[QuickTidal]

Pull up a chair peoples and allow me to relate to you the story of my attempt at Peter Hamilton's Night's Dawn books.

I loved the short film/story SONNIE'S EDGE from LOVE, DEATH & ROBOTS on Netflix. I learned it was Hamilton's story, and I learned it was a part of the Night's Dawn universe...so I waited and waited for THE REALITY DYSFUNCTION to go on kindle sale...and it finally did for $3 on the weekend. I stopped the book I was reading, and I dove right in.

Nearly 400 pages later and I'm like WTF is this even about, WTF should I even care? Overly verbose sci-fi (like fuck, stop describing the lifecyles of planets, organisms and sentient fucking starships please) that loses me on ever. other. page. None of the ensemble cast of characters holds my attention in the slightest, and none of the verve of the aforementioned short story is present in this turgid fucking tome. Did I need like ten pages describing what a voidhawk is and what every last minute detail of it was? No. Did I need another ten describing how a blackhawk is different? No. Does the Ruin Ring stuff even hold my interest? No. How about ne'erdowell Calvert (a Gary Stu who gets all the ladies...)? Nope. I was expecting at LEAST Reynolds level greatness considering how many people praise and love this series...but cripes what a slog.

[Abyss]

Just finished ORIGAMY ... in the cross-time and reality spiritiof the book, let's review...

Abyss, on 03 April 2018 - 02:48 PM, said:

ORIGAMY by Rachel Armstrong.

The blurb reads like this:

Quote

A stunningly original science fiction novel from scientist Rachel Armstrong.


Mobius knows she isn't a novice weaver, but it seems she must re-learn the art of manipulating spacetime all over again. Encouraged by her parents, Newton and Shelley, she starts to experiment, and is soon travelling far and wide across the galaxy, encountering a dazzling array of bizarre cultures and races along the way. Yet all is not well, and it soon becomes clear that a dark menace is gathering, one that could threaten the very fabric of time and space and will require all weavers to unite if the universe is to stand any chance of surviving.


Rachel Armstrong is Professor of Experimental Architecture at Newcastle University and a 2010 Senior TED Fellow. A former medical doctor, she now designs experiments that explore the transition between inert and living matter and considers their implications for life beyond our solar system.

...which is fairly uninspiring, except Warren Ellis wrote this:

Quote

So I'm a bunch of the way through Rachel Armstrong's ORIGAMY now, and here's the thing:

There's a field of rogue mutant hair transplants, and the hair field is grazed upon by a trip of transgenic goats, and there's like five pages on the digestive processes of these goats, including shoals of microsquid that live in one of the four stomachs. And it's brilliant.

If you're not up for that: the book is about people who use chopsticks to tie knots in spacetime for travel purposes. And art.

Rachel is a synthetic biologist — I met her at a think-tank in Eindhoven a few years ago — and ORIGAMY is what happens when you let a synthetic biologist write a full work of speculative fiction. Possibly this practice will be banned after ORIGAMY is released.

It's an incredibly dense piece of bizarre fantastika balanced artfully on a very simple structure, a journey of discovery, secrets and ancient threats. Parts feel like they've come from fable, or folk tales about strange circus people. In reading it, I've gotten through about ten pages at a time before having to stop and stare into space and process everything that's just been dumped into my head. It's like she freebased twelve novels into one intense concentrated rock.

ORIGAMY is a magnificent, glittering explosion of a book: a meditation on creation, the poetry of science and the insane beauty of everything. You're going to need this.

It comes out on April 3 2018, and, afterwards, there will only be people who have read ORIGAMY and people who have not, and neither of them will be able to understand the other.

...and THAT made me buy it.

Also, ebook is $5 on amazon.

Abyss, on 26 April 2018 - 06:07 PM, said:

...Started ORIGAMY. My head hurts. Possibly in a good way, not sure yet.

Abyss, on 07 January 2019 - 05:18 PM, said:

...
Thirty-one books this year, most wholly or in part earbook...
...
Best I'm Trying I Swear I Am: Rachel Armstrong's ORIGAMY... this is a brilliant book, but my ability to stick with text on screen or dead tree lately is pathetic and thus this book has suffered thru no fault of its own. Ah well, maybe this year.
...

...and now i am done.

And i did not love.

Perhaps it's me and not the book... i simply could not give this the deep attention it may require. STill the chapters are dartingly short and i would read one or two here or there. And initially the style and originality of the story truly held my interest, but then a pattern developed ... character jumps to reality, spends a page or two there, learns something, leaves. And that goes on for AGES. By the time the uberplot started to solidify i was having a hard time caring. I pushed through to the end, caught myself skimming or not remembering what i had just read.

Also, about the ending MAJOR SPOILER

SPOILER

SPOILER

DO NOT READ THIS
SPOILER
IF YOU HAVE NOT
READ
THE
BOOK

SPOILER

Spoiler

... i acknowledge that the author was going for something wider and deeper, but the last bit reads like the entire story was the protagonist's pre-death hallucination/experience,
and i HATE that trope.

