The Sci-Fi Book Thread

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Furry

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Just finished God Emperor of Dune. Really, it's the main story of Dune. I really enjoyed it. As a book it's not as good as the first two Hyperion's, but as a culmination of the first 4 books it hits the spot.

Debating on jumping into the last two books now, or switching to something else for a bit.
Just finished god emperor of dune in my 3rd read-through. It's amazing how many new little things I piece together each time with the understandings I've gained. Leto II in the hands of just about any other author would probably come off like the writer sniffing their own farts, but herbert creates something believable and extremely intelligent.

Looking forward to 5 and 6. Who doesn't love chairdogs and Bashar Tegg?
 
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Sterling

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Just finished god emperor of dune in my 3rd read-through. It's amazing how many new little things I piece together each time with the understandings I've gained. Leto II in the hands of just about any other author would probably come off like the writer sniffing their own farts, but herbert creates something believable and extremely intelligent.

Looking forward to 5 and 6. Who doesn't love chairdogs and Bashar Tegg?
Can't forget our boy Scytale.
 

Kiroy

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There's a new book in the house of suns verse! I'm so excited I had no idea this was even in the works, just stumbled across it while digging around in my kindle.

I read a few pages and it seems to be a few 100k to maybe a couple million years before house of suns, but same people. They live a long time remember.

which books are in the house of suns verse (including this new one)? there's surprisingly little information that just plain says it
 

Kharzette

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Just the two, I don't think the author takes it super seriously. He's usually all about the hard science stuff, and this has quite a bit of Clarktech. Ships are still sublight at least.


And the new one, which takes place a few million years before is:


I'm actually confused by some stuff in the new one. Let me know if any of you read it. I want to ask some questions in spoilers.
 

Kiroy

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Just the two, I don't think the author takes it super seriously. He's usually all about the hard science stuff, and this has quite a bit of Clarktech. Ships are still sublight at least.


And the new one, which takes place a few million years before is:


I'm actually confused by some stuff in the new one. Let me know if any of you read it. I want to ask some questions in spoilers.

ok ya so I think I know the problem just from doing the research into what other books we're in this universe.


so apparently thousandth night was the original short story works in this universe that lead to the writing of house of suns. apparently the books diverged from canon and some characters that died/events ect from thousandth night, lived/transpired differently in house of suns. hope that helps, i'll probably just read house of suns and move on
 

Kharzette

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Ahhhhhhhhhh yea that was what confused me. Someone alive that shouldn't have been. Thanks :D
 

Loftish

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You guys had me rather confused thinking there's actually a new House of Suns story!

With that being said, Reynolds is releasing a new short story collection in October called Belladonna Nights and the title story takes place in the House of Suns universe.
 

Intrinsic

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Book 14 of ExForce is announced for June 7th, called Match Game.
 
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Mountain Biker

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I just ordered The Broken Earth Trilogy. I think I'm kind of burnt out on fantasy right now and I'm hoping this can be something I enjoy. I haven't really read much sci-fi.
 

gogusrl

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Read it a while back, didn't really tickle my pickle.

I am thinking of rereading all of Culture again, I was reading some article about the books and this quote got me itching again.


Not much of a spoiler but just in case. It's a 2 paragraph quote from Iain M. Banks, Look to Windward
Never forget I am not this silver body, Mahrai. I am not an animal brain, I am not even some attempt to produce an AI through software running on a computer. I am a Culture Mind. We are close to gods, and on the far side.

"We are quicker; we live faster and more completely than you do, with so many more senses, such a greater store of memories and at such a fine level of detail. We die more slowly, and we die more completely, too. Never forget I have had the chance to compare and contrast the ways of dying.
 

Void

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Read it a while back, didn't really tickle my pickle.

I am thinking of rereading all of Culture again, I was reading some article about the books and this quote got me itching again.


