Planet Rugby Forum

Bindi wrote:Am reading William Gibson's Agency, and quite strangely am struggling with the near future genre. There's no 2020 virus. The world hasn't changed. That vision of the future can't happen.

Never bothered me with 70's novels missing the mobile phone, internet etc, but this really getting to me.

Does everyone still have bog roll?

Nolanator wrote:The sleep thread reminded me of this.

I've completely stalled with Rise of Endymion. Mostly due to the fact that I only read in bed, and these days I'm asleep in minutes. Most of the time I'll get a maximum of one page done before I put it down or actually drop my Knidle onto my face.

Also, Anaea is really annoying. I don't care about her. She knows everything, everyone loves her, she's so fucking self assured. She's too in control. I have no invested interest in Raul's relationship with her. The bigger story is cool enough, in terms of the social evolution that humans go through, the weird and wonderful mad shit about the Ousters and how they live, a novel take on the whole machines VS humans story, etc.

I just have zero interest is the special one's superpowers.

I didn't like the Endymion series very much for exactly the reasons you stated here. She's not a compelling character and I thought Raul was basically nothing more than a useless foil to illustrate just how "awesome" she is in every possible way. She comes across as a Mary Sue character.

The rest of the story (what little there is of it when it's not in full Aenea panegyric mode) is still good.

Thankfully Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion are still ace!

I'm not alone, at least.

Another thing is that the Endymion series feel a bit like fanfic or a different author trying to tack on something to a pre-existing work.
Not quite ret-conning the Hyperion plot, but there feels like a bit of "oh, that thing that I said before wasn't quite true, here's what really happened". The Kassad story certainly feels a bit that way, although I'm only about 80% of the way through, so he can still go all hero sacrifice.
The origin of the Shrike is massively muddled. It was cooler when it was just some time-jumping metal monster that was scary and butchered everyone indiscriminately. Bit of Terminator 2 about it.
In Hyperion, I found Sol's story really compelling and I thought the suffering they had with Rachel was well done. When Rachel showed up in Endymion it was just "ok, cool. I guess?". Lots of older characters seem a bit tacked-on.

Nolanator wrote:I'm not alone, at least.

Another thing is that the Endymion series feel a bit like fanfic or a different author trying to tack on something to a pre-existing work.
Not quite ret-conning the Hyperion plot, but there feels like a bit of "oh, that thing that I said before wasn't quite true, here's what really happened". The Kassad story certainly feels a bit that way, although I'm only about 80% of the way through, so he can still go all hero sacrifice.
The origin of the Shrike is massively muddled. It was cooler when it was just some time-jumping metal monster that was scary and butchered everyone indiscriminately. Bit of Terminator 2 about it.
In Hyperion, I found Sol's story really compelling and I thought the suffering they had with Rachel was well done. When Rachel showed up in Endymion it was just "ok, cool. I guess?". Lots of older characters seem a bit tacked-on.

Yep, it sounds like we're in the same boat with this one. It's been years since I've read either of the 2-book series but I know I won't be re-reading the Endymion duo. It really did feel tacked on to what was a truly brilliant effort in the Hyperion Cantos.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/934 ... ite_Plague

The White Plague, by Frank Herbert. Given Cov2 plague now (cannot call it Chinese Plague, can I ?) as well as the copious involvement ofad Irishmen and even madder Americans, this book is strangely apt in this juncture of time.

Wanderers, by Chuck Wendig. It's present-day apocalyptic stuff and very appropriate right now. I can't completely recommend it; he's definitely a man of the current generation of Twitter spats and can be a bit right-on, plus I'm not sure the ending holds up (or one of the basic premises, honestly) but it's still a good read.

Currently reading Peter F Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga and about 1/3 way through Judas Unchained. Quite a good read but he is the George R.R. Martin of sci-fi when it comes to adding ever more characters and sub plots. Most of the mini arcs are eventually are shown to be relevant to the main story but seem rather bloated. As for the one with Ozzie, there is still no sign whatsoever of any bearing on the main story...

