The Sci-Fi Book Thread

Kajiimagi

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Not that much. I know I've read them, but the fact that I can remember the plot of Forever War, and nearly nothing about the two should tell you something.
Yeah I recognized the name and author and had to google it to even see wtf. agreed they were obviously forgettable.
 
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Ukerric

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Yeah I recognized the name and author and had to google it to even see wtf. agreed they were obviously forgettable.
Haldeman was a good author in his early years. If you want good novels from him:

- Mindbridge (1976), a sci-fi first-contact novel with massive twists (including the FTL travel mechanics)
- Tools of the Trade (1987), a sci-fi spy novel (KGB mole finds out mind-control tech, shenanigans ensue)
- Camouflage (2004), which I can't describe without spoiling (the ending is a bit flat, and calls for a sequel that never happened)

The rest pales in comparison. Old Twentieth might be tolerable, Marsbound okay (if you ignore completely the sequels).
 

Mist

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wtf, Anathem is one of those sci fi books that transcends sci fi and enters the realm of important philosophical musings

Best NS book hands down.

Seveneves was good before the time jump and dumb after.
Re-reading Anathem right now. So fucking good.

Seveneves I eventually came around on the last part. By the end, I liked it. The climax itself is still real stupid though.

"You mean the fate of all life in the solar system really is going to come down to 7 bitchy women's views on eugenics/epigenetics and the title was literal the whole time?"
 
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Ukerric

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"You mean the fate of all life in the solar system really is going to come down to 7 bitchy women's views on eugenics/epigenetics and the title was literal the whole time?"
7yeyji.jpg
 
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Kajiimagi

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Re-reading Anathem right now. So fucking good.

Seveneves I eventually came around on the last part. By the end, I liked it. The climax itself is still real stupid though.

"You mean the fate of all life in the solar system really is going to come down to 7 bitchy women's views on eugenics/epigenetics and the title was literal the whole time?"
I totally absorbed Seveneves right up to that ending. Then I was Got S8 levels of dissapoint.
 

Bodhy

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Re-reading Anathem right now. So fucking good.

Seveneves I eventually came around on the last part. By the end, I liked it. The climax itself is still real stupid though.

"You mean the fate of all life in the solar system really is going to come down to 7 bitchy women's views on eugenics/epigenetics and the title was literal the whole time?"
I own the book but I've yet to read it (my parents took all my books when I moved out and buried them in their garage). But I love the premise, and it's inspired me to write a similar story, about a group of scholars, mathematicians and theologians etc. who live in a walled in fortress after an apocalypse and guard what remains of humanities knowledge. They one day receive a signal from an extraterrestial race who offer them a major ultimatum.
 

Goatface

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reading book 4 of Bobiverse, got a question about cloning and restoring
been wondering this for a while, why don't bobs just restore multiple copies from the same backup instead of making a clone of a clone of a clone......
if bob makes a clone would it still be gen 1/2?
 

Ukerric

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reading book 4 of Bobiverse, got a question about cloning and restoring
been wondering this for a while, why don't bobs just restore multiple copies from the same backup instead of making a clone of a clone of a clone......
if bob makes a clone would it still be gen 1/2?
If you're reading book 4, you do have an answer to that. I think it comes mid-book.
 
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Bodhy

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Re-reading Anathem right now. So fucking good.

Seveneves I eventually came around on the last part. By the end, I liked it. The climax itself is still real stupid though.

"You mean the fate of all life in the solar system really is going to come down to 7 bitchy women's views on eugenics/epigenetics and the title was literal the whole time?"
I own Anathem. It's buried in my parents garage and it's definitely my next up when I make time for a fiction book.


Also, Blindsight by Peter Watts is going to be right after that. Great concept for a sci-fi book too.
 

Void

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I own Anathem. It's buried in my parents garage and it's definitely my next up when I make time for a fiction book.


Also, Blindsight by Peter Watts is going to be right after that. Great concept for a sci-fi book too.
Jesus, you just triggered me out of nowhere! I had forgotten all about Blindsight until you reminded me. I'll let my own words from 2013 explain.
Since I went to the trouble of getting that Blindsight book for others to read, I figured I might as well read it too.

I guess I'm not the target audience, or not smart enough, or something. It really did almost nothing for me in terms of enjoyment. Once I figured out that I just needed to keep reading and not worry about the definition of every single word, I was able to grasp what was going on through context for the most part, but it was just too clinical, too bleak, and the characters were too difficult to connect with in any meaningful way.

