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Science Fiction

  • Thread starter Thread starter breepf
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breepf said:
At the risk of typing into the void, I gotta say that I enjoyed the Varley novel. Nerds often describe M John Harrison's The Centauri Device as the novel that deconstructed space opera, though I don't think it was entirely successful. In any case, Varley's The Ophiuchi Hotline has that same deconstructive vibe vis-a-vis first contact-style stories and, I think, it more squarely hits its targets.

Much to my shame, I've picked up a well-recommended Warhammer 40k novel. I'm not really into military sci-fi as a genre, but I appreciate the (sometimes overwrought) efforts at worldbuilding and machismo.
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It is with a deep and abiding shame that I say that I mostly enjoyed the first Warhammer 40k novel that I read. Granted, it's my understanding that it's one of the most highly recommended Warhammer novels. In sum: military sci-fi that valorizes the martial virtues; self-conscious pretenses to granting war the grandeur and dignity of Homeric epic, though this comes at the expense of three-dimensional characters as well as the political and social intrigue that should accompany a galaxy-spanning war machine. I think it would be worthwhile to think about these novels as modern-day pulps.

I am reading a second Warhammer novel by a different author--it is also different type of story set in a different time period--that I'm enjoying much less.
 
No love for Greensboro's Orson Scott Card?
For a book based on work he did in 1977, I thought "Ender's Game" was prescient re: the rise of video war games, drone technology and the surrounding ethics.
 
Here's a reading update that no one asked for:

1. My second Warhammer 40k novel--part of a different series--was not nearly as entertaining as the first. It turns out that I don't give a shit about pseudo-philosophical banter in a torture chamber. That being said, the two Warhammer novels that I've read seem very influenced by the Iraq War--torture, embedded journalists, macho empire. Quite a departure for the more pleasant 'end-of-history' liberalism on offer in, say, an Iain M. Banks Culture novel.

2. Random Acts of Senseless Violence by Jack Womack. I read this because William Gibson likes Womack. I hate novels that use 'dialect'--in this case, the sort of future patois that we might associate with A Clockwork Orange. Otherwise, I appreciate the normalizing of a slowburn dystopia.

3. Manifold Time by Stephen Baxter. This novel is from the 90s, but it's got a quasi-Elon Musk character who has to knock down bureaucratic Big Space (i.e. NASA) to do it. In the Olaf Stapleton tradition, Baxter likes to write stories that span millions or billions of years and that ask us to accept fundamental transformations to how we think about life, time, etc. Will read the next in the series, though I understand that book 3 is garbage.

4. Out of the Silent Planet by CS Lewis. Yes, that CS Lewis. I'm interested in how sci-fi uses the sublime as a sort of substitute for religion--see Asimov's Copernican Revolution story, whose name I forget. This novel is kinda boring--it name-checks Wells, which makes sense because Lewis is offering a sort of Christian counterpoint to the future class dystopia in The Time Machine. A few nice passages that try to reclaim an idea of "the heavens" from the material nihilism of "space." Won't be reading the rest of this trilogy.

5. Murderbot: All Systems Red by Martha Wells. Like Dennis Taylor's Bobiverse novels, the first of which includes a sci-fi convention, this book strikes me as a very self-conscious effort to inject a contemporary lonely nerd into a sci-fi milieu as its murderous protagonist. Yes, the murderbot murders, but what it really wants is to belong! Fun nonetheless.
 
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1. City by Clifford Simak. This is a so-called classic. As a story, I thought it was underwhelming, though I did occasionally enjoy seeing how Simak chopped and sliced midcentury American concerns about the decline of small property-holding individualism into a SF story.

2. A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin. I don't really read fantasy, but this was available for free on Audible and Le Guin fucks otherwise. And, yeah, she can make a bildungsroman about a little magic wizard boy purdy good too.

3. The Atrocity Archives by Charlie Stross. Ditto, re: Audible. I want to like Stross as the inheritor of some cyberpunk Gibson-Sterling mantle but I found Accelerando disappointing and this did nothing to change my mind. The premise is basically Lovecraft-inspired cosmic sci-fi horror but hybridized with a workplace comedy. "Killing the eternal god Fh'ssu'xx'sh is easier than filling out these K-17 forms!"

4. The Fortunate Fall by Cameron Reed. Tor re-issued this 90s cyberpunk novel by a transwoman. It's probably the best post-80s novel in the subgenre. Oddly enough, Reed is the second SF trans writer that I'm aware of who has gravitated towards the "homunculus" trope--the other one is Yoon Ha Lee. The allure of the trope is obvious: there's another person "inside" you. In Reed's case, the trope draws on the great scenes in Neuromancer where Case "rides" around in Molly's head. Like Gibson, Reed pick up on and explores ideas related to literacy and post-literacy, which I find fascinating in the context of SF.

5. The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. A "classic" anti-Vietnam SF novel that I listened to on Audible. Not too shabby!

6. Edges by Linda Nagata. Another Audible listen--I wouldn't describe her writing as terribly "warm" or "personable," but an enjoyable first entry in a post-human space opera series.

