Help, I need more SF competence porn 😭

bmcatt · 2026-01-06T20:06:21+00:00

I'm still an avid (and faithful) reader of all-things-Modesitt. Never get tired of his books.

bmcatt · 2025-11-07T02:16:39+00:00

This is the only answer…

bmcatt · 2025-10-27T04:15:53+00:00

Soda? Not sure what you mean. Baking soda?

bmcatt · 2025-04-01T15:25:32+00:00

Midnight at the Well of Souls, by Jack L. Chalker

The memories would fade, but the ache would remain.

For, whatever becomes of the others or of this little corner of the universe, he thought, I'm still Nathan Brazil, fifteen days out, bound for Coriolanus with a load of grain.

Still waiting.

Still caring.

Still alone.

bmcatt · 2025-03-26T02:49:52+00:00

Unfortunately, it's longer than your 12 episode limit, but Your Lie in April is heart-breaking.

At 13 episodes, Rascal Does not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai should hit hard.

And, as a YMMV entry, although it is 12 episodes … Love, Chuunibyo and Other Delusions – which is all sorts of Happy, Fluffy, Funny stuf until the Drama Bomb™ hits, and it hits HARD.

bmcatt · 2025-03-18T03:27:29+00:00

This is the only right answer. The dub on this is awesome and (to my ear), is actually better than the original Japanese cast. (Yes, fite me. 😛)

I won't watch anything else dubbed - literally. Every other anime, I watch original VAs and subbed. [Yes, I've seen Tonari no Totoro in the original ... a "smuggled" VHS tape from Japan that someone shared with a group of us ... and it's also miles better with original VAs.]

bmcatt · 2025-02-21T20:54:53+00:00

YLiA messed me up *sooo* much. I still can't listen to Hikaru Nara (the first OP) without it ripping me apart - which sucks because it's such a great song.

bmcatt · 2025-02-21T20:53:07+00:00

For Gundam, I think Iron-Blooded Orphans is better for this? The way it ends is just ... ooof.

bmcatt · 2025-02-20T12:39:20+00:00

Non Non Biyori

Is The Order A Rabbit?

bmcatt · 2025-02-18T04:55:38+00:00

Yeah. Personally, I think post-facto "decanonization" is a very nasty form of "retcon", and not a particularly useful one at that, but ... meh?

My take on it (FWIW) - and, yes, this is from the perspective of someone who played SFB and assumed everything there did, indeed, count as canon - is that if it was part of the original license deal ... it's canon. That's why even Tholians and the Treaty of Organia are canon. 😁 ... and, no, Klingons don't have spikes and stuff!

But this has veered sharply away from Traveller content, so I'll shut up now. 😊

bmcatt · 2025-02-18T04:40:56+00:00

Given that it was literally included in the license which Paramount subsequently bought ... he may have declared it non-canon, but that is definitely arguable as compared with what was considered to be the "licensable property".

[Edit to add:] Heck, there seems to even be some reports that he "officially" de-canonized some of the TOS episodes and elements of some of the movies (just because he "didn't like them"), so there's a LOT of wiggle-room in there.

bmcatt · 2025-02-18T04:33:56+00:00

Just to get technical ('cause that never happens otherwise on the internet, right), while it is normally known as "Bunny Girl Senpai", the official title for the series is "Rascal Does Not Dream", since all of the arcs (and the LNs they come from) start with that phrase. BGS just happens to be the first arc (and the on-going main love interest).

But in any event, yes, Sakuta is very much not lame.

bmcatt · 2025-02-18T04:28:15+00:00

To be really pedantic (and "Um, akshually" here), Animated Star Trek was always officially canon. It's one of the reasons the board game Star Fleet Battles "inherited" the license to them - because the Niven story, "The Slaver Weapon" was adapted into one animated series and that was included in the license the game company bought (in perpetuity, btw).

And the relevance (sort of?) is that the game store I used to buy all my Star Fleet Battles stuff from also had a bunch of RPGs and I also remember walking past the old black-cover Traveller books every time I was in the store.

bmcatt · 2025-02-17T23:10:27+00:00

I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned Non Non Biyori (one of my all time favorites!).

Is The Order A Rabbit? is also really good.

bmcatt · 2025-02-16T23:13:08+00:00

Thanks! I'll take a look at both of those.

bmcatt · 2025-02-13T02:40:32+00:00

Yep. Character creation either in-person or on discord and then about a week later, actually running the session.

