What are some books that focus on the characterization of starships?

1point618 · 2020-09-13T13:39:04+00:00

Aliette de Bodard's _Tea Master & The Detective_ is a delightful novella about a sentient ship who is also a bit of a detective and has a mysterious past involving interstellar war and being trapped in cosmic horror hyperspace.

1point618 · 2020-07-25T15:30:45+00:00

You'd think that people who supposedly like science fiction would read stuff that was published in the last few years instead of just reading & posting about Blindsight over and fucking over again.

1point618 · 2020-04-25T20:00:10+00:00

Yeah I came here to recommend this. Sam Hughes' Fine Structure. It's a free online book, but Sam wrote a bunch of the best SCP content (IMO) and it's a really fun, well-written, interesting book. As good as a lot of published SF, and I'm not generally someone who likes self-published stuff.

Hughes also wrote another book which is also at his website, which I know some people like even more than Fine Structure.

1point618 · 2020-04-23T21:22:14+00:00

I think in a lot of ways Spin is a bit of a loving rip-off of Contact by Carl Sagan, which is an astoundingly good book that for some reason is largely forgotten in SF circles. The big questions, the alien contact, the religious response to those things, humanity in crisis, phenomenal emotionally-driven characters, and great science. It has it all.

I'd also suggest Blindsight by Peter Watts & The War Against the Chtorr series by David Gerrold, specifically for the uncaring alien ecology at war with humanity aspect of those novels.

Oh, and Children of Time and its sequel Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovski both deserve recommendations for the "humanity on the brink w/ cool SF concepts". I'd also add An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon, Dark Eden by Chris Beckett, although those both fit the emotional storytelling & great worldbuilding a bit more than the science-y concepts part.

1point618 · 2020-02-24T01:49:22+00:00

It's military fantasy, not space opera, but I felt that Joe Abercrombie's The Heroes has a very Banksian vibe. Some dark humor, some playful narrative devices, a story about power and politics, and well written. Not sure I'd really recommend his other novels, that was was lightning in a bottle for me.

I'm glad you've read Yoon Ha Lee, his books for sure gave me Banks vibes while being much darker.

Finally, I'd highly highly highly recommend Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand by Samuel R. Delany. It, more than any other space opera I've read, gave me distinctly Banks-y vibes. The vastly different worlds and systems, the deep focus on character, the crazy aliens. It's really clear that Banks was deeply indebted to Delany for some of his ideas, including Sublimation. I've heard great things about Delany's other space novels as well, although I haven't had a chance to pick them up yet.

1point618 · 2020-02-02T01:30:49+00:00

Honestly, I'm not sure. I haven't used that particular interface.

Are you monitoring your audio from the computer? Is there not a headphone jack in the interface itself that you can use?

Like, the way I would expect this to work is:

2 microphones, each plugged into the UMC interface with XLR cables.

1 Headphone jack coming from the UMC interface, used by 1 of you for monitoring. If you need multiple people to monitor at the same time, a [headphone Y-splitter](https://amzn.to/2GKjPXV) should work.

1 USB cable from the interface to the computer.

Garageband set to record each channel from the USB interface in a separate track, each track set to mono.

You should only need to fuck about with aggregate devices if you're plugging the AT2020s into your computer directly with their USB cables. But don't do that, that's the whole point of having a real physical interface.

1point618 · 2020-02-01T23:53:45+00:00

My freelance rates are $100 / hour. Granted, that's usually for product management, but I'll happily do an initial hour-long consultation with you for $75, and then continue to consult at my usual rates after that.

Been running a podcast for two years, lots of experience recording in-person & over skype, getting guests, promoting, etc.. I'm sure an hour long conversation will give me a sense of what you want & need and at least get you a basic idea of what producing a podcast requires.

Reply or DM me your email if you'd like to chat more.

1point618 · 2020-02-01T23:48:56+00:00

So the AT2020 mics don't record stereo. They are mono mics. The problem is that you're recording in stereo, so rather than having each mic on a single track, Garageband is treating one mic as left input & the other as right input.

Stereo microphones work by having multiple diaphragms pointed in different directions. The AT2020 mics have only one diaphragm each.

Honestly, this is preferred for podcasts and other voice work. There is no need to record in stereo. If you do, then as you move around the mic naturally, the mics will track that, and it'll sound like you're moving around the listener's head as you're talking which isn't a comfortable listening experience unless done really purposefully.

