The Kiwifarms Unofficial Sci-Fi/Fantasy Book Club

Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman, it’s not only a good book written past in the 2000s, but I’d argue one of the best genre books of the past 40 years.
 
I finished The Fall of Hyperion a couple of weeks ago. I was very satisfied with how it all came together. So much so I decided to give Endymion a shot even if some think it is a marked downgrade. It's a little bit frustrating to me that Simmons went for the cliched "time-skip ahead of the inconvenient parts that would be hard to write." At the same time, I at least prefer that over the butchery that would happen if he didn't nail the writing.
- I like that Endymion is the kind of Jack-of-all-trades redneck brought in for a hero's journey. For a series so far flung in the future the anger over guiding some city slickers through a duck hunt was easy to identify with.
- MOTHERFUCKING SILENUS SURVIVES CENTURIES JUST TO BE AN ANNOYING PRICK AGAIN! At least at this point he feels like he's trying to do the right thing even if he's an asshole about it.
- Fucking wild how Paul Dure/Lenar Hoyt play into things. The switcheroo leading to a theological schism could be really interesting. I'm excited to see where the whole cruciform thing goes.
- I want to know more about the fallout with the Ousters. It seemed like things were on their way to a tenuous peace with the TechnoCore suppressed and the Shrike killed. I want more from them than being holocausted by blasphemous, parasited space-catholics.
 
Vooted Tchaikovsky (I'm generally a fan and everyone who likes very alien aliens in scifi should read the spider book), Mieville (I got halfway through that one then forgot to finish it), and Kuang (a coworker recommended him to me the other day).

Blindsight is a great book but I read it recently (it pairs nicely with the Children of Time series actually, if you want to have fun with alternate possibilities of consciousness). Rothfuss is a faggot who writes shitty Mary Stus and doesn't finish his books. From what I've heard about Jeminsin she sounds like a 100% diversity hire. Mistborn is good but I haven't forgiven Sanderson for that last Stormlight book. The rest I've never or only vaguely heard about.

LordOfZhbagva said:
Another thing of note, Mieville seems kinda interesting.
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My impression of Mieville is that he's objectively a skilled writer, but also kind of up his own ass. By which I mean, I read Embassytown and it was all about how language shapes everything and wordcels are just the greatest, you know? Not to say it wasn't an interesting plot with a well-realized setting, but it was also just the kind of blank slate, neurolinguistic programming masturbation I'd expect of a self-absorbed author.
 
I enjoyed listening to these books, but I'm skeptical that I'm better for having listened rather than read; it's harder to recall scenes and pull quotes from an audible medium.

That caveat to my comprehension said, I struggle to determine whether this story is coherent: once you introduce a faction or force that can travel through time, every action is open to the rejoinder "why didn't the Shrike go back and influence x or y or z event?" This is doubly confused given that I'm still not sure whether the Shrike is a malevolent AI creation, or the "merely" psychopathic agent of a human-born, empathically-amputated god to build its own causal scaffolding, or some superposition of the two. Every source of information is unreliable, and for more than a few characters literally "revealed to them in a dream" or else doled out by higher powers pursuing inscrutable ends.

Thank God Sol Weintraub got an ending not maximally awful, his pilgrim's story was the sorriest of the lot. I don't know if it's good theology, but Sol's final interpretation of Abraham's dilemma was (junk?) food for thought.

I wish we got to learn more about Ouster history and society, but on retrospect keeping them distant was necessary for the twist that the "Ouster" mass invasion was a false flag by the TechnoCore.

The ultimate transmission by which eldritch powers ("Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!") declare humanity's occult quantum Internet privileges revoked was as menacing as it was comedic.

I'm ruined by knowledge of fan fiction and isekai: even if I was at times moved by the fictional continuance of Keats' life, the premise is retroactively tarnished by a gag reflex trained on mountains of narrative detritus fascinated by similar conceits: take the high concept of "John Keats reincarnated into the far future," divorce it from Dan's writing, and a part of me recoils.

Lastly, I'm amused to see the resemblances of popular media to bits of Hyperion's world: the game Starsector proudly declares its inspiration in a dev blog post; as of Alyx,
The G-Man is similar to The Shrike in his role of looming influence and wielder of temporal (and arguably all-too narratively convenient) powers; and, while I'll not stake my reputation on this one, you can't definitively convince me that Michael Kirkbride didn't subconsciously draw on Hyperion while high off his gourd writing lore for The Elder Scrolls.
 
femoralcanal said:
I love Hyperion just as the next guy. That being said, The Terror might be the best book I've ever read. It's not for everyone, but if you love a slow burning mystery, this long book paradoxically becomes a page turner you can't stop devouring.
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Super late on this and had no idea Dan Simmons passed away. Makes me sad.

I could not finish book four in the Hyperion series but the first two were great. The Shrike is genuinely one of the best characters in sci-fi.

The Terror was the first book of his I read and part of my winter rotation. It’s my favorite of his and never gets boring for me. RIP Dan. You were one of the best.
 
