dmc1001
The Beastmaster
Posts: 495 
Likes: 1,048
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Post by dmc1001 on Jan 28, 2019 5:23:43 GMT
Also reading this book but, eh, it's basically PWP. I had bought this not knowing what I was getting into. Had no idea of the graphic porn inserted once or twice was is otherwise and okay (not great) story. That is, I bought this and another by the author at the same time. I'm trying to move through my massive list of unread Kindle books and now I'm on this.  |
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Post by * on Mar 5, 2019 3:31:15 GMT
since games are starting to piss me off gonna finally get around to the in his majesty's service trilogy.
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dmc1001
The Beastmaster
Posts: 495
Likes: 1,048
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Post by dmc1001 on Mar 5, 2019 16:44:37 GMT
I happened to post my current read in the "Books! Books! Books!" thread. I'll just reiterate that it's "Magic's Promise" by Mercedes Lackey. Part 2 of "The Last Herald Mage" trilogy. I can't even explain how greatly a young man like I was on the verge of coming out. Tbh, as soon as a recognized that I was gay, I came out to literally everyone in my life: family (even extended), friends and co-workers. A book like this helped me to be comfortable with my identity, even if the protagonist seems to be struggling with it for some reason right now.
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Post by Vy on Apr 12, 2019 6:58:21 GMT
I've been in need of something easily digestible to read, so I've been rereading the Harry Potter books. I last read them when I was about thirteen; it's weird to go back to them as an adult, and I'm pleasantly surprised by how much I'm still enjoying them.
Also, holy cow I'd forgotten just how mean-spirited Snape, Malfoy, and the Dursleys are.
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Post by * on Apr 12, 2019 12:29:09 GMT
Think I'm done with games until shadowbringers in july so reading abyss beyond dreams.
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Post by Vy on May 8, 2019 5:35:06 GMT
I scored at the thrift store. Green Mars, Old Man's War, Pushing Ice, and The Terror, for a buck apiece. I'm set for at least a month or two this summer.
I'm starting with Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds. I'm a few chapters in, and I'm already in love - I've always really liked "blue collar" sci-fi like Alien and The Expanse, and I love first contact stories, so a novel about a bunch of ice miners having to make first contact with an alien spacecraft before it leaves our solar system naturally captures my interest.
I'm just worried that all these likable and believable characters are going to start fighting and hurting each other before the story's over. These stories always have a handful of jerks who nearly ruin it for everyone.
The part where they realized that Janus is en route to a MASSIVE space habitat with an internal surface area a million times larger than Earth was sufficiently awe-inspiring; for some reason I always kinda love it when there's a scene where the characters are looking at a grainy, low-res image of something that turns out to be ridiculously big. |
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Post by Deleted on May 9, 2019 3:07:17 GMT
I scored at the thrift store. Green Mars, Old Man's War, Pushing Ice, and The Terror, for a buck apiece. I'm set for at least a month or two this summer.
I'm starting with Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds. I'm a few chapters in, and I'm already in love - I've always really liked "blue collar" sci-fi like Alien and The Expanse, and I love first contact stories, so a novel about a bunch of ice miners having to make first contact with an alien spacecraft before it leaves our solar system naturally captures my interest.
I'm just worried that all these likable and believable characters are going to start fighting and hurting each other before the story's over. These stories always have a handful of jerks who nearly ruin it for everyone.
The part where they realized that Janus is en route to a MASSIVE space habitat with an internal surface area a million times larger than Earth was sufficiently awe-inspiring; for some reason I always kinda love it when there's a scene where the characters are looking at a grainy, low-res image of something that turns out to be ridiculously big. Oh, thanks for recs! I'm always on the hunt for some good sci fi😀 I'll try pushing ice and I'll wait if you like the others as well 😊 |
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Post by Vy on May 9, 2019 6:31:37 GMT
milanawalters Green Mars is the sequel to Red Mars, and the second book in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy. I enjoyed Red Mars and I highly recommend it, especially if the idea of colonizing and terraforming Mars is even remotely interesting to you, but I'll admit it was slow going at first. KSR spends the first two thirds setting up a ton of dominos, but it's worth it to see them all come crashing down. If you're looking for other general sci-fi recommendations, The Lost Fleet series is an old favorite of mine, and Ancillary Justice is quite good (I'm planning on reading the next two books in the trilogy over the summer). Also, of course, The Expanse novels if you haven't read them. I'm a little under halfway through Pushing Ice (page 254). My opinion of it may change, but I'm still liking it a lot so far; it probably helps that the framing device means that this story's moving towards some sort of happy ending. With that said... Freaking called it. Svetlana can go shove a cactus where the sun don't shine, then go jump in a lake. On Titan. Out an airlock. It has been a very long time since I've hated a character so much. Also, it's a little sad when a likable major character is offhandedly mentioned to be gay and the first thought through my head is "welp, he's doomed."