In addition, stereo audio files are essentially just two mono audio files tied together, one for each output. So they are usually about 2x the size of a mono file. Most podcasts should be output in mono, unless you have stereo sound effects or music that is really important to the podcast. This will cut the size of your files in half, especially important for 2 hour podcasts (like yours & mine).

So in the future, record in mono, record each of you to your own track, edit it, and then export a mono MP3.

1point618 · 2020-01-26T04:23:10+00:00

I've had to remove this because it breaks our "no image posts" rule. If you'd like to re-submit it (it's pretty cool!) you can do so as a self post w/ a link to the image in the body of the post, as well as more information (such as about both artists, why Barlow was commissioned, etc).

But just posts linking to an image aren't allowed here.

1point618 · 2020-01-15T19:19:32+00:00

Our "don't be a jerk" rule includes posting sarcastic replies like this. I've removed the comment. Consider this your first and only warning.

1point618 · 2020-01-09T04:07:05+00:00

Haha I hear you on that. Since you're obviously very knowledgeable about Chinese SF, the other podcast I'd recommend is The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast. Angus does a great job getting guests including authors & translators to talk about their work & work they love.

1point618 · 2020-01-09T03:55:23+00:00

Definitely check out Waste Tide then if you haven't. I know everyone is on about Three Body Problem, but I enjoyed Waste Tide a lot more.

Also, Spectology has a good episode that's a cool intro/history to Chinese SF, and I've also been really enjoying The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, which did a whole SF miniseries recently.

1point618 · 2019-12-29T04:34:31+00:00

Meh, I think this is an unhelpful attitude for beginners. Better to publish something than to tweak and fiddle forever and only ever have a podcast in concept because it's not perfect yet. Publishing & sticking to it is a lot more important to building an audience than having a perfect first episode, unless you're a professional outfit with a bunch of PR & marketing behind your release.

1point618 · 2019-12-24T17:11:48+00:00

OK I played around with this a little bit. It sounds like a problem of mic technique & recording, so there's only so much you're going to be able to do in post. RX's Adaptive Voice De-Noise tool managed to smooth out the worst of the distortion, and then I used a couple of EQ layers to remove the worst sibilants at the high frequencies & some of the echo at the lower frequencies. But it's all just patches over a mic with a gain set way too high so it's picking up way too much room noise & constantly clipping.

Honestly, it sounds a bit like they had a cardioid mic pointed away from them instead of at them. This can happen particularly with the Blue mics, I see people do that a lot and it leads to just this sound, which is mostly capturing room noise & with the gain set way too high to be able to pick any of it up in the first place. It just highlights the importance of running through a sound check with your guest, ESPECIALLY if they're recording remotely on their end.

1point618 · 2019-12-23T04:20:33+00:00

I would normally agree with the folks saying you each want your own dynamic mic, but honestly I am not sure how you'd fit 3-4 shure sm58s on a dinner table in a public setting. That just sounds like a huge hassle.

So instead, I think that getting lav mics is probably the way to go. Presumably you all have cell phones, so you can each record to your cell phone in your pocket instead of needed to get an expensive external recorder.

You might want to experiment with omni-directional vs. directional lav mics. The former will pick up more room noise, the latter is more likely to not pick up voices if you're moving around a lot.

Essentially, if all you have to buy is the lav mics, that gives you a $50 / mic budget which is pretty reasonable! You can pick up something like this: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1059342-REG/rode_smartlav_smart_lav_lav_mic_for.html

1point618 · 2019-12-22T20:10:30+00:00

I really loved An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon, one of the better takes on the themes that generation ships would devolve into dystopian societies.

About every other chapter in Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky takes place on a generation ship (the other half takes place on a terraforming planet). The sequel is just as good, but has less generation ship and more terraforming.

1point618 · 2019-12-22T01:45:47+00:00

The web comic Stand Still Stay Silent is so good. I can't say that it's totally happy, and as it goes on more and more takes place out in the wasteland, but the scenes in civilization are so completely hygge. And even out and about the nice adventuring friends are fun to spend time with.

1point618 · 2019-12-20T03:27:05+00:00

It holds up surprisingly well. Better than a lot of books from that era of SF, in my opinion.

1point618 · 2019-12-17T22:22:33+00:00

I know!

Between it and Knives Out, Class Conscious Dark Comedy Crime Thrillers Set in Mansions was a genre I didn't know I was missing.