To be clear, it IS a brilliant book, with some crazy concepts and moments, but i still need brilliance to hold my attention and this couldn't do that, or i couldn't. Not certain. I think this falls firmly in the 'i cannot recommend or not' category, best anyone else make up their own mind.


Pierce Brown's next RED SON book comes out in a few days so i'm killing time with short stuff...

First was A GROWN-UP GUIDE TO DINOSAURS, basically a BBC documentary in earbook form. This was an audible freebie and i was mildly curious about the 'rediscover your childhood love for dinosaurs' approach. It was fun. A tad dry at times, but they do include all kinds of interesting bits, and flesh out some of the things you might of heard in the news in the past like dinos being warm blooded, the whole feathers/birds things, or that when asked 'what's your favorite dinosaur?' any adult who is not some form of paleo-scientist answers 't-rex', scientists have weird obscure favourites, and kids have one interesting answer followed by 'and also the t-rex'. Fun short listen.

On to the earbook adaptation of William 'i invented this shit before it was real' Gibson's ALIEN III script. The best most people say about the Alien 3 movie we got was that it was mostly better than most of the Alien movies that followed. Halfway in, i say this would have been a fucktonne better with a decent director. Hicks is front and center, the setting is suitably claustrophobic/futuristic, the aliens do alien shit... it's interesting because Gibson takes what, to that point, was established in the first two films, and does things that, done now, would just not fly with fans and/or end up in PROMETHEUS and subsequent mess, but done then would have been reasonable next steps for the property. Not all of it works perfectly, but most of it does, and it makes for a tense/fun/ interesting listen. Kind of neat that they got Michael Biehn and Lance Henricksen to voice their original characters.

[Tiste Simeon]

No QT that makes me sad, it's one of my favourite series!

[QuickTidal]

Tiste Simeon, on 29 July 2019 - 04:31 PM, said:

No QT that makes me sad, it's one of my favourite series!

It seems a fair number of people love this series. I guess I'm an anomaly. I gave it as much of a try as I could. Sorry man.

[Aptorian]

@ Abyss. Bought Origamy. Gotta see for myself.

@ QT. I remember liking the nightsdawn trilogy because it was big and full of ridiculous detail. But I also remember there being tons of dross and as I recall I didn't like the ending at all.

Space Al Capone was fun though.

[Mentalist]

QuickTidal, on 29 July 2019 - 02:00 PM, said:

Pull up a chair peoples and allow me to relate to you the story of my attempt at Peter Hamilton's Night's Dawn books.

I loved the short film/story SONNIE'S EDGE from LOVE, DEATH & ROBOTS on Netflix. I learned it was Hamilton's story, and I learned it was a part of the Night's Dawn universe...so I waited and waited for THE REALITY DYSFUNCTION to go on kindle sale...and it finally did for $3 on the weekend. I stopped the book I was reading, and I dove right in.

Nearly 400 pages later and I'm like WTF is this even about, WTF should I even care? Overly verbose sci-fi (like fuck, stop describing the lifecyles of planets, organisms and sentient fucking starships please) that loses me on ever. other. page. None of the ensemble cast of characters holds my attention in the slightest, and none of the verve of the aforementioned short story is present in this turgid fucking tome. Did I need like ten pages describing what a voidhawk is and what every last minute detail of it was? No. Did I need another ten describing how a blackhawk is different? No. Does the Ruin Ring stuff even hold my interest? No. How about ne'erdowell Calvert (a Gary Stu who gets all the ladies...)? Nope. I was expecting at LEAST Reynolds level greatness considering how many people praise and love this series...but cripes what a slog.

Book 1 is super-dense (and sometimes disturbing, because Satanists) set-up.

Book 2 when space Al Capone shows up and the universe goes to hell is amazing.

Book 3 is good, but has a bit of a Deus Ex Machina cop-out ending.

[Macros]

Read Philip K. Dicks "The Man in the High Castle"

I found it to be quite bizarre. ( I had watched a few episodes of the tv show a while back, this skewed my expectations)
It quite depressing on one level, a view of how shitty humanity is, and how willing we are to be lead into bigotry and hate. And never has the saying history is written by the victors been more well hammered home

[polishgenius]

polishgenius, on 27 July 2019 - 11:00 PM, said:

Empire of Silence by Christopher Ruocchio, a BIIIIIIIG space opera which comes off kind of like Name of the Wind IN SPACE!!!, though I'd recommend it to people who got frustrated with that book too, as although for me his writing and dialogue isn't as slick he also doesn't have Rothfuss's pretentions and, so far, awkward attitude to girls and sex, nor any dragon cows, so there's that. It has so far been very episodic though, I'm about halway through and I'd like it to gain some kind of more complex structure soon.

Finished this.It was okay, but it ran itself into a huge problem, which is that the book is told PoV recounting from the very end of a loooooong and busy life and Hadrian constantly refers to future awesome and interesting and terrible events but... none of them happen in this book. It's entirely setup. It's not that what's actually in here is devoid of interest, but you've got this specter of huge events hanging above the book and nothing in it lives up to any of that.

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

Erikson's Rejoice, A Knife To The Heart.

