OT: Books and such

[Randallw]

I tried HH once and it didn't grab my interest (hmm, so two people are chatting in front of a fire about someone and there's a talking cat, ahh ). You say it has great battle scenes, hmm maybe I'll try again. This time leafing though to the actual good bits.

[Hugh Manatee]

Titus Groan is like that too, you got to stick it out for awhile till steerpike escapes from the prison tower(about 80 pages in, the chapter is called First Blood, then the one after,the christening and then over the roofscape, you should skim the stuff about fuschia's attic to get some character info on her), then it gets interesting. It does has some "low" points and some places to drag just a bit but when it's gets going, it's worth having trudged through.

[Ragnarok-X]

Anyone read the Invasion cyclus ? Its considered military sci-fi.

[Baron Munchausen]

PvK said:
Yes, you're right. So far I've been quite willing to forgive and drift through to the tactical parts. Another criticism I have is with some of the political/cultural/economic attitudes and seeming principles of the author, which seem to me on the simplistic side and more applicable to pre-21st-Century Earth than to the far future. But again, I'm not bothered much because I'm in it for the combat! I'm only up to book #5, though.

Yes, there is a strong tendency for "science fiction" authors to be decidedly retro politically. I'm not sure if its some sort of natural corollary of imagining how societies 'evolve' -- maybe it's easier to just stop trying to think of what an "advanced" society would be like, and go with a known simple form of government/culture so you can get on with the scifi? Some are worse than others. Heinlein was pretty ghastly at times. Many of his stories (the early ones) are good despite this. Most of the later ones are just trash, simultaneously pornographic and propagandistic. Larry Niven and David Pournelle aren't much better on their political views but write much more consistently good stories. Asimov was much more progressive. His 'Foundation' series is actually an honest attempt to tackle the problem of 'advancement' of civilization, not just adventure for its own sake. Bradbury is somewhere in the middle (The Martian Chronicles, for example, are basically just traditional American short-stories, transposed from the Midwest to Mars... neither 'rightist' nor 'leftist' but just naturalist, realistic about human nature. )

David Weber seems to be politically in the Heinlein tradition: There is a certain cadre of 'smart' people who ought to be left alone and allowed to rule the rest of us dummies who don't know enough to take care of ourselves. The political stereotyping is sometimes annoying, but as I said, the rest of the story is so good that it's a forgivable fault.

[Randallw]

You want ultra-conservative military sci-fi? Try John Ringo's "Watch on the Rhine". Aliens that eat people invade earth. Who could possibly be strong enough to fight them. How about regenerating the Waffen-SS. The Greens and Socialists cry murder and oppose them at every step, colaborating with other aliens to stop them even though it risks the human race being eaten. The Greens would rather risk the aliens winning then use nuclear weapons or harm the environment. One even says wouldn't it be better if the aliens ate most of humanity, then we wouldn't be such a load on the planet. There's a discussion at the back of the book where the Authors explain why we need to be tough if we expect to win the war on terror, their argument being we risk losing western civilisation, and we aren't helped by socialists, liberals and environmentalists oppposing what needs to be done to win. At one point in the book a Waffen-SS member says he's never been able to tell the difference between a red and a green.

[douglas]

Randallw said:
I tried HH once and it didn't grab my interest (hmm, so two people are chatting in front of a fire about someone and there's a talking cat, ahh ). You say it has great battle scenes, hmm maybe I'll try again. This time leafing though to the actual good bits.

You must have started with one of the later books. I highly recommend reading them in order, starting with On Basilisk Station. That conversation will probably be much more interesting when you actually know the background involved, and I think the earlier books put more effort into pulling the reader in right off the bat.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Anything by Eric Flint.

[frightlever]

Armor by John Steakley if you haven't already. It's kind of the other side of Starship Troopers by Heinlein. One of the best books I've ever read.


I tried Gormenghast when I was youngers and gave up early but a decade later I read through all but the last book (got halfway and gave up. Dude was too raddled with drugs by then to be coherent.)

For military SF in general and Eric Flint in particular you can always go to http://www.baen.com/library/defaultTitles.htm which is the Baen (the actual publisher - this is legit) Free Library where they give away free ebooks so you can get a feel and hopefully buy more real books. Includes Eric Flint's 1632 and 1633 which is about a whole town and a big chunk of Minnesota (IIRC) which gets transported to Europe during the Thirty Years War. Loved it. Only really practical if you've got a PDA or similar ebook reader I spose.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

The books are available in html. No reader needed.

[frightlever]

You can read html while on the move? Cool. I had a friend who could use the internet in the early 90s without a computer or modem just by whistling down the phoneline. Is it like that?



And of course these days most mp3 players and handheld games machines can read text ebooks, with a bit of tinkering.