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Post by Deleted on May 9, 2019 6:44:11 GMT
milanawalters Green Mars is the sequel to Red Mars, and the second book in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy. I enjoyed Red Mars and I highly recommend it, especially if the idea of colonizing and terraforming Mars is even remotely interesting to you, but I'll admit it was slow going at first. KSR spends the first two thirds setting up a ton of dominos, but it's worth it to see them all come crashing down. If you're looking for other general sci-fi recommendations, The Lost Fleet series is an old favorite of mine, and Ancillary Justice is quite good (I'm planning on reading the next two books in the trilogy over the summer). Also, of course, The Expanse novels if you haven't read them. I'm a little under halfway through Pushing Ice (page 254). My opinion of it may change, but I'm still liking it a lot so far; it probably helps that the framing device means that this story's moving towards some sort of happy ending. With that said... Freaking called it. Svetlana can go shove a cactus where the sun don't shine, then go jump in a lake. On Titan. Out an airlock. It has been a very long time since I've hated a character so much. Also, it's a little sad when a likable major character is offhandedly mentioned to be gay and the first thought through my head is "welp, he's doomed." Oooh thanks, I will check them out. I really love the expanse - the show, but I'm not sure if I can get into books after watching it |
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Post by Vy on May 9, 2019 7:56:58 GMT
milanawalters I'd still recommend them. The show's been a pretty faithful pragmatic adaptation, but the books are different enough from the show that you'll still get something new out of them. The audiobooks are narrated by Jefferson Mays, and he does an excellent job.
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Post by yourfunnyuncle on May 9, 2019 12:55:39 GMT
I really loved Mark Lawrence's Broken Empire trilogy (Prince, King and Emperor of Thorns), which are written in a first person narrative from the perspective of Jorg, an amoral bloodthirsty bastard, but then didn't quite enjoy his follow-up in the same universe, again featuring a first-person narrative but with lying sweet-talking coward Jalan as the protagonist, so much. I now find myself again gripped by his Book of the Ancestor Trilogy (Red Sister, Grey Sister, Holy Sister).
This latest series is told in the third person, and is set in a different universe, but continues his theme of writing what is ostensibly dark fantasy but with sci-fi underpinnings from a dimly-remembered past. This time his protagonist is female, a girl going through school in a convent where she is learning to hone her substantial magical and martial skills while becoming more and more embroiled in the power-politics of the world. I find that Lawrence has a great writing style despite the darkness of what goes on, and he tends to be more concise than many other sci-fi and fantasy authors.
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Post by Vy on May 13, 2019 6:36:52 GMT
I finished Pushing Ice. My final feelings are mixed. 2/5 would recommend for fans of "big dumb object" sci-fi like Ringworld or Rendezvous With Rama; the first third was a solid 4, which made the final result disappointing. I enjoyed the first third and the last third well enough, but the middle third was an utter drag. I always hated spending time with Svetlana after the Rockhopper landed on Janus, which sucks since she's the deuteragonist.
Speaking of characters, like a lot of high-concept sci-fi this book was on the thin side, and most filled standard sci-fi archetypes. I generally prefer my fiction to be character-driven, so that was disappointing. At leas the gay supporting character lived - I was sure he was going to be a sacrificial lion later on.
I was also annoyed by how many questions didn't get answered. Sure, I wasn't expecting answers to everything (these sorts of books are rarely that overt), but I was hoping we'd get some payoff for things like Janus killing people for following routines, or where they actually were in space, or why the Fountainheads and the Lindblad Ring never mentioned each other, or what the Uncontained actually were. I could stomach that if this was, say, the first book in a series about exploring a truly gargantuan alien megastructure, but it's not - it's a standalone.
The parts I did like: the used-future blue-collar hard-sci-fi world of the first third, the genuinely alien aliens of the last third, and the mind-boggling scale of the whole thing. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 8, 2019 12:02:14 GMT
I'm reading "red rising" by Pierce brown now. And damn the book is amazing! I'm torn between finishing it in one go or prolonging the pleasure lol good thing it's a series and several books are already out
It's a sci fi about colonizing Mars in a very far far future if anybody's interested
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Post by Vy on Jul 14, 2019 4:46:14 GMT
I'm 100 pages into Tiamat's Wrath (the 8th and penultimate novel in The Expanse series) and it is so good so far. Avasarala's grave having a line of her husband Arjun's poetry has got to be one of my favorite tearjerker moments from the series.
"If life transcends death, I will wait for you there. If not, then there also."
