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Lindsay wrote: "Luke says something that sounds like "ragger" in the podcast, I'm not sure if that's how it's said in the audiobook. In the text it's "rogger" which seems like a fairly clear derivation of "orogene" to me."He does have an accent, and sometimes adds extra "r's" to the end of words (to my ear.) But I think he listened to the audio, so he's probably using what he heard.
I know The Killing Moon was about a moon of a gas planet but I'm not sure she'd do that twice. I thought it was earth for a long time and still say that in my review (I need to fix it.)
I'm definitely interested in the meaning of what was revealed at the end although to be fair the obelisks are there in the beginning, I just couldn't put them in context so I ignored them.
Luke, I'm interested in what you think about Jemisin's intentionality in writing about racism without calling it racism. She is pretty explicit about this in the Lightspeed Magazine interview and also in the NYT.
You find out quite a bit about what's going on with that last line in the next book.And I'm an Aussie - you all have weird accents to me :)
Hey all,This was the first time I was listening to an SFBRP episode and thinking "oh shit I've actually reviewed this one" and had a Redshirts meta moment while listening.
I gave it 3 stars because that is Goodreads for "I liked it, it was better then ok, but I didn't LOVE it". I am less of a fantasy fan to begin with though and I have come to think of Luke as "my friend that I disagree about books with".
I love the show agree or disagree it has evoked responses in me ranging from irrational anger to a sore stomach from laughing so hard.
The Seveneves review was a classic with the accents and analysis. Listening to it after I wrote "It felt like Stephenson was trying to Out-Baxter Stephen Baxter" and not knowing Baxter had actually done the concept before in "Moonseed" was awesome.
Other favorites were the "Aurora" "Leviathan Wakes" and Culture series.
With "The Broken Earth" I liked the Syenite/Alabaster Chapters and the end but I was a bit bored with some of the Orogone Creche and Damaya ones.
Bit of a slip at the end of the podcast there lol '
If you are interested I reviewed the Hugo Nominees as audiobooks in short form on reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/comments/4ymx8d/review_of_hugo_nominees_audiobooks/ and in long form here
Stevie wrote: "I am less of a fantasy fan to begin with though and I have come to think of Luke as "my friend that I disagree about books with"."I used to see Luke this way too but when we agree it is magical!
:D
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I was not a fan of "The Obelisk gate" at all. Interested to hear Luke's take
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I think I cover most of your questions.
Other then the last part of the episode, which was serious and well said, this episode really tickled my funnybone. I am adding "Rusted fuckbucket of piss" to my swearing lexicon
I think I should read Pavane again. I read it over 20 years ago and all I remember is that there were steam cars and semaphore towers, nothing about the characters or plots.
This is regarding "SFBRP #322 – Becky Chambers – A Closed and Common Orbit".Regarding the confusion of the dark side of the moon with a tidally locked moon and a tidally locked planet, remember that the dark side of the moon isn't dark.
Our moon is tidally locked to the Earth. We aren't tidally locked to the Sun.
In the book the referred to planet would always have the same side facing it's sun, and would always see the same side of its moon (like we do), but the moon will still orbit the planet and still have phases.
During the new moon phase the dark side of the moon would be well lit.
Whether there's eclipses and that sort of thing going on relates to other things like proximity of the sun to the planet, the planet to the moon and the ecliptics of each of the orbits.
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Regarding the confusion of the dark side of the moon with a tidally locked moon and a tidally locked planet, remember t..."
Yes. But this isn't me being confused about the terminology referring to our moon, it's the author of a book not using precise enough terminology for me to understand what is going on in the book.
If the book had said "far side of the moon" I would have understood that it meant "could never see the planet from this side" but it doesn't, and I'm pretty sure it talks about how it never gets light.
