polishgenius Posted March 15, 2014 Share Posted March 15, 2014 The Explorer and Dark Eden sound interesting, though the latter is classified as YA Erm, is it? I've certainly only ever seen it on the adult shelves. Personally I thought the concept far outreached the execution, but it's not YA. Though since some amazing books are marketed as YA I wouldn't have anything against that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Killer Snark Posted March 15, 2014 Share Posted March 15, 2014 Larry Niven's Ringworld is an essential read for anyone into intelligent space opera, and its sequels, though not of the same quality, are still required reading if you happen to like its characters. I'd also recommend Hal Clement's bizarre adventure novel Mission of Gravity, which features for its heroes a group of diminutive centipede-like aliens exploring a planet shaped like an American football. I disliked Rendezvous with Rama, btw, even though I like AC Clarke. Weak characterisation, in my opinion, combined with no real resolution and unneccessarily clumsy and confusing prose. If you liked that, OP, then you'll love Ringworld. It served as a primary inspiration for the concept of Elysium, and even that film's director admitted so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seli Posted March 15, 2014 Share Posted March 15, 2014 Incandesence sounds interesting, will check it out. What books are the CLockwork Universe, I can't find them. Ah sorry, the series has a different name apparently, I meant what according to wikipedia is labelled as the 'orthogonal trilogy' starting with Clockwork rocket, and also including The Eternal Flame and The Arrows of Time. As a short work, again in the more scientific mystery corner there is also Exhalation by Ted Chiang. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Datepalm Posted March 15, 2014 Share Posted March 15, 2014 Killer Snark, between this and the underrated writers thread, I have to say you have one of the oddest tastes in books I can recall running into. I mean, really, Ringworld as a timeless classic? Did we read the same cheesy travelogue plotting, embarassing adolescent sex fantasies and goofy yet humorless characters? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Killer Snark Posted March 15, 2014 Share Posted March 15, 2014 You are kidding, right? Ringworld won the Nebula. Sure, it likes to play with cliches a fair tad, but it inverts them all in a highly original and frequently hilarious fashion. The characterisation is excellent, the blend between hard and soft sci-fi stylings judged perfectly, and apart from the ingenuity of its world construction, it is consistently elegantly and wittily written. I'll give you this, though, because you make a few valid points. Its immediate sequel is frequently so confusingly written it was in serious demand of a decent revision or so before Niven bothered submitting it. The sex fantasy stuff, though not in the first novel, in the next ones does become quite adolescent and almost embarrassingly self-parodic. And what works well as genre pastiche in the first book in the later ones does devolve a tad too far into smugness. But I have an awful lot of time for Niven as a writer, so I'm willing to overlook these things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Datepalm Posted March 15, 2014 Share Posted March 15, 2014 I think we've just demonstrated that mileage does ever vary. I'd make more of an argument, but it's possible the various sequels are all bleeding together in my head, and I am not re-reading that thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Killer Snark Posted March 15, 2014 Share Posted March 15, 2014 I'll tell you what the worst space opera 'novel', if you can use that word, I ever read was, and I'd recommend it to nobody unless they'd just ran out of toilet paper. LIn Carter's Black Legion of Callisto. Apparently, he wrote eight of these things, in a series unashamedly ripped off from both Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars novels and the imitators of RE Howard. As a writer, he was so incompetent and utterly derivative I'm surprised he actually had the audacity to stick faux-academic notes at the end of the novels as if he was a Tolkienesque world builder, and the only other writers I have had to suffer of equal badness are David Gibbins, Clive Cussler and EL James. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Datepalm Posted March 15, 2014 Share Posted March 15, 2014 Here's a different question - what's you favorite space opera novel? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unJon Posted March 15, 2014 Share Posted March 15, 2014 Read it, great book. I even tend to stay away from translations but this was pretty well done. Incandesence sounds interesting, will check it out. What books are the CLockwork Universe, I can't find them. I read 1/2 of it and gave up. Wasn't for me. Thanks for the rec though. I just started Eon by Greg Egan after lookin up the recs here. So far it looks like it ticks all of your boxes and is off to a good start. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polishgenius Posted March 15, 2014 Share Posted March 15, 2014 You are kidding, right? Ringworld won the Nebula. So did Tehanu and The Windup Girl. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paddington Posted March 15, 2014 Share Posted March 15, 2014 Could try Forge of the gods and it's sequel Anvil of stars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterbound Posted March 15, 2014 Share Posted March 15, 2014 Might check out John Varley's Geia books as well. They might the a little too weird for you though... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbcooper Posted March 15, 2014 Author Share Posted March 15, 2014 Ha! I doubt those posts are even still around, with the way old threads get culled on this board. I just remember you were having a tough go of it after I rec'd it so hard. I'm glad you ended up enjoying them (and kept on reading Daniel Abraham). That surprises me that Dark Eden is now being marketed as YA, it definitely was not when it was first published. I never thought of it as a YA book while reading it although the main characters are all in their teens. Peadar's books are also classified as YA because of a young protagonist, and not for their subject matter or quality of writing. And if you enjoyed The Expanse don't discount Fortune's Pawn. Still, it's crazy that you remember a rec you gave about 3-4 years ago? Hell, it could be longer. And while I've been on the board for 6 years, I'm not very active as you can see from my post count - about 20 posts a year. I vaguely remember the conversation where I listed some of the stuff I was into and your response was something like "you must continue reading this". Well that's encouraging about Dark Eden. I'll grab it tonight. Thanks for the rec (again), I hope you get this one right like you got Long Price. Fortune's Pawn sounds an awful like a run-of-the-mill pulp Scifi novel. What sets it apart? I just started Eon by Greg Egan after lookin up the recs here. So far it looks like it ticks all of your boxes and is off to a good start. Do you mean Greg Bear? Might check out John Varley's Geia books as well. They might the a little too weird for you though... Actually I've read about 3/4 of Titan, the first of the Geia books. I thought it had some interesting concepts so I plowed through it, despite the fact that it hasn't aged particularly well and it's pretty light on the things I enjoy most. Finally put it aside after a few hundred pages of nothing-much-happening. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
serdog Posted March 15, 2014 Share Posted March 15, 2014 Try Jack McDevitt's Alex Bennett books. Basically unraveling mysteries set around alien artifacts and antiques. I was just going to recommend his Engines of God Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Richard II Posted March 15, 2014 Share Posted March 15, 2014 Haha, did some one just use a scifi award as an indication of quality? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbcooper Posted March 16, 2014 Author Share Posted March 16, 2014 Haha, did some one just use a scifi award as an indication of quality? You're not a very helpful person by nature, are you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbcooper Posted March 16, 2014 Author Share Posted March 16, 2014 I was just going to recommend his Engines of God Thanks, this one sounds interesting too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unJon Posted March 16, 2014 Share Posted March 16, 2014 Not Greg Bear. Greg Egan. He's rec'ed in this thread and you commented that you looked up book. Look at Eon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbcooper Posted March 16, 2014 Author Share Posted March 16, 2014 There is no book called Eon by Greg Egan.. unless it's incredibly obscure. I did look up Incandescence by Greg Egan, is it called Eon in some other press? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unJon Posted March 16, 2014 Share Posted March 16, 2014 Oh. My bad completely. Yes by Greg Bear. Don't know how I messed that up. Sorry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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