Not much of a spoiler but just in case. It's a 2 paragraph quote from Iain M. Banks, Look to Windward
Never forget I am not this silver body, Mahrai. I am not an animal brain, I am not even some attempt to produce an AI through software running on a computer. I am a Culture Mind. We are close to gods, and on the far side.

"We are quicker; we live faster and more completely than you do, with so many more senses, such a greater store of memories and at such a fine level of detail. We die more slowly, and we die more completely, too. Never forget I have had the chance to compare and contrast the ways of dying.
This is conveniently timed. Although anyone can respond, please, I'm just quoting you since you happened to mention it in the last post.

From this thread, I've had the first Culture book lined up to read for years. I finally read it last week. I feel vastly underwhelmed. I disliked almost every character, even the main one, I literally skimmed huge swaths of descriptions that contributed absolutely nothing to the story, I thought many parts of it were just completely fucking out there because the author thought up some weird fucking scenario and had no idea how to include it in a "space opera" (cannibals on a ringworld that is about to be destroyed?? wtf?), and the ending was a big whoop blonde hair don't care just glad it is over event for me.

I rated it 3* on Goodreads, but it was probably a 2.5 or maybe even 2. Granted, there were parts of the book I liked and enjoyed, but it just didn't grab me in any way at all, and the author's writing style left me bored to tears. I know not everything needs to be "show, don't tell" but SOME of it should be shown, right? He told us what people were like, rarely showing us them doing those described traits, and often when he did they did the opposite of what he told us! And the endless fucking descriptions...omg. Maybe some people like that, but I can't stand it and it just kills any desire I have to keep reading.

So my question is...does it get any better? I see that the next book is all new characters, but I'm afraid that since it is the same author I will likely not care about these characters either. Or be able to stand all the endless pointless descriptions. But maybe he grew as an author and the first one is just rough, which is definitely a thing with a lot of authors, so I'm willing to consider the possibility.
 

Intrinsic

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This is conveniently timed. Although anyone can respond, please, I'm just quoting you since you happened to mention it in the last post.

From this thread, I've had the first Culture book lined up to read for years. I finally read it last week. I feel vastly underwhelmed. I disliked almost every character, even the main one, I literally skimmed huge swaths of descriptions that contributed absolutely nothing to the story, I thought many parts of it were just completely fucking out there because the author thought up some weird fucking scenario and had no idea how to include it in a "space opera" (cannibals on a ringworld that is about to be destroyed?? wtf?), and the ending was a big whoop blonde hair don't care just glad it is over event for me.

I rated it 3* on Goodreads, but it was probably a 2.5 or maybe even 2. Granted, there were parts of the book I liked and enjoyed, but it just didn't grab me in any way at all, and the author's writing style left me bored to tears. I know not everything needs to be "show, don't tell" but SOME of it should be shown, right? He told us what people were like, rarely showing us them doing those described traits, and often when he did they did the opposite of what he told us! And the endless fucking descriptions...omg. Maybe some people like that, but I can't stand it and it just kills any desire I have to keep reading.

So my question is...does it get any better? I see that the next book is all new characters, but I'm afraid that since it is the same author I will likely not care about these characters either. Or be able to stand all the endless pointless descriptions. But maybe he grew as an author and the first one is just rough, which is definitely a thing with a lot of authors, so I'm willing to consider the possibility.

That’s funny because I’m 25% finished according to my Kindle and had similar thoughts, although I have no particular dislike for any character so far. There was something like 4/5 pages of description of them approaching the ring or flying over it, I remember thinking last night “just get on with it.”

The other strange part is that according to my Kindle I already owned and read the first three books. But not a single thing has been familiar so far. Nothing. Usually there are small parts of books where even 20 years later I’m like “ohh yeah.” Nope, nothing here.
 
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Kroad

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This is conveniently timed. Although anyone can respond, please, I'm just quoting you since you happened to mention it in the last post.

