Science Fiction / Fantasy

[Frybabe]

Sirens of Titan just arrived. I think I will pause Reality Dysfunction to read it since it is a much shorter book.

[Frybabe]

Pat, I am really loving the beginning of The Sirens of Titan.

The disclaimer at the beginning, is precious.

All persons, places, and events in this book are real. Certain speeches and thoughts are necessarily constructions by the author. No names have been changed to protect the innocent, since God Almighty protects the innocent as a matter of Heavenly routine.

Again, in his explanation of  Chrono-synclastic Infundibula he writes

There is room enough for an awful lot of people to be right about things and still not agree...there are so many different ways of being right.

That is a rather startling insight. It depends a lot on how you define something, or look at it from your world view. It very much reminds me of something George once said to me. Paraphrasing, it goes something like this, "It is not what you intend to say, but how I take it (or interpret what you say)". George often thought my conversation was inarticulate, not precise enough. With George I have to be very clear and never ask two questions at once, he will only ever answer the second. I no longer ask two questions at once, but I don't think I ever accomplished being precise.

Thanks for recommending the book. I hope it doesn't get too weird later on.

[PatH]

I didn't really recommend it.  Here's what I said in the Library:

Barb, I can't see The Sirens of Titan as the Vonnegut to pick either, though it's kind of an amusing cosmic joke.  Slaughterhouse Five is much better, and some of his others are better too.

But it has its points, though it does get weirder.  Slaughterhouse Five is his classic, though it's rather grim.

[Frybabe]

Grim is not what I really wanted to read, which is why I went for Sirens.  I did enjoy that book.

I just finished up the first of the Codebreakers series by Colin F. Barnes. It is a posthuman/transhuman series, which kind of reminds me of Matrix or even Tron. Interesting, a bit breathless in speed and continuous action.

I've started listening to The Vor Game.

[PatH]

Glad you liked Sirens.  And now you know why we're here.

I'll be interested to learn what you think of The Vor Game.  I forget--have you already read The Warrior's Apprentice, in which Miles creates the Dendarii mercenaries?

[Frybabe]

Yes, I have read Warrior's Apprentice. I thought maybe Bujold would run with that for a few books, but The Vor Game is set somewhere else and not with the mercenaries. I wasn't sure I would like it, but it is shaping up nicely. I am only just at Chapter 9, but I suspect an ulterior motive for Miles being sent there that what he was told about. He is new to the base, not known (to those who sent him) for his strict adherence to orders, his curiosity and apparent inability to keep his nose out of other people's business. Of course, I could be misleading myself. 

Also reading the second book of the Code Breakers series. Still non stop action featuring cutting edge and future tech.

[Frybabe]

I've given up on Cetaganda; I thought it boring. I checked a chronological listing and discovered that Brothers in Arms is next, so I put a hold on it and cancelled Mirror Dance for now.

[PatH]

Good.  If you read Mirror Dance first it will spoil Brothers in Arms badly.

[Frybabe]

Oh, this is too precious. Author Tom Shepherd has started a "Star Lawyers" series. Well, someone had to do it. So far, there are two books in the series. Someone dubbed it "Star Trek meets Law and Order." There is a free short-story prequel for free on his website. https://pr.bookfunnel.com/zgavlw#getbook

[Frybabe]

Sad to report that Harlan Ellison passed away on the 27th of June at the age of 84. http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-harlan-ellison-20180628-story.html

[Frybabe]

Locus Award winners announced: https://locusmag.com/2018/06/2018-locus-awards-winners/

Congratulations to John Scalzi, one of my favorite authors (yes, I read the book), et.al.

The Non-fiction pick is one that I am going to look for. Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia E. Butler, Alexandra Pierce & Mimi Mondal, editors

[PatH]

Thanks for the list, Frybabe.  Wow, I'm way behind on my Scalzi.  Now that the only library branch accessible to me is open again, I'll have to check out what's available.

I see Ursula K. LeGuin gets a posthumous award for her Hainish series--well deserved.  I just read an essay of hers about the Sartre Prize--awarded to people who turn down prestigious prizes (Sartre turned down the Nobel Prize).  She always wanted to be offered an award she disapproved of enough to turn down, so she could be in the running for the Sartre.  Don't think she would have turned down this one, though.