Catching up on a few episodes: "We are Legion we are Bob" . I haven't read "House of Suns" yet so this was my first story about Self replicating Von Neumman probes. I just find the concept incredibly interesting and if there are now 2 stories about them I could do with a lot more. In regards to the "gaping plot hole" of why the Bob's didn't replicate within the solar system...I thought this was pretty clear. The Solar system was in conflict. If any of the factions tried to set up a replicating machine on Saturn it would have been destroyed by competing factions before it really began. The idea was to establish a presence in another solar system where they would have time to replicate and force their competitors into either trying to catch up where they would be at a disadvantage or colonising their own solar systems. The other plot holes weren't specified so I can't answer to them. I enjoyed the episode even though I disagreed with it for the most part. So my question for Luke is: Having strongly disliked "Ready player 1", "Redshirts", "Off to be the wizard" and now "We are legion" is there any self referential SF that you like? These are some pretty beloved books! Sometimes I think that as a writer Luke might focus on things that 95% of readers would never focus on. Similar to the way someone with a vast knowledge of music production might focus on the EQ of the hi-hats when reviewing a pop song. You are 100% right about "Archimedes" other than that I thought Ray Porter was excellent.
In regards to "Ninefox Gambit" - good rant but you have done better :} I am assuming you are ranting about the "top" review of the book from Brad? I think it is interesting to note that even Tor.com have quoted Brad's slightly-spoilery take in their promotion of the book. For myself I was so confused about half way through, I was reading all the reviews and information I could in an effort not to have to abandon it. I found Brad and a few other reviews helpful and didn't ruin my experience at all. It might be a bit of a pot, kettle case here, the number of times I have heard Luke say "minor spoiler" before dropping the major plot point of the book into the podcast haha. For that reason I only listen to SFBRP episodes for books I have already read and sometimes I get a book in my to-read pile spoiled by comparison. I thought I was going to get "use of weapons" spoiled here, thankfully not. There was a great bit of unintentional comedy when Luke says "Gergei from Game of Thrones or whoever". Let's not forget Luke is obviously highly intelligent and knowledgeable about SF, to the point where he is bored by Stephenson's explanations of orbital mechanics where a lot of readers are concentrating for dear life. I don't think to the average reader the type of stuff in Brad's or other reviews would be anyhting other than helpful. Thanks for not thinking I am a dumbarse!
My question about self referential SF above is answered in the "All the Birds in the sky" episode. I read "Otherland" many years ago when it came out and remember it as something of a slog. Might be worth re-reading now. I thought All the birds was uneven but I really appreciated the ambition of the book. Normally when Luke and Juliana disagree I tend to side with Juliana but I was with Luke on this one. I did agree with Juliana that the attempted humour and nerd culture worship was distracting. I think it is a good sign of your relationship that you can argue so intently, laugh at each other then end on a happy note.
I've always considered Replay a five-star book so my ears perked up when I heard that it would be featured in episode 327. I think I need to re-read it. I read it 25 or so years ago, half a life ago, and I think I might have a different take now. Good episode, it really got me thinking about how my tastes have changed in books / movies / TV shows over the decades.
Regarding comments surrounding "Ground Hog's Day" and "The Matrix" in #327: Keith Laumer combined BOTH (and neither) concepts in "Knight of Delusions" from 1982. As with most Laumer books, though, I'm not sure how much can really be drawn. From my perspective, it never seemed as though he had a real plan for any given story...but the first half is entertaining. He had extremely creative ideas. (No recommendation for the novel here, just a note of passing trivial interest.)
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When I talk about Groundhog Day and The Matrix and even Back to the Future, I don't mean these movies did the ideas first, just that they were so popular and portrayed the idea so clearly that they become the default example of the idea.
There are some similar examples in science fiction literature, ideas which become so popular that later authors don't need to re-explain the concept from first principles. Like the ansible, the positronic brain, a ringworld, etc.
Just regarding the latest episode on Updraft: I believe there are far better YA or YA-leaning SF offerings out there.I strongly recommend Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. It has an absolutely amazing presentation as a physical book and was an Audie Award winning audiobook. Won a fair few literary awards too.
I also recommend the underappreciated Railhead by Philip Reeve. That one's got a bit of everything and really struck me a YA version of Peter F. Hamilton.
I just wanted to say that I bailed on the last two books you reviewed - Updraft and Borderline. I wouldn't try another book by Wilde, I don't think, but I would be interested in trying another book by Baker should she ever step outside faeries. :)
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I strongly recommend Illuminae by [author:Amie..."
I'm not particularly interested in reading more young adult books, to be honest. I don't mind if a book is young adult or not, but I'm not seeking them out. Updraft just seemed so bland in terms of plot that I felt it must be young adult... but then even for a young adult book it didn't feel like it was doing enough, and was overly simplistic.
