Book Recommendations?

ranalin wrote:
muraii wrote:

I was thinking about the tenets of cyberpunk, and much of the broad sci-fi I've encountered, being that they often rely at least implicitly on readily available electricity much as the utility it is today in many parts of the world. Of course there are situations in which electricity as an immediate resource is unavailable, for plot reasons.

But I wondered what kind of story beats we might find in a world built around provisional access to electricity, but where "the internet" or similar, and all manner of technowizzy, are popular. What effect would rolling blackouts or brownouts have on how cultures embrace "Johnny Mnemonic"-style couriers and whatever?

So I wondered if anyone had come across stories/books like this, where the rapid depletion of our ability to generate electricity as widely as we enjoy today collides with hacker culture and cyborganics and cetera.

We already have a genre for that... it's called Steampunk

No.

Both The Windup Girl and The Water Knife are amazing novels that I will never read again. Once was enough.

Halfway through The Golden Enclaves and very much enjoying it.

Zona wrote:

Both The Windup Girl and The Water Knife are amazing novels that I will never read again. Once was enough.

I had the same reaction to Windup Girl and Shipbreaker. Bleak.

I had the same reaction to The Windup Girl.

Yeah, Windup Girl was very good, but way too grim for me. I'm a big fan of Project Hail Mary - I think some of the later revelations temper the main character's Mary Sue-ness, though I can look past that with PHM and The Martian. They remind me of Rendezvous With Rama or books like that. The characters are a bit thin in them, but the plots and tech are strong enough that I don't mind.

A new Expeditionary Force book dropped today.

karmajay wrote:

A new Expeditionary Force book dropped today.

Dropped Tuesday and it's very good if you're a fan of the series...

I missed the last one and am about half way through those. I just love this series. It has a lot of heart and humor and is a great listen.

hbi2k wrote:

I started Dan Simmons' Hyperion knowing basically nothing about it other than "science fiction novel people say is good."

Hyperion was great! And... the second book was pretty good.

Jonman wrote:
beanman101283 wrote:

I also recently finished The Three Body Problem. I found a lot of its ideas neat, but i struggled to get into the story itself. I'm not sure if it's an issue with the translation, or a cultural difference, but I found so much of the dialog stiff and unnatural sounding. I'm not sure if I'll continue with the rest of the series.

This was precisely my experience with it.

The dialog felt like it had had multiple trips through Google Translate, and the characters were similarly baffling in their affect and motivations.

The story gets weirder in the later books, and the ways in which physics is mangled are at least quite imaginative.

ranalin wrote:

Can't recommend Wind-up Girl enough

Great book.

On to the second tale in Hyperion-- Colonel Kassad-- and man. Is this guy supposed to be just the worst? His dream woman is literally one who shows up, f*cks his brains out, and never speaks.

The three big science fiction series I've touched over the past year or so are this, Three Body Problem, and Dune. Between God Emperor of Dune's Hwi Noree, TBP's Zhuang Yan, and now Hyperion's Moneta, I am really really sick of the "waifish ingenue who is the perfect woman but also possibly manufactured or otherwise imaginary" trope.

Here's the thing: I'm a man. My gaze is, by definition, the male gaze. Viewing my own male gaze through an author's male gaze is like trying to look at the world through two pairs of prescription glasses. You can make an argument for the necessity of the first, but the second just makes everything distorted and vaguely nauseating.

hbi2k wrote:

On to the second tale in Hyperion-- Colonel Kassad-- and man. Is this guy supposed to be just the worst? His dream woman is literally one who shows up, f*cks his brains out, and never speaks.

The three big science fiction series I've touched over the past year or so are this, Three Body Problem, and Dune. Between God Emperor of Dune's Hwi Noree, TBP's Zhuang Yan, and now Hyperion's Moneta, I am really really sick of the "waifish ingenue who is the perfect woman but also possibly manufactured or otherwise imaginary" trope.

Here's the thing: I'm a man. My gaze is, by definition, the male gaze. Viewing my own male gaze through an author's male gaze is like trying to look at the world through two pairs of prescription glasses. You can make an argument for the necessity of the first, but the second just makes everything distorted and vaguely nauseating.

I think your problem here is that you read God Emperor of Dune, which is Herbert at his most bored and bizarre. I like his Dune and adore his God Messiah, but after that the series went dunehill.

