Eh, Foundation was written a long time ago. I am plodding through it but truth be told, his story line is pretty f'ing erratic. He will go from chapter to chapter and have 0 connection between them at times. Not saying to avoid it, just be warned.
what do you read?
- Thread starter bonefishjake
- Start date
Eh, Foundation was written a long time ago. I am plodding through it but truth be told, his story line is pretty f'ing erratic. He will go from chapter to chapter and have 0 connection between them at times. Not saying to avoid it, just be warned.
I read some of Robots back in the day, but I don't think I read any of Foundation or Empire. In fact, when I was grabbing Children of Dune out of a box in the garage, I saw I, Robot and Caves of Steel looking up at me. I generally have a hard time reading science fiction from that era now, though I'll say that Dune holds up surprisingly well. Maybe because it's not actually science fiction.
Dune question. I just checked out the series on Wikipedia and there are like 50 books. How many are required reading? I think only 6 were Herbert.
The Robot stuff doesn’t age well. Arthur C Clark IMO holds up better.
General consensus is just the six Frank Herbert books. And if you don't really like the first one, don't bother with the rest. I have some of the prequel books, and I even read some of them at some point, but I don't remember if they were any good. Most people say they are not though. I can loan you whatever books I'm done with when I see you next if you are interested.
Yeah if you got #1 I’ll start there. I tried to read it 30 years ago and I didn’t get very far. Time for a fresh try.
1speed
Incredibly profound yet fantastically flawed
Anyone else catch the first two episodes of "Foundation" yet? The effects budget for this show has to be in the millions per episode. I watched it on my laptop, but I have to watch the rest on a larger screen so I can really appreciate the scale. The show itself is pretty solid - kind of a slow build but not without some pretty good plot moments. I never read the source material, but from what I read, they've made a few key changes that purists may object to. But so far so good for me - Jarred Harris and Lee Pace are pretty great in their roles.
1speed
Incredibly profound yet fantastically flawed
So it's been a while. I actually didn't get much of a chance to read all that much throughout September. We were having construction done to remodel the entire first floor of our house, and just trying to survive in the unholy mess that was our limited living space was hard enough. I didn't have a place where I could read at all except in my bedroom and that was tough because my wife's schedule for work means she needs to go to sleep pretty early most nights. Despite that, I was able to get a few books in. I finished Project Hail Mary a while back. I really enjoyed that book - I know a few people that read it and I think I may have enjoyed it more than anyone of them. I just thought it was a very well-done story. The sci-fi is imaginative without being too out there. I'd definitely recommend it. I haven't read anything else of Weir's, so I don't know if it compares to The Martian or anything else, but I just simply enjoyed it start to finish.
After that, I read The New Wilderness by Diane Cook. I actually picked this up while waiting for my wife at a B&N. It was in the general fiction section and it just seemed like an interesting premise - in a world where people have been reduced to living in a single (massive) city, a group of people are allowed to live primitively in a nature preserve that covers the majority of the rest of the continent. It's never expressly stated that this is the US or anything, but I just kind of pictured a situation where the city was like LA and the wilderness was the entire surrounding country - all of the Southwest on up to the Pacific Northwest. Again, never expressly stated, but that was the image I had in my head as I read it. The interesting thing about this book was that while I actually did enjoy the story very much, I - and I can't say this strongly enough - HATED the main characters. Everyone of them was a terrible human being upon whom I wished only the worst. The only one who comes close to a pass is the daughter who grows up in the wilderness after he mother makes the choice to join the test group in order to save her from the pollution of the city (which is killing her slowly.) That may seem like a heroic action on the mother's part, but it doesn't play that way. The mother comes across as someone who holds that fact over her growing daughter's head even without ever saying anything to her about it (until it's too late.) The other characters are all terrible people who seem to be playing a bad game of "Survivor" more than trying to live together for real. It's hard to describe simply because, again, I actually liked the writing and the plot. It was just the people, and since this is more or less a character study, for that reason I can't say I really liked it. I think Cook's goal is to address the strained relationship between a parent and child as a child grows up by placing them in a situation that strips them bare, but honestly it came across (to me) as an inconsistent story that illustrates just how awful human beings at their very core.
