Which book are you reading now? Volume XIV

[hobbsyoyo]

Yes they are separated but trust me it's totally worth it. Amos is especially lit; that book is one of my favorites because of him in it.

 

[Synobun]

I... trust you.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

It's my 2nd favorite book of the series and is widely acclaimed as the best by fans. If you like The Expanse in general, I think you'll at least like this particular book.

My favorite is Tiamat's Wrath - the latest one published. A final book to end the series is due sometime soon.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Keep going Syn; it is a great book.

 

[Takhisis]

Collected short stories by Edgar Allan Poe, here I go.

 

[Kyriakos]

Continuing to read Clarke's Childhood's End, cause I need it for the seminar I am writing.
Half-way through now.

 

[Traitorfish]

YAR HAR FIDDLEDY-DEE

 

[tjs282]

How so? I find they're pretty good about future prediction stuff

I think some of the preoccupations within the series are very... erm, well... millenial (for want of a better word).

The dialogue-choices (by the authors) will almost certainly date the books/series to this decade. Using relatively specific dates for any SF book's events also tends to date SF novels, often ridiculously badly (Exhibit A for the prosecution: 2001)

but obviously there's a lot of science fiction nonsense in the book.

Macguffins are pretty much par for the course in SF. I don't mind that, so long as they're used within a consistent framework, rather than simply to Omega-13 the characters out of a (plot)hole.

e.g. the Epstein Drive is a obviously a completely fictional contrivance, but it's not a magic hyperdrive that can do whatever the plot 'needs' it to do.

Just getting into this.

Spoiler :

Please tell me Amos and Alex aren't gone the entire book. Am I going to hate this book? I feel like I'm going to hate this book.

Especially after the prologue reveals a character who is fifteen years old and a REALLY COOL BAD ASS, which is befitting of a YA but not this.

It's much better than Book 4, and I really liked the character development in it. Splitting the band up was pretty much essential to that. Aren't you interested in Amos' (and Naomi's) backstory?

And yeah, Filipe. As you'll find out very soon, he's hardly a "really cool badass"...

Spoiler What he is... :

...is pretty much an abused, brainwashed, child-soldier, with all the associated baggage. And I didn't think that was far-fetched at all: this crap already happens here, on Earth, in 2020.

And yes, he's also an utter brat (something that it sounds like the TV series got right, based on something hobbs said a while back), but later on, once I found out what he'd been put through, I actually found myself sympathising with him just a little bit. Not much though (you'll see why).

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I think some of the preoccupations within the series are very... erm, well... millenial (for want of a better word).

The dialogue-choices (by the authors) will almost certainly date the books/series to this decade. Using relatively specific dates for any SF book's events also tends to date SF novels, often ridiculously badly (Exhibit A for the prosecution: 2001)

Do you have any specific examples?

----------

I never found anything sympathetic about Filipe.

 

[Morty]

Thank you for the spoilers guys!
Only read books 1-3 at the moment, with 4&5 sitting on my bookshelf waiting to be read, so great that I can drop into this thread without inadvertently finding stuff out.

 

[tjs282]

Do you have any specific examples?

Of millennial preoccupations?

Hmmm... how about evil megacorporations doing dastardly deeds with the help of their PMCs, resource wars, wealth disparity, authoritarian informational oversight, environmental collapse, "unconventional" (i.e. non-het, poly) relationships/ marriages...

As far as the dialogue goes, that was more an off-the-cuff recollection: I'd have to re-read in detail to find specific examples of post-2000 slang/idiom.

Only read books 1-3 at the moment, with 4&5 sitting on my bookshelf waiting to be read, so great that I can drop into this thread without inadvertently finding stuff out.

You're welcome, though it does tend to make the thread look a little sparse.

I ended up skimming over a substantial chunk of the last "TV-shows" thread, when @hobbsyoyo, @rah, @Birdjaguar, and @EgonSpengler started discussing (with spoilers) the latest season of the show (I only saw S1 + S2, before it got poached by Amazon...)

 

[AmazonQueen]

Last week I picked up 2 Michael Dibdin novels and 3 Henning Mankell, and this week 2 Ian Banks, and splurged on a new copy of Speaks Volumes, a collection of material by Jeremy Hardy.
And I repaired my bookcase that collapsed. If not as good as new it is at least better than it was before it collapsed.

 

[tjs282]

this week 2 Ian Banks

Ooh, ooh, which ones?

and splurged on a new copy of Speaks Volumes, a collection of material by Jeremy Hardy.