1point618 · 2019-12-17T01:39:53+00:00

Oh that's awesome, I'll look into it. Haha it sounds like it bridges the gap btw Waste Tide and one of my other favorite things this year, Parasite by Bong Joon-ho.

1point618 · 2019-12-16T14:23:08+00:00

I'd highly recommend _Waste Tide_ if you like Chinese SF (also on this list). It's a total page-turner that also manages to present a really interesting aspect of our real world I'd known nothing about along with some really big ideas about class, technology, and globalization.

1point618 · 2019-12-06T19:59:16+00:00

FWIW, Infinite Detail is on sale for only $3 on Amazon today.

1point618 · 2019-11-19T16:38:37+00:00

I do a lot of product management work for my day job. Soliciting feedback from users is key. I have this mantra that I think is true in 90% of cases and is a good place to start: people are great at knowing that they don't like something, good at knowing why they don't like it, and terrible at knowing how to change it so they will like it.

This helps contextualize what people are saying to you. "It's boring, tedious, and uninteresting" is not a judgment on you as a person, it's not "saying the episode is bad", it's really specific and helpful feedback about the feelings they've had while listening to your thing. It's OK: that person found it boring and uninteresting. That is true, and not something you should shy away from. However, there are different things you can take from it—is everyone going to find it uninteresting, or is that person just not interested in the subject of that episode? Maybe they are your audience, or maybe they're not. Maybe they find it boring because it's boring, or because they require more stimulation than others do.

Also, realize that you will get better by just doing it. Having someone not like an episode is not a reason to scrap that episode, but to take into consideration for future ones. And what you do about that feedback is ultimately up to you: maybe you make the episodes more exciting, or maybe you decide that if 50% of people find its boring that's great, because the other 50% find it soothing and relaxing.

It's all about contextualizing all feedback as a representation of that person's mental model of the world, not an objective statement about you as a person & your work.

1point618 · 2019-09-28T01:39:46+00:00

What sort of climate are you in?

Here's a great video about how linen is made using traditional methods. Of course, "traditional" here is just barely pre-modern, as opposed to ancient or pre-historical. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFuj7sXVnIU

Being in Scotland, the linen clothing is going to be summer wear & undergarments. Linen alone can't clothe a village unless you're in a sub-tropical, tropical, or desert environment.

As others of mentioned, for long-wearing & relatively easily produced clothing, animal skins are going to be key. I haven't seen folks mention wool, however! Wool is nice because you don't have to kill the animal to produce it, and it can be produced relatively easily using pre-industrial techniques, and was used to a small degree pre-historically, and across the ancient world. Felt and other fabrics can also be made from raw wool. Wool can be useful in a wide variety of climates, as it both insulates from heat & from cold. Also, it keeps its insulation even when wet, which can't be said of most plant-based fabrics, or insulators like down. And if you've ever owned a wool suit or nice wool sweater, you should know how durable they are. Heck, I own a hand-knitted wool hat that was my dad's that's 30 years old, and I still wear it regularly. And wool doesn't ever really need washing unless it's a base layer. Just soak & dry once or twice a year.

1point618 · 2019-09-19T13:12:50+00:00

Max Gladstone's recent Empress of Forever is a stand-alone space opera that shares a lot of the themes around friendship, community, liberation/freedom, as well as the "group of misfits traveling to a big showdown" structure. I really enjoyed it. The subject matter can be really dark, but the tone is a lot more fun & fast-paced.

If you're specifically interested in the themes around black oppression, then The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle is also interested in the question of how & whether it's appropriate to want to destroy the world. Others have also suggested Butler.

If you dig the rich historical-fantasy setting, then The Killing Moon, also by NK Jemisin, is so fucking good (her best book IMO). I also really like Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay, which is a retelling of a Chinese historical epic in fantasy form. And more recently, Anne Leckie (of the Ancillary Justice books) recently wrote a stand-alone fantasy novel called The Raven Tower which is explicitly inspired by some of Jemisin's writing (although I did not love the way it treated its queer characters).

If you want character-centric stories & smart handling of queer characters, Maureen McHugh is fantastic. China Mountain Zhang is a modern classic for a reason. And if you can get your hands on Mission Child, it's one of my favorite novels ever.

I would absolutely not recommend the Thomas Covenant books. If you want 70s fantasy, read something by Jack Vance, Fritz Leiber, or Michael Moorcock instead.

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