SFBRP Listeners discussion
Books I would like to see reviewed
I've heard it's like magic realism. You could do a magically realistic episode.
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I'd like to add my vote for Luke to try some of Ken MacLeod's books. Mind you, @207, Stone Canal isn't the first book in the Fall Revolution series - The Star Fraction is. I don't think its fair to say that MacLeod didn't 'take off' after the early 90s Brit-SF period - he's still around, he still writes great SF, its just that he's not published widely in the US (probably due to the political content of his books, and the leanings therein.)
In the last few years he's done _The Night Sessions_, near future SF detective noir, _Intrusion_, Orwellian surveillance society, and _Descent_, aliens and general craziness. All great books, but perhaps not at the same level of frenetic buzz as the Fall Revolution stuff.
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I've read The Star Fraction but not the rest of the series although they are on my list. An interesting thing about the series is that two of the sequels lead on from the first book, while the other sequel is an alternate history version of what could haved happened after the first book.
Daniel wrote: "I'd like to add my vote for Luke to try some of Ken MacLeod's books. Mind you, @207, Stone Canal isn't the first book in the Fall Revolution series - The Star Fraction is."Actually, when Tor first published the series in the US, they skipped The Star Fraction (IIRC, they said Americans wouldn't understand the politics). I don't think it was available here until an ebook version came out a few years ago.
If you like sci-fi comedies…I would recommend the Red Dwarf books— Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Driversand Better Than Life (there's even an omnibus edition that has both books: Red Dwarf Omnibus (Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers & Better Than Life)). In regards to the first book in the series, Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers…I absolutely loved this book. I read this book before I even knew there was a TV series...and I haven't laughed so hard and so much in a long time.
I love sci-fi comedies (the good ones are so few and far between)...and found it (I know this is blasphemy) to be far superior to Adam's The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The biggest difference...is that Red Dwarf is character-centric comedy, while HG2G is joke-centric. Adams sacrificed his characters for the sake of the joke, while in Red Dwarf...the characters are the joke. It's these brilliantly conceived characters getting themselves into some hilarious situations and reacting according to their respective personalities.
To this day I can't remember much about HG2G's characters or what really motivated them, etc. etc. They were all rather just cardboard pieces that Adams used to spew out jokes at specific times. But I can tell you all about Arnold Judas Rimmer and gazpacho soup...about Dave Lister and his insatiable desire for curry...and the Cat...and Kryten...and you will know the name of Duane Dibley!!
I think the fundamental difference in comedy is in how a particular book/play/movie gets its laughs. A work of comedy can either tickle you into laughter, or move you to laughter. I prefer the latter.
I have always felt Douglas Adams trying to tickle me into laughter. But Red Dwarf always seemed to move me to laughter. Because no matter how much I hate a character like Rimmer...I understand him and so have compassion for his crazed antics, no matter how awful and self-serving they are.
Oh, and the ending of "Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers"...was just haunting. So unexpected in a comedic work. Excellent book. I highly recommend it.
PS...sorry, didn't mean to rant/gush...i just love this book as well as the second one--Better Than Life.
Night Watch Is a very good piece of urban fantsy from a Russian author -- very different from your typical piece of the similar genre of the western writing. You may like it or you may hate it, but it sure is different, with traces of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky hidden within ...Another good book I recently discovered was The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August. Well worth your time, I believe.
Robert Sheckley's Dimension of Miracles.The first half is great, the second not so much, but still worthwhile.
John Hodgman delivers a great audio performance at a 5 hr 20 min run time.
http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fant...
I'd recommend Robopocolypse by Daniel H Wilson
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Actuall..."
The idea that Americans wouldn't understand the politics is interesting. It might be true, or the problem might be that the politics is boring. Very boring. And it's taking up more and more of the book.
Roland wrote: "Night Watch Is a very good piece of urban fantsy from a Russian author -- very different from your typical piece of the similar genre of the western writing. You may like it or you ma..."Roland wrote: "Night Watch Is a very good piece of urban fantsy from a Russian author -- very different from your typical piece of the similar genre of the western writing. You may like it or you ma..."
Yeah, I liked The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August too. The author did an excellent job with the premise: it stayed interesting throughout the whole novel with the implications and tension increasing as it went, and if there were any major plotholes(which can be a problem with books like this) I didn't notice them. The story went to some very dark and disturbing places I wasn't expecting and the audiobook version also had a great narrator, second this recommendation.
I was thinking about my favourite books last night, and decided to recommend my all-time favourite fantasy novel, Last Call by Tim Powers. I first read it in the mid-1990s when I picked it up at random from one of the paperback carousels at the library, and I think it must have been the first 'secret history' fantasy that I read as an adult. It's about the struggle to become the next Fisher King of the West, and includes Las Vegas history, tarot cards and a strange card game called Assumption. There are two sequels which I read a lot later, but neither of them is as good as Last Call in my opinion.