I've been skeptical of reading Hyperion, though I own it. A space-faring Canterbury Tales? Yes, please! Dan Simmons? F*** no!

Oh, God Emperor was my favorite of the Dune books I read, because that was where it finally shed all pretensions, embraced its own weirdness, and became the batsh*t crazy psychedelic sociopolitical diatribe it always wanted to be.

I slogged my way through Heretics but had trouble connecting with its huge new cast of characters and factions, and couldn't muster up the motivation to cross the finish line (of the Frank written books anyway) with Chapterhouse.

hbi2k wrote:

Here's the thing: I'm a man. My gaze is, by definition, the male gaze. Viewing my own male gaze through an author's male gaze is like trying to look at the world through two pairs of prescription glasses. You can make an argument for the necessity of the first, but the second just makes everything distorted and vaguely nauseating.

This is so well-put. Thank you.

Natus wrote:

I've been skeptical of reading Hyperion, though I own it. A space-faring Canterbury Tales? Yes, please! Dan Simmons? F*** no!

Oh god no. I had no idea. I’m not terribly attached to him but it’s still disappointing.

Children of Memory, the third book in Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time series. Every bit as excellent as the first two. Like them, it follows an interstellar expedition that explores a world terraformed by the long-lost first human civilisation, and finds things much stranger than anyone expected. This time the world has already been colonised by an earlier expedition, and the story is told in alternate chapters from the point of view of members of the new expedition and the old colony. But as the explorers learn bits and pieces of the colony's history, they begin to realise that, no matter how they try to fit the history together, the pieces never quite seem to match up properly...

(Spoilers for the first two books)

Spoiler:

The various sentient species from the first two books - humans, spiders, octopuses, and the alien Nodan entity - have now been joined by another one, descended from ravens, who have developed another of the weird but logical combinations of biology and culture that Tchaikovsky is so good at. And it's also a tribute to the author's skill that the extremely non-human Nodan, the truly terrifying Big Bad of the second book, is now one of the book's most sympathetic POV characters, while still being recognisably the same entity.

Oh, and if anyone ever films these books, Avrana Kern absolutely has to be played by Ellen McLain.

hbi2k wrote:

Oh, God Emperor was my favorite of the Dune books I read, because that was where it finally shed all pretensions, embraced its own weirdness, and became the batsh*t crazy psychedelic sociopolitical diatribe it always wanted to be.

I slogged my way through Heretics but had trouble connecting with its huge new cast of characters and factions, and couldn't muster up the motivation to cross the finish line (of the Frank written books anyway) with Chapterhouse.

Yeah this.

God Emperor was the worst Dune book when I read em in my teens. and the best one when I re-read em in my 40s.

You didn't miss much with Chapterhouse except Frank indulging his inner pervert by asking 'What if Bene Gesserit, but sexy?". What's the name for a leotard fetish? Because Frank had it in spades.

Completed Fahrenheit 451 and liked it. The book reminded me of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Both had that depressing weight pushing down on me. I guess that is a trait of dystopian future books that reflects the real world.

If you’re a fan of Jason Pargin’s John Dies at the End series, the latest book, If This Book Exists You’re in the Wrong Universe, is the best (and shockingly, most mature) entry in the series. It follows John, David, and Amy as they deal with a doomsday cult, time travel, parallel dimensions, and overcoming cycles of trauma.

Wound up bouncing off of Hyperion after Zipless f*ck Girl turned out to be

Spoiler:

an alien monster with vagina dentata

and then that story just kind of... ends. Maybe this is all leading up to a really cool conclusion, but the thought of picking the book up again is actively unpleasant at this point. I don't need to hear some jarhead asshole talking about

Spoiler:

his alien-f*cking exploits

to his traveling companions in pornographic detail today, no matter how interesting some of the world-building is.

I've had it recommended to me a dozen or more times over the years and always filed it in my head under "sounds cool, I should check it out sometime when I'm in the mood," but I finally decided to try Ian M. Banks' The Culture series. It's one of those series where people have strong and contradictory opinions on where to start, but a common recommendation is The Player of Games, so I went with that one.

I clicked into this one much more easily than the last few big sci-fi series I've dabbled in. The prose is breezy and readable, and there's a light, affable wit to it that makes it go down smooth. At any given point it does just enough world-building to stay interesting without ever getting bogged down in exposition, and the characters pop off the page. I wound up tearing through the whole thing in a couple days.

