iirc accelerando originated as a series of short stories which is why it may seem uneven. can't tell you anything else about stross as it's the only one i've read (and didn't care so much for).
― sleepingsignal, Tuesday, 7 January 2014 19:22 (ten years ago) link
Priest's story in the 1983 Granta Best of Young British Novelists issue.Is it "The Miraculous Cairn"? Have a copy of The Dream Archipelago but haven't actually read that one yet. Also have a copy of his new one, The Adjacent. Read the first section at the end of last week and started in on the second but haven't had time to get back to it.
― Can One Hear the Shape of a Ron Decline Bottle? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 7 January 2014 19:24 (ten years ago) link
Ooh, I just bought The Inverted World today. I'm curious about the new one too.
― festival culture (Jordan), Tuesday, 7 January 2014 19:27 (ten years ago) link
There's definitely a cairn in it so I'm guessing yes?
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, 7 January 2014 19:27 (ten years ago) link
Cool. Love that Dream Archipelago stuff, although haven't got round to reading The Islanders either. Been dipping into Ersatz Wine which is his earliest short stories along with a lot of autobiographical information.
― Can One Hear the Shape of a Ron Decline Bottle? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 7 January 2014 19:31 (ten years ago) link
Inverted World is so great - the edition w the afterword noting how the book is a satirical inversion of traditional hard sci-fi tropes is eye opening. I may have mentioned this somewhere else around here.
also a big fan of Silverberg's late 60s/early 70s work. Dying Inside, The World Inside, Son of Man (maybe the most genuinely psychedelic sci-fi work ever - just a guy wandering through a constantly shifting, phantasmagoric landscape), Tower of Glass... good stuff!
― Ayn Rand Akbar (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 7 January 2014 19:34 (ten years ago) link
China Mieville is readable and has good world-building but his sentences are in love with themselves in a fundamentally ugly way
this is also spot on. I find him tiresome.
― Ayn Rand Akbar (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 7 January 2014 19:35 (ten years ago) link
What is the cutoff date with Silverberg? Thought "Sailing to Byzantium" was ultimately a snooze.
― Can One Hear the Shape of a Ron Decline Bottle? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 7 January 2014 19:52 (ten years ago) link
1976
― Ayn Rand Akbar (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 7 January 2014 19:54 (ten years ago) link
eeph the manfred macx stuff is the first third and i agree its pretty bad. when they get to his daughter and it becomes a space opera set in a VR sim of elizabethan england hosted on a spaceship the size of a can of beans it becomes kinda cool. then it just gets bad again
― max, Tuesday, 7 January 2014 19:54 (ten years ago) link
some funny paralells w Miles Davis - both took the latter half of the 70s off, and both returned in the 80s with much more popular/mainstream work. I read a bunch of his 80s stuff in hs but have no interest in revisiting it now and it all looks pretty boring/pedestrian afaict. Not that all of his 60s/70s books are masterpieces, but in general he was much more wide-ranging conceptually. Was good at just going with the times, I guess.
xp
― Ayn Rand Akbar (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 7 January 2014 19:56 (ten years ago) link
just a guy wandering through a constantly shifting, phantasmagoric landscape)Have you read Robert Sheckley's Mindswap or Options?
― Can One Hear the Shape of a Ron Decline Bottle? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 7 January 2014 19:57 (ten years ago) link
haven't read any Sheckley
― Ayn Rand Akbar (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 7 January 2014 20:04 (ten years ago) link
waddaya waiting for?
― Can One Hear the Shape of a Ron Decline Bottle? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 7 January 2014 20:13 (ten years ago) link
dunno! Options sounds pretty fun/Malzbergian.
― Ayn Rand Akbar (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 7 January 2014 20:57 (ten years ago) link
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2010/04/april-fool-not-so-much-dangerous-as-unconvinging-harlan-ellisons-lemgthe-last-dangerous-visionslemg
― Can One Hear the Shape of a Ron Decline Bottle? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 8 January 2014 11:55 (ten years ago) link
"What is the cutoff date with Silverberg? Thought "Sailing to Byzantium" was ultimately a snooze."
Basically it was he retired and got burned out. But from 1967-1976 he was amazing. Don't sleep on short story collections from that period either.
― One bad call from barely losing to (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 8 January 2014 13:12 (ten years ago) link
Speaking of April 1 announcements,
Bacigalupi and Watts to Collaborate on Depressing Dystopian Shared World Anthology
Paolo Bacigalupi hasn't been mentioned this thread, but he's a nearish-future worldbuilder focused on climate issues, with a dark appraisal of humanity. The collection Pump Six and Other Stories and novel The Windup Girl are recommended, thereafter its diminishing returns. Ship Breaker and The Drowned Cities are the young adult novellas for the IPCC report reading teen in your life.
― Disco Ebionite (Sanpaku), Wednesday, 8 January 2014 13:14 (ten years ago) link
Yeah the Windup Girl is amazing. Rest is okay.
― One bad call from barely losing to (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 8 January 2014 13:17 (ten years ago) link
To be honest I also like Mieville and find him very entertaining, but I get the complaints too. City and the City and Embassytown are probably better if you've never read the other stuff though.