I've put my vote mainly for Tchaikovsky, from what I have heard about him he is excellent at writing an alien prospective in his scif-fi work. Blindsight is another good one, mostly I want to bring up that Peter Watts is one hardcore motherfucker, deciding that the best way of dealing with flesh eating bacteria fucking up his leg and almost killing him was to casually blog about it. The Poppy War I've been meaning to read for some time since a fantasy take on the Opium Wars sounds fucking great. Won't be too upset if the Minecraft one wins because Max Brooks writing about that is something that a crackhead would come up with.

The Final Empire is a good one but you kinda have to read the full Mistborn trilogy to get the hype, everything there just comes together in a really good way during the finale. I remember trying to read Fifth Season but it was pretty dull and kept jumping through points in time in an annoying way.
 
Morridowfag said:
Blindsight is another good one
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I need to put my foot down and be a contrarian arsehole and say "Peter Watts isn't very good at writing, and Blindsight was a not-great book that doesn't deserve the praise it gets" because it was boring and not complicated enough for me after reading Tchaikovsky like you did. It's probably fine and my hatred is my own fault due to autism and anger issues, but I dropped Blindsight 3/4 of the way through and started re-reading James White's Sector General series for properly weird alien descriptions. It's a hospital drama that follows an ambulance crew and doctors in an emergency ward who are mostly caterpillars and a six-legged elephant that respond to strange and bizarre emergencies with equally weird patients. Humans are a minority and you forget them along the way

It's kind of like the TV show Scrubs but filled with horror and existential dread where all the main characters are long meat tubes with claws on the end, rescuing equally strange things that speak of terror that's hinted at but not fully explained. The kind of stuff that will give you nightmares

I like nightmares but your experience may vary
 
Before you voot, this Henry Rollins wannabe looking fucking guy is China Mieville. I still voted for him thoughbeit, there's no way you could get me to read anyone else on that list besides Locke Lamora and Blindsight.
 

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Something I like about Simmons and wish other scifi writers would take note: He doesn't let history end at the 21st century. Any time the characters are listing out past people/events/locations (which they do frequently) he'll always populate it with a mix of things from our past and from the made-up time in between now and his future setting. Lesser authors would just reference our classics and leave a big gaping nothing between [current year] and [far flung scifi year].

He doesn't go into overly-autistic detail either (which would kill the mystery and make the universe feel smaller, I'm looking at you Star Wars EU). He's got a knack for giving you just enough context to understand the point, even if "the first decade of Orbit City" or "the Hive tunnels of Lusus" are gibberish phrases on their own.
 
Greedy Fly said:
Something I like about Simmons and wish other scifi writers would take note: He doesn't let history end at the 21st century. Any time the characters are listing out past people/events/locations (which they do frequently) he'll always populate it with a mix of things from our past and from the made-up time in between now and his future setting. Lesser authors would just reference our classics and leave a big gaping nothing between [current year] and [far flung scifi year].
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Yeah this is a small thing that makes a big difference. Toss in some bits of reality, add some fake history, and it feels more real.
 
Skelboen said:
I need to put my foot down and be a contrarian arsehole and say "Peter Watts isn't very good at writing, and Blindsight was a not-great book that doesn't deserve the praise it gets" because it was boring and not complicated enough for me after reading Tchaikovsky like you did. It's probably fine and my hatred is my own fault due to autism and anger issues, but I dropped Blindsight 3/4 of the way through and started re-reading James White's Sector General series for properly weird alien descriptions. It's a hospital drama that follows an ambulance crew and doctors in an emergency ward who are mostly caterpillars and a six-legged elephant that respond to strange and bizarre emergencies with equally weird patients. Humans are a minority and you forget them along the way

It's kind of like the TV show Scrubs but filled with horror and existential dread where all the main characters are long meat tubes with claws on the end, rescuing equally strange things that speak of terror that's hinted at but not fully explained. The kind of stuff that will give you nightmares

I like nightmares but your experience may vary
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All the Sector General Stuff's been collected into like 3-4 omnibus volumes. I got the first one on my TBR for this year. White's mass markets often had Barlowe art on covers, so they're apparently more collected.

Greedy Fly said:
Something I like about Simmons and wish other scifi writers would take note: He doesn't let history end at the 21st century. Any time the characters are listing out past people/events/locations (which they do frequently) he'll always populate it with a mix of things from our past and from the made-up time in between now and his future setting. Lesser authors would just reference our classics and leave a big gaping nothing between [current year] and [far flung scifi year].

He doesn't go into overly-autistic detail either (which would kill the mystery and make the universe feel smaller, I'm looking at you Star Wars EU). He's got a knack for giving you just enough context to understand the point, even if "the first decade of Orbit City" or "the Hive tunnels of Lusus" are gibberish phrases on their own.
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Weirdly, Comics used to be decent at this. We'd hear about the Iron man of 2020, The Thor of the 25th Century, Killraven of the 22nd, etc. DC and Marvel would do it.
 