[Frybabe]

Just discovered Cory Doctorow's 2017 book, Walkaway. It looks interesting, in that it is a novel involving Post-Scarcity society and the end of death, a subject that Isaac Arthur explores in his podcasts. Going to check if my library system has it.

Great, both my library and the FLP have it. I put a hold on the one with FLP so I have a bit of time to get on with what I already have. I still haven't put a hold back on Mirror Dance yet. Turns out I already did Brothers in Arms, just forgot.

[PatH]

The only Doctorow I've read is the YA "Little Brother", which I thought quite good.

Harlan Ellison was never a favorite, but he was a good, important writer.i have a movie script he wrote of Asimov's "I, Robot".  It was never made into a movie--I wonder if the fantastical staging was even possible then, though it would probably be easy now with current techniques.

[Frybabe]

So there IS a Gothic (Horror) Space Opera sub-genre. Huh!

http://www.unboundworlds.com/2018/02/want-read-gothic-space-opera-heres-start/

I noticed that Hyperion is listed among them.

Then there are the Vampires: http://www.unboundworlds.com/2018/03/5-novels-featuring-vampires-space/

All of which gets me to wondering what Peter Watts is writing these days. Must remember to check that out.

[PatH]

So I guess I really don't have a feel for what Gothic Space Opera is, though I've read three of the six examples--Blindsight, Solaris, and Hyperion.  You have some sort of futuristic version of the haunted mansion of Gothic novels, but almost any travel in which you come across a hostile alien life form would fit.  But I can see that mostly it isn't my kind of thing.

[Frybabe]

A Goodreads' Gothic Space Opera bookshelf also lists Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space series.

Ah, Peter Watts has a new novella out called The Freeze-Frame Revolution which is part of his Sunflower Cycle, none of which I've read.

[Frybabe]

I just found, on Project Gutenberg, a very old Science Fiction novel: Omega: The Last days of the World by Camille Flammarion. I don't know when I will get to read it.

[Frybabe]

I'll be watching for this, possible Amazon series of The Three Body Problem in the works:

https://www.tor.com/2018/03/28/amazon-may-pay-one-billion-to-adapt-cixin-liu-the-three-body-problem/

Also, Showtime has given the go ahead for an initial 10 episode series version of HALO, the very popular video game and book series. You know who will be shelling out money for Showtime when it hits the screen. Production doesn't start until 2019, with a target of 2020. Gosh, what a wait. Spielberg is on board, and I saw that Ridley Scott may do a few episodes. Can't beat that!

[Frybabe]

I've just finished listening to Mirror Dance. It went was absorbing in more ways than one. I dropped reading just about everything, including don't some Latin, to finish the book. It is due back tomorrow.

I was horrified by the torture/psychological conditioning that Mark went through. Very surprised to find he ended up with a split personality which I don't think showed up until he was put under such supreme duress. It is somewhat different from Miles as Lord or Nesmith. In that case, he took on another persona to be able to do what he loved, ultimately resulting in an alter-ego.

Previously, I finished Jack Campbell's latest in his prequel series to the Lost Fleet.

I just checked up on Marko Kloos to see what he is writing now. He is supposedly going to have a novella in the Frontlines series out soon. Unfortunately, he is now working on a series called Wild Cards. Looks like it is Chicago Crime type series. I don't think any of these will be released in the US until next year. Why do authors like to release their works in the UK first?  He mentioned also writing a new series called The Palladium Wars, but I have absolutely no idea what is is about. Hoping for another SciFi.

[PatH]

Frybabe, I could barely stand to read the torture descriptions in Mirror Dance.  In fact, I did just skim them  at first, but then I had to go back and read them anyway, since what happens in them is important to the rest of the book, and to understanding Mark in general.

No brutality in the next book, Memory, nor the following few.

[Frybabe]

Couldn't get past the first few pages of Walkaway. Doctorow is so ifsy to read. Some of his stuff is good, others not so much. This one starts out with seems to be "new" English, tech style, or new slang which leaves me thinking these people need to learn proper English. I think this is written for the new technically "plugged in" young people. It kind of reminds me of the Hippie days with their psychedelic, weed smoking, free love, burn your bra language/slang only I could understand most of that even while not participating.

 

[Frybabe]

Audible is having a sale on SciFi and Fantasy. Lo and behold, they have Falling Free on the list, as well as Hyperion. I ordered both. However, Hyperion seems to have dropped off my screen. I have to check that out as I have paid for it.