After that, I read "Shards of Earth" from Tchaicovsky. It's the first in his "Final Architecture" trilogy and only recently published. I pre-ordered it before its release because at this point, I think he's my favorite author. I haven't read anything by him that I didn't throughly enjoy. And this was no different. It's much more of a "space opera" than his other works - kind of the "ragtag fugitive crew on the run from everyone" vibe that has been done in stuff like "Firefly" and even "Star Wars". But Tchaicovsky's imagination is unparalleled and he pulls off something new and unique even from a tried-and-true sci-fi trope here. His alien beings are interesting creations, and I liked that his main character is nothing like a traditional hero - he's actually a very weak, pale shrinking violet whose "gift" as a heroic military figure makes him a weird freak in real life who others feel the need to protect. I look forward to the next in the series.
After that I moved on the "A Memory Called Empire" by Arkady Martine (aka Dr Annalinden Weller, a climate and energy policy scientist.) I'd say this book is only marginally a "sci-fi" story and that only as a world in which to play out what it really is: a political thriller. It's pretty interesting how it manages to parallel the types of divisions that exist in society today but does so on an "intergalactic" scale. I enjoyed it, even though it's not exactly my usual thing. But be warned - the majority of the "action" here is secondary to the Machiavellian workings of the empire government. That's the arena where the real story plays out.
I next read Cixin Liu's earlier work, Supernova Era. I am definitely a fan of Liu even if there is quite often some translations issues that make his books read a little clunky in English. I think there was some of that here, but I'd also say this was my least favorite of his books so far. The premise is that a distant supernova acutely bombards the earth with radiation that causes cellular degeneration in all living things. The means death to everyone who cannot recover from the exposure, and it turns out only children 13 and under have the natural processes to regenerate damaged cells as they are growing. Ultimately, this means that everyone over the age of 13 will die, leaving the earth world ruled by children. It's a fascinating premise and an interesting idea to explore. But - and maybe this is just my own prejudices - it all rings a bit unbelievable. Personally, I think if the world were left to children, it'd end pretty quickly. They're just not smart enough or emotionally stable enough to maintain a world. And Liu imbues them with a self-awareness of the differences between themselves and adults that in my mind comes across as complete nonsense. But the story is pretty good, and the segue in the end makes for an interesting statement on the nature of possibility without going into specifics. In that last section, the book is at its best. Overall, I'd say I liked it but didn't love it.
Finally, I just read a very weird story called "I'm Not Who You Think I Am" by Erik Rickstad. Apparently, I ordered this a while ago and it was delivered to my Kindle last week. I don't remember doing that, but whatever. I checked my order history and sure enough I did order it. Anyway, it's a small-town dark history mystery story about a kid whose father kills himself and leaves behind only a one sentence note (the title of the book.) Eight years after witnessing the suicide himself, the kid comes to question everything about it and ends up investigating it, in the process ripping open old wounds the town only wants to keep buried. Kind of a standard small-town thriller, but it was okay. I read it in about two days, so it's an easy read. Not a lot more to say about it other than the fact that the main character himself kind of seems to be a bit of a sociopath, and I'm really not sure if that's intended or just handy plot device to move the story forward. There are a few scenes where he does something that, in a normal person, should illicit deep concern and introspection but he only seems to pay lip service to this notions before moving on to some other terrible decision. And why no one seemed to notice or question why a 16 year old was always walking around with a gun in his pocket seems a bit odd if I'm being honest.
Anyway, that's the latest list. Some good, some okay. I'm also really into the FOUndation series on AppleTV, if only for the effects. It's just amazing to watch in 4K.