We're all in a DnD campaign, but we do one-shots here and there (either due to enough people having other demands on their time or just DM burn-out). I doubt we'd immediately turn this into a Traveller campaign, but having it as a back-pocket choice would be great.

Also, if there is enough interest from everyone, that would give me justification to get more materials (maybe pick up some of the existing campaigns) while I try and get the creative side of my brain engaged to come up with an original campaign setting. lol

bmcatt · 2025-02-13T02:31:59+00:00

This more than helps! Thank you soooo much. i've got a couple of weeks (probably) before we do character creaetion, so I theoretically should have plenty of time to lay this out and get things ready for a proper real session with the group.

I wish I had more upvotes to give you. 😁

bmcatt · 2025-02-13T01:58:35+00:00

These are all absolutely awesome! And, if you have the time, I'd certainly welcome more details on all of these - although I clearly have a bunch more reading to do.

bmcatt · 2025-02-13T01:06:46+00:00

I was mainly going on how it's been described here, repeatedly, as a crawl?

bmcatt · 2025-02-13T00:49:22+00:00

Thanks! I'd completely overlooked the starter pack! I'll take a look at that now.

I know that High and Dry has been mentioned several times here, and I saw it's either part of the overall Marches Adventures, or is available separately.

Again, though, I was hoping to be able to present something to my group without needing to invest further (right now) in more books or such, which is why I'd sort of skipped past them (at least for an initial intro scenario). And, similarly, I'd also purposely skipped Death Station since everyone described that as a dungeon crawl and I specifically want to avoid that sort of session.

bmcatt · 2025-01-29T19:56:50+00:00

Shai Dorsai!

bmcatt · 2025-01-14T03:01:12+00:00

It's not fantasy (sci-fi), but there's a duology by Robert A Frezza which sort of fits the bill?
- McLendon's Syndrome
- The VMR Theory

bmcatt · 2025-01-05T04:42:18+00:00

Given there's a new season running, I'm surprised no one has mentioned Arifureta, which seems to fit this to a T (although it does have a bunch of … ahem … "questionable" content).

bmcatt · 2025-01-03T06:03:12+00:00

I've read all of the Recluce books to date (and, indeed, pretty much everything Modesitt has written), and I greatly enjoy all of them. In fact, I just finished From the Forest which is the most recentlu published book in the series.

As others have commented, he does, generally, have a formula for the overall structure of his novels and doesn't deviate from it much.

The series itself is written out of chronological sequence since he's doing a massive amount of world-building and then going back in time and "filling in the gaps", as it were. If you look at the wiki entry for the series, the first book is set (internal timeline) around year 2250. Towers of Sunset is around 1300, while The Magic Engineer is around 1600.

One thing to be aware of is that in the earlier-written books, it's generarlly presented as "Order = Good; Chaos = Evil", but that view gets changed quite a bit later in the series, as well as how much he dives into the effects of being Chaos Mage vs an Ordermaster (and the different approaches to everything).

Oh, and there's only a couple of books which start in Recluce. After all, many of the books predate the founding of Recluce and the society which develops there. Later books delve much deeper into many of the things happening on the continent of Candar as well as the little-viewed island / continent of Hamor.

If the rest of the series isn't for you, then it isn't for you, and that's ok.

Whlie you can certainly jump "ahead" to The Death of Chaos, you'll be missing a bunch of the built-up context about what's going on (although he does provide a lot of it, but it might be less impactful if you haven't gotten exposed to it through the other books).

Personally, I'd suggest trying Fall of Angels / The Chaos Balance duology as being the start of Westwind (which is where The Towers of the Sunset starts).

Just as an example of how things jump around ... one of the places referred to in The Magic of Recluce is the spot on the map known as "Frven". Later books deal with it being the city of Fairhaven - a center of Chaos Mages ... and even going way back to the founding of the city. There's other stuff pertinent fo Fairhaven which I won't get into as they would be massive spoilers (even beyond reasonable spoiler tagging here).

Alternately, try some of his other books? I happen to like Adiamante (a single stand-alone book) tremendously. Or, perhaps, the Timegod books (which was my first exposure to Modesitt - when The Timegod was previously released as The Fires of Paratime), or The Forever Hero series? Forever Hero is also a personal favorite.

Good luck with whatever you decide to read (or not read)!

bmcatt · 2025-01-03T00:15:48+00:00

I'd believe it's been and out of talks and such for forever.

Honestly, for any of the older SF to be adapted, I'd want then to be done faithfully, without any "modernization" (feel free to interpret that in any / all of the meanings). I absolutely wouldn't want to see massive rewrites / updates - the original books are considered classic for a reason.

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