It's not perfect. For a setting that's all about actually fulfilling the Star Trek promise of "luxury gay space communism" without a major television network pushing back against every part of that, it manages to still work in the tired trope of the younger female love interest who seemingly spends all her free time with the male protagonist but won't sleep with him, disappears for the middle 3/4 of the book because she has nothing to actually do in the plot, and then shows back up again at the end to sleep with him after all as a reward for all his character growth.

Some of the plotting is a little clunky; it introduces what seems like a major Chekhov's gun in the second act, only to drop it unceremoniously and never pay it off. And it seems to think it's being more clever than it is with all the hidden double identity / intrusive unreliable narrator stuff.

Still, it's a world and a style that I'm excited to revisit. I'm going on a week's vacation involving air travel in a couple days, and I've got Use of Weapons loaded up as my traveling companion.

Iain M. Banks' non-Culture SF and his literature/modern fiction stuff are of at least equal quality. "Player of Games" was the second book in the series, published in 1988; it's his what, sixth published book? The last of the Culture series was published in 2012. So you'll find an awful lot better SF as you go along chronologically.

He is one of the most important Scottish writers active from the 80's into the 2010's, along with Val McDermid, Ian Rankin and Irvine Welsh (whose blend of social satire and writing about the working class in Scotland combines with both hopeful and repellent characters who actually grow and change over time is highly emotionally affecting). There are of course many others but these authors have all stood out for me in both genre and literature writing. All of them have outstanding characterizations, btw. I know that's a concern for many here.

Banks and Welsh, though, have special places in my literary heart. No one else writes like they do.

hbi2k wrote:

Some of the plotting is a little clunky; it introduces what seems like a major Chekhov's gun in the second act, only to drop it unceremoniously and never pay it off. And it seems to think it's being more clever than it is with all the hidden double identity / intrusive unreliable narrator stuff.

This happens a lot in his books. I say this as a huge fan of Banks. Speaking of, I just wrapped up Inversions which is ostensibly a Culture novel but not really. Had some interesting things going on (and some of the stuff hbi2k noted above) but not my favorite by a long stretch.

Robear wrote:

Banks and Welsh, though, have special places in my literary heart. No one else writes like they do.

First time I've seen someone sing Welsh's praises...I will go look him up!

I really, really liked Banks's The Algebraist and it might actually make a really neat play. But I really didn't like how under-drawn his female characters were, and most of how they were drawn centered on sex.

For Welsh, I'd start with the classic "Trainspotting". Bear in mind, he can be dark and also hopeful, but the latter comes out more starting with the book "Glue". His earlier books lean more dark. Find a guide and read them in chrono sequence, if you like Trainspotting.

Also, they are written in a Scots vernacular. And you should just insert every trigger warning imaginable, because if you are prone to triggering, you're gonna be.

Oh, and for the below, bear in mind the character speaking below is a pretentious college-bound, self-centered dude who low-key imagines himself better than everyone else around him, but is still a heroin addict at this point.

Trainspotting wrote:

Ah despised masel and the world because ah failed tae face up tae ma ain, and life’s, limitations. The acceptance ay self-defeating limitations seemed then tae constitute mental health, or non-deviant behaviour.

Success and failure simply mean the satisfaction and frustration ay desire. Desire can either be predominantly intrinsic, based oan oor individual drives, or extrinsic, primarily stimulated by advertising, or societal role models as presented through the media and popular culture. Tom feels that ma concept ay success and failure only operates on an individual rather than an individual and societal level. Due tae this failure tae recognize societal reward, success (and failure) can only ever be fleeting experiences for me, as that experience cannae be sustained by the socially-supported condoning of wealth, power, status, etc., nor, in the case ay failure, by stigma or reproach. So, according tae Tom, it’s nae good telling us that ah’ve done well in ma exams, or got a good job, or got off wi a nice burd; that kind ay acclaim means nowt tae us. Of course, ah enjoy these things at the time, or for themselves, but their value cannae be sustained because there’s nae recognition ay the society which values them. What Tom’s trying tae say, ah suppose, is that ah dinnae gie a f*ck. Why? So it goes back tae ma alienation from society. The problem is that Tom refuses tae accept ma view that society cannae be changed tae make it significantly better, or that ah cannae change tae accommodate it. Such a state ay affairs induces depression on ma part, aw the anger gets turned in. That’s what depression is, they say. However, depression also results in demotivation. A void grows within ye. Junk fills the void, and also helps us tae satisfy ma need tae destroy masel, the anger turned in bit again.