― One bad call from barely losing to (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 8 January 2014 13:22 (ten years ago) link
“Peter and I got talking about how much we loved shared-world anthologies, like Thieves World or Wild Cards,” said Bacigalupi, “but were put off by the unreasonable optimism of their settings. We think science fiction is ready for a pessimistic future of bleak, uncompromising wretchedness."
I think I need to delve into this guy's work IMMEDIATELY.
― barranca jagger (GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ), Wednesday, 8 January 2014 14:47 (ten years ago) link
Thieves' World was unreasonably optimistic?
― Ayn Rand Akbar (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 8 January 2014 16:30 (ten years ago) link
We think science fiction is ready for a pessimistic future of bleak, uncompromising wretchedness
uh sci-fi has been mired in this for the last 30 years more or less, I don't really see this as a new or necessary advancement
im super down with the mieville thoughts on this thread. some of his world building is astonishingly good tho. the city and the city is great, particularly if you pretend it's about montreal (it isnt).
dig silverberg's dying inside.
does anyone fuck with hyperion? i think its tremendous.
― socki (s1ocki), Thursday, 9 January 2014 23:59 (ten years ago) link
(the series doesnt quite resolve itself but that first book is amazing)
― socki (s1ocki), Friday, 10 January 2014 00:00 (ten years ago) link
hyperion is pretty amazing
― latebloomer, Friday, 10 January 2014 00:02 (ten years ago) link
would make a great miniseries
Dan Simmons?
― Wild Mountain Armagideon Thyme" (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 10 January 2014 02:10 (ten years ago) link
I like, just finished fall of hyperion after what I guess was 8 months? I still don' tknow how I felt about it. It seems like those two books could have been half as long and still gotten their point across, kind of. I dunno, I was disappointed in the end. Not sure whether to embark on empyrion, since it took me forever and two attempts to do the hyperion books. maybe I should read something else.
― akm, Friday, 10 January 2014 04:06 (ten years ago) link
recommend me something.
― socki (s1ocki), Monday, 14 July 2014 21:42 (ten years ago) link
book or movie
― Οὖτις, Monday, 14 July 2014 21:43 (ten years ago) link
oh book please.
― socki (s1ocki), Monday, 14 July 2014 21:44 (ten years ago) link
fantasy okay too.
i have a trip to the lake coming up.
Inverted World. But maybe you already
― I Need Andmoreagain (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 14 July 2014 21:45 (ten years ago) link
Or better yet, The Adjacent
i already inverted. what's the adjacent? same author?
― socki (s1ocki), Monday, 14 July 2014 21:46 (ten years ago) link
Yes, his latest and greatest
― I Need Andmoreagain (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 14 July 2014 21:47 (ten years ago) link
oh that looks cool.
― socki (s1ocki), Monday, 14 July 2014 21:47 (ten years ago) link
Jon Armstrong's "Thread" and "Grey" are my go-to recommendations for recent quality sci-fi.
― Οὖτις, Monday, 14 July 2014 21:54 (ten years ago) link
maybe obv but the tiptree collectin "her smoke rose up" is unbelievably good
― max, Monday, 14 July 2014 22:02 (ten years ago) link
the new vandermeer books are great beach reads too though very "written to be turned into a tv show"
oh man and ann leckie's ANCILLARY JUSTICE, which is so good
*takes notes*
― socki (s1ocki), Monday, 14 July 2014 22:03 (ten years ago) link
this plot description is hilarious
For Michael Rivers, life is perfect. He is tall, handsome and worshipped by billions of fans around the globe. He is wealthy beyond measure, the heir apparent to one of the high-tech corporations that controls the world. He is fashionable, setting trends with his wardrobe of immaculate designer suits. And Michael is in love with Nora, his beautiful, witty and equally perfect fiancée. When an assassin's bullets pierce Michael's body before the cameras at a press junket, everything changes. Forcibly separated from Nora, his illusions shattered, Michael seeks to uncover the reasons behind the attempted assassination. Michael delves deep into his past, finding that all paths lead to a time when he was the golden boy, dancing furiously to the beat of notorious all-night Rage parties thrown by his father.
― socki (s1ocki), Monday, 14 July 2014 22:04 (ten years ago) link
i finally got around to 'accelerando' too and ended up liking it a lot, or at least the middle third
― max, Monday, 14 July 2014 22:06 (ten years ago) link
People on this borad loving them some Ancillary Justice. Tempted to give it a try but afraid it will turn out to be some Album of the Decade Big and Rich stuff.
― I Need Andmoreagain (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 14 July 2014 22:07 (ten years ago) link
this is not sci fi, quite, or maybe it is, but its really great
http://www.amazon.com/The-Revolutions-Felix-Gilman/dp/0765337177
― max, Monday, 14 July 2014 22:07 (ten years ago) link
ancillary justice on kindle sale for $1.99 so that's tight
― socki (s1ocki), Monday, 14 July 2014 22:07 (ten years ago) link
can't remember if i read accelerando, i did read a bunch of his other stuff
― socki (s1ocki), Monday, 14 July 2014 22:08 (ten years ago) link
yeah idk, im not sure id unreservedly recommend it but its got a lot of cool ideas
― max, Monday, 14 July 2014 22:09 (ten years ago) link