I thought the same when reading it but he does actually make them all relevant, which is impressive.

tabascoboy wrote:Currently reading Peter F Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga and about 1/3 way through Judas Unchained. Quite a good read but he is the George R.R. Martin of sci-fi when it comes to adding ever more characters and sub plots. Most of the mini arcs are eventually are shown to be relevant to the main story but seem rather bloated. As for the one with Ozzie, there is still no sign whatsoever of any bearing on the main story...

Ozzie is fundamental to the initial trilogy, and forms the foundation of the later books - but it does seem out of place for a long while

Saint wrote:

tabascoboy wrote:Currently reading Peter F Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga and about 1/3 way through Judas Unchained. Quite a good read but he is the George R.R. Martin of sci-fi when it comes to adding ever more characters and sub plots. Most of the mini arcs are eventually are shown to be relevant to the main story but seem rather bloated. As for the one with Ozzie, there is still no sign whatsoever of any bearing on the main story...

Ozzie is fundamental to the initial trilogy, and forms the foundation of the later books - but it does seem out of place for a long while

I thought it must be the case, it's so tangential though so far.

I really got bored of Ozzie's story tbh.

Melanie the nympho?

ukjim wrote:Peter F Hamilton spins a good yarn but i find the way he writes his female characters a bit off/creepy

What's not to like about apparently sex starved supermodels who only appear to have a single character motivation?

Saint wrote:

ukjim wrote:Peter F Hamilton spins a good yarn but i find the way he writes his female characters a bit off/creepy

What's not to like about apparently sex starved supermodels who only appear to have a single character motivation?

TBF that's entirely representative of my experience of women.

ukjim wrote:Peter F Hamilton spins a good yarn but i find the way he writes his female characters a bit off/creepy

Yeah, I've said before he's obsessed with writing about teenagers fucking. And goes out of his way to make the older characters look like teenagers.

tabascoboy wrote:Currently reading Peter F Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga and about 1/3 way through Judas Unchained. Quite a good read but he is the George R.R. Martin of sci-fi when it comes to adding ever more characters and sub plots. Most of the mini arcs are eventually are shown to be relevant to the main story but seem rather bloated. As for the one with Ozzie, there is still no sign whatsoever of any bearing on the main story...

It gets there.
Eventually.



It's a theme with his work.
A lot of padding, the core story could be told is a rather more focused fashion.

Still worth it for that pair of books.

The Void Trilogy gets there eventually, but has even more padding / fluff.

Pat the Ex Mat wrote:

Nolanator wrote:The sleep thread reminded me of this.

I've completely stalled with Rise of Endymion. Mostly due to the fact that I only read in bed, and these days I'm asleep in minutes. Most of the time I'll get a maximum of one page done before I put it down or actually drop my Knidle onto my face.

Also, Anaea is really annoying. I don't care about her. She knows everything, everyone loves her, she's so fucking self assured. She's too in control. I have no invested interest in Raul's relationship with her. The bigger story is cool enough, in terms of the social evolution that humans go through, the weird and wonderful mad shit about the Ousters and how they live, a novel take on the whole machines VS humans story, etc.

I just have zero interest is the special one's superpowers.

Persist with it - if you aren't affected by it at the end, you'll a heartless SOB

Ok. The ending was fairly poignant. Saw it coming from a while off, but still very bittersweet.
Still, that was a slog, once I lost my momentum months ago. Think I read the second half literally a paragraph at a time.

It makes sense that people are different.

I loved the book.

Ah it's my own fault for only trying to read it when I was exhausted. Once you stall with a book and can't get back into it, a lot of the magic of the story is spoiled.
I did enjoy it overall, despite its flaws.

Are those Culture books any use Nols?