Simon wrote: "I just finished The Kraken Wakes and I noticed Luke has it tagged as to-be-read. So I'm here to push for it being moved up the tbr pile. The two lead characters can be a bit annoyin..." I'll have to check that out. I thought The Chrysalids and Day of the Triffids were both excellent.
The Girl in the Road by Monica Byrne. A blend of fantasy, science, future tech, with strong female characters and fluid sexualities. I don't think it's like anything else I've read! Full disclosure I have her on an upcoming RE episode but I first talked about this book last July! The audio is good but you might have to listen to the end a few times, I certainly had to.
Kim Stanley Robinson's Aurora is a gem. For reasons I won't explain because I don't want to spoil the book, Aurora is really an interesting contrast to the Mars trilogy. Robinson keeps exploring the theme of the expansion of the human race into space, giving it a new twist every time (2312 was ok but not great; it now reads like a stepping stone between Mars and Aurora). In addition to exploring the spaceship earth theme, Aurora does a lot of things. The character development is great. There's a lot on leadership and social dynamics. The ship's computer gives KSR an opportunity to engage with the topic of AI, which I think may well be the best I've read.
So a clear five star in my book. I can also highly recommend the narrator in the Audible audiobook.
Should have mentioned Micheal Marshall Smith's "spares" and "Only Forward" (might be a "snowcrash" moment for Luke Tho)
After the discussion of religion in one of the recent episodes, I'd really like to hear a review of C.S. Lewis's Out of the Silent Planet. It's very much in the style of H.G. Wells, so Luke should like that bit of it, but being Lewis there's also a religious element to it that ... well, I'm sure Luke would have fun discussing it. Especially the part about space colonization being immoral because people wouldn't be on Earth for the Last Judgment.
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I've read it. It's okay. I'll probably not read it again just for the podcast.
Over the summer I listened to all of the Vorkosigan Saga books on Luke & Juliane's recommendation. Frankly, I think they gave up on the series too soon. The reason being how different the later books are from the books that turned them away from the series (The Warrior's Apprentice and The Vor Game). In fact, I would argue they can barely be classified as military science fiction going forward. The next two in the "main" story line is probably as different, if not more so, from Apprentice & Vor game, than Vor game/Apprentice is from Barryar and Shards of honor. The same can be said with the books after that as well.
Apart from the skippable ones, I would put the remaining books that hasn't been reviewed into 4 categories (almost identical to how the Vorkosigan Wiki has done it), all of which are fairly different from one another. Without spoilers:
Skippable
Cetaganda (Crime story, stand-alone)
Ethan of Athos (Stand-alone, didn't read)
Winterfair Gifts (Short Romance, stand-alone)
Labyrinth (Short Adventure story)
The Borders of Infinity (Short Military Sci Fi)
Miles, “the new person” and Their encounters
Brothers in Arms (Adventure/military Sci Fi)
Mirror Dance (Adventure/drama)
Crisis & Character development
Memory (Mystery/Drama)
Romance, Comedy & fun
Komarr (Mystery, Romance)
A Civil Campaign (Romantic Comedy, Political intrigue)
Captain Vorpatril's Alliance (Romantic Comedy, Adventure, stand-alone)
More mature(ish) Miles
Diplomatic Immunity (Mystery/Crime Story)
Cryoburn (Mystery/Crime.. drama?)
Cetaganda and Ethan of Athos are both completely stand-alone and skippable. You'll miss almost nothing going onward and they are (in my opinion) not the highlights of the series anyway. Most of the books are "stand-alone" really, but what I mean by it is they have basically no consequences on later books.
"Labyrinth" introduces three characters that you'll see again, one of which you'll see quite often. You don't have to read it, but.. I think you should. At the very least memorize who the new characters are! "The Borders of Infinity" contains the events leading up to Brothers In Arms. You definitely *could* skip it, but I think Brothers in Arms will be slightly more enjoyable if you know what just happened leading up to it. The events are also looked back at in future books quite a bit.
Brothers in Arms and Mirror Dance are both adventure stories that somewhat continues in the military sci-fi fashion. Still, they're very different from the preceding books. Mainly, they introduce a very important character (who shall remain nameless for the sake of spoilers) and the consequences of this person being added into the mix. They might be
military-ish (at times), but we're not talking interplanetary war etc. Very different from vor game, apprentice or even shards of honor.
Memory is the big development in the story. From this point, everything changes. The story itself is nothing like the military sci-fi books, but more of a mystery/drama novel. Mainly it centers around the character development of Miles (in a big way) and Simon Illyan (the chief spy in charge of ImpSec). This is probably the only novel that is absolutely necessary to read before the books that come after it.