After that, I read The New Wilderness by Diane Cook. I actually picked this up while waiting for my wife at a B&N. It was in the general fiction section and it just seemed like an interesting premise - in a world where people have been reduced to living in a single (massive) city, a group of people are allowed to live primitively in a nature preserve that covers the majority of the rest of the continent. It's never expressly stated that this is the US or anything, but I just kind of pictured a situation where the city was like LA and the wilderness was the entire surrounding country - all of the Southwest on up to the Pacific Northwest. Again, never expressly stated, but that was the image I had in my head as I read it. The interesting thing about this book was that while I actually did enjoy the story very much, I - and I can't say this strongly enough - HATED the main characters. Everyone of them was a terrible human being upon whom I wished only the worst. The only one who comes close to a pass is the daughter who grows up in the wilderness after he mother makes the choice to join the test group in order to save her from the pollution of the city (which is killing her slowly.) That may seem like a heroic action on the mother's part, but it doesn't play that way. The mother comes across as someone who holds that fact over her growing daughter's head even without ever saying anything to her about it (until it's too late.) The other characters are all terrible people who seem to be playing a bad game of "Survivor" more than trying to live together for real. It's hard to describe simply because, again, I actually liked the writing and the plot. It was just the people, and since this is more or less a character study, for that reason I can't say I really liked it. I think Cook's goal is to address the strained relationship between a parent and child as a child grows up by placing them in a situation that strips them bare, but honestly it came across (to me) as an inconsistent story that illustrates just how awful human beings at their very core.
After that, I read "Shards of Earth" from Tchaicovsky. It's the first in his "Final Architecture" trilogy and only recently published. I pre-ordered it before its release because at this point, I think he's my favorite author. I haven't read anything by him that I didn't throughly enjoy. And this was no different. It's much more of a "space opera" than his other works - kind of the "ragtag fugitive crew on the run from everyone" vibe that has been done in stuff like "Firefly" and even "Star Wars". But Tchaicovsky's imagination is unparalleled and he pulls off something new and unique even from a tried-and-true sci-fi trope here. His alien beings are interesting creations, and I liked that his main character is nothing like a traditional hero - he's actually a very weak, pale shrinking violet whose "gift" as a heroic military figure makes him a weird freak in real life who others feel the need to protect. I look forward to the next in the series.
After that I moved on the "A Memory Called Empire" by Arkady Martine (aka Dr Annalinden Weller, a climate and energy policy scientist.) I'd say this book is only marginally a "sci-fi" story and that only as a world in which to play out what it really is: a political thriller. It's pretty interesting how it manages to parallel the types of divisions that exist in society today but does so on an "intergalactic" scale. I enjoyed it, even though it's not exactly my usual thing. But be warned - the majority of the "action" here is secondary to the Machiavellian workings of the empire government. That's the arena where the real story plays out.
I next read Cixin Liu's earlier work, Supernova Era. I am definitely a fan of Liu even if there is quite often some translations issues that make his books read a little clunky in English. I think there was some of that here, but I'd also say this was my least favorite of his books so far. The premise is that a distant supernova acutely bombards the earth with radiation that causes cellular degeneration in all living things. The means death to everyone who cannot recover from the exposure, and it turns out only children 13 and under have the natural processes to regenerate damaged cells as they are growing. Ultimately, this means that everyone over the age of 13 will die, leaving the earth world ruled by children. It's a fascinating premise and an interesting idea to explore. But - and maybe this is just my own prejudices - it all rings a bit unbelievable. Personally, I think if the world were left to children, it'd end pretty quickly. They're just not smart enough or emotionally stable enough to maintain a world. And Liu imbues them with a self-awareness of the differences between themselves and adults that in my mind comes across as complete nonsense. But the story is pretty good, and the segue in the end makes for an interesting statement on the nature of possibility without going into specifics. In that last section, the book is at its best. Overall, I'd say I liked it but didn't love it.
Finally, I just read a very weird story called "I'm Not Who You Think I Am" by Erik Rickstad. Apparently, I ordered this a while ago and it was delivered to my Kindle last week. I don't remember doing that, but whatever. I checked my order history and sure enough I did order it. Anyway, it's a small-town dark history mystery story about a kid whose father kills himself and leaves behind only a one sentence note (the title of the book.) Eight years after witnessing the suicide himself, the kid comes to question everything about it and ends up investigating it, in the process ripping open old wounds the town only wants to keep buried. Kind of a standard small-town thriller, but it was okay. I read it in about two days, so it's an easy read. Not a lot more to say about it other than the fact that the main character himself kind of seems to be a bit of a sociopath, and I'm really not sure if that's intended or just handy plot device to move the story forward. There are a few scenes where he does something that, in a normal person, should illicit deep concern and introspection but he only seems to pay lip service to this notions before moving on to some other terrible decision. And why no one seemed to notice or question why a 16 year old was always walking around with a gun in his pocket seems a bit odd if I'm being honest.
