Science Fiction

[Derek Withers]

I finally bought Invisible Sun by Charles Stross, I sort of knew it wasnt going to be great but I had to finish off the series. I enjoyed the first two but I read that Stross' editor died and his parents and possibly more so he condensed what was supposed to be two further books into just one. It does feel a little rushed but I had been waiting years while it kept getting delayed.

I am also a third of the way through Inhibitor Phase by Alistair Reynolds and it seems excellent so far.

[havoc]

Derek Withers said:

I finally bought Invisible Sun by Charles Stross, I sort of knew it wasnt going to be great but I had to finish off the series. I enjoyed the first two but I read that Stross' editor died and his parents and possibly more so he condensed what was supposed to be two further books into just one. It does feel a little rushed but I had been waiting years while it kept getting delayed.

Hmmm...hadn't even clocked that there was another one in that series out.

Is it worth reading, or should I pass entirely?

(FWIW, I recently read the latest Laundry novel (that is no longer Laundry), and I thought it was decent, if a complete change of pace and tone and with a loss of a lot of the humour I liked about the earlier novels)

[Derek Withers]

havoc said:

Derek Withers said:

I finally bought Invisible Sun by Charles Stross, I sort of knew it wasnt going to be great but I had to finish off the series. I enjoyed the first two but I read that Stross' editor died and his parents and possibly more so he condensed what was supposed to be two further books into just one. It does feel a little rushed but I had been waiting years while it kept getting delayed.

Hmmm...hadn't even clocked that there was another one in that series out.

Is it worth reading, or should I pass entirely?


On balance its probably not worth it, I saw it in Waterstones so I bought it. Its a bit like the last season of Game of Thrones though.

I can tell you how it ends if you don't want to buy it.

If you want, I can just post you the book?

Edited by Derek Withers on Monday 6th June 08:46

Edited by Derek Withers on Tuesday 7th June 21:02

[jet_noise]

Having got part way through Jack Campbell's Lost Fleet I thought I'd have a go at his Stark's War trilogy.
Excellent. Better than the Lost Fleet (which is merely very good).

It's much tighter, maybe due to being nearer future and moon based rather than intergalactic. Sgt. Stark is a great character too.
It's goodies vs baddies but the baddest might not be the enemy. At least to start with.
Some of the goodies do die which reflects real life somewhat.

It'd make a great film franchise although the potential romantic interest might need progressing

[CopperBolt]

Can someone recommend a sci fi author for someone who found the story (was there one?) in Gridlinked by Neal Asher too complicated?

someone came through a runcible gate on samarkand (instant travel thing) too fast and caused a massive explosion killing 1000s. Cormac goes off to investigate. What or why did the explosion happen? Thanks

[captain_cynic]

CopperBolt said:

Can someone recommend a sci fi author for someone who found the story (was there one?) in Gridlinked by Neal Asher too complicated?

someone came through a runcible gate on samarkand (instant travel thing) too fast and caused a massive explosion killing 1000s. Cormac goes off to investigate. What or why did the explosion happen? Thanks

Try the others in the Polity universe by Asher. The Spaterjay series (starting with The Skinner was a lot simpler.

[Guvernator]

CopperBolt said:

Can someone recommend a sci fi author for someone who found the story (was there one?) in Gridlinked by Neal Asher too complicated?

someone came through a runcible gate on samarkand (instant travel thing) too fast and caused a massive explosion killing 1000s. Cormac goes off to investigate. What or why did the explosion happen? Thanks

Runcible physics is made up. All you need to know is it takes a lot of energy to make a runcible jump, the receiving gate is supposed to absorb the huge energy of the object travelling through it but something went wrong and the energy wasn't captured by the gate leading to a big bang.

It's often not too important to get caught up in the pseudo physics as most of it is made up anyway. Also Neal Asher is one of the easier to read sci-fi writers and his novels are mostly categorised as soft sci-fi, if you struggle with his novels, you'll probably struggle with a lot of sci-fi authors.

[cherie171]

We recently binged all of Love, Death and Robots on Netflix, and may of them are based on short stories by pretty big names in sci-fi (Harlan Ellison, John Scalzi, Alistair Reynolds, Ken Liu, Joe Lansdale are ones I remember). They were all varying shades of weird, but the one that stood out for me in the sense that although it was a self contained story, it felt as though it existed in a wider universe, was Snow in the Desert, by Neal Asher. A little research later and I find that I was right in my gut feeling, as it's set in the Polity universe, so I'm keeping an eye open for a another free trial of kindle unlimited and I'll give Gridlinked a go.