[PatH]

I assume Audible is audio books?  Good luck keeping the characters straight in Hyperion without something written to refer back to.  I wouldn't be able to.

Falling Free takes place several hundred years before the Miles series, in another part of his constellation of worlds.  It's a good yarn, and will be relevant in a later Miles book, Diplomatic Immunity.

[Frybabe]

Yes, audio books.

Hyperion is going to be a whopper to listen to, over 20 hours. Maybe someone has a character list up on the net. There are several readers, four I think, so that might help keep some of the characters straight.

I've been re-watching Babylon 5. I thought I missed the first year, but no, I remember some of them. I am picking up on things I don't remember noticing when I watch it years ago. You probably already know that Harlan Ellison was the "conseptual consultant" for the series and the five TV movies. I didn't know there were TV movies. I wonder if I saw them. Did you know he wrote two of the 1998 episodes and acted in three (two of which were voice only)?

[PatH]

Almost everybody is better than I am at keeping characters straight, so you'll probably be fine.  In one sense, Hyperion is kind of Canterbury Tales for sci-fi, a bunch of pilgrims and their stories, but that's only part of it.

Babylon 5 occurred at a time when I wasn't watching TV much, so I missed it, don't know anything about Ellison's part in it.  But in re Ellison's ability, I do have a book of a screenplay, written jointly by Ellison  and Isaac Asimov, for I, Robot.  It's very good, taking the original, a loosely connected collection of short stories, and fusing it into a good story.  When I read the screenplay, it struck me as impossible to produce because of the special effects needed, but it would probably be easy enough now.

[Frybabe]

PatH, I've started listening to Falling Free. Of course, I fell asleep on it and missed at least two chapters. It was on Chapter 4 when I woke up. Now I have to go back and re-listen to just about everything. The beginning is interesting, but so far not particularly compelling. I expect it ot pick up later.

Not SciFi, but Science, Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics and the Military by Neil deGrasse Tyson and Avis Lang will be releasing in September. https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-393-06444-5 I'll be interested to read it. My impression from a clip or two of interviews with Tyson is that he is not a fan of the US developing a separate Space Corp. I don't know where he stands on the development of space defense programs which I believe will soon become much more important to us as a nation.

[PatH]

The review makes Tyson and Lang's book sound like a valuable read.  I can see why he might be against a Space Corps; if it starts out military, it's sure to be used more that way.  I'll be interested in your comments when you read it.

Falling asleep would be a constant problem for me with audio books.

[Frybabe]

I am at it again. Two of my holds came in yesterday. One is yet another anthology of SciFi short stories, called Infinite Stars, which includes some of my favorite authors including Jack Campbell, Elizabeth Moon, Orson Scott Card, Lois McMaster Bujold, and David Weber. The other is Bujold's Memory.

I've just discovered Cat Country by Lao She, which is translated by William A. Lyell, PhD.
The intro is written by Ian Johnson, who is a writer who has been living in China for 20 years. I found this interesting interview in Yale's The Politic: http://thepolitic.org/an-interview-with-ian-johnson-pulitzer-prize-winning-writer-on-china/  It is not about the book, but is interesting none-the-less. Dr. Lyell, who passed away in 2005, taught Chinese literature and language at Stanford University for around 30years. Cat Country is characterized as Dystopian Science Fiction. I've also seen it referred to as political satire. It is on my wishlist.

[Frybabe]

Did you know that Baen Publishing has weekly podcasts? https://www.baen.com/podcast
I haven't listened to any yet. Bookmarking page. Too bad I don't see an app with which I can link to the podcasts.

[Frybabe]

I was delighted to discover that Bujold's Borders of Infinity, which is a novella) is included in the short story anthology I am reading. It was an engrossing story. I still have yet to read Mountains of Madness if I run across it. Now I can go on to read Memory. Falling Free will have to wait.

Worth a mention, Tobias S. Buckell has a new book out called The Trove. It is a retelling of Treasure Island, but in space. Buckell has written a number of books, several of which are for the HALO franchise, and short stories. Might make an interesting read.

[PatH]

Actually, it's The Mountains of Mourning.  (The Mountains of Madness is a florid and unconvincing horror story by H. P. Lovecraft.)  You'll meet some of the characters from Mourning briefly in Memory.