I do see where the entire premise could be considered ground-breaking and such, but the way it was presented did absolutely nothing to make me care about any of it. And I *suppose* that if this were made into a movie and shot with a bunch of jump cuts and jarring music it would be considered "sci-fi horror," but I didn't really get a horror vibe at all from it. Even the fact that there was a fucking vampire in it didn't make it horror for me, because other than the particular "cryo sleep" idea he came up with (good idea, I'll give him that), you could have told me it was a Klingon and it wouldn't have changed the story much at all.

Anyway, it wasn't Snow Crash bad, and maybe I'm just retarded and thus didn't "get it", but this book was bordering on possibly making it to "meh" status simply because of the innovative ideas. The afterword where he explained how he came up with shit and what it all was based on was FAR more interesting than the actual book, to be honest, because it wasn't being narrated by one of the least interesting characters I've ever encountered in a book.

I'm not bashing those that liked it, but just giving a different perspective. It just didn't do it for me.
That was being kind. Years later I described it as one of the worst books I've ever read. Not saying others can't/won't like it, but it definitely requires very specific tastes I think. If you do read it, I'm interested to hear what you think of it.
 

Intrinsic

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Apparently there is a book announcement tomorrow from James S.A. Corey. The two authors will be doing some stream event on whatever this is at 1PM ET.

 
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velk

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That was being kind. Years later I described it as one of the worst books I've ever read. Not saying others can't/won't like it, but it definitely requires very specific tastes I think. If you do read it, I'm interested to hear what you think of it.

Blindsight certainly isn't a fun book ( it is pretty damn depressing), nor is it an easy read. No shame in not liking it.

That said I found it very thought provoking in a way that's surprisingly relevant to the current times - it's main theme is an exploration of what intelligence means and how the popular humanistic concept of self-awareness being a distinguishing requirement is not necessarily the case.

The questions around whether something that has no self-awareness and no concept of symbolic references could actually be intelligent seems startlingly familiar in the current debates about large language models and image generation.
 
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Intrinsic

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Idea came from the Book of Daniel from Old Testament as a science fiction story.

It is Space Opera. Expanse was more tied to / grounded with Earth history. This is more disconnected and independent, but still has humans. And aliens.

August 6th, 2024 publish date.

Trilogy.

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Cad

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reading book 4 of Bobiverse, got a question about cloning and restoring
been wondering this for a while, why don't bobs just restore multiple copies from the same backup instead of making a clone of a clone of a clone......
if bob makes a clone would it still be gen 1/2?
Isn't that exactly what they do when they clone more than one at once (I know they did 2-3 at a time in the first and second books?) and they still turn out different?
 

Rod-138

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I knew I was dumb and on the downward spiral of getting even dumber, but wtf is Anathem even about ? I’m around 30-40 pages in and have no clue what is happening.

Just dudes asking other dudes questions so far.
 
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Vhars

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Haven't found any mention of this series via the search function. Best sci-fi I've ever read and is currently my favorite series of all time.

"It was not his war.

The galaxy remembers him as a hero: the man who burned every last alien Cielcin from the sky. They remember him as a monster: the devil who destroyed a sun, casually annihilating four billion human lives—even the Emperor himself—against Imperial orders.

But Hadrian was not a hero. He was not a monster. He was not even a soldier.

On the wrong planet, at the right time, for the best reasons, Hadrian Marlowe starts down a path that can only end in fire. He flees his father and a future as a torturer only to be left stranded on a strange, backwater world.

Forced to fight as a gladiator and navigate the intrigues of a foreign planetary court, Hadrian must fight a war he did not start, for an Empire he does not love, against an enemy he will never understand."

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Tuco

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reading book 4 of Bobiverse, got a question about cloning and restoring
been wondering this for a while, why don't bobs just restore multiple copies from the same backup instead of making a clone of a clone of a clone......
if bob makes a clone would it still be gen 1/2?
It's been a while since I read the Bobiverse series but iirc

It's a key part of the "spirituality" or "not yet understood physics" of the series, where they discover that each clone as a soul they can't really quantify. It's a big part of their search to create a planet sized AI or whatever I think. Again it's been a while and the concept of science fiction bringing in spirituality and making it non-spiritual is somewhat common in sci fi
 
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Goatface

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enjoyed most of the series, book 5 Book "Not Till We Are Lost" has been done for like 3 months, had to wait till the strike was over to record the audiobook.
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