Absolutely. Can't recommend them enough. If I was to recommend only two authors for you to read and reread for the rest of your life, it'd be Iain Banks and Terry Pratchett.

Read the Culture books in order of release. They're all standalone, but take place chronologically in sequence in an extended setting.

JM2K6 wrote:

ukjim wrote:Peter F Hamilton spins a good yarn but i find the way he writes his female characters a bit off/creepy

Yeah, I've said before he's obsessed with writing about teenagers fucking. And goes out of his way to make the older characters look like teenagers.

It's in every f**king book as well. I'm reading the first Greg Mendel story at the moment and 19/20 year old Julia and her mate are described in just weird ways. It's not necessary at all imo.

Hah, while on the subject of authors writing weirdly unnecessary sexual relationships, I found this summary of Endymion on Reddit.
Massive story spoilers, but I can't help but agree with the points raised there.

Been reading Dave Duncan swordsman stuff, Kate Elliot really big Eagles stuff.
Also C.S Friedman spaceship stuff.

Nolanator wrote:Hah, while on the subject of authors writing weirdly unnecessary sexual relationships, I found this summary of Endymion on Reddit.

Spoiler: show

[quote]The Endymion books are about a 27 year-old man who takes custody of a 12 year-old girl who is wise and mature beyond her years. She magically ages to 23, at which point her guardian starts f**king her while calling her creepy things like, "my dear friend. my beloved" over and over and over. They're decent sci-fi novels which are ruined by Simmons' horrible writing and loli fixation. It would have been a much better book if they were just friends, instead of whatever the awkward shit Simmons wrote.

The Shrike's reveal is stupid. A. Bettik's backstory is an afterthought. Everybody is time-travelling. It's nonsense. Both books are Simmons coasting on his previous success.

Massive story spoilers, but I can't help but agree with the points raised there.[/quote]

I didn't know Kid A wrote book reviews

Pat the Ex Mat wrote:

Nolanator wrote:Hah, while on the subject of authors writing weirdly unnecessary sexual relationships, I found this summary of Endymion on Reddit.

Spoiler: show

[quote]The Endymion books are about a 27 year-old man who takes custody of a 12 year-old girl who is wise and mature beyond her years. She magically ages to 23, at which point her guardian starts f**king her while calling her creepy things like, "my dear friend. my beloved" over and over and over. They're decent sci-fi novels which are ruined by Simmons' horrible writing and loli fixation. It would have been a much better book if they were just friends, instead of whatever the awkward shit Simmons wrote.

The Shrike's reveal is stupid. A. Bettik's backstory is an afterthought. Everybody is time-travelling. It's nonsense. Both books are Simmons coasting on his previous success.

Massive story spoilers, but I can't help but agree with the points raised there.

I didn't know Kid A wrote book reviews[/quote]
Not enough mention of a little known Korean author who does it better.

In all seriousness though, that is a terrible review with just a little bit of projection

I've watched quite a few Sci-Fi movies and TV series in my life, but I can't recall ever reading a Sci-Fi novel. I didn't realise this until I saw this thread.

On the second book in Derek Künske’s Quantum Evolution series. Not too bad.

Heist story with bits of Peter F Hamilton and Iain M Banks.

Bindi wrote:On the second book in Derek Künske’s Quantum Evolution series. Not too bad.

Heist story with bits of Peter F Hamilton and Iain M Banks.

Which bits?

The overly-inflated set of characters or the sex obsessed teenage girls?

Tehui wrote:I've watched quite a few Sci-Fi movies and TV series in my life, but I can't recall ever reading a Sci-Fi novel. I didn't realise this until I saw this thread.

Remember, the new nomenclature is Speculative Fiction

Anybody read Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds?
I read a couple of short stories of his set in the same universe which were enjoyable enough.

Nolanator wrote:Anybody read Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds?
I read a couple of short stories of his set in the same universe which were enjoyable enough.