Anyway, that's the latest list. Some good, some okay. I'm also really into the FOUndation series on AppleTV, if only for the effects. It's just amazing to watch in 4K.
Bikeworks
Well-Known Member
No updates in the last 3 years it was mentioned, but those of you looking to binge on a series would do well to give the Red Rising series a go. I know it's been previously billed as Hunger Games-esque, but it's more Game of Thrones, especially once the last 1/3 of the first book hits its stride.
I just finished Project Hail Mary, thought it was good, much better than Weir's last book.
I've also joined the bandwagon and started Foundation, but I must admit I am finding it a bit tedious. Before that I gave the Southern Reach trilogy a go, am halfway through the third book and may not finish it, lol.
I just finished Project Hail Mary, thought it was good, much better than Weir's last book.
I've also joined the bandwagon and started Foundation, but I must admit I am finding it a bit tedious. Before that I gave the Southern Reach trilogy a go, am halfway through the third book and may not finish it, lol.
1speed
Incredibly profound yet fantastically flawed
I usually wait until I've read a few books to do one post, but this is a bit different. My b-day was last week and when my wife asked me what I wanted a while back, I basically just gave her a list of books (most of them by Adrian Tchaicovsky.) She wanted to do something outside of my own list, though, so she did her own research and found something I hadn't asked for - The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. It's the first book in a series called "The Gentleman Bastards". Apparently, this is a hugely popular series but I'd never heard of it before now. It's a fantasy that follows the exploits of a master thief named Locke Lamora (not his real name, but no one knows what that is.) Currently, I think there are three books in the series, with several more planned. This story was outstanding - it reminded me a bit of the Kingkiller Chronicles in terms of world-building, but I may actually like this one even more because, well, Locke is a thief and I just love the possibilities that creates. I can't recommend this one enough - I think this first novel in the series is something like 720 pages or something and I read it in maybe three days. It really just sucked me in and wouldn't let go. Great stuff!
1speed
Incredibly profound yet fantastically flawed
So I think I've read maybe a dozen books since the beginning of November, but I'm not going to go through all of them in detail. I'll just say that I've enjoyed a little bit of non-fiction, a bunch of sci-fi/fantasy and have been on a pretty lucky run lately of books I've really enjoyed. And this would include the one I would break down in greater detail ...
This is perhaps the single strangest book I've ever read. It's called The Resurrectionist. I saw a link to it while researching some other books and when I read the description of it I thought it sounded intriguing. It's a work of fiction, but the reader could be excused for not knowing that it isn't an actual biography. The book itself is a departure from any specific form I've ever read - the main text is only 63 pages long, but that's because the book itself is divided into two distinct parts. Part 1 is the (63 page) biography of one Dr. Spencer Black, a brilliant but deeply disturbed surgeon in the closing years of the 19th century. The title itself is a term used to describe graver robbers of the era, and Black himself engaged in that particular crime as child at the behest of his father and then again later to support his own "research." Essentially, he believed that creatures of fantasy were the evolutionary forbears to today's humans (how he arrives at this conclusion is a major point of the story.) The biography portion is a brilliantly constructed history that includes an implied impression of the doctor by the author - part of the fiction is the author's own opinion of this man and that bleeds through in how he presents the biography. If you take a moment to think about that, the whole thing starts to feel kind of like a performance art piece as much as a work of fiction. And in fact, the second part of the book is a very richly detailed codex of 11 extinct species that the doctor claims to have discovered. The artwork is incredible and the diagrams are detailed and annotated in a way that anyone who has ever seen a copy of Grey's Anatomy will appreciate. Without giving anything away, there is an underlying sinister familial element to the entire story that will leave you feeling uneasy when you're done reading it. It's a pretty remarkable work of fiction given how short it is. There are many things left unsaid, but personally I think that serves the story very well. This is definitely not a book for everyone. It's decidedly weird, but I have to say I found the whole thing fascinating. I've always been kind of intrigued by the idea of how modern surgery developed - particularly, the horror that patients would have gone through during experimental periods like the time of this story (when scientists and medical professionals were terribly arrogant based on their assumption that they had a clue about what they were doing.) This story delves into the mind of a very dangerous combination of true genius and disturbing mental illness. It's horrifying if you think too much about it, but it makes for a very interesting (and short!) read.
