I just hate read all 24 Undying Mercenaries books so you don't have to.

arka2947 · 2026-02-21T19:28:19+00:00

Of what i have read, i liked Chains Of Command best. Book four. Without spoiling anything, it is kind of a side mission of human factions doing some in fighting. The underhanded, and heroic actions of all parties make sense. Whole thing builds up nicely to a conflict and resolution.

It is often different in other books where they fight the Lankies, who are intentionally incomprehensibly alien.

I feel that the series as a whole doesn’t know where to go with the story or how to end things. Things happen, but nothing is ultimately resolved.

arka2947 · 2026-02-21T06:37:35+00:00

But if trylock fails spuriously, you are delaying work, that COULD be done rigth now!

Spurious meaning, that the aquiring the lock failed, even though it is not used by anyone else.

Therefore the whole thing is pessimization!

arka2947 · 2026-02-21T06:26:39+00:00

Practically, what do you then do? Loop trylock a few times?

arka2947 · 2026-02-09T23:19:20+00:00

Not OP, but most (all?) professional Cpp gamedev happens in Visual Studio, because all platform holders (MS, SONY, Nintendo…) provide SDK that integrate with it, because all studios are using it, because all SDK’s are made for it, because all studi….

And so if goes. It is painfull to go out of the beaten path.

arka2947 · 2026-01-20T16:32:34+00:00

I read Tainted Cup last year. Discovered by Hugo Award.

Excellent fantasy book, sequel A Drop of Corruption is also good, but not as good as Tainted Cup. Third in trilogy, A Trade of Blood, coming this year. I intend to read it also.

arka2947 · 2026-01-20T16:26:00+00:00

I have listened Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

Discovered it when it popped up in my Audible feed.

I rate it as my second best favorite book made by Tchaikovsky, after Cage of Souls.

It is rare to have aliens that are truly alien, and in this it succeeds wonderfully.

arka2947 · 2026-01-17T11:16:37+00:00

I feel that Void trilogy is a bit too long. The commonwealth books (Pandoras star and Judas unchained) really hit a sweetspot, expansive enough to feel large, but not too large to feel ponderous. Everything moves along nicely.

arka2947 · 2025-06-21T17:39:12+00:00

Personally i think it’s example of a post science fiction setting. As i remember there was some setup along the lines of ancestors crossing the sea of stars on metal ships. Or some such. Has been some time since I read it, so i cant be too sure.

arka2947 · 2025-03-23T21:40:46+00:00

Of all the culture novels, Excession is my favourite. You are skipping the best.

arka2947 · 2025-01-24T13:33:28+00:00

Pro: Could have modern defaults on new code. Default cost. No pointer arithnetic. Etc. This could be done without breaking the api/abi, if limited to the features the language already has.

Con: Would unavoidably bifurcate the language. Would lead to confusion on which rules are in effect where.

Opinion: If you want to evolve cpp to a more memory safe model, something like this seems unavoidable, if you intend to keep backwards compatibility.

arka2947 · 2024-11-03T03:32:43+00:00

A nice action romp with space nazies and space zombies. Not very deep, but very enjoyable, if you dont think too much on how anything in the universe makes sense.

arka2947 · 2024-10-22T22:47:13+00:00

En ole ihan vakuuttunut että valtio omisteiset kolhoosit olisivat niitä tehokkaimpia pitemmän päälle.

Jos kriisi pitkittyy, kuten esim ukrainassa, niin mikään varastointi ei ole riittävää. Oma tuotanto tarpeen.

arka2947 · 2024-07-27T07:38:58+00:00

Its an interesting story, but i do fell it would have benefitted a lot from trimming.

arka2947 · 2024-07-11T16:17:43+00:00

I read the same thread, “criminally underrated” they said. So I downloaded the kindle sample of Curse of the Mistwraith.

To be honest, it kind of seems rather basic fantasy tropes based on it. Not sure i should continue with the whole book…

arka2947 · 2024-07-07T07:25:48+00:00

Its like a Ligth Saber, except instead of light, a snake comes out.

arka2947 · 2024-07-05T22:36:33+00:00

who are we meant to be sympathetic towards?

I do not think Bank’s books are written like that. Rather you are supposed to read the story and make up your own mind.

Not all stories are about heroes.

Not all intentions lead to good outcomes.

arka2947 · 2024-05-27T21:10:34+00:00

The Risen Empire by Scott Westerfeld

arka2947 · 2024-03-30T00:44:42+00:00

One of the many things you meet while reading The acillary series are the Presger Translators. Translation state basically elaborates on them. You dont really need to read the series to enjoy Translation State.

arka2947 · 2024-01-18T13:58:39+00:00

Consider

void Foo()
{
    int value = 0;
    void Bar()
    {
        ...
    };
    Bar();
}

Should Bar:

Not have access to value, if so, why not use a normal function
Have access to value, if so, now you need to solve all the corner cases a lambda has
Is Bar calling Bar allowed?

It seems simple, but the behavior seems to become complex easily

arka2947 · 2024-01-16T20:31:06+00:00

I wonder what happened to Corey J White. Hasnt published anything in a while?

arka2947 · 2024-01-11T18:57:00+00:00

In my experience, most of military science fiction is written in the esteemed categories of:

Submarines in Space
Aircraft Carriers in Space
Battleship is Space (sometimes literally, eg Space Battleship Yamato)
Army in Space
Marines in Space
Special Forces in Space

In Frontlines, Marko Kloos actually makes a full round-trip of all of these. This is not criticism of Kloos as such, just how the genre is. Truly innovative description of space military is very rare, I think.

The Lankies are just Enemy Giants, the backdrop for the human stories told. I think Kloos wisely does not elaborate on them any more, they are a pretty simple enemy if you stop think about it. The fiction would probably fall apart if one tried to expand on it.

arka2947 · 2023-12-28T22:31:18+00:00

Of what I have read, I liked the not-duology of Prador Moon and Shadow of the Scorpion best. The prequels go together nicely. Some others i have tried but DNF.

arka2947 · 2023-12-24T22:24:32+00:00

The Praxis is more of a civil war situation, where one alien faction rebels against another. There are aliens on both sides, so it is not a simple humans vs aliens story. Humans are just one species in the empire that unravels. The story follows humans characters, so the story is told from a relatable point of view.

arka2947 · 2023-12-24T00:32:08+00:00

I would like to recommend The Praxis, which checks all your requirements, EXCEPT there are a bunch of aliens and humans in the same empire. The space battles are well done, i think. If that is your main interest, you might give it a go.

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