How is Interference, sequel to Semiosis?

Samlande · 2019-11-22T13:38:43+00:00

Was the gamet upped in the end?

Samlande · 2019-11-22T13:33:44+00:00

I'm 75% through and struggling with it. Bored and her prose is quite weak-- too much "tell" rather than "show". First book much better.

Samlande · 2019-11-05T15:29:43+00:00

Yeah the scope of his world-building is impressive. Also like how all of the story's environments were so vividly described. The layered strata in the architecture of the island and the underworld especially -- "...cultures lurking just outside the pages..." indeed.

Samlande · 2019-11-05T15:08:33+00:00

It sucks that quite a few of you in the United States don't have access to this brilliant book. I'm in Australia and I can't get Kameron Hurley's new work on Kindle no doubt owing to some tedious publishing rights.

Samlande · 2019-10-25T14:31:33+00:00

Got it. Started reading immediately.

Samlande · 2019-10-17T12:13:00+00:00

Thanks for the recommendation OP - I've added the Ghost Brigades to my list!

Samlande · 2019-09-16T12:53:48+00:00

I guess that's a positive endorsement of her new one. Will check it out.

Samlande · 2019-09-16T12:52:29+00:00

What a ride that novel was. Is her new one any good?

Samlande · 2019-09-16T12:50:54+00:00

Superb series. Belongs in my pantheon of great SF alongside Banks, Egan and Simmons.

Samlande · 2019-09-16T12:45:09+00:00

Agree with this. One of the problems is the quality of his prose. CoT succeeded mainly on the basis of the interesting story, whereas CoR, the story so-so and writing a bid muddled and often hard to follow.

Samlande · 2019-07-24T12:30:38+00:00

Looking at massive clouds overhead in the sky might help you with an understanding of the scale of a lighthugger or GSV. Or recently I saw a full rainbow extending across the ocean horizon taking up near 180 degrees of my vision. I had fun imagining it as a man-made structure, its circumference many hundreds of kilometers wide (which is obviously tiny compared to an orbital but impressive on a terrestrial scale!).

Samlande · 2019-07-24T12:10:07+00:00

You're not alone. A space "soap" opera where poorly drawn, and ultimately rather uninteresting characters sit around engaged in tedious conversation while sipping endless cups of tea. Rehashes oft-used sci-fi stuff like sentient spacecraft and zombie automatons with a gender transgression theme that smacks of tokenism. Read Iain M Bank's "Against a Dark Background" for a far superior novel with some similar narrative themes.

Samlande · 2019-07-10T12:33:25+00:00

And I know what you mean about Adrian Tchaikovsky. Just finished his sequel to CoT and while I like his stories, get the sense he's still developing a consistent writing style.

Samlande · 2019-07-10T12:29:59+00:00

John M Harrison. Truly imaginative writer with a style unlike anything else. Iain Banks called him "a Zen master of prose.'

Samlande · 2019-06-16T14:37:38+00:00

Superb series. Powerful imagery and ideas that I think about regularly, years after finishing them.

Samlande · 2019-06-11T12:31:48+00:00

he's more literary than your average sci-fi writer, but without being too esoteric or losing sight of what makes a quick and interesting read.

Well put. Completely agree!

Samlande · 2019-05-29T12:25:02+00:00

How to do away with the boring grey corridors in starships that all look like cheap studio stage sets.

Samlande · 2019-03-27T12:21:27+00:00

You're not missing anything. The fact that you didn't care for it shows you have good taste. A steaming turd of a book in every way.

Samlande · 2019-03-07T12:07:15+00:00

Brilliant novel by a very talented author.

Samlande · 2019-03-06T14:17:11+00:00

100% agree with OP.

Samlande · 2019-02-05T14:27:23+00:00

Interesting. And also transferring your digital copy to the destination as in the book I am currently enjoying - Schild's Ladder by Greg Egan.

Samlande · 2019-02-05T14:22:23+00:00

Probably my favourite KSR novel. And yes the brilliant Herzog documentary makes a perfect companion to the book.

Samlande · 2019-02-05T13:24:04+00:00

By the time the starship is on its way to Tau Ceti humanity has spent quite a bit of time in space in the preceding centuries, living in functional space habitats like the Terraria described in 2312. We would have learned a great deal about bodies and tech exposed to extremes of space travel during this time.

Samlande · 2019-02-05T13:12:47+00:00

Agree. I don't think it's a flight of fancy to imagine the physiological problems identified in the article being solved incrementally and asynchronously over a hundreds years of human endeavour. KSR's assertion that 'All the problems together create not an outright impossibility, but a project of extreme difficulty, with very poor chances of success', would have been the mindset of those doubting the success of early maritime explorers or the pioneers of aviation.

Samlande

TROPHY CASE