[Tiste Simeon]

Finished my reread of the first three books of Lightbringer and I didn't quite hate Kip as much this time! Progress!

Going to start the 4th which I've never read and try to entwine it with the book group read of Slaughterhouse 5 starting in a couple of days.

[Tsundoku]

Mentalist, on 29 July 2019 - 05:40 PM, said:

Book 3 is good, but has a bit of a Deus Ex Machina cop-out ending.

Well ... it's kinda the point. It's right there in the title!

I enjoyed the series as my intro to Hamilton, but I can understand some of the criticisms, especially over Joshua Calvert. Could have easily been cut to two books and lost nothing.

I recall reading Sonnie's Edge when I bought the short story collection (A Second Chance At Eden? Can't exactly recall ...) when it came out - a loooong time ago - and liking it. Translated well in that Netflix anthology.

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 30 July 2019 - 12:00 PM

[Mercury]

Hi!

I am currently in the midst of Mary Higgins Clark’s Moonlight Becomes You. One of my aunties recommended it and gave me her copy to borrow. So far I remain unimpressed and am debating giving it back unfinished.

[Abyss]

Salt-Man Z, on 24 July 2019 - 05:05 PM, said:

Abyss, on 24 July 2019 - 02:58 PM, said:

At about the halfway mark THIS BOOK IS FULL OF SPIDERS is enjoyable, but i'm struck by how completely the author ditched the humour of JOHN DIES AT THE END and significantly upped the tension/horror quota.
I'm liking the book, it's holding my interest, but i'm missing the dog-salsa level laughs that the first book had.

Pretty much my exact thoughts, as well. It was fine, but much more straightforward zombie/body-snatcher horror than the batshit zaniness that was the first book. (Also, those spider-alien things are heckin' creepy.)

Just finished it.
The above opinion pretty much held for the rest of the book, although there were a few scenes towards the end that were genuinely beyond LOL-funny... one in particular... i haven't laughed that hard since the penis fields of WRATH OF BETTY.


I won't even post it in spoilers... if you've read the book, you know the one.


Anyhoo, great fun, in the end i enjoyed the turn towards more horror/less comedy, and the beasties in this were genuinely creepy.

[Aptorian]

Mercury, on 31 July 2019 - 01:36 AM, said:

Hi!

I am currently in the midst of Mary Higgins Clark’s Moonlight Becomes You. One of my aunties recommended it and gave me her copy to borrow. So far I remain unimpressed and am debating giving it back unfinished.

There's a million books you need to read before you die. No reason to suffer through a bad or boring book when there's so much else.

[Abyss]

Aptorian, on 31 July 2019 - 04:53 PM, said:

Mercury, on 31 July 2019 - 01:36 AM, said:

Hi!

I am currently in the midst of Mary Higgins Clark's Moonlight Becomes You. One of my aunties recommended it and gave me her copy to borrow. So far I remain unimpressed and am debating giving it back unfinished.

There's a million books you need to read before you die. No reason to suffer through a bad or boring book when there's so much else.

Amen.



Just finished a short story BLACK CROW WHITE SNOW by Michael Livingston. It was an audible member freebie.
Enjoyed it. Crew of an icebound ship must trek to find a legendary weapon that might save their homeland. Weather, conflict, and beasties ensue.
It's well written, does an admirable number of things in a fairly short time - i've seen full novels accomplish less in thrice the space - and brings everything to a satisfying close. Very well written action scenes.

The key bit of world-building, that the society has women in the primary role and men very much secondary, is well handled as a story point. That everyone involved is a PoC is basically background. Not a bad thing.

I see the author has a trilo out, 'SHARDS OF HEAVEN'.... anyone read?



...and now... Pierce Brown's latest Red Rising... DARK AGE!!!!!!

[End of Disc One]

Abyss, on 31 July 2019 - 05:21 PM, said:

...and now... Pierce Brown's latest Red Rising... DARK AGE!!!!!!

Started this last night...man I love it when Darrow is fucking pissed. These books are riveting.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

Re-reading The Republic of Thieves. I'm enjoying it much more second time through!

[Abyss]

End of Disc One, on 31 July 2019 - 07:23 PM, said:

Abyss, on 31 July 2019 - 05:21 PM, said:

...and now... Pierce Brown's latest Red Rising... DARK AGE!!!!!!

Started this last night...man I love it when Darrow is fucking pissed. These books are riveting.

OMG... the PROLOGUE.... HOLY FUCKING FUCKSTARS THAT WAS INSANE.

[Aptorian]

For the longest time I though Red Rising was a reprint of one of those older Mars sci-fi series.

I really should get around to checking it out. Soon. Maybe later. Eventually. Perhaps.

[Abyss]

Aptorian, on 01 August 2019 - 03:37 PM, said:

For the longest time I though Red Rising was a reprint of one of those older Mars sci-fi series.

I really should get around to checking it out. Soon. Maybe later. Eventually. Perhaps.

I think you'll enjoy it.
The very first book shifts nicely a few times before the series really settles into its madness with book 2 and then things just escalate.
First trilo is complete so no need to wait. I believe we're getting a second trilo so one more book after DARK AGE.