Yep, very good hard sci-fi, best of Reynolds for me. Revelation Space, Redemption Ark and Absolution Gap are the 3 main books and Chasm City is in the same universe and time and sort of fits it. If you like the short stories you'll like the main books. I'm not a fan of his more recent work.

Madness wrote:

Nolanator wrote:Anybody read Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds?
I read a couple of short stories of his set in the same universe which were enjoyable enough.

Yep, very good hard sci-fi, best of Reynolds for me. Revelation Space, Redemption Ark and Absolution Gap are the 3 main books and Chasm City is in the same universe and time and sort of fits it. If you like the short stories you'll like the main books. I'm not a fan of his more recent work.

Sweet.
The whole Conjoiner thing is intriguing. I read the Great Wall of Mars and thought that there was a heap of creativity and thought for "just" a short story. Then realised that there's more and looked it up.

Nolanator wrote:Anybody read Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds?
I read a couple of short stories of his set in the same universe which were enjoyable enough.

I read it last month. I have mixed feelings about it but it's definitely worth a read, there's a lot of good stuff in there. I found his prose a bit perfunctory and staid at times, and it dragged a bit with technobabble and overlong passages. The characters are all a bit grey and samey as well. But there are some nice ideas in there, and some proper headfuck hard sci-fi concepts. Some good writing too when he gets going, in some of the major set pieces in particular.

I think I've been spoiled by reading so much Banks recently, to the point that I now expect all my space operas to have sparkling prose, wonderfully dark humour, perfect pacing, great character depth, etc. etc.

I'll enjoy a bit of perfunctory language for the moment as a antidote to Dan Simmons' taking about poetry for pages at a time.

Have you read any of the rest of the Revelation Space series? They're far from chronological. Had a quick look on Reddit, but there isn't really any consensus on an ideal reading order. Guess I'll just go with publication order.


Banks is too good. I must be due a re-read of something soon.

Nolanator wrote:
I'll enjoy a bit of perfunctory language for the moment as a antidote to Dan Simmons' taking about poetry for pages at a time.

Have you read any of the rest of the Revelation Space series? They're far from chronological. Had a quick look on Reddit, but there isn't really any consensus on an ideal reading order. Guess I'll just go with publication order.


Banks is too good. I must be due a re-read of something soon.

I've read all of Reynolds's work.

Some are sequential but most are not

Publication order it is!

Just spotted this in Reddit before logging out.
https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comment ... urce=share
Guy painting a Halo world from the game series. Ignore Master Chief in the corner and it looks good I imagine a Culture orbital.

This is going to sound crazy, but I actually read Battlefield Earth when I was kid, encouraged by my dad, before Scientology was a (known thing). I remember really enjoying it, I thought it was great. I think the "expert" consensus is that it's absolute crap but I found it very entertaining as a young teenager.

Apart from that, Dune. To be totally honest, I think they're the only Sci-Fi books I've ever read.

ukjim wrote:

PourSomeRuggerOnMe wrote:

Nolanator wrote:Anybody read Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds?
I read a couple of short stories of his set in the same universe which were enjoyable enough.

I read it last month. I have mixed feelings about it but it's definitely worth a read, there's a lot of good stuff in there. I found his prose a bit perfunctory and staid at times, and it dragged a bit with technobabble and overlong passages. The characters are all a bit grey and samey as well. But there are some nice ideas in there, and some proper headfuck hard sci-fi concepts. Some good writing too when he gets going, in some of the major set pieces in particular.

I think I've been spoiled by reading so much Banks recently, to the point that I now expect all my space operas to have sparkling prose, wonderfully dark humour, perfect pacing, great character depth, etc. etc.

I agree, great conceptual sci-fi, let down by lack of characterisation and turgid prose.

I preferred some of his stand alone work, pushing ice and house of suns i enjoyed.

I really liked Pushing Ice.

I also enjoyed his Revenger, which is his version of a Treasure Island-inspired adventure story.