I tend to bounce hard off American YA. There are a ton of issues that seem endemic to the field.1) Authors use the characters' youth to justify dumb behavior that's necessary for the plot to work.
2) Authors want to appeal to the "average" teenager, so the protagonist invariably gets middling grades, has no interest in studying and needs a smarter friend to explain anything complicated. As somebody who got good grades and read a lot as a teenager, I'd rather be reading about the smart friend.
3) Characters can't stop thinking about romance even when they're being hunted by bad guys.
4) The books try to titillate teenage readers with the possibility of sex, but the authors don't want to piss off the Christian Right, so any girl who's overtly interested in sex is treated as a raging slut who will inevitably be punished by the plot. Similarly, if the protagonist uses drugs or alcohol, they'll be taught a Very Important Lesson, usually involving something tragic happening to the person who gave them drugs or alcohol.
I generally prefer Japanese YA, which has its own set of problems, but usually manages to be more interesting and psychological. Luke might enjoy something like Book Girl and the Suicidal Mime, about a goblin who eats books and can taste their stories, and also solves mysteries, or Durarara!! which is sort of a supernatural Pulp Fiction.
Regarding Anansi Boys,I'm glad you liked the humor and the narration I loved them too. As for the rapy nature of Spider and the poor ending when he gets away with it, I agree it's deplorable.
There is one thing you may have missed. If I remember correctly, there was only one demigod, Anansi had only one son. The Florida witches then tried to banish him, but ended up splitting him into two, Spider the god half and Charlie the Human half.
So as I understand it, Spider is a god like being without the human sensitivities. With Charlie carrying all the angst and self doubt and Spider carrying all of the hubris of a trickster god that gets away with murder on a daily basis.
Regarding Ninefox Gambit, it doesn't surprise me that it's good on gender issues as the author is trans himself so is probably much more aware of this stuff than most.Incidentally, that means that there's two openly trans authors on this year's Hugo best novel list which I think is a first.
Regarding "Too like the Lightning"I listened to the review today, and - again - enjoyed it.
Some info: Luke said the story would be settled after the second book (seven days), however searching for Ada's books returs 4 books in the Terra Ignota series.
Interesting discussion in episode 350.That prompted me to go and look at some of my own reading stats.
Over the last three years my average has been around 75% male / 25% female authors. That's well short of the ideal of a 50/50 split, but you know what? I don't feel the need to take special efforts to adjust the balance. I'm clearly not opposed to reading books by female authors; I count a few of them amongst my favourites - whose books I will always buy when they are released.
Book reading should be a pleasure. I don't think that you should ever feel obliged to postpone the books you want to read for those that fulfill a quota. Maybe that's a little different for Luke as the host of a publicly distributed podcast though.
I do think it was a good idea to go and look at the numbers and it's definitely an exercise I'll repeat - probably about once a year.
This might not be the best way to introduce myself to the listeners' group, but episode #350 pried me out of the woodwork. I really enjoy having Juliana on the podcast. It dilutes that whole middle-class-white-male thing that Luke did allude to in #350, so hopefully I don't offend by re-mentioning it here. As a new experiment, it might be interesting to measure, in the episodes where Juliana participates, the distribution of time spent speaking. Unfortunately, gender affects communication, and women get talked over at times. This was something I thought about shortly after Juliana joined, so it could be a comfort level thing and the data might change over time. I also don't have the time to try to gather any numbers, so hey....alternative facts! Finally, I confess that I did miss the deliberate diversification of the reading list even though I've been a long time listener (since episode #172). Glad to see it.
Also regarding episode 350:I read ebooks almost exclusively. Even when I listen to an audiobook, I almost always have the corresponding ebook to go with it. And more importantly, I keep all of these ebooks in a large calibre database with a number of custom fields which lets me do all sorts of analysis on my reading, including on gender of writers.
A good friend commented to me a couple of years ago that she thought I read an unusually large number of female authors, and that her father simply refuses to read books by female authors (!! - but that's another discussion). So ever since then I've been keeping track in calibre what the gender of the author/s of all my books identify as.
