01-09-2018, 01:20 PM | #31 |
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01-09-2018, 01:21 PM | #32 |
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01-10-2018, 05:50 PM | #33 |
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Or perhaps too much.
SF/F is one of those genres that has it's roots in pulp. There has been a running battle between the pulp/popular side and literary side ever since I started reading it back in the 70's. The SF class that I took in high school was heavy on Bradbury, Vonnegut, Le Guin and Dick and light on Heinlein and Asimov. Doc Smith wasn't even mentioned in passing. As a general rule of thumb, I've noticed that one can tell when SF/F is on the upswing or downswing by the types of authors who are being talking about. If it's the literary types, then SF/F tends to be on the down swing. If it's the pulp/popular side then it tends to be on the up swing. Right now, SF/F seems to be in a bit of a down swing. |
01-10-2018, 10:50 PM | #34 | ||
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I'm not bad mouthing modern sci-fi. I just don't read enough of it. Quote:
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01-11-2018, 12:32 AM | #35 |
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Maybe I'll have to reconsider this. I bought the whole series at one point because they were on sale and I had a couple recommendations for it, and I hated the first novel so much it was a did not finish. Can I still skip the rest of it and have the rest of the series make sense?
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01-11-2018, 02:11 AM | #36 |
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Of the 8 series that are less than 10 years old:
Three Body Problem Lightless The Fifth Season (Broken Earth) Terms of Enlistment Ancillary Justice (Radchaai) First Light (The Red) The Cold Between (Central Corps) Leviathan Wakes (Expanse) Only The Fifth Season and maybe Three Body Problem strike me as being literary SF, although certain groups of SF fans hate the Radchaai series as being SJW crap and therefore I guess literary fiction because the protagonist is a former AI, now in a human body, who doesn't understand gender because the society's language has no gender pronouns, and sometimes that gets tiresome. I haven't read Lightless which might be military SF/space opera base on the description, but the last five have strong elements of military SF and/or space opera, IMHO. Scalzi's Old Man's War is a little over a decade old, although much of the series was published less than 10 years old, and it's also what I would classify as military SF and/or space opera.
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01-11-2018, 04:17 PM | #37 | |
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01-11-2018, 04:55 PM | #38 | |
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I don't remember hating the first book. I just remember it being really short. So short, I didn't really have much of an opinion on it. As a whole though, I consider the series to be Donaldson's finest work (and I've read all of his work), as well as one of my all-time favorites. |
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01-11-2018, 05:31 PM | #39 | |
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01-11-2018, 05:55 PM | #40 |
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Well, yes it is. But then the series never does get happy and frivolous beyond that intro. It's full of dark, violent characters and some of them act horrifically. Skipping the first book won't allow a potential reader to avoid all the brutal darkness.
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01-11-2018, 06:00 PM | #41 | |
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There is a purpose to the first book in Donaldson's Gap series, it sets up the relationships of the various appallingly flawed characters in a way that drives the rest of the story (I tend to think of this series as a single book, and the first book as just the prelude). I agree with DiapDealer, that The Gap series is probably Donaldson's best work. |
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01-11-2018, 06:09 PM | #42 |
actually it is /var/log
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I've read Banks, Corey and Leckie. While Banks is the winner, starting with "Consider Phlebas", which hooked me again after "Wasp Factory", they are all my darlings.
Will have to put the others on my TBR list I guess. I hate military SF, so warn me please. |
01-11-2018, 06:19 PM | #43 | |
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I don't expect Piers Anthony to match Donaldson. |
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01-12-2018, 03:16 PM | #44 |
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There's military SF that can be best described as gun porn, and there's military SF that's has a protagonist who is in the military, but the story can be about just about anything, politics, romance, mistaken identity, murder mystery, etc.
For example, Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan series is nominally about a deformed cousin of a planet's emperor, who secretly commands a mercenary force for Imperial Security, and it certainly revolves around the military, but there's so much more to the story. |
01-12-2018, 06:58 PM | #45 |
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Forgot to mention that I can vouch for Nagata's "The Red" series. Near-future (and yes, military) thriller. I really enjoyed her stand-alone The Last Good Man, too.
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