This is perhaps the single strangest book I've ever read. It's called The Resurrectionist. I saw a link to it while researching some other books and when I read the description of it I thought it sounded intriguing. It's a work of fiction, but the reader could be excused for not knowing that it isn't an actual biography. The book itself is a departure from any specific form I've ever read - the main text is only 63 pages long, but that's because the book itself is divided into two distinct parts. Part 1 is the (63 page) biography of one Dr. Spencer Black, a brilliant but deeply disturbed surgeon in the closing years of the 19th century. The title itself is a term used to describe graver robbers of the era, and Black himself engaged in that particular crime as child at the behest of his father and then again later to support his own "research." Essentially, he believed that creatures of fantasy were the evolutionary forbears to today's humans (how he arrives at this conclusion is a major point of the story.) The biography portion is a brilliantly constructed history that includes an implied impression of the doctor by the author - part of the fiction is the author's own opinion of this man and that bleeds through in how he presents the biography. If you take a moment to think about that, the whole thing starts to feel kind of like a performance art piece as much as a work of fiction. And in fact, the second part of the book is a very richly detailed codex of 11 extinct species that the doctor claims to have discovered. The artwork is incredible and the diagrams are detailed and annotated in a way that anyone who has ever seen a copy of Grey's Anatomy will appreciate. Without giving anything away, there is an underlying sinister familial element to the entire story that will leave you feeling uneasy when you're done reading it. It's a pretty remarkable work of fiction given how short it is. There are many things left unsaid, but personally I think that serves the story very well. This is definitely not a book for everyone. It's decidedly weird, but I have to say I found the whole thing fascinating. I've always been kind of intrigued by the idea of how modern surgery developed - particularly, the horror that patients would have gone through during experimental periods like the time of this story (when scientists and medical professionals were terribly arrogant based on their assumption that they had a clue about what they were doing.) This story delves into the mind of a very dangerous combination of true genius and disturbing mental illness. It's horrifying if you think too much about it, but it makes for a very interesting (and short!) read.
1speed
Incredibly profound yet fantastically flawed
Read a few interesting books since the start of the year.
I read Richard Powers follow-up to The Overstory, Bewilderment. It was ... okay ... I think I had a similar reaction to this one as I did to Cixin Liu's "Supernova Era" - I may be getting curmudgeonly in my old age, but the idea of a story where a child or children are the ones who "hold all the answers" or something like that really doesn't do it for me. And that's a major part of this book (along with the fact that it's an unapolgetic ripoff of "Flowers for Algernon" in key ways - a fact that even the author takes the time to reference.) There were some things I enjoyed about it, but overall not one of my favorites.
After that, I went back to my preferred sci-fi for Peter Hamilton's "Salvation". By contrast, I loved, loved, loved this book. It's just so well done and covers a lot - from a mystery, to thriller, to space opera to even an actual "ten little indians" situation. I don't want to speak to any of its plot because I knew nothing about it before I started and really enjoyed turning every page, so I wouldn't want to rob anyone of the same experience. But I can't recommend this one enough. I already bought both the second and third volumes in the trilogy because there is no way I'm not reading it all the way through.
Next up was Anthony Doerr's Cloud Cuckoo Land, which is currently a best-seller I think. This was a different experience for me - it was a story that started out kind of slow but really grew on me as I read further and by the end I couldn't put it down. It's a group of seemingly disparate stories from different time periods that hold a single thread of commonality based on an ancient Greek story by Diogenes, or so it seems until the very end. A few real surprises that were totally satisfying because they addressed the exact issues I found myself shaking my heasd over initially. In the end, this was a very satisfying story that I thought could be a used for a workshop on how to put together a wide-ranging novel.
