For people who like more pulpy/popcorn-y scifi like this, I highly recommend Lois McMaster Bujold's Barrayar series.
Murderbot, she wrote
111–120 of 183 posts
Re: Murderbot, she wrote
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
Murderbot frequently blends into the crowd as a dude though, that's a recurring theme in the series.
Yes, I was surprised by all the people here who had a female mental picture for this reason. While obviously it is genderless, my recollection was that there were plenty of times where the narrative had it passing as male.
where?
Re: Murderbot, she wrote
#113Super fun popcorn sci-fi books. I enjoyed them all. Popcorn thrillers are books that are lighter in content, jam-packed with entertainment value, and not too dark, and meant to be read in one sitting.
if you like that style, i think you would also like Lois McMaster Bujold and John Scalzi's books
Re: Murderbot, she wrote
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do they have any male authors you describe that way?
[not the original person you asked the question of] I cannot stand Becky Chambers. I've tried to read her three times, and after about 20 pages I give up. Of the thousand or so novels I've read in the last 20 years, I've done that with about 5 books. One of my friends asked my why I was so vituperative about Becky Chambers. I said it was just so bad. They pointed out that I really, really sounded like I was channelin…
Yeah, I’m not saying it’s mandatory to like all of Tor’s authors but it seemed somewhat unlikely that the entire list would be female. I consider Chambers a comfort read, but I wouldn’t say she has all that much in common with, say, Ursula Vernon or Nghi Vo.
Re: Murderbot, she wrote
#115Earlier 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…
> the drones are left with a bit more autonomy than the Star Trek equivalents
I'm not sure I would describe it as more autonomy. The central ship computer was absolutly dominant within the hive mind, and had control over the ancillaries at all time.
It's more like personalities of the ancillaries feed back into the hive mind at a somewhat subconscious level, and had quite a bit of impact on the overall personality.
> If you're interested in a big space opera about an empire falling apart I found the Collapsing Empire series by John Scalzi to be much more engaging.
Yeah, the Imperial Radch series is not about the empire falling apart. That's just something happening in the background, which sometimes drives the plot forwards. Its primary goal is to explore the question of "what does it mean to be human"
I really enjoyed John Scalzi's Collapsing Empire series, which is directly about the fall of a civilisation, and how to save the people.
The interesting thing is that Collapsing Empire bucks the usual trend of empires falling apart because they grew too big, internal political instability or external rivals. It was stable and only falls apart because the form of FTL they were using to connect their star systems fell apart, and none of the star systems were self sufficient.
Also in the genre of "space operas with collapsing empires", I do recommend Arkady Martine's A Memory Called Empire.
Re: Murderbot, she wrote
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is pretty amusing but true. I enjoyed the series for its quirks (unable to detect many character genders) but it’s very young adulty with focus on social things and stuff. I think the concept of non-human-minds is better explored by Linda Nagata’s series. You can kind of start in the middle with Edges and go with that.
"Young adulty"? As much as I like murderbot, it comes across as quite pulpy in comparison - I don't really find Imperial Radh very YA at all.
Haha, I agree with you on Murderbot https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42301763
And I liked the initial Imperial Radch and I liked the idea of the fracturing empire and the gender bits but my feelings now about it are influenced by some of the characters’ overthinking. Then again, perhaps placing a troop transport sentient ship’s mind into a person gives them terrible social anxiety.
Still, I was recommending it soon after I read it. These are opinions that I have now a long while after.
Re: Murderbot, she wrote
#117Earlier 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…
Yes -- agree with you on Ancillary Justice (could not finish it) and Scalzi's Collapsing Empire is fantastic. Eric Thomson's Ashes of Empire series is sort of in a similar vein, although IMO not as good.
Re: Murderbot, she wrote
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have found recommendations of (especially) genre novels from people I don't personally know to be nearly useless. The usual problem is that the work is just OK but gets talked up like it's great. Sometimes, it's outright bad. I've got enough past actually-greats—genre and otherwise—to catch up on, I don't need 100 "OMG it's so good!" comments from a dozen sites steering me toward a newer book that turns out to be p…
I agree. Letterboxd makes this easy to accomplish with movies, and there's enough people covering videogames out there that you can usually find someone to dial-in on your taste (or find a Steam curator that lists a lot of stuff you love). TV is a bit harder, but you may be able to find a critic with a consistent voice that matches your own through Rotten Tomatoes (not the aggregate score alone) or maybe a podcast ab…
I saw someone recommend a site called "The Storygraph" recently - haven't tried it yet, but it seems like an interesting alternative to Goodreads.
In particular the "moods" feature caught my eye.
Re: Murderbot, she wrote
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
Another good one is Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky Also, I feel like if I am recommending something I have to recommend Dungeon Crawler Carl, which is my current obsession. I've read all the books multiple times in multiple formats, but it's not much like Murderbot.
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.
Re: Murderbot, she wrote
#120For people who like more pulpy/popcorn-y scifi like this, I highly recommend Lois McMaster Bujold's Barrayar series.
Definitely -- and there are a million of them, so it can keep you occupied for a while. Her non-Vorkosigan fantasy books are also pretty great (Wold of the Five Gods series / Curse of Chalion, etc).