Listen, everyone. Download my book. It's the end of the world for chrissakes. If Earth checks out without anyone reading my book I'll be pissed.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/959451

Jeez fine I'll download your book.

It better be good

Seriously though fair play for writing one.

Shan't

No but you're an American.

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.

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.

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

Does everyone still have bog roll?

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.

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.

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.

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

Melanie the nympho?

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.

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 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.

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.

I have been an avid sci-fi nerd since I was a lad. I have finally got around to reading the Foundation series.

if you haven't read it, give it a shot. its pretty good. like all golden age sci-fi you have to handwave some of the tech stuff as it seems incongruous but its still a good yarn.

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.

I didn't know Kid A wrote book reviews

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.