After that I read The Secret Knowledge of Water by Craig Childs. This is a non-ficton work by a natiralist whose life and career have been all about finding water in the desert of the southwest. Childs is a contributor NPR radio, and he manages to take a sort of strange subject for a full book and make it resonate. I enjoyed reading this because it taught me somethign about a subject I knew nothing about. A departure for me in every way because it's not even anythign like the the non-fiction I usually read. But an interesting topic about a world I don't know at all.
FInally, I finished the second book in the Gentleman Bastards series, Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch. This is the continuation of the story from The Lies of Locke Lamora. I woudln't say it was as good as the first, but it was close. Just a great fantasy adventure story, this time largely out on the high seas. Now I'm reading the last one (Republic of Thieves) right on its heels, and so far it's picking up right where the second left off. I really like this series and hope that Lynch is able to continue it, but I'm not holding my breath because as I understand it, he has some health/personal issues that are making it hard for him to write now. That's a shame because he definitely has the whole "world building" thing down pat.
I read Richard Powers follow-up to The Overstory, Bewilderment. It was ... okay ... I think I had a similar reaction to this one as I did to Cixin Liu's "Supernova Era" - I may be getting curmudgeonly in my old age, but the idea of a story where a child or children are the ones who "hold all the answers" or something like that really doesn't do it for me. And that's a major part of this book (along with the fact that it's an unapolgetic ripoff of "Flowers for Algernon" in key ways - a fact that even the author takes the time to reference.) There were some things I enjoyed about it, but overall not one of my favorites.
After that, I went back to my preferred sci-fi for Peter Hamilton's "Salvation". By contrast, I loved, loved, loved this book. It's just so well done and covers a lot - from a mystery, to thriller, to space opera to even an actual "ten little indians" situation. I don't want to speak to any of its plot because I knew nothing about it before I started and really enjoyed turning every page, so I wouldn't want to rob anyone of the same experience. But I can't recommend this one enough. I already bought both the second and third volumes in the trilogy because there is no way I'm not reading it all the way through.
Next up was Anthony Doerr's Cloud Cuckoo Land, which is currently a best-seller I think. This was a different experience for me - it was a story that started out kind of slow but really grew on me as I read further and by the end I couldn't put it down. It's a group of seemingly disparate stories from different time periods that hold a single thread of commonality based on an ancient Greek story by Diogenes, or so it seems until the very end. A few real surprises that were totally satisfying because they addressed the exact issues I found myself shaking my heasd over initially. In the end, this was a very satisfying story that I thought could be a used for a workshop on how to put together a wide-ranging novel.
After that I read The Secret Knowledge of Water by Craig Childs. This is a non-ficton work by a natiralist whose life and career have been all about finding water in the desert of the southwest. Childs is a contributor NPR radio, and he manages to take a sort of strange subject for a full book and make it resonate. I enjoyed reading this because it taught me somethign about a subject I knew nothing about. A departure for me in every way because it's not even anythign like the the non-fiction I usually read. But an interesting topic about a world I don't know at all.
FInally, I finished the second book in the Gentleman Bastards series, Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch. This is the continuation of the story from The Lies of Locke Lamora. I woudln't say it was as good as the first, but it was close. Just a great fantasy adventure story, this time largely out on the high seas. Now I'm reading the last one (Republic of Thieves) right on its heels, and so far it's picking up right where the second left off. I really like this series and hope that Lynch is able to continue it, but I'm not holding my breath because as I understand it, he has some health/personal issues that are making it hard for him to write now. That's a shame because he definitely has the whole "world building" thing down pat.
THATmanMANNY
Well-Known Member
repost...