So basically ah agree wi Tom here. Whair we depart is that he refuses tae see this picture in its total bleakness. He believes that ah’m suffering fae low self-esteem, and that ah’m refusing tae acknowledge that by projecting the blame oantae society. He feels that ma means ay emasculating the rewards and praise (and conversely condemnation) available tae me by society is not a rejection ay these values per se, but an indication that ah dinnae feel good enough (or bad enough) aboot masel tae accept them. Rather than come oot and say: Ah don’t think ah have these qualities (or ah think ah’m better than that), Ah say: It’s a loaday f*cking sh*te anywey. Hazel said tae us, jist before she telt us that she didnae wantae see us again, whin ah started using for the umpteenth time: – You just want tae f*ck up on drugs so that everyone’ll think how deep and f*cking complex you are. It’s pathetic, and f*cking boring. In a sense ah prefer Hazel’s view. Thir is an element ay ego in it. Why should ah reject the world, see masel as better than it? Because ah do, that’s why. Because ah f*cking am, and that’s that.

The upshot ay this attitude is that ah was sent tae this therapy/counselling sh*te. Ah didnae want aw this. This sh*te muddies the waters for us; confuses rather than clarifies issues. Basically, aw ah ask is that {sexist slur}s mind their ain business and ah’ll dae the same. Why is that because ye use hard drugs every {sexist slur} feels that they have a right tae dissect and analyse ye?

Once ye accept that they huv that right, ye’ll join them in the search fir this holy grail, this thing that makes ye tick. Ye’ll then defer tae them, allowin yersel tae be conned intae believin any biscuit-ersed theory ay behaviour they choose tae attach tae ye. Then yir theirs, no yir ain; the dependency shifts from the drug to them.

Society invents a spurious convoluted logic tae absorb and change people whae’s behaviour is outside its mainstream. Suppose that ah ken aw the pros and cons, know that ah’m gaunnae huv a short life, am ay sound mind etcetera, etcetera, but still want tae use smack? They won’t let ye dae it. They won’t let ye dae it, because it’s seen as a failure ay thir am failure. The fact that ye jist simply choose tae reject whit they huv tae offer. Choose us. Choose life. Choose mortgage payments; choose washing machines; choose cars; choose sitting oan a couch watching mind-numbing and spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing f*ckin junk food intae yir mooth. Choose rotting away, pishing and sh*teing yersel in a home, a total f*ckin embarassment tae the selfish, f*cked-up brats ye’ve produced. Choose life.

Well, ah choose no tae choose life.

I asked an AI to write a book report for Player of Games and, well, here's what it gave me. Spot the errors.

Spoiler:

Player of Games is a science fiction novel by Ian Banks, first published in 1988. It tells the story of Jernau Morat Gurgeh, a master game player who is invited to the Empire of Azad to compete in their ancient and mysterious game of Azad.

Jernau is an expert at the game of Azad and is confident in his skills. He is eager to prove himself against the Azadians and show them the difference between a master game player and an amateur. He is accompanied by a robotic drone named Mawhrin-Skel, who serves as his companion and guide.

The game of Azad is complex and difficult to master. Jernau must learn the rules and strategies in order to succeed. He quickly realizes that the game is more than just a game, as it is also a way of life for the Azadians. As he progresses through the game, he discovers more about the culture and politics of the Empire.

Jernau does well in the game and proves himself to be a true master. His success in the game brings him to the attention of Azad's rulers, who invite him to join their society. Jernau is offered the opportunity to become the Champion of Azad and take a place of power within the Empire.

However, Jernau soon discovers that he is not the only one with plans for Azad. The Empire is threatened by an alien race known as the Culture, who are intent on taking over the Empire. Jernau must use his considerable skills at the game of Azad to defeat the Culture and protect the Empire.

Player of Games is an exciting and thought-provoking novel. Banks' writing is vivid and engaging, and he creates a fascinating world full of mystery and intrigue. The characters are well-developed and the story is engaging and suspenseful. Overall, Player of Games is an excellent science fiction novel and a must-read for any fan of the genre.

Finished The Bone Ships after long ago reading a recommendation for it on here. I kind of loved it in its way. It’s almost an Aubrey-Maturin style romp with chunks of near-magic thrown in. The world building is good. The climax is resolved in a way that is built towards, but still feels like a deus ex machina. And yet I didn’t think it that bad.