[CopperBolt]

Guvernator said:

Runcible physics is made up. All you need to know is it takes a lot of energy to make a runcible jump, the receiving gate is supposed to absorb the huge energy of the object travelling through it but something went wrong and the energy wasn't captured by the gate leading to a big bang.

It's often not too important to get caught up in the pseudo physics as most of it is made up anyway. Also Neal Asher is one of the easier to read sci-fi writers and his novels are mostly categorised as soft sci-fi, if you struggle with his novels, you'll probably struggle with a lot of sci-fi authors.

Yeah its not the physics I was nonplussed by more the fact that Cormac went off to investigate why it had happened and there didnt seem to be an answer given.

[Bannock]

CopperBolt said:

Guvernator said:

Runcible physics is made up. All you need to know is it takes a lot of energy to make a runcible jump, the receiving gate is supposed to absorb the huge energy of the object travelling through it but something went wrong and the energy wasn't captured by the gate leading to a big bang.

It's often not too important to get caught up in the pseudo physics as most of it is made up anyway. Also Neal Asher is one of the easier to read sci-fi writers and his novels are mostly categorised as soft sci-fi, if you struggle with his novels, you'll probably struggle with a lot of sci-fi authors.

Yeah its not the physics I was nonplussed by more the fact that Cormac went off to investigate why it had happened and there didnt seem to be an answer given.

By enormous coincidence, I was reading this book until recently. I got about 1/3rd of the way through and gave up. Only the second time I've ever given up on a book, and I did so on this occasion because I simply couldn't follow what the hell was going on with any of the characters and why. Probably my weak attention span at fault rather than the book, but still. I found it tedious and unsatisfying, so decided life was too short.

I have picked up Adrian Tchaikovsky's Shards of Earth instead, and I'll probably finish that now I'm half way through, but It doesn't hold a candle to his other books like Children of Time and Bear Head IMHO. I'm looking forward to Children of Memory later this year.

[Guvernator]

Conversely I found the Ian Cormac series to be very good. Yes the first book does jump around a bit but it does introduce some key characters that stay throughout the series of books. By book two it's well into it's stride and it basically becomes James Bond in space.

[Bannock]

Some others I enjoyed recently:

Joshua Calvert - The Fossil. Might even read the sequel if I'm feeling saucy.
John Scalzi - Old Man's War. Again might pick up the sequel.
Gareth Powell - Embers of War
Gary Gibson - Echogenesis.

All jolly readable and entertaining, nothing very heavy or serious. Guess who skims Amazon Prime freebies on his Kindle. I think of all those above I liked Old Man's War the best.

[captain_cynic]

Bannock said:

John Scalzi - Old Man's War. Again might pick up the sequel.

There's 5 sequels.

Then you've got his Interdependency series (3 books) which are quite good.

If you like military sci-fi, Check out Terms of Enlistment (Markos Kloos) and the Expeditionary Force series.

[DodgyGeezer]

this was an entertaining series...

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/395738.Orph...

[nellystew]

captain_cynic said:

There's 5 sequels.

Then you've got his Interdependency series (3 books) which are quite good.

If you like military sci-fi, Check out Terms of Enlistment (Markos Kloos) and the Expeditionary Force series.

Terms of Enlistment series is definitely worth reading

[captain_cynic]

nellystew said:

captain_cynic said:

There's 5 sequels.

Then you've got his Interdependency series (3 books) which are quite good.

If you like military sci-fi, Check out Terms of Enlistment (Markos Kloos) and the Expeditionary Force series.

Terms of Enlistment series is definitely worth reading

As is his other series, the Palladium Wars.

[Zumbruk]

I hope all fans of military SF have read this;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill,_the_Galactic_H...

[DodgyGeezer]

Zumbruk said:

I hope all fans of military SF have read this;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill,_the_Galactic_H...

not in many years... may have to revisit

[Guvernator]

Zumbruk said:

I hope all fans of military SF have read this;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill,_the_Galactic_H...

Yep very good reads and hilarious in places.

In a similar vein of a hapless hero, I'd also recommend the Ciaphus Cain series of books from the Warhammer 40k Library. Some of the WH40K content can be hit and miss but this series of books is excellent and very funny in places as well as offering decent sci-fi action.

[CopperBolt]

Guvernator said:

Conversely I found the Ian Cormac series to be very good. Yes the first book does jump around a bit but it does introduce some key characters that stay throughout the series of books. By book two it's well into it's stride and it basically becomes James Bond in space.

Ok cheers may try the second one at some point. Just found a synopsis of the gridlinked plot, which does indicate the reason for the initial explosion although even that doesnt explain why it was done.