7. Steel Beach by John Varley. This book is an entry in his "Eight Worlds" series; it's set on the moon. Varley is a self-identified libertarian, and his novel contains any number of allusions to Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, including a faction called the Heinleiners. More broadly, the libertarianism takes aim at a sort of consumer-driven Big Brother society (there's a computer involved). More interesting than that, though, are the book's sexual politics--characters can switch sexes, have babies, etc., and Varley does not shrink from descriptions of how a one-time male protagonist likes having sex with men as a woman. I wish I knew more about the sexual politics of libertarian SF--Heinlein did some gender-bending stuff in "All Your Zombies" and, presumably, Stranger in a Strange Land (though I don't remember). To that end, Varley has a good opening line: "In five years the penis will be obsolete!" Anyways, Varley manages to write an affecting novel despite some occasional silliness.

8. Double Star by Robert Heinlein. He wrote so much that it's hard to know what to read beyond the obvious 'big' novels. I liked this novel, which I listened to on Audible. I'm reluctant to say much about its off-world Martian story for fear of spoiling it.
 
breepf said:
I'm an avid science fiction reader on the toilet and in other interstitial moments of life. I'd appreciate the opportunity to hear other posters' takes on the genre in whatever medium, though I'm partial to literature.

Anyhoo, I just finished reading Stephen Baxter's 1990s novel Ring, a quasi space opera that unfolds across billions of years and in a universe or two.

Three immediate thoughts:

1. In troubling times such as ours, I appreciate science fiction that captures the unfathomable scale of the universe. Yes, life sucks right now in the US. But we'll all be dead and forgotten in 1 billion years.

2. I appreciate science fiction that turns into competency porn. It's so comforting to imagine a world of rational, balanced individuals tackling enormous problems with expertise and skill.

3. I like thoughtful 1990s science fiction. When push comes to shove, I think a lot of good SF in the decade thinks through "end of history" liberalism in interesting and provocative ways. To wit, Ring hinges on a quite abstract and provocative conflict. Without spoiling the novel for any interested readers, it features a conflict between two alien forms of life that presume altogether different universes; that conflict dwarves--and puts into perspective--a human-alien conflict as utterly provincial.

If anyone who participates in this thread has ever seen a booby in real life, please let the rest of us know.
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It probably isn't as science fiction-y as you're looking for, but if you haven't read The Dark Tower series, it's incredibly good.
 
breepf said:
1. City by Clifford Simak. This is a so-called classic. As a story, I thought it was underwhelming, though I did occasionally enjoy seeing how Simak chopped and sliced midcentury American concerns about the decline of small property-holding individualism into a SF story.

2. A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin. I don't really read fantasy, but this was available for free on Audible and Le Guin fucks otherwise. And, yeah, she can make a bildungsroman about a little magic wizard boy purdy good too.

3. The Atrocity Archives by Charlie Stross. Ditto, re: Audible. I want to like Stross as the inheritor of some cyberpunk Gibson-Sterling mantle but I found Accelerando disappointing and this did nothing to change my mind. The premise is basically Lovecraft-inspired cosmic sci-fi horror but hybridized with a workplace comedy. "Killing the eternal god Fh'ssu'xx'sh is easier than filling out these K-17 forms!"

4. The Fortunate Fall by Cameron Reed. Tor re-issued this 90s cyberpunk novel by a transwoman. It's probably the best post-80s novel in the subgenre. Oddly enough, Reed is the second SF trans writer that I'm aware of who has gravitated towards the "homunculus" trope--the other one is Yoon Ha Lee. The allure of the trope is obvious: there's another person "inside" you. In Reed's case, the trope draws on the great scenes in Neuromancer where Case "rides" around in Molly's head. Like Gibson, Reed pick up on and explores ideas related to literacy and post-literacy, which I find fascinating in the context of SF.

5. The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. A "classic" anti-Vietnam SF novel that I listened to on Audible. Not too shabby!

6. Edges by Linda Nagata. Another Audible listen--I wouldn't describe her writing as terribly "warm" or "personable," but an enjoyable first entry in a post-human space opera series.

7. Steel Beach by John Varley. This book is an entry in his "Eight Worlds" series; it's set on the moon. Varley is a self-identified libertarian, and his novel contains any number of allusions to Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, including a faction called the Heinleiners. More broadly, the libertarianism takes aim at a sort of consumer-driven Big Brother society (there's a computer involved). More interesting than that, though, are the book's sexual politics--characters can switch sexes, have babies, etc., and Varley does not shrink from descriptions of how a one-time male protagonist likes having sex with men as a woman. I wish I knew more about the sexual politics of libertarian SF--Heinlein did some gender-bending stuff in "All Your Zombies" and, presumably, Stranger in a Strange Land (though I don't remember). To that end, Varley has a good opening line: "In five years the penis will be obsolete!" Anyways, Varley manages to write an affecting novel despite some occasional silliness.

8. Double Star by Robert Heinlein. He wrote so much that it's hard to know what to read beyond the obvious 'big' novels. I liked this novel, which I listened to on Audible. I'm reluctant to say much about its off-world Martian story for fear of spoiling it.
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I’ve been meaning to read Earthsea for a while. Somehow I never came across it as a kid when I would’ve devoured it. I need to pick it back up again.
 
breepf said:
I've read "Sandkings," which I remember as a quite sadistic story. Only Martin I've ever read.
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He's got a bunch of good shorts in his "Dreamsongs" collection. I like 'em all...Tuff Voyaging is pretty great. Highly recommended.
 
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