Science Fiction
Discussion
C2Red said:
Just finished the Ian Cormac series, thought it was a bit of a weak ending, are Neal Ashers other books worth a look?
Yes! I really like them.I usually have his stuff on pre-order for months ahead.
They are all very much of a style - if you like one, you'll probably like them all. Some people don't like this approach to writing, however for me, I'm very happy with his style.
Probably late to the party on this one but just finished Ready Player One which I'd never heard of until the film came out a while back. Loved all the references to 80's films and music, and realised I didn't get in computer games quite that early.
Enjoyed it so much I bought Armada by the same author which isn't bad so far.
Enjoyed it so much I bought Armada by the same author which isn't bad so far.
JonChalk said:
C2Red said:
Just finished the Ian Cormac series, thought it was a bit of a weak ending, are Neal Ashers other books worth a look?
Yes! I really like them.I usually have his stuff on pre-order for months ahead.
They are all very much of a style - if you like one, you'll probably like them all. Some people don't like this approach to writing, however for me, I'm very happy with his style.
Clockwork Cupcake said:
I've read a lot of Neal Stephenson and I found Seveneves to be very weak (if you scroll back through the thread you'll find my review) so you are in for a treat in this regard as if you liked Seveneves then you'll really love his other work.
I have a soft spot for Cryptonomicon due to my background in IT and cryptography. And, of course, there's his granddaddy book Snow Crash. The Diamond Age is also worth reading.
One thing that he seems very week on is endings - they always feel rushed no matter how thick the book is. Cryptonomicon is a weighty tomb yet only a few pages from the end you are thinking "how is he going to tie all this up?".
Likewise Snow Crash has a very rushed Deus ex Machina ending. But apart from that is excellent.
Nice one cheers :-)I have a soft spot for Cryptonomicon due to my background in IT and cryptography. And, of course, there's his granddaddy book Snow Crash. The Diamond Age is also worth reading.
One thing that he seems very week on is endings - they always feel rushed no matter how thick the book is. Cryptonomicon is a weighty tomb yet only a few pages from the end you are thinking "how is he going to tie all this up?".
Likewise Snow Crash has a very rushed Deus ex Machina ending. But apart from that is excellent.
RizzoTheRat said:
Probably late to the party on this one but just finished Ready Player One which I'd never heard of until the film came out a while back. Loved all the references to 80's films and music, and realised I didn't get in computer games quite that early.
Enjoyed it so much I bought Armada by the same author which isn't bad so far.
Great read. Armada... Not so. Very average.Enjoyed it so much I bought Armada by the same author which isn't bad so far.
Narcisus said:
Clockwork Cupcake said:
I've read a lot of Neal Stephenson and I found Seveneves to be very weak (if you scroll back through the thread you'll find my review) so you are in for a treat in this regard as if you liked Seveneves then you'll really love his other work.
I have a soft spot for Cryptonomicon due to my background in IT and cryptography. And, of course, there's his granddaddy book Snow Crash. The Diamond Age is also worth reading.
One thing that he seems very week on is endings - they always feel rushed no matter how thick the book is. Cryptonomicon is a weighty tomb yet only a few pages from the end you are thinking "how is he going to tie all this up?".
Likewise Snow Crash has a very rushed Deus ex Machina ending. But apart from that is excellent.
Nice one cheers :-)I have a soft spot for Cryptonomicon due to my background in IT and cryptography. And, of course, there's his granddaddy book Snow Crash. The Diamond Age is also worth reading.
One thing that he seems very week on is endings - they always feel rushed no matter how thick the book is. Cryptonomicon is a weighty tomb yet only a few pages from the end you are thinking "how is he going to tie all this up?".
Likewise Snow Crash has a very rushed Deus ex Machina ending. But apart from that is excellent.
I also liked Reamde very much although it's a bit different to his others.
hairykrishna said:
Similarly I'm a big Stephenson fan and thought Seveneves was far from his best. Anathem is probably my favourite.
I actually have a copy of Anathem that I bought at the same time as Seveneves, which I have so far not got round to reading. Not least because Seveneves was such a disappointment and annoyed me so much. hairykrishna said:
Again a fairly rushed seeming ending, even though its ~900 pages!
Really starting to see a pattern on his work here, sadly. 
The entire Dune series was on a kindle 99p deal a while back and I finally started it the other night. I know it's supposed to be a classic bit I'm just not really getting it in to it yet, which makes the 67 hours that my kindle currently predicts it will take to finish a little off-putting. I'll give it a few more hours in the hope it picks up.
On the other hand I was glued to Andy Wier's "Artemis“ the other day which I found so good I didn't want to put it down.
On the other hand I was glued to Andy Wier's "Artemis“ the other day which I found so good I didn't want to put it down.
RizzoTheRat said:
The entire Dune series was on a kindle 99p deal a while back and I finally started it the other night. I know it's supposed to be a classic bit I'm just not really getting it in to it yet, which makes the 67 hours that my kindle currently predicts it will take to finish a little off-putting. I'll give it a few more hours in the hope it picks up.
The first two books (Dune and Dune Messiah) are a self-contained story and you can stop there if it's not doing it for you. Personally I think Dune is to Sci-Fi what Lord of the Rings is to Fantasy.
RizzoTheRat said:
Clockwork Cupcake said:
Personally I think Dune is to Sci-Fi what Lord of the Rings is to Fantasy.
A decent story that's ruined by poor writing? 
(Started LOTR several times but never made it more than half way through the first book)
I've read LOTR about 40 times.
br d said:
I'll have to get around to the Dune books one day, I've heard many people praise them in a similar vein to CC (or were you being fiendish and putting them down?).
I was being deliberately ambiguous, I admit. Personally I love the Dune books, but what I was trying to convey was that when you talk Fantasy then the "must read" genre-defining book series is LotR. Similarly, for SciFi it is Dune. It's that important. Clockwork Cupcake said:
br d said:
I'll have to get around to the Dune books one day, I've heard many people praise them in a similar vein to CC (or were you being fiendish and putting them down?).
I was being deliberately ambiguous, I admit. Personally I love the Dune books, but what I was trying to convey was that when you talk Fantasy then the "must read" genre-defining book series is LotR. Similarly, for SciFi it is Dune. It's that important. LOTR for me was a hard series of books for me to read, very drawn out, a few very crappy chapters that were very smartly, cut from the film (such at Tom Bombadil... I'll get a lot of hate from LOTR fans for that, but he was a boring character).
Well it's doubled in price since I bought it but that's still a hell of a lot of reading material for the money if anyone else is thinking of giving it a go.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dune-Gateway-Collection-E...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dune-Gateway-Collection-E...
RizzoTheRat said:
Well it's doubled in price since I bought it but that's still a hell of a lot of reading material for the money if anyone else is thinking of giving it a go.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dune-Gateway-Collection-E...
Those are indeed the aforementioned original Frank Herbert books. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dune-Gateway-Collection-E...
There are a load more "continuation" sequels and prequels, co-written by Herbert Jnr and other authors. They're of varying quality but readable. Although, having said that, the final book that I read of them had a rather awful Deus ex Machina ending.
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