Also, I'm taking a liking to Alex's new copilot Caspar (who is mentioned to be gay or bi in an early conversation); I'm getting show!Diogo vibes, but if Diogo was five to ten years older and less of a little shit. I'm just worried they're going to make him a mauve shirt and kill him off, given that the underground's war is likely to spiral toward massive casualty rates once it starts to escalate. |
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Post by Vy on Jul 30, 2019 4:36:45 GMT
Well, I finished Tiamat's Wrath. Overall impressions: very positive. It reminded me of Nemesis Games in a lot of ways (both good and bad), which was kinda neat since that was my favorite book in the series. NG is probably still my favorite in the series, though; TW came close, but there were too many clean/convenient coincidences/successes for me to feel great about considering it the best. Plus, it had a couple of gay/bi guys as supporting characters who didn't get killed off. That was nice. And the one who was a bad guy got a super cool and freaky death scene. This series continues to deliver on the "horrible ways to get killed by aliens and their technology" meter - first we get the Goths/Dark Gods/aliens from another dimension taking erasers to the Falcon crew, then we get Duarte casually turning half of Cortazar's upper body into pink mist. Nice. I really can't wait for the last book to come out. It's going to be weird once the series is finally finished; I guess I'll need to find a new book series to obsess over. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 12, 2019 6:41:25 GMT
Finally finished "Pushing ice" by Alastair Reynolds,while it was a very good sci fi read,it was very hard for me to rate it higher than 3 stars since I hated one of the main characters - Svetlana, even saying her name makes me barf, why is such an annoying character who caused countless deaths was allowed to lead all those people, I just dont understand.
And another minor character, who everybody liked for some reason, just casually mentioned if the only gay guy out of 500 people is "fixed" after some rejuvenating procedure...wtf, its 2050 smth right not middle ages... Loved Bella though, and I hated how she let Svieta have a way with her all the time
I decided to avoid reading old sci fi( before 2010s) cause it's just mostly for straight dudebros.. unfortunately there are still mostly for them but there's some progress on the horizon ...I guess..
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Post by Deleted on Sept 12, 2019 6:46:11 GMT
But I managed to find some good gay sci fi series , which are a bit fanfiction-y in romance parts but very good in the world building:"Mind + machine" series by Hanna Dare. If it helps the romance does get better with each book.
Good series about werewolves as well:"Big bad wolf" by Charlie Adhara
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Post by Vy on Sept 12, 2019 15:01:20 GMT
Finally finished "Pushing ice" by Alastair Reynolds,while it was a very good sci fi read,it was very hard for me to rate it higher than 3 stars since I hated one of the main characters - Svetlana, even saying her name makes me barf, why is such an annoying character who caused countless deaths was allowed to lead all those people, I just dont understand. And another minor character, who everybody liked for some reason, just casually mentioned if the only gay guy out of 500 people is "fixed" after some rejuvenating procedure...wtf, its 2050 smth right not middle ages... Loved Bella though, and I hated how she let Svieta have a way with her all the time We should make a "Screw Svetlana" fanclub! She is just the worst.
IIRC, though, they explicitly said that the gay doctor wasn't "fixed" because he didn't see a problem with it.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 12, 2019 15:20:31 GMT
Finally finished "Pushing ice" by Alastair Reynolds,while it was a very good sci fi read,it was very hard for me to rate it higher than 3 stars since I hated one of the main characters - Svetlana, even saying her name makes me barf, why is such an annoying character who caused countless deaths was allowed to lead all those people, I just dont understand. And another minor character, who everybody liked for some reason, just casually mentioned if the only gay guy out of 500 people is "fixed" after some rejuvenating procedure...wtf, its 2050 smth right not middle ages... Loved Bella though, and I hated how she let Svieta have a way with her all the time We should make a "Screw Svetlana" fanclub! She is just the worst.
IIRC, though, they explicitly said that the gay doctor wasn't "fixed" because he didn't see a problem with it.
He who? Bella defended him but Mike just shrugged Oh you mean Ryan himself? But I guess the book was published in 2005, so it's the best we could expect, at least he didn't die That ending though? What happened to Bella and the crew? |
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Post by Vy on Sept 12, 2019 16:53:42 GMT
We should make a "Screw Svetlana" fanclub! She is just the worst.
IIRC, though, they explicitly said that the gay doctor wasn't "fixed" because he didn't see a problem with it.
He who? Bella defended him but Mike just shrugged Oh you mean Ryan himself? But I guess the book was published in 2005, so it's the best we could expect, at least he didn't die That ending though? What happened to Bella and the crew? Ryan himself.
I took the ending as Bella and the rest of the humans who stayed behind joining the broader multispecies community in the structure.
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Much love right back at ya!