I thought this free book from Bikeisland.com CEO is interersting. It's nothing about bikes. Some light humor reading and it's free ebook ends tomorrow. I'm not sure if you need the actual promo email they emailed out to get it free
Amazon product
I thought this free book from Bikeisland.com CEO is interersting. It's nothing about bikes. Some light humor reading and it's free ebook ends tomorrow. I'm not sure if you need the actual promo email they emailed out to get it free
Amazon product
BananaFred
Well-Known Member
I am a huge fan of Pocket (basically adds a button your browser...hit the button and it saves articles to your pocket account which you can access anywhere) that's where I dump all my switchbacks articles, etc. I will read anything but I continue to be amazed at what hits the "best of" or "most popular" lists. "Where the Crawdads Sing" may be the worst book I have ever read and back in the day "50 Shades" was written by an imbecile (you know when someone mentions a book or movie and your opinion of them completely changes...)
Fire Lord Jim
Well-Known Member
I just started "A History of the World in 6 Glasses". It's an audiobook, so actually I am listening, not reading. But look who is reading it.
1speed
Incredibly profound yet fantastically flawed
Just a quick update on my last post - since then I've read rest of the Salvation Sequence trilogy - Salvation Lost and The Saints of Salvation. I can't recommend this series highly enough. This whole story is so well realized. Hamilton created a future universe that would be really cool to live in (if it weren't for the aliens bent on cocooning everyone, but ... details ...) Anyway, really worth checking out if you're looking for escapist sci-fi fare.
1speed
Incredibly profound yet fantastically flawed
A while back, I read a story from Iain Banks called "Consider Phlebas", which was a 1988 novel that began Banks' "Culture" series, a loosely connected series about a multi-planet society of humans powered by more or less sentient AI, such that logic and reason are championed above all. It was interesting, but it illustrated for me why I have the bias toward more recent sci-fi - aside from some prescient AI references, the majority of the tech that exists within the novel is rarely fleshed out in any meaningful way. For example, there are many different genetic variations of "humans" spread out across the galaxy, but without the more modern understanding (or at least speculation) much of these variants go completely without explanation: there's nothing behind the existence of certain variations. It's just "there". It's fine for a story, but after reading some of Liu, Hamilton or Tchaicovsky works, it's tough to just accept these things without an explanation. It kind of feels like you need to get the "why" to appreciate the storyline. But getting past that, it's a good story.
I've also read a few non-fiction books lately - the most notable of which for me was "Madhouse at the End of the Earth", about a Belgian Antarctic expedition that went horribly wrong. Generally, I love disaster stories - there is just so much you can learn about people from stories where sit goes really sideways - but what was especially interesting about this one is the "why" behind the ship's fate. Mostly, it's a character study of the primary players in the expedition and its fate. Pretty interesting read.
I've also read a few non-fiction books lately - the most notable of which for me was "Madhouse at the End of the Earth", about a Belgian Antarctic expedition that went horribly wrong. Generally, I love disaster stories - there is just so much you can learn about people from stories where sit goes really sideways - but what was especially interesting about this one is the "why" behind the ship's fate. Mostly, it's a character study of the primary players in the expedition and its fate. Pretty interesting read.
I just finished the 7th Expanse book. It was fine. Kind of different but a lot the same?
If you’ve read these, doesn’t it bother you that the most intriguing plot of the whole goddamn book - in fact, it’s kind of the overriding plot of the series - gets about 10 paragraphs out of 550+ pages?
I’m referring to the concept that there’s a thing that had previously shut down the protomolecule and the civilization that created it. Instead of exploring this concept, we get 549 pages of space soap opera & proto-imperialism.
If you’ve read these, doesn’t it bother you that the most intriguing plot of the whole goddamn book - in fact, it’s kind of the overriding plot of the series - gets about 10 paragraphs out of 550+ pages?
I’m referring to the concept that there’s a thing that had previously shut down the protomolecule and the civilization that created it. Instead of exploring this concept, we get 549 pages of space soap opera & proto-imperialism.
I checked out on the books around 3 or 4. For that reason you mentioned. Seems like a waste of a great story
serviceguy
Well-Known Member
Sometime you have to cut your losses, a practice I've never been good at.
Yeah, I hear ya. My MIL just gave me book 9 when we were in Florida with them. She said it was so, so good. So now I am in a pickle, know what I mean?