Mourning may be about to get more findable; they seem to have finally reissued it.  About time--it's a neat little self-contained story, and explains something about Miles' mindset.

[Frybabe]

I stand corrected. What was I thinking. I don't care for Lovecraft. Aside from Mountains of Mourning, I still must read "Labyrinth" and "Dreamweaver's Dilemma".

After Memory, I read that the story line veers off in another direction. I believe the writer of the article considered everything after Memory to be a secondary sequence. I hope they are as good.

Amazon released the short, "The Flowers of Vashnoi: Vorkosigan Saga", on Kindle in May. Her last book, released in Sept 17, Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, looks particularly interesting. Miles must investigate his own mother.

[PatH]

I don't care for Lovecraft either.  His horrors seem unconvincingly silly to me, though The Mountains of Madness starts off sounding like a standard Antarctic exploration story before it loses credibility.

Yes, Memory is kind of a turning point in the lives of some of the characters, but although the following books are uneven in quality, there are still plenty of good ones left.

The Flowers of Vashnoi is new to me, but I see from the description that you don't even want to read what it's about until you've read farther in the series, or it will be a spoiler.

[Frybabe]

Pat, have you ever read any of Nnedi Okonafor's works? I just finished reading her Binti.  It won her the  Hugo and Nebula Awards for best Novella in 2016. It is the first of a series which is about Africans (yes, Africans, not African-Americans) in space. Okonafor is an American born of Nigerian immigrant parents.

I am just a paragraph or two into Linda Nagata's short story, "Region Five", which is linked to, but not part of her The Red series books. It has my attention. I may just look into reading The Red series.

[PatH]

There seems to be a wave of African s-f writers, about whom I know almost nothing.  One more thing to get around to, and I don't seem to be getting around to much at the moment.

Christopher Tolkien has put out one more book assembled from his father's notes.  He says this is the last, but he said that of Beren and Luthien too.  But he's now 94, so maybe he's ready to stop.  I'm not a fan of these peripherals to The Lord of the Rings--to depressing and complicated for me, though I'm very fond of the original trilogy.  A lot of people will be happy for one more though.

[Frybabe]

I just finished A Civil Campaign. What a bizarre combination of personalities. Fun read. My favorite bit was when Cordelia sat Koudelka and his wife, Drou, down on an old sofa brought down from the attic just for that purpose of a nonverbal snipe at backward/old school thinking. I got the subtle reference right away. Since my ex is transsexual, I was interested in how the character Lady Donna/Count Dono played out. The Byerly character was, it turned out, ingenious - an undercover, dirty-tricks op. HAH!

I guess I am going to have to pass on Winterfair Gifts,. None of the libraries have it. I can't find a library copy of it, the Irresistible Forces anthology it is in, nor Miles in Love which includes it. So it is on to Diplomatic Immunity in a week or two, after I get the Jack McDevitt book read. Also, Latin classes start next week(?) as well as our next book discussion (I already have the book).

[Frybabe]

I believe that if I had realized that Diplomatic Immunity was located in Quaddiespace, I would have listened to Falling Free first, even though it was set 200 years before  the Vorkosigans showed up. Oh, well. I guess i will listen to it after this and then go on to Captain Vorpatril's Alliance. I am really interested in seeing what Ivan got himself into.

[PatH]

Frybabe, you're not going to miss a lot from not having read Falling Free first.  And I found it hard to keep up my interest in Falling, ended up skipping around, and going back to fill in what I'd missed, a dubious technique, and hard to do with an audio book.

You're really tearing through the books at a fast pace, something I couldn't do.  When I started reading them, not all had been written, and it was a null space, when Baen Books had let a lot of the earlier ones go out of print, even though the new ones were best sellers.  Seems dumb; you'd think they could swell the market for the later ones.  Anyway, I had to read them when I could find them, many from Powell's Books.  Now they've pretty much all been reissued, mostly in combination volumes.

[Frybabe]

Your assessment of Falling Free is noted, Pat. That is the only book I actually had to pay for. Hope I like it well enough.

I came to the conclusion, when most of the way through Diplomatic Immunity, that Miles and I have something in common. We tie our brains up in knots when thinking which often paralyzes us from action for a time with indecision as to what to believe, what action is best taken, etc. He has Ekaterin, now, to keep him from spinning his wheels too long.