

A good chance for something by Scott Orson Card

I recently read Card's novel Songmaster. Do not read it. It contains a LOT of comments about pederasty, culminating in actual pederasty. Supposedly this and Ships of the Earth are Card's only works depicting homosexuals, even still I don't know if I ever want to read anything of Card's again. The reviews claiming this book to be "homophobic" are only because the book depicts how truly perverted homosexuality is, they're mad that the gay characters are flawed and that they don't have a good ending.

I read one comment online calling Card a repressed homo, and I just assumed it was the typical "you claim to hate gays, that must mean you're a gay yourself" schtick. Sadly I do think Card may be (at least a little bit) gay.

Spoiler: Excerpts (NSFW)

Songmaster follows the upbringing and life of the prodigy Ansset. Ansset is brought up at the Songhouse, where he cultivates a great talent for singing. This talent brings him to Earth, to be the "Songbird" of the Emperor. These excerpts are in the order that they appear in the book.

In a school visit to one of their planet's cities, Ansset and his teacher speak with a local elderly woman.

“The boy has many gifts.”
“Songhouse?” asked the woman.
Better to lie. “They wouldn’t take him. I told them he had talent, genius even, but their damned tests wouldn’t find a genius if he sang an aria.”
“That’s fine enough. Plenty of market for singers around here, and not the Songhouse type, you can bet. If he’s willing to take off his clothes, he can make a fortune.”
“We’re just visiting.”
“Or there are even places where he could earn plenty by putting them on. All kinds here.

Riktors is an Emissary of the Emperor.

“We will go now,” answered Esste. They went. But Riktors lingered until the last possible moment, looking at Ansset’s face.
“Beautiful,” Riktors said, again and again, as they walked through more passageways toward the gatehouse.
“He is to be the emperor’s Songbird, Riktors Ashen, not the emperor’s catamite.”
“Mikal has a large number of offspring. His tastes are not so eclectic as to include little boys.”

Ansset is 9 at this point in the story. He has just been brought to the Emperor's palace and is frisked.

The door slid open and four security guards came in. They were in different uniforms from those men who had searched him before. They said little, only enough to direct Ansset to take off his clothing. “Why?” Ansset asked, but they only waited and waited until at last he turned his back and stripped. It was one thing to be naked among the other children in the toilets and showers, and something else again to be nude in front of adult men, all there for no other purpose than to watch. They searched every crevice of his body, and the search, while not overly rough, was also not pleasant. They were intimate with him as no one had ever been intimate before, and the man who fondled his genitals, searching for unfathomably arcane items—Ansset could think of nothing that could be hidden there—held and touched a little too long, a little too gently. He did not know what it meant, but knew that it was not good. The man’s face was outwardly calm, but as he spoke to the others, Ansset detected the trembling, the faint passion suppressed in the interstices of his brusque speech, and it made him afraid.

During his 5-year stay in the palace, Ansset is kidnapped. On the last day of his captivity he is made to sing nude on a table.

Ansset had never been struck a blow in his life. But it was more the fury in the man’s voice than the threat of violence that made Ansset nod. But he still hung back. “Can you please give me my clothing?”
“It an’t cold where we’re going,” Master said.
“I’ve never sung like this,” Ansset said. “I’ve never performed without clothing.”
Master leered. “What is it then that you do without clothing? Mikal’s catamite has no secrets we can’t see.”
Ansset didn’t understand the word, but he understood the leer,

Ansset is 15 here. This is after the death of Mikal, who loved Ansset platonically.

Ansset reached out his hand and touched the urn of ashes that rested on the table. “I’ll never love you,” he said, meaning the words to hurt.
“Nor I you,” Riktors answered. “But we may, nonetheless, feed each other something that we hunger for. Did Mikal sleep with you?”
“He never wanted to. I never offered.”
“Neither will I,” Riktors said. “I only want to hear your songs.”

Now for the worst part. After the death of the Emperor, Ansset's own political career begins. Kyaren is a woman who grew up in the Songhouse, but with no talent for song has ended up on earth where she has her own political career. After making friends with one of her coworkers, another coworker warns Kyaren that her new friend is a homosexual.

“Hi,” Josif said, grinning.
She did not smile back. “One question. True or false. Are you a homosexual whore?”
His face went ugly, and he didn’t answer for a moment. Then he said, quietly, “You see? You don’t have to be one of the in-group to get the dirt on someone else.”
He hadn’t said no, and her contempt for people who sold themselves became dominant. She started closing the door.