From this thread, I've had the first Culture book lined up to read for years. I finally read it last week. I feel vastly underwhelmed. I disliked almost every character, even the main one, I literally skimmed huge swaths of descriptions that contributed absolutely nothing to the story, I thought many parts of it were just completely fucking out there because the author thought up some weird fucking scenario and had no idea how to include it in a "space opera" (cannibals on a ringworld that is about to be destroyed?? wtf?), and the ending was a big whoop blonde hair don't care just glad it is over event for me.

I rated it 3* on Goodreads, but it was probably a 2.5 or maybe even 2. Granted, there were parts of the book I liked and enjoyed, but it just didn't grab me in any way at all, and the author's writing style left me bored to tears. I know not everything needs to be "show, don't tell" but SOME of it should be shown, right? He told us what people were like, rarely showing us them doing those described traits, and often when he did they did the opposite of what he told us! And the endless fucking descriptions...omg. Maybe some people like that, but I can't stand it and it just kills any desire I have to keep reading.

So my question is...does it get any better? I see that the next book is all new characters, but I'm afraid that since it is the same author I will likely not care about these characters either. Or be able to stand all the endless pointless descriptions. But maybe he grew as an author and the first one is just rough, which is definitely a thing with a lot of authors, so I'm willing to consider the possibility.
It’s probably been a decade since I’ve read these books but I do remember them to be quite dense but full of some cool sci-fi concepts in between the excess detail and philosophical musings. It’s definitely not what your looking for if you want space battles and that kind of thing (not that there’s anything wrong with that - I’m reading 40K novels now for my fix there).

There are not any recurring characters between the books, the “culture philosophy” and its technology are really the thread that holds it all together.

I remember enjoying Consider Phlebas, which is what I presume you read as the first book but that I had no idea what was happening for much of it. If you didn’t enjoy that I’d probably say most of the books would not be for you. That said since they are all pretty stand alone I would still recommend giving Player of Games and Excession a try, and possibly Hydrogen Sonata.

Player of Games is a relatively light read compared to some of the others, and 2nd in publication order. Excession reminded me a bit of a Star Trek plot. Hydrogen Sonata was the last one he published before he passed IIRC, and in some ways a fitting end.

Good luck!
 
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Gavinmad

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Ok I know I remember reading about it here somewhere, but I'm looking for a really short Sci-Fi story, like only a few pages long, from the point of view of aliens who discovered humanity and exploited them for years, then suddenly needed to uplift them to fight a war against the dominant race in the galaxy. Humanity suffers terrible losses in every battle but wins the war because their willingness to keep fighting through those losses horrifies the other aliens and they agree to peace. Humanity then immediately returns to a peaceful culture.

Something like that, been searching here and online for an hour or two and couldn't find it, probably because it was just some random blurb and not an actual published story.
 

gogusrl

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The short story you are thinking of is called "The Road Not Taken" by Harry Turtledove, first published in 1985.

Just copy / pasted your post into ChatGPT.
 

Gavinmad

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The short story you are thinking of is called "The Road Not Taken" by Harry Turtledove, first published in 1985.

Just copy / pasted your post into ChatGPT.
lol if it were that easy I wouldn't have needed help finding it. The Road Not Taken is a story about FTL tech being incredibly simple and common throughout the galaxy, except humanity somehow missed it during our technological advancement. Aliens show up to conquer us assuming we're a race of primitives but they're little more than primitives themselves in wooden spaceships with matchlock era firearms.

What I'm looking for has been posted somewhere on this forum but I can't think up the correct search string to find the post. It's like 4-5 pages tops that likely came from reddit somewhere, not a published story.
 
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Ukerric

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What I'm looking for has been posted somewhere on this forum but I can't think up the correct search string to find the post. It's like 4-5 pages tops that likely came from reddit somewhere, not a published story.
Yeah, I'd say this fits the bill for r/HFY
 

Goatface

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i loved Forever War by Joe Haldeman, but didn't know there were 2 more books in the series. are they good?
 

Ukerric

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i loved Forever War by Joe Haldeman, but didn't know there were 2 more books in the series. are they good?
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.
 
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