Hard Science Fiction Recommendations

[HarryT]

Oh no, you're right there. I'm not that fond of much of Bradbury's work - too "surreal" for me - but goodness, the man knows how to write beautifully.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Oh no, you're right there. I'm not that fond of much of Bradbury's work - too "surreal" for me - but goodness, the man knows how to write beautifully.

Bradbury excelled at creating mood, and the science was distinctly secondary. In fact, I believe he has subsequently called _Fahrenheit 451_ his only real SF story, and everything else was fantasy.

Oddly, while I read and enjoyed Bradbury back when, and agree on his ability as a stylist, I've felt no desire to re-read him.
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Dennis

[ATDrake]

I always liked the comic-book adaptations of Bradbury's short stories; originally done by Topps Comics, I think. Really nice stuff that used various art styles to match the mood of each adaptation. Atmospheric and fitting.

I think some of them were reprinted and collected as a graphic novel trade paperback by iBooks awhile ago, which is how I managed to read them via the library.

Er. Hard SF recs. I always liked Joan D. Vinge (used to be married to Vernor, whose last name I have found out via Robert J. Sawyer's WWW: Watch novel is actually pronounced "vin-jee" and I've been mangling it all along). Not strictly hard, but definitely mostly hard-ish. Plenty of scientifically-grounded tech and space exploration to go with the social consequences thereof.

World's End is more-or-less standalone (though part of the award-winning Tiamat cycle) and the hardest of the lot, I think. She's also got Heaven Belt Chronicles which though probably less easy to find, may be even more so.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Er. Hard SF recs. I always liked Joan D. Vinge (used to be married to Vernor, whose last name I have found out via Robert J. Sawyer's WWW: Watch novel is actually pronounced "vin-jee" and I've been mangling it all along). Not strictly hard, but definitely mostly hard-ish. Plenty of scientifically-grounded tech and space exploration to go with the social consequences thereof.

I know Joan (and have met Vernor.) These days, she's married to Jim Frenkel, who is currently a Senior Editor at Tor Books. When they first started dating, after Vernor divorced her, Jim was Joan's editor at Dell's SF line, and both were very concerned about potential conflict of interest issues, and very careful to keep their personal and professional relationships separate.
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Dennis

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

... I read and enjoyed Bradbury back when, and agree on his ability as a stylist, I've felt no desire to re-read him.
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Dennis

Oh you poor thing.

[nyrath]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

I always liked Joan D. Vinge (used to be married to Vernor, whose last name I have found out via Robert J. Sawyer's WWW: Watch novel is actually pronounced "vin-jee" and I've been mangling it all along). Not strictly hard, but definitely mostly hard-ish. Plenty of scientifically-grounded tech and space exploration to go with the social consequences thereof.

World's End is more-or-less standalone (though part of the award-winning Tiamat cycle) and the hardest of the lot, I think. She's also got Heaven Belt Chronicles which though probably less easy to find, may be even more so.

Yes. The Heaven Belt Chronicles has the innovative time system based on seconds instead of days, which makes a lot of sense if you live in asteroids instead of on planets.
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3an.html#time

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I know Joan (and have met Vernor.) These days, she's married to Jim Frenkel, who is currently a Senior Editor at Tor Books.

I knew they'd divorced and she remarried, but I didn't know the guy she married was an editor. For some reason I'd gotten the impression he was another author.

Well, hopefully with Tor doing the entire Tor.com thing, they'll be able to get her backlist into e-book form, or at least put some of her short stories up online. I have most of the TPB reprints (now sadly out of print again, it seems), but it would be nice to have e-versions to point people at when I recommend her works.

And a new book would be nice, should she finish up the forthcoming "Ladysmith" (which Amazon.ca listed with a possibly overoptimistic 2013 release date, last I checked) any time soon, though given the accident I'd read that she'd been in and all, it'll be understandable if there's a long delay.

Though I suppose I could always finally read the Heaven Belt Chronicles in the meantime if I'm feeling deprived.

Originally Posted by nyrath

The Heaven Belt Chronicles has the innovative time system based on seconds instead of days, which makes a lot of sense if you live in asteroids instead of on planets.

Got it in a used bookshop ages ago, but didn't get around to starting it because I wasn't sure whether I was supposed to read an earlier book in the series first; never knew the world-building was so interesting. Thanks!

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

I knew they'd divorced and she remarried, but I didn't know the guy she married was an editor. For some reason I'd gotten the impression he was another author.

Nope. As mentioned, Jim was SF editor at Dell (which had an on-again/off-again relationship with SF) and editing Joan when they began dating. After Dell, he founded his own imprint called Bluejay Books. Bluejay went under when changes in US tax laws caused his principal backer to pull out. These days, he's a senior editor at Tor, and ironically is Vernor's editor.

Well, hopefully with Tor doing the entire Tor.com thing, they'll be able to get her backlist into e-book form, or at least put some of her short stories up online. I have most of the TPB reprints (now sadly out of print again, it seems), but it would be nice to have e-versions to point people at when I recommend her works.

We can hope. The last I heard, Macmillan (Tor's US parent) was in the process of digitizing Tor's entire catalog, but I have no idea where they are in the process or what release schedules might be.

And a new book would be nice, should she finish up the forthcoming "Ladysmith" (which Amazon.ca listed with a possibly overoptimistic 2013 release date, last I checked) any time soon, though given the accident I'd read that she'd been in and all, it'll be understandable if there's a long delay.