So here's some stats:
2015 Incomplete - started doing this in August 2015
Books read: 90, M-46, F-42, Both-2
2016
Books read: 175, M-46, F-125, Both-4, figures include 3 books by trans authors
2017 (to date)
Books read: 166, M-57, F-105, Both-2, Genderfluid-1, figures include 2 books by trans authors
Note that the count is by books, not unique authors, so if I read two books by the same author that counts for two in the author's gender.
So why is my female author count so high? Particularly since I don't curate my reading in the way Luke has been doing.
Well, for one, in the last couple of years I've read a fair bit of YA, a field dominated by female authors. This year I have read 31 YA books of which 8 were by male authors and 23 were by female authors. I also read lots of romance which are even more dominated by female authors. This year I have read 16 romance novels all of which had female authors, one of whom was Ilona Andrews (who's actually a married MF couple who write under a female pseudonym).
The second reason is that my reading tends to skew towards new releases, and the SF&F publishing houses have been much better at promoting books written by female authors in the last decade.
And if you're curious who the genderfluid author was, then that would be Alex Wells who wrote Hunger Makes the Wolf. They're a frequent host on the Skiffy and Fanty podcast under the name Alex Acks; it's actually from listening to that that I was aware of Alex's gender preference.The book was good too :)
Colin wrote: "Book reading should be a pleasure. I don't think that you should ever feel obliged to postpone the books you want to read for those that fulfill a quota."I have more books I want to read than I'll ever get around to reading, so I might as well maximize the variety. And a good way to do that is to read diverse authors. A straight white dude is no more likely to write a book I'll like than a gay Japanese woman, so it's not like I'm diminishing my enjoyment.
Episode #351Luke you should watch Monsters vs. Aliens, it's quite good and you'll find out that Emperor Mollusk himself isn't that original a character.
However I think Emperor Mollusk versus The Sinister Brain's strength is in it's comedy and not in it's originality.
I do agree that the story drags at some point especially when I reread it.
P.S. Re: Episode #350
I think A. Lee Martinez is a man, but I've never bothered to check.
About #354 -- Asimov -- Caves of Steel...Good that you finally reviewed this book for SFBRP. I think it may be Asimov's best work.
About a movie version ... BBC made a tv film in the early 60s.
It starred Peter Cushing (Gov. Tarkin from Star Wars, 1977!!) as Elijah Baley. That print was lost in the BBC archives except this short clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3HXy...
The BBC radio play (1989), which was condensed, was decent.
Speaking of Asimov, the YouTube channel "IsaacArthur" explores concepts of Asimov, Clarke, et. al.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZFi...
Hi LukeRegarding episode 360 - Ada Palmer.
Just heard your review- auch.
One of the things I liked about book 3 was the expansion (world building if you like) if the background and motivation if the mars-people-hive-thing. And how they too succumbed to mediocrecy.
But as you said, loads of high level people just going through the motions of war preparations, no internally motivated actions by any of the main characters.
I can see your points on several of your other issues and have changed my rating to 4 starts.
As for my suggestion that you read it; well it was not meant as an endorsement, rather a “You liked 1 and 2, let me hear what you think of 3” - not even sure I had read it myself at the time.
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I get that it wasn't an endorsement. It was, of course, a no-brainer that I'd read it, given that the other two books were my favourites of last year. It's just a pity that only fans of the series will keep reading chunky books like this, and the self-selected pool of reviewers keeps getting more positive. There's no way this should be rated higher than books one and two, as it is inferior in most ways... grrrr...
Fabulous rant in the latest episode (Calculating Stars) and not just because you quoted my own review! It makes for good listening when you have strong opinions.
I stopped regularly listening to the podcast a while back but I do check back in from time to time.The reason why I stopped listening is that I just got too frustrated with Luke's tendency to review the book in comparison to the book he wanted or expected to read rather than the book he actually read.
The episode on the Calculating Stars is a prime example of this.
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The reason why I stopped listening is that I just got too frustrated with Luke's tendency to rev..."
I totally get it with this episode, but I didn't realise this was a thing I did more regularly. Do you remember other books where this was also noticeable?
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Aha! I talked to Juliane about this, and we came to a conclusion.
If I read a book and it is not what I expect (based on the title, assumed genre, author, reputation, etc), then I'll only review it based on those expectations if it isn't a well written book.
Both Calculating Stars and A Closed and Common Orbit fall into that category. I didn't even finish A Closed and Common Orbit because I found it so dumb and trivial and not particularly well written.
