Yakoob on 24/6/2015 at 00:39
I've been reading
(http://www.amazon.com/Perdido-Street-Station-China-Mi%C3%A9ville/dp/0345459407) Perdidio Street Station and really digging it so far. The world is very interesting, reminds me a LOT of Planescape: Torment in it's creative griminess, the city districts and pseudo-philosophy. It's also a little like a twisted dark version of Pratchett. Not even halfway through yet, but would definitely recommend!
demagogue on 24/6/2015 at 03:36
I was thinking of making a scifi war game on TripleA, did some research and found out The Forever War gets consistently ranked first in that category. Then there's the movie news about it. So I'm reading that now.
Sulphur on 24/6/2015 at 03:58
Interesting book, that one. You can see it's about Vietnam from a mile away, but the ideas are mixed in and presented with a degree of detail that makes it feel less like speculative fiction and more like an actual account of a war - from tactics, deployment strategies, and propaganda, to the cold, dispassionate heart of command. I can't say it clicked for me at a personal level, but there's no denying its value as a classic.
catbarf on 24/6/2015 at 13:58
Since we're on sci-fi, I recently stocked up on various sci-fi novels from a bookstore in Portland, partly for fun and partly as inspiration for a game project.
Earthlight by Arthur C. Clarke. It's a lot shorter than I expected, at a measly 150-odd pages, and reads more like a long novella than a full novel. This one is very typical of the Heinleinian era of optimism of hard sci-fi, and with the current popularity of a more cynical view of the future, the book's vision of humankind essentially renouncing war and colonizing the solar system in peace seems rather... dated, to say the least. But at its core it's a passable counter-spy novel and shallow political thriller wrapped around a depiction of life on the Moon, building up to a climax of one of the most evocative space battles I've read.
Armor by John Steakley. I read this years ago and all I remember was it being a decent and unapologetic ripoff of Starship Troopers, with less waxing about fascist politics and more about the psychology of the soldiers. Haven't gotten to it yet.
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. All I know is that it's frequently compared to Starship Troopers but is about a soldier dealing with the effects of relativistic time dilation and returning to a society that has become alien. Now that I think about that, Sulphur, that does sound like a Vietnam novel, but describing it as less speculative fiction and more an account of war piques my interest.
Lastly, Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey. I saw this one in a bookstore a few months ago, read the blurb, and put it back on the shelf. Then later I saw it on a recommended reading list for a website dedicated to hard sci-fi, and figured I ought to check it out. I'm only about halfway through but so far I'm impressed. It's set in a Balkanized solar system (no faster-than-light) and has a conservative take on future technology, but it tells its story like a space opera, using the setting and technology as a backdrop rather than the focus. Apparently there are four more books already out and a TV series coming in December so I'm excited to see how those turn out.
Also, is it weird that reading this sort of stuff has ruined Star Trek, Lensman, Halo, and the like for me? It's really jarring now when authors use inapplicable naval analogies or don't seem to understand space, and I'm really getting sick of a lot of typical soft sci-fi tropes. I guess I'm not sure whether that's from reading hard sci-fi or because I've read a whole bunch of soft sci-fi, but most of the space opera kind of stuff really doesn't interest me anymore.
Caradavin on 27/6/2015 at 03:51
I am re-reading the "Left Behind" series. Besides that, I am painstakingly trying to read all of Patterson's books.
faetal on 8/7/2015 at 08:18
Just finished Herman Melville's Moby Dick. Now there is a book. One of the most satisfying books I've ever read.
Prose dripping with idiom, excellent characters and characterisation and a perfect build up to an explosive finale.
Next up is Lorna Doone.
Vae on 9/7/2015 at 08:32
Yes...It is an excellent novel...Such a shame the appreciation of greatness is rare among the sea of mediocrity within the gaming spectrum.
Severian_Silk on 9/7/2015 at 15:17
Yeah, I've been meaning to read Moby Dick for some time now, but instead I've started reading the The Witcher books. I so regret this :( .
Now, the short stories are fun and reminded me of some of the cooler pulp authors like Clark Ashton Smith or Robert E. Howard. They didn't feel like great literaturę that it's sometimes made out to be in Poland, but they're pretty entertaining. The novels are, however, badly paced, extremely drawn-out for such short books, not much really happens, and for every interesting character there's thrice as many forgettable ones. In fact, the books are so forgettable that I vaguely remember what the Blood of Elves was about, even though I finished it a week ago :p .
I guess no more fantasy for me, at least for now :( .
faetal on 9/7/2015 at 17:53
Quote Posted by Vae
Yes...It is an excellent novel...Such a shame the appreciation of greatness is rare among the sea of mediocrity within the gaming spectrum.
For years I've skipped over the classics thinking that they aren't edgy or cool or whatever, but recently I've been dipping into a load of them and there's a reason they're classics.
Sulphur on 10/7/2015 at 03:40
I had the opposite problem of reading the classics when I was too young to appreciate them and ended up wondering what all the hullabaloo was about, hence they haven't stayed with me as much as if I'd read them years later. Still, Dickens and Dumas and Shakespeare had an ineffable aura of wonder around them even if you were reading them as a pre-teen.