All in all I’d recommend it for light reading. I really liked it. It’s the first book in a trilogy thst I’ll definitely continue.

Just a quick call out for the old-timers among us...those that used to frequent the Gone Gold website...

Bill Harris recently completed his first book, The Man You Trust (Amazon link, no affiliate bs). Folks may remember him as a member of the extended community that was part of the early days of GWJ....

Here is his recent blog post on his book is here.

I've read a few pre-publication drafts and I am a fan. My copy arrives from Amazon on Saturday.

I finished the First Law trilogy. Overall I enjoyed it, which probably says a lot for the plotting and writing style as the whole Grimdark everything is awful is usually not my thing. Abercrombie has a real gift for writing action scenes that a lot of people could learn from.

I have now moved onto an interesting experiment, The Shining is one of my favourite films and I have always been aware of Stephen King's dislike for what Kubrick did to his book. Despite being a big horror fan I have never read any Stephen King, I have no idea why it's just one of those things. I have decided the new year was the time to take the plunge, at least if I really like King there is plenty to get stuck into!

So far I am about 25% of the way into the book and its great, he seems to be very good at creating believable characters and the knowledge of the broad things to come is not getting in the way of what is a very oppressive atmosphere building around the Torrance family.

I miss Bill. Lost his email address in a computer upgrade a while back. He and I were writers at Gone Gold and often corresponded, for a while. Good times.

Never did find out what happened to Rich. He was amazing. I expect he's passed by now.

I always recommend King's earlier and "non-epic fantasy" books, and then his later ones as well. So his early short stories (Night Shift is a great collection of these), all the novels under his name and Richard Bachman up through 1981. After that, for my money, avoid the series books and stick with the one-offs - Christine, Running Man, Misery and Tommyknockers, The Green Mile. And then skip to 2009 with Under The Dome, where he starts to do old-school again. Since then he's done some great stuff - The Bill Hodges trilogy is very tasty, as is Dr Sleep, the sequel to The Shining.

Obviously, others here like his fantasy stuff, and they can tell you about those. I bounced hard off The Gunslinger and The Tower and such so I can't.

Robear wrote:

Obviously, others here like his fantasy stuff, and they can tell you about those. I bounced hard off The Gunslinger and The Tower and such so I can't.

Even the die-hardest Dark Tower fan will tell you that it's uneven and has kind of a weak ending.

If it's a side of King you're interested in exploring, start with The Stand, which is pretty self-contained and will give you a decent idea of what King is like in his epic, "I really like Lord of the Rings and want to write an American version of that" mode. If you can, hunt up the 1978 original edit over the 1990 expanded edition; King is one of those writers who benefits from a strong editor forcing him to cut the cruft. Either version is ultimately fine, though.

If you liked that, next stop is The Gunslinger. Again, preferably the original 1982 version as opposed to the 2003 rewrite, which cleans up some contradictions in plot and tone with the later series but also robs it of a lot of its fever-dream charm.

From there, continue on with The Drawing of the Three and the rest of the Dark Tower series until you finish or bounce off, whichever comes first.

That's "if" it's a side of King you're interested in exploring. There's no shortage of King to enjoy, it's okay if you bounce off of Dark Tower like Robear did. His recommendations are good ones too. Other highlights are:

Carrie - First novel and a classic for a reason; King is a smart enough writer to know what he doesn't know, and got a lot of help from his wife-at-the-time to nail down the viewpoint of a high school girl.

It - You probably know a lot of the broad strokes of this one through pop culture osmosis, but the book goes a lot more weird / cosmic than you might expect if the first thing you think of is "plucky 80s kids on bikes fight a killer clown."

Needful Things - Quite possibly the purest expression of King's love of Twin Peaks esque "small town with a dark secret" settings.

Eyes of the Dragon - A rare experiment into pure medieval fantasy. No viewpoint character from our world, no "it was far future Earth all along" twist. Very light and readable, even for King.

Firestarter - Fun conspiracy thriller, very "X-Files before there was X-Files."

Pet Sematary - Deeply affecting meditation on grief and loss; also much darker than is usual for King, who despite his reputation as America's boogeyman almost always has a core of hope and optimism to him. Not here.

King originally wrote The Eyes of the Dragon for his kids, that's the main reason it's so different from his other fiction.

And of course he's tied it into his other works.