Because Kyaren is lonely, she still decides to become his friend, and eventually his partner. This leads to maybe the worst joke in the book (for context their jobs involve statistics).

Fifteen minutes later he started undressing her. She looked at him in surprise. “I thought—” she said, and he interrupted.
“Statistics,” he said. “Trends. I’m sixty-two percent attracted to men, thirty-one percent attracted to women, and seven percent attracted to sheep. And one hundred percent attracted to you.”

Kyaren has Ansset over for Lunch. Josif immediately falls in love with him, and immediately knows that he will eventually cheat on Kyaren with Ansset, and ruin the relationship like he ruined his previous homosexual relationship.

“What are you doing?” Kyaren asked.
“Packing,” Josif answered, but he knew even then that he would not leave. He had never been able to leave Pyoter or Bant willingly; he would not be able to leave Kyaren either. I am not in control of myself, Josif realized. I gave myself to her, and I can’t just decide to take myself back.
“Why?” Kyaren asked, already hurt because she could not comprehend what he was doing.
If I stay, I’ll destroy her as I destroyed Pyoter.
“We’ll still be friends,” Josif answered.
“What brought this on? Why now, at three o’clock in the morning? What did I do?”
“Ansset,” Josif said.
She stood regarding him for a while, and then realized what he meant.
“Still the old sixty-two percent, is it?” she asked.
“No,” he answered, “I just see the potential. I want to avoid it.”
“There is no potential,” she said.
“You don’t understand.”

several times Kyaren seemed surprised by the force of his passion tonight. She did not realize that in spite of his best efforts he kept seeing the curls clinging to Ansset’s neck, the soft cheek that he had not touched except in his mind but that was all the softer because of that. He tried to take Ansset’s face out of his mind. And failed.

Despite their better judgment, Ansset continues to frequently visit with Kyaren and Josif.

Ansset also began to notice that Josif was sexually attracted to him. Hundreds of men and women had been before. Ansset was used to it, had had to put up with it through all his years in the palace. Josif was different, though. His desire seemed not so much lust as affection, part of his friendship. It intrigued Ansset, where years before such things had repelled him. He was curious. He had grown seventeen centimeters since his appointment to Babylon, and his voice was deepening all the time. There were other changes, and he found himself with longings he did not know how to satisfy, with questions he did not dare to ask only because he already knew the spoken answer, and the other answer he was afraid of.

Ansset goes on to seduce Josif, and Orson Scott Card seriously writes a blowjob scene. I will not quote it.

It's such a shame how much garbage there is to read EVERYWHERE. I thought I could trust someone who faggots hate and whose religious views are rather Christian. I thought I could trust someone who wrote something as good as Ender's Game. I thought I'd be safe reading only stuff from previous centuries. I really wish there was something like IMDB's "parents guide" for books. This website is the only thing I could find, and it's nowhere near as detailed as IMDB is.

 

[Safir]

My original plan was going to be ‘Homophobic Authors’ for Pride Month

lmaooooo

July should be "America fuck yeah" / "humanity fuck yeah". Space colonization, wars against aliens that humanity wins on its own, hell isekai fantasy colonization will do if you can find some where the protagonist is not a soylennial loser.

People keep telling me there's steady money in editing, but I'd have to pretend to take authors seriously.

I don't know how one would edit current year fiction. It's bad on purpose. Sure, you can catch a few in-story factual errors and maybe IRL factual errors (if you dare), but then what?

Also, at least some of you are seriously mistaken if you think it's easy to write or edit for retards. They're not gullible and undemanding, they're a different culture. I'm reminded of Chinese shit-eating demons (see, they eat shit because they're the opposite of humans). It may be easy to produce something bad, it's not easy to produce something bad and successful (to begin with -- how do you stand out from all other slop?). Dan Simmons touched on this in Hyperion, in the goatfucker chapter.

 

[AnOminous]

It's such a shame how much garbage there is to read EVERYWHERE. I thought I could trust someone who faggots hate and whose religious views are rather Christian.

His views are actually pretty middle of the road among Mormons.

 

[Major Filth]

July should be "America fuck yeah" / "humanity fuck yeah"

"Footfall" for sure.