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Murderbot, she wrote

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Re: Murderbot, she wrote

#171

Post by lproven »

jandrese wrote: post #68
moh_maya wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I echo this. If you liked murderbot, you might also like the Battleship Chronicles series by L. Claire (1), and ofcourse, the Imperial Radh series by Ann Leickie (2), and bobiverse, mentioned below, by Dennis Taylor (3), among others.. (1) https://www.goodreads.com/series/391892-the-battleship-chron... (2) https://www.goodreads.com/series/113751-imperial-radch (3) https://www.goodreads.com/series/192752-bobiverse

I read the first three books of the Imperial Radh (Ancillary Justice) series and for all of the love they get online I found them rather dull. There's this fairly dramatic collapse of a galaxy spanning empire happening in the background while the protagonist frets over the level of offense she might cause at the tea party if she chooses to wear the more scandalous gloves. The last book gets a bit more into the fractu…

> while the protagonist frets over the level of offense she might cause at the tea party if she chooses to wear the more scandalous gloves

I have to admit this made me boggle.

I really enjoyed them _because_ the culture was strange and unfamiliar and it was just assumed you'd know what was going on -- which is exactly what mainstream fiction does, of course. (Aside: that's one of the things I enjoyed most about the Three Body Problem.)

Compare with most SF which is "20th century California, but it's in space". (Note: I have never been to California.) Or most fantasy, which is "noble square-jawed heroes in a Hollywood movie parody of the middle ages". It's dull. Leckie gave us something different without infodumps.

As for the empire collapse thing: well, in real life, if you're in the middle of world-changing events, the thing is you still need to wash your socks and get to work. This is realism. It's more involving than some mighty imperial Mary Sue deciding the fate of worlds, as per Asimov's Foundation or something.

Re: Murderbot, she wrote

#172

Post by lproven »

grogenaut wrote: post #127
jandrese wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the first three books of the Imperial Radh (Ancillary Justice) series and for all of the love they get online I found them rather dull. There's this fairly dramatic collapse of a galaxy spanning empire happening in the background while the protagonist frets over the level of offense she might cause at the tea party if she chooses to wear the more scandalous gloves. The last book gets a bit more into the fractu…

The first bit of Ancillary Justice story is a slog like the first 80 pages of anathem and as purposefully confusing, but 3x longer. I get why the author did it but and it was a good payoff on realizing and stressing inherent societal biases, like any good scifi should break your brain a bit and point out where you are being intellectually lazy. It just didn't need to be so long. And also the story just wasn't all tha…

> The first bit of Ancillary Justice story is a slog like the first 80 pages of anathem

I thought it was great. It hooked my interest immediately and then kept me engaged.

I didn't notice a slog at the start of Anathem either time I read it, TBH.

Re: Murderbot, she wrote

#173

Post by lproven »

petesergeant wrote: post #103
finnh wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely don't read the most recent one, Translation Space. It's some very bad "I like you but I don't know how to say it!" YA-vein tropes and the climactic scene is, essentially, people walking around a circular hallway a couple times. It was so bad it caused me to re-read the original three, and I realized that only the first was one was any good.

Translation Space was not an interesting book to me, where I remember sincerely enjoying the first three.

It took me a while to find this, because the title is in fact Translation State.

Re: Murderbot, she wrote

#174

Post by lproven »

imzadi wrote: post #18
technothrasher wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enjoyed the series for a while. But it was around about the detective mystery story one that I got bored and wandered off to read the Bobiverse books by Dennis Taylor.

Bobiverse is great but the latest book is too much like the Expeditionary Force books without Skippy.

I really enjoyed the Bobiverse books while getting over surgery following a bad bike crash last year, but they are mental chewing gum a bit: they're great fun but other writers could fit entire novels into the plot holes in the Bobiverse.

They are fun but not very well-written.

Re: Murderbot, she wrote

#175

Post by lproven »

loeg wrote: post #119
georgeecollins wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky is also very good imo.

YMMV. I found it pretty tedious, especially the 2nd in the series (Children of Ruin). I liked Tchaikovsky's Final Architecture series (Shards of Earth, etc) better.

> I found it pretty tedious

100% this. I am not at all arachnophobic -- I like spiders, I find them cute and fascinating. They were the only interesting characters in the book. The humans were all vile and the human scenes dull dull dull.

I really stuggled to finish the book and do not plan to return to the sequels.

Re: Murderbot, she wrote

#176

Post by imzadi »

lproven wrote: post #174
imzadi wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bobiverse is great but the latest book is too much like the Expeditionary Force books without Skippy.

I really enjoyed the Bobiverse books while getting over surgery following a bad bike crash last year, but they are mental chewing gum a bit: they're great fun but other writers could fit entire novels into the plot holes in the Bobiverse. They are fun but not very well-written.

You should definitely try Dungeon Crawler Carl. It's better than it has any right to be.

Re: Murderbot, she wrote

#177

Post by lproven »

imzadi wrote: post #176
lproven wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really enjoyed the Bobiverse books while getting over surgery following a bad bike crash last year, but they are mental chewing gum a bit: they're great fun but other writers could fit entire novels into the plot holes in the Bobiverse. They are fun but not very well-written.

You should definitely try Dungeon Crawler Carl. It's better than it has any right to be.

Sounds like it could be fun. Thanks! :-)

Re: Murderbot, she wrote

#178

Post by TheAdamist »

definitelyauser wrote: post #145
moh_maya wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I echo this. If you liked murderbot, you might also like the Battleship Chronicles series by L. Claire (1), and ofcourse, the Imperial Radh series by Ann Leickie (2), and bobiverse, mentioned below, by Dennis Taylor (3), among others.. (1) https://www.goodreads.com/series/391892-the-battleship-chron... (2) https://www.goodreads.com/series/113751-imperial-radch (3) https://www.goodreads.com/series/192752-bobiverse

Are they any longer? Murderbot is a nice read, but it feels like really expensive short stories. By the time the book gets going, it's already over.

Bobiverse books are full length. And highly enjoyable, but short "chapters".

Murderbot is on kindle unlimited (except for the newest), but yeah $15 for a novella starts adding up quickly.

Bobiverse is also on kindle unlimited, except for the newest book which is only on audible for now.

Re: Murderbot, she wrote

#179

Post by TheAdamist »

I enjoy murderbot, but each novella is pretty short, so there isn't a lot of source material to draw from for the upcoming show, and original material for a show isn't always of the same caliber as the source unfortunately.

But my biggest concern about the show is, all the internal dialogue by murderbot, how do you translate that to the screen? Voiceovers maybe, but im not sure. Although i haven't listened to the audio books to see how they portray the internal dialogue.

That and murderbots androgynous otherness, although the casting of Alexander Skarsgård for the role is probably a good one, he's definitely played similarly weird characters before.

Re: Murderbot, she wrote

#180

Post by titanomachy »

whimsicalism wrote: post #107
titanomachy wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It won the Hugo and was shortlisted for the Nebula, so at least some people have heard of it. Those are the two most famous sci-fi awards. Sometimes I look at their shortlists for ideas on what to read next.

While I definitely don't agree with the 'sad puppies' movement, I do think that the Hugo has declined in quality recently (especially in terms of their nom slate) for somewhat similar reasons to what they identified

I kind of agree. I look at the shortlist for ideas but make my own decision about whether the book sounds interesting to me.
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