But there are many books that are not what I expect at all that I probably don't go into much about my expectations in the review. In this case the book has given me something I didn't know I wanted and satisfied me with that thing by good story, writing, characters, ideas, etc.
A few recent books where this happened was Pattern Recognition by William Gibson. I was expecting cyberpunk but got pretty mild and gentle corporate espionage historical fiction. China Mountain Zhang and The Library at Mount Char were two books I had no idea about going in, and both were nothing like I expected, and I found both delightful.
Just heard you review of The Will to Battle by Ada Palmer and got pleasant shock when you read out (most of) my review from Goodreads! Totally agree with your thoughts on the book.
Not the right place for this, but maybe for your next read try out VE Schwab's Vicious, which I loved, and it's sequel Vengeful, which just came out so I haven't read it yet.
F&F ??? On sci-fi podcast?? Really??? Uh .... no.If you want keep it in the sci-fi genre and dabble in movies/video, I suggest Michael Crichton-based films, or new sci-fi "Mars" series from National Geographic, etc.
Re: Calculating Stars review - I enjoyed the review as usual and also Juliane's comments.I think Luke can rant about how he would like the book to be as it's his podcast and on a more personal note - it usually aligns with what I think also!
for this particular novel - what - the female astronaut isn't interested in being an astronaut?
The sex scenes sound hilarious and over the top.
it sounds like it needed a good editor.
But - I'll still read it as for all it's faults - as it does sound interesting and I love a bit of alternative history.
As for the F&F review - why not - it's fantasy really!
How about cli-fi .... new KSR novel "New York 2140" ... or disaster-prep-fi "The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth #1)" by N.K. Jemisin
If I read a book and it is not what I e..."Well this is something that I kind of expect from Luke, the thing is, we have a pretty different taste, I like loads of books that luke doesn't like, and there are books that Luke adores that I don't like at all, but he's a known quantity, I know his taste pretty well by now, so I know what stuff I can filter out as Lukeisms, and what stuff means that I want or don't want to read a book :)
About Juliane sitting too close to mic ... NO! Most of the time, both of you are sitting too FAR from mic.
If you watched Making a Murderer you should listen to the podcast Rebutting a Murderer. A Milwaukee reporter assigned to the Avery case rebuts the NetFlix series episode by episode. Both seasons. Spoiler alert- the NetFlix series left out a lot of information incriminating Avery and cherry-picked information to make Avery seem innocent. I’m now convinced he’s guilty.
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Think we sorted this for the latest episode.
The Ghostie gun in Reynolds's Revenger reminded me of Larry Niven's short story "The Soft Weapon", which was later adapted in my favorite episode of the Star Trek animated show as "The Slaver Weapon". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuErw...
HMV by S. LemL & J: A very good episode!
I think Lem could've REALLY gone meta if he wanted to. But that would've killed the "novelization" aspect.
Lem died in 2006, and there was some tribute attention given to him them. Australia's ABC network did a real bang-up in an episode of "The Philosopher's Zone"
To Solaris and beyond
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/...
Regarding “The light brigade” - For the first couple of jumps I thought it was pure military and it was about PTSD. Pleased the way it turned out. When done I couldn’t believe it was only 9 hours. So filled with contents. Bit weird reading right after “The Tourist”, many similar events and settings. 4 1/2 from me.
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Magnus Mills (other topics)Alan Campbell (other topics)
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They're actually called "Fifth Seasons". Season is for short. It's not called the Fifth Season because it's the fifth season that the Sanze Empire has suffered, and the empire actually fell some time ago in the story anyway. Yumenes is just a remnant.
This is from chapter 6: and from chapter 8:
As to why they're called "roggers": Luke says something that sounds like "ragger" in the podcast, I'm not sure if that's how it's said in the audiobook. In the text it's "rogger" which seems like a fairly clear derivation of "orogene" to me.
As to whether this is an exoplanet, I'm really not sure about that. The people of the Stillness certainly call it the Earth, and the last line of the book implies an (absent) large single Moon. I was thinking this was the very far future where the continents have merged again as there supposed to be doing around 250 million years in the future. That would certainly allow enough time for the flora and fauna to evolve modifications and coping strategies for the Fifth Seasons.