After Memory comes the more... romantic books in the series. Komarr is sort of a transition from Memory into the full blown rom-com that is A civil Campaign. Even though Captain Vorpatril's Alliance is chronologically set later, I would put it in this category as well.
This Ivan-centric romantic adventure was surprisingly enjoyable IMO.
Diplomatic Immunity and Cryoburn are both stand-alone and again, very different from the other categories of the series.
At the end of "The Vor Game" review it was mentioned that Luke had such high hopes for the series. I won't claim the books to come are literary masterpieces, but they are just so much fun that I would definitely say they're worth another chance!
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Thanks for such an in-depth guide, but I'm very much over the Vorkosigan Saga and the Paladin of Souls series and, to be honest, anything else by Lois McMaster Bujold. They are just not fun for me. Or, at least, they turned surprisingly not-fun surprisingly quickly.
After chatting about this with Juliane today, it seems she's on the same page. Sorry!
Luke wrote: "Andreas wrote: "Over the summer I listened to all of the Vorkosigan Saga books on Luke & Juliane's recommendation. Frankly, I think they gave up on the series too soon. The reason being how differe..."Oh well, to each his own I suppose!
I thought I'd advocate for the rest of the series considering you were the ones to bring it to my attention, which provided me with quite a few hours of entertainment.
I would recommend The Truth Machine by James L Halpern. it was written in 1996 as a future vision. It is a predominantly positive vision that I often miss in the mostly dystopian futures of cyberpunk and space battles.The story is about an interesting main character in his quest to invent an absolute truth machine and the effects it has on society.
I'd love to see you review "The Long Earth" by Stephen Baxter and Terry Pratchett
just recently came across your podcast which I am massively enjoying.SF books which I think might be great to review (because they are great and maybe a bit special, but also purely for the selfish reason that I'd like to hear your take on them) are
- Tony Ballantine's Capacity (which I am not sure whether I find it utterly brilliant or utterly annoying but is certainly very different from what else I have read)
- Hannu Rjaniemi's Quantum Thief
- Frank Herbert's Hellstrom's Hive
- as suggested earlier John M Harrison's Light
and while I am thinking about it (but it's more on the trashy side of things) Flesh by Philip Jose Farmer
Monkey wrote: "E.E. Smith's Lensmen series got me into 'space opera' so getting Luke's views on how it's 'aged' would be intriguing. Also, I’ve noticed there are no reviews yet of any Harry Harri..."I grew up with Deathworld and recently re-read it after 25 years and must say, it didn't stand up, it felt flat and badly written. A bit of a shame, because I loved it as a teenager...
Luke wrote: "BEING NOMINATED IS NOT A GUARANTEE FOR A GOOD BOOK!"Ha! Good point.
I'd be interested to hear what people here think about Kameron Hurley's God's War and Ann Leckie's Ancillary Sword which were both hyped, nominated or awarded to death, and I am quite torn about - meaning not sure whether they deserve that hype
Leckie has been compared with Banks while imho she's no where near Banks as a writer so it might be interesting to see what you guys think...
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You should check out the episode list page:
http://www.sfbrp.com/episode-lists-3
You'll see I've already done a review of the Quantum Thief and Ancillary Justice. I'm currently reading the followup novel, Ancillary Sword.
I don't think Ancillary Justice deserved all the awards and hype, but I totally understand why it all happened, and I can think of many worse books that could otherwise have been nominated for awards or won them. For example, look at this year's Hugo lists!
You have to listen to Replay! Wonderful book and fantastic narration.
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A book that I recently read is the city by Stella Gemmell. I quite enjoyed it and I think that both Luke and Julianne would like this.https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
Replay should have been first. dDefinitely don't wait until your next life. It's too good of a book.
I'm a bit hesitant to recommend a book again after "The Eyre Affair" debacle, but I'll give it a go.About a month ago I heard on the Galactic Suburbia podcast about the Xenogenesis trilogy by Octavia E. Butler.
I read the trilogy in succession and was very impressed by the ideas about biotech and her version of the Alien Invasion trope. Very impressive especialy for something written in the late 70s.
I don't know how I managed to overlook this trilogy until now. I remember seing the cover of the first book, Dawn on audible and being put off by what looked like tentacle porn.
I also heard on Galactic Suburbia that there is a plan to turn Xenogenesis into a TV series. After reding the books and seeing how much biotech and sex are involved as well as how much of the storry happens in peoples heads, I have no idea how anyone can turn this into a script.
I hope that are others here that have at least read Dawn and can back me up on the interesting nature of these books.