Hence the new sig?

 

[AmazonQueen]

Ooh, ooh, which ones?

Business and Dead Air.

Hence the new sig?

Indeed. Many sig-worthy quotes I can mine to make up for my own lack of originality

 

[tjs282]

Business and Dead Air.

Ah. Well, I hope you enjoy them at least a little bit (...more than I did).

Spoiler Unrequested opinion-dropping :

Neither book is anywhere close to his best work. Although I liked the idea behind The Business, the sexual politics [now] seem a bit distasteful; and I really didn't like the protagonist of Dead Air

EDITED for clarity. Possibly.

 

[AmazonQueen]

Ah. Well, I hope you enjoy them at least a little bit.

Well so far I've enjoyed everything of his I've read (perhaps enjoyed is the wrong word for The Wasp Factory but it was certainly worth reading) although some have been better than others.

 

[tjs282]

perhaps enjoyed is the wrong word for The Wasp Factory but it was certainly worth reading

Yeah, I know what you mean (I was actually thinking about that book this morning)... it's certainly well-written, but very much twisted.

I have it (because of course I do), but I think I've only read it maybe twice at most: the first time after borrowing it from the college SF-library, the second after buying it (secondhand) for my collection, about 15 years later. Could well be mistaken about that assumed second read-through, though.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Of millennial preoccupations?

Hmmm... how about evil megacorporations doing dastardly deeds with the help of their PMCs, resource wars, wealth disparity, authoritarian informational oversight, environmental collapse, "unconventional" (i.e. non-het, poly) relationships/ marriages...

As far as the dialogue goes, that was more an off-the-cuff recollection: I'd have to re-read in detail to find specific examples of post-2000 slang/idiom.

The poly marriage I'll give you but the rest I don't really think is millenial specific. I never thought of the slang having any relation to the slang of today other than the very heavy cursing.

 

[tjs282]

The poly marriage I'll give you

Hah, that's actually kinda ironic, since that was the least of my examples, and Heinlein Did It First(?) back in the 60s (in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress — possibly also Job, don't remember for sure), as did Samuel R. Delaney later on (Driftglass, in the same-named collection of short stories). Delaney even included/implied queer couplings in his poly-marriage model (whereas Heinlein's was unabashedly het, IIRC). But back in the 60s, SF was still fairly fringe (AFAIK); very few 'respectable'/ mainstream publishers wanted to have anything much to do with the genre.

but the rest I don't really think is millenial specific.

Well, while global megacorps have been an SF-staple since cyberpunk (early 80s) at least, up until the late 90s they were still generally portrayed as 'good' to 'neutral' (despite profit-driven), rather than actively malevolent, à la Mao-Kwikowski.

PMCs are also a pretty new thing, AFAIK (@Commodore would probably know for sure). Certainly, the War on Terror (Afghanistan invaded in 2001) and Gulf War II (Iraq invaded in 2003) was the first time I became aware that they existed. I mean sure, mercenaries have been employed in force since at least the Romans, but AFAIK, modern, organised merc companies had never previously been officially sanctioned/approved by any government before Dubbya+Cheney employed Blackwater.

Resource wars likewise. While us Civ-players have known since at least 1991 that all wars are essentially resource-wars (even if that 'resource' is only territory), it wasn't really until the late 90s/early 00s (again, with Bush Jr declaring the WoT) that this concept seems to have filtered out into the mainstream.

Increasingly vast wealth disparity as a result of capitalism was predicted by Marx back in the late 1800s, sure, but it's only since the GFC in 2008 that it's been an increasing preoccupation, and of millennials specifically — you've posted lots of examples yourself...

And although Orwell warned us all to be on our guard back in 1948, informational oversight to the degree possible today, was only made so by the widespread use of the Internet, i.e. again, not until the late 90s/early 00s.

Environmental collapse has been threatened in SF for decades, but up until the 80s the trigger-event tended to be either nukular war or an alien invasion. Again, it's only relatively recently that humans in general (i.e. beyond the hippie-fringe) have started tentatively admitting that maybe, juuuuust maybe, it might have something to do with our industrial/consumerist activities (and there's still plenty who don't think that, or think that even if, then God will sort it all out for us...)

Your honour, the defence rests

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I don't really disagree with what you wrote except to point out all your references short of point to the fact that none of this is millenial specific stuff.