Science fiction

Robert Sheckley

A.E. Van Vogt

Mission of Gravity

felix gilman thunderer

huh I've never read any Sheckley, must investigate

Not even the much anthologized sluglord approved "Zirn Left Unguarded, The Jenghik Palace in Flames, Jon Westerley Dead"?

I don't think so...? I can count the number of anthologies I've read in the last ten years on one hand

anyone here fuck with any alastair reynolds? new one seems cool

yeah he's been enthused about on the ilb threads. superb combo of hard skiffy and space opera, although i get a bit bored when it's all planet based, no huge spaceships or vast distances and timescales (chasm city i'm lookin at you). also his characters are overly keen on holding very long very pointless grudges. am only two novels in to the revelation space series tho, never mind the new stuff.

haha that's why i didnt bother to read chasm city

anyway the new one - terminal world - has a cool premise, it's like these layered cities that have progressively higher technology as you move up the chain - "horsetown" then "steamtown" then "neontown" then "circuittown" etc

i mean cool if you're a nerd

It's been okay to be a nerd for a long time now.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Ry6tm2J1T4Y/SYPnc04FsiI/AAAAAAAAAiE/-LcpGnHt7Hw/s400/Victory+Movie+Review.jpg

fo' reals? someone needed to let me know.

I'd say the nerd was out of the bag since X-Files and Buffy, which coincided with the internet giving them/us a place to play.

Reynolds is a mid ranker for me. Some cool ideas and good action, but nothing to really set him apart from the herd. He's better than Neal Asher at least.

Does anyone rate Peter F. Hamilton? The guy can't write for shit and almost certainly has some fairly dodgy politics (ethnically streamed space colonies proving to be an amazing thing for the human race? Hmmm...), but no-one does outer space bombast like him. His universe-building is kind of impeccable too. I haven't read anything he's written in the last decade or so though.

Also I see there's a new Culture novel out...

I tried a +1000 page Hamilton on holiday once. Gave up when I realised there was not a shred of a consideration or understanding of solid science behind any of his flights of fancy. I mean I don't want everyone to be a phd-toting Greg Egan-alike but when it became clear that the book was about the SOULS OF THE DEAD COMING BACK AND TAKING OVER LIVING HUMAN BODIES...

Really not looking forward to the new Culture, apparently it's going to be full of unpleasant descriptions of torture. And doubtless the baddie will get an ultra-violent comeuppance at the end.

SOULS OF THE DEAD COMING BACK AND TAKING OVER LIVING HUMAN BODIES

that sounds awesome :(

ya I'm not hearing great things :(

bought it though

apparently it's going to be full of unpleasant descriptions of torture

Given how the Culture books have operated as overarching metaphor for now I can't say I'm surprised...

I liked the undead conceit of the Night's Dawn trilogy! It was something different. And I couldn't really give a fig how solid the physics is, he dazzled me with a lot of long psuedo-scientific words, and that's always good enough for me.

Pity if the new Culture turns out to be shit. Matter built up splendidly, I thought, but the final third was disgustingly lazy.

Yeah if supernatural creeps into my skiffy, that's when I get off the bus. Science fiction! The clue's in the name!

The end of Matter was rushed but I don't think I'd write off the whole final third. Was a pretty great rollercoaster ride for however long it lasted anyway.

Just finished the new Culture novel last night and.......I have to admit to skimming a lot of the backstory about the political maneuvering between different factions of aliens etc etc blah blah WHEN IS SOMETHING GOING TO HAPPEN. Kind of feel like it could have been condensed some amount without rly losing anything -- is he too famous for an editor, now?

Kind of fell flat for me.

Also it's freaking huge so good luck balancing it in one hand on the bus/train while hanging onto a support bar with the other. I think I have RSI now.

Pity if the new Culture turns out to be shit. Matter built up splendidly, I thought, but the final third was disgustingly lazy.

― A brownish area with points (chap), Friday, November 19, 2010 11:33 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

otm

Also it's freaking huge so good luck balancing it in one hand on the bus/train while hanging onto a support bar with the other. I think I have RSI now.

― I've got ten bucks. SURPRISE ME. (Laurel), Friday, November 19, 2010 11:40 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

LOL it was the first book i bought for my kindle

Oh, this is that fun Passantino thread. Good times.

I like Banks' potted histories when there are dry little fillips, like if a one-sentence summing up of how the historic character met his extremely ironic end is hidden in the lesson, and they buoy you up from one to another. But a good bit of this one just seemed like "You'll need to know this later for the plot to make sense."

i really really want to write a sci-fi novel, i hope i can find the time in my life sometime in the next couple years.

I'm so old-school pedant that I hate the term sci-fi. IT'S "SF" DAMMIT! #tiresomepeopleintheirforties

SORRY I WANT TO WRITE A SF NOVS

actually its SyFy now

aaagghhh

lol

if you're gonna read reynolds i rep for 'house of suns'

that channel's logo is an amazing blood boiler

http://www.fearnet.com/eol_images/Entire_Site/201011/syfy_logo.jpg

to say nothing of their utterly shit programming

Tends to rush his endings does Reynolds. The final Revelation Space book is particularly bad for this. Still read most of his stuff, House of Suns and Pushing Ice are pretty decent stand alone works yeah.

thank god for the xpost notification, that allowed me to come to my senses and NOT post the "Sharktopus" trailer

i really really want to write a sci-fi novel, i hope i can find the time in my life sometime in the next couple years.

― shirley summistake (s1ocki), Friday, November 19, 2010 5:18 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

I've tried it is hard.

any tips

Er... Know more about science than I do.

As a Philip K Dick fan I don't necessarily mind if my SF has some wibbling about psychics, supernatural powers and the living dead instead of any science, but I picked up "The Siege of Eternity" by Frederick Pohl and was disgusted to discover (possible spoilers but I think everything I mention becomes apparent fairly early on):

1. the plot devolved into some arsewater about space aliens reviving the souls of everyone who'd ever lived
2. it was the middle of a series with no indication on the outside of the book, and the last page was pretty much just an advert for the next book, which by that point I had no desire to read
3. also, a bunch of gratuitous hokey sex scenes - maybe I'm a prude but with some SF authors a female protagonist is such a red flag - "women only exist to be sexy, and the only notable feature of this flimsy caricature is that she is an intergalactic beacon of sexiness, start dreading the embarrassing sex scenes now"

so, Frederick Pohl is on my bad list, unless someone wishes to tell me otherwise (maybe his older work is better?)

I'm sorry, you said there were embarrassing sex scenes...?

Gateway by Pohl is fantastic. Never read any of the sequels though. Don't think there were any sex scenes, embarrassing or otherwise.

Pohl turned into a bit of a hack as the years have worn on but some of 70s/early 80s work is canonical imho - especially Jem, and the Space Merchants and Merchants' War (great satire of "capitalism in space")

and the Gateway books are uniformly solid

Gateways are dope