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Sadly, Octavia Butler died in 2006, so nothing new is likely to come out.While I've heard great things about her writing I haven't actually gotten around to reading anything. Does anyone else have any of her writing they'd recommend to Luke and the rest of us?
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I read almost all of her books tho it's been years since I read them. But the best and most memorable for me are the Xenogenesis series and a novel called Wild Seed. It's part of another series but it's a prequel, so there's no need to read the rest of the series first.Unfortunately her most recent book, Fledgeling, was probably the only book of hers I didn't enjoy, so I can't really reccomend that. All her other books were enjoyable or you could try Bloodchild and Other Stories which is a short story collection--some of the stories in there won the Hugo or Nebula award and if you get the more recently published version, I think there's a couple newer (post 2000) stories.
I just read about her on wiki a little. Butler got writer's block later in her career so that might help explain why there's less newer stuff. In addition to dying young, she was only 58!
Having read Ender's Game and Speaker for the dead, have you considered completing the set and reading/reviewing Xenocide and Children of the mind? (Both good books IMO)
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Luke wrote: "Hello M,You should check out the episode list page:
http://www.sfbrp.com/episode-lists-3
You'll see I've already done a review of the Quantum Thief and Ancillary Justice. I'm currently reading ..."
haha - sorry for that. have checked it out. Great reviews as always.
Looking very forward to your review of Ancillary Sword.
Regarding the Hugo list: last year it was Leckie and Stross (who I felt massively - and possibly purposely underperformed) and this year it's Leckie and Liu (and I am not yet sure what I think of the 3 body problem). Kind of same same and really a bit dis-exciting in the grand scheme of things...
David wrote: "Replay should have been first. dDefinitely don't wait until your next life. It's too good of a book."
Having read both books, Replay is far superior - read it this life Luke!
Two Urban Fantasy series come to my mind:Has anyone recommended the Iron Druid? I really enjoyed it. As for why I think it's worth it, is simply I believe it's highly entertaining, and compared to the Dresden stuff I read, much less grim, and the druid is much more likable than this Dresden bloke.
And secondly I want to recommend the Peter Grant series (by Ben Aaronovitch). This is also a series I really enjoyed so far. It is so very British and funny, and also (therefore?) rather different from your typical UF-generics.
Tommy wrote: "Two Urban Fantasy series come to my mind:Has anyone recommended the Iron Druid? I really enjoyed it. As for why I think it's worth it, is simply I believe it's highly entertaining, and compared to..."
Hey Tommy :-) thanks for the recommendation of the Peter Grant series. I also was quite into it after the first book. Unfortunately I think the next book can't hold up to the promising start. See: Peter Grant #2
Would you recommend reading the fourth book?
Not sure if it would be something for Luke though.
Hi Juliane,well... the fourth book, although I enjoyed it somewhat, it had a kind of depressing undertone. If I ever re-read the series that's the one with highest chance for being skipped. The fifth book (in the meantime also available in German), I liked really well again...
Now that I just read your review of #2, I'm a bit hesitant to whole-heartedly recommend #4, or #5, because although the explicit sex is gone, you still might miss the magic - although it's present, it's more like a force of nature... On the other hand things with Leslie get really interesting. Maybe someone wants add something... or you persuade Luke to read it and listen to his review ;-)
I noticed a recent addition to Comixology that should fill Luke's hunger for a forward-looking, optimistic story about space exploration -- Space Brothers by Chuuya Koyama. It's like a Heinlein juvenile for adults. As a kid, Hibito decided he was going to become the first Japanese person on the moon. Not wanting to be outdone, his older brother Mutta swore that he'd become the first human on Mars. Now twenty years later Hibito's on the verge of fulfilling his dream, but Mutta's been sidetracked into a career as an automotive designer. But one day Mutta gets into an argument with his boss and headbutts him. Not only does he get fired, but when the news reaches other companies, Mutta finds himself blacklisted in the industry. When Hibito finds out his brother's unemployed and living with their parents, he takes the initiative to submit Mutta's resume to the Japanese space agency, starting him on the long and difficult path to becoming an astronaut.
The story's realistically paced, so the characters don't jump into space right away, but the author keeps the selection and training process entertaining by coming up with interesting tests for the characters, such as putting them in a sealed environment together for two weeks while subjecting them to increasingly stressful situations. Plus Mutta's just a fun character -- he's the sort of guy who'll stumble upon the correct answer by accident and then create an elaborate explanation for how he figured it out using Sherlock Holmes-style deductions to make himself look like a genius.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Star Wars: Novelizations #7) by Alan Dean FosterThe audiobook (released Dec 18, 2015) is dramatized a bit (diff voices, sound efx, but no music).
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I tried this. I'm a few hours in, and it's just not a book for me. I may do a very short episode about it, but I'm not sure.