Greedy Fly said:
He doesn't go into overly-autistic detail either (which would kill the mystery and make the universe feel smaller
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Cixin Liu runs in the complete opposite direction of this in the Remembrance of Earth's Past series, but he makes it work by being properly sketchy about a dark age. Also emphasizes the difficulties of adjusting to society X00 years after characters were put into hibernation. Overall, I have issues with some of his stylistic choices (which may not have been conscious choices - that could just be how Chinese authors roll), but the science and future history stuff is really well done.
 
Major Filth said:
but he makes it work by being properly sketchy about a dark age.
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Interesting you would bring that one up, I remember feeling kind of irritated with how he handled that in, I think it was Death's End. I liked the fish out of water elements (reminded me of Well's When the Sleeper Wakes) but while the technological changes were nicely introduced, there was something dissatisfying in blunt the narration about the sweeping societal changes that happened while the character was in hibernation. My complaint wasn't that it lacked context or was too confusing, more like I didn't find the "and then all of humanity felt like this, then all of humanity felt like that" presentation believable. But I only read those books once years ago, I don't really remember the specifics.
 
Was late starting Hyperion but finally finished it. 10/10 science fiction, zero criticism. My favorite stories were probably the poet's and the consul's but they were all great. Good worldbuilding, Hyperion felt properly alien without going overboard. Not a poetry fan so I probably missed some references although I did catch the Neuromancer reference
 
Boy_Blunder said:
Before you voot, this Henry Rollins wannabe looking fucking guy is China Mieville. I still voted for him thoughbeit, there's no way you could get me to read anyone else on that list besides Locke Lamora and Blindsight.
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I vooted for exactly the same list.

Greedy Fly said:
Something I like about Simmons and wish other scifi writers would take note: He doesn't let history end at the 21st century. Any time the characters are listing out past people/events/locations (which they do frequently) he'll always populate it with a mix of things from our past and from the made-up time in between now and his future setting. Lesser authors would just reference our classics and leave a big gaping nothing between [current year] and [far flung scifi year].
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I noticed a lot of midwit authors do what you say they should but are gratingly inept at it: they line up two major IRL events/entities and add a soy spin on them --
a midwit reader is guaranteed to be aware of the events, and the soy spin will make him feel clever about himself and swallow the political message unquestioningly
-- and the third thing is fictional and ultra-soy. Bonus soy points if the third thing is directly involved in the plot. "MY GUY is as great as Newton and Einstein!" lmao nigga.

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I haven't started Hyperion, I took up WWII reading for Victory Day (Wreath of Glory, 12 volumes, real paper books) and then IRL shit happened.
 
Safir said:
I noticed a lot of midwit authors do what you say they should but are gratingly inept at it: they line up two major IRL events/entities and add a soy spin on them --
a midwit reader is guaranteed to be aware of the events, and the soy spin will make him feel clever about himself and swallow the political message unquestioningly
-- and the third thing is fictional and ultra-soy. Bonus soy points if the third thing is directly involved in the plot. "MY GUY is as great as Newton and Einstein!" lmao nigga.
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They write for the audience which is disappointingly retarded. I'd argue that the mass proliferation of literature has lowered its quality, or at least the quality of the largest chunk of it (fiction) rather than raising it. And I'd also argue that modern authors are no more free than pulp fiction authors of yesteryear, who are derided as "writing hurried works for cash".
And as you say, they're midwits supreme.
 
Greedy Fly said:
The Lamia chapter reminded me of a monthly theme I wanted to suggest: Detective Scifi/Fantasy.

So like The Caves of Steel, The Prefect, Sweet Silver Blues, Marooned in Real-time, Titanium Noir, The City and the City, Storm Front, etc.
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Excellent idea. Just finished reading Sweet Silver Blues the other day as a start for me binging and finally reading all the Garret P.I. books (got like 4 books in last time) and it was a wild fucking ride that I somehow managed to forget all about. I would add The Yiddish Policeman's Union to the list despite it being alt-history and while I have a very soft spot for Storm Front, Dead Beat would be a better introduction to the Dresden Files since it is both lacks the roughness of the first couple books and has one of the more famous scenes in the series that people like to hype it up for.
 
Dropping by to give my thanks to the user/users suggesting Hyperion. I read the description of book one to check it out, now I am on book three. My reading has been uninspired lately and this was a nice boost. Pretty stoked to read more of Dan Simmons' work.
 
Smoky Cosmos said:
Dropping by to give my thanks to the user/users suggesting Hyperion. I read the description of book one to check it out, now I am on book three. My reading has been uninspired lately and this was a nice boost. Pretty stoked to read more of Dan Simmons' work.
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Hyperion is absolute fucking cinema the whole way through, rarely have I seen a collection of such totally different ideas in a single novel done so well. Not a single storyline feels out of place, my personal favorites being the priest’s and the Jew’s.
Greedy Fly said:
The Lamia chapter reminded me of a monthly theme I wanted to suggest: Detective Scifi/Fantasy.

So like The Caves of Steel, The Prefect, Sweet Silver Blues, Marooned in Real-time, Titanium Noir, The City and the City, Storm Front, etc.
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That is a great idea, we will absolutely be doing that. Thinking about it, that’s a surprisingly rich genre to choose from.
 
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