She was in the accident in 2002, and supposedly recovered enough to begin writing again in 2007, but it wouldn't surprise me if she can't write as fast as she once did.
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Dennis

[HarryT]

Are any Tor books available as eBooks? Their much-talked-about arrangement with Baen appears to have come to naught; it would be nice to be able to buy their books as eBooks.

[ATDrake]

Yes, and going from what's available for Robert J. Sawyer, whose works I looked up a few weeks ago, it does look like Tor's actually trying to get the back catalogue online. Sony store showed a mix of his oldest and newest books, but a huge chunk of the middle "missing".

However, they seemed mostly also geo-restricted to US-only there*. I really wish they'd go with the selling via Webscriptions plan again, if only as a side option to putting their works in the regular e-outlets.

There's so much I would buy if it were available at Webscription terms ($4-6 per book, multiformat & DRM-free, monthly/author discount bundles), even if I could read it for free from the library/get cheaply used.

*As were the four Nebula/Hugo-nominated Tor.com short stories released as freebies earlier this year, which is why I roll my eyes at Tor.com's decision to aid in monetizing its earlier website-original short stories by selling them in the stores, but removing the downloadable e-reader-friendly versions at their site.

Myself, I'd have gone for having the paid versions as a tipjar, and leave the non-restricted/DRMed versions as a promotional/goodwill thing for international readers. If it's good enough for Baen, it's good enough for them.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Are any Tor books available as eBooks? Their much-talked-about arrangement with Baen appears to have come to naught; it would be nice to be able to buy their books as eBooks.

Tor books were available. You may recall their run up to the official launch of Tor.com, where they offered an ebook a week to people who signed up on their mailing list.

They don't seem to be available now. The last statement I recall from Patrick Neilsen-Hayden, a Tor Senior Editor and Manager of Science Fiction, was that Tor's US parent, Macmillan, was digitizing the entire Tor catalogue, and things would be forthcoming over time. He also said the on-again/off-again deal with Baen was on-again, and was at the stage of dotting Is and crossing Ts by lawyers for both sides.

We haven't seen Tor's stuff appear on Webscriptions, and I suspect the hold up is on Tor corporate parent Holtzbrink's end. I don't think it's rooted in whether DRM is used the way the former hold up was. Holtzbrink is a global publisher with a number of imprints, and may simply feel they should do their own ebook distribution and set up the required channels, rather than using Webscriptions. I'd say they are still feeling their way, and trying to craft a comprehensive strategy across all their imprints. (Pablo Defendini, former Producer at Tor.com, freely admitted that what he was doing was seen as research by Holtzbrink, and his actions had visibility within the parent company far beyond Tor. Pablo wasn't a Tor employee, though he began as one: his boss when he ran Tor.com was a Macmillan VP in charge of their digital initiatives.)
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Dennis

[HarryT]

Thanks, Dennis; that's interesting information.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Thanks, Dennis; that's interesting information.

You're welcome. I'm guessing at what may be holding up actual ebook sales by Tor, but corporate parent "We'd rather build our own sales channel than use someone else's services, but ours isn't ready yet" seems likely.
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Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

However, they seemed mostly also geo-restricted to US-only there*. I really wish they'd go with the selling via Webscriptions plan again, if only as a side option to putting their works in the regular e-outlets.

Geo-restrictions tend to be contractual - does the publisher have the right to offer the ebook elsewhere than the US? What rights the publisher has are determined by the contract negotiated when the book is acquired. Tor may not have the right to offer it elsewhere.

I believe Baen routinely buys world ebook rights for titles they publish, but that may not be true for third party books sold through Webscriptions.
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Dennis

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Geo-restrictions tend to be contractual - does the publisher have the right to offer the ebook elsewhere than the US? What rights the publisher has are determined by the contract negotiated when the book is acquired. Tor may not have the right to offer it elsewhere.

True, but in the case of Robert J. Sawyer, the same Tor books that may or may not have been geo-restricted in the Sony store (it's been awhile, and I don't remember whether I ran into that for him or another author), are available to Canadians via the Kindle and Kobo stores (the latter of which is notorious for hiding from browsing potential customers all books which are not available for their IP-determined countries).

Also, Tor is currently his sole English-language publisher outside of the occasional special editions via Red Deer Press in Alberta and he's a pretty e-book savvy guy (owns a number of the older e-readers and writes about e-book issues fairly often on his blog), so the overlapping titles, at least, should definitely be available to Canadians.

As for the four promo stories from Tor.com that I mentioned, those are also freely available to Canadians via Kobo and Kindle stores again, whereas at Sony they're US-only, even though Sony also normally sells other stuff to Canada, so it seems more an issue with the vendor than the rights (and Tor.com has been effectively distributing them worldwide via their website anyway).

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I believe Baen routinely buys world ebook rights for titles they publish, but that may not be true for third party books sold through Webscriptions.

Possibly that might explain the paucity of the E-Reads titles that they carry compared to what Fictionwise still lists. Maybe Webscriptions is only selling the ones that come with unrestricted worldwide rights so that they don't end up inadvertently disappointing international readers.

In any case, I just hope more publishers adopt a Baen-like model when it comes to e-books. Or more authors a Cory Doctorow-esque attitude towards e-publicity.