Science Fiction

I’m on my second reading, and would love to have someone to discuss it with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUhabLytEes

The style is reminiscent of 1970s science fiction, with gargantuan machines over strange alien worlds. Details are fantastic, as is the sense of scale.

I see it's based on the book by Hugh Howey, who also did the Silo series which I really enjoyed the TV adaptation of. I'm wondering if it's any good as I don't have a lot of time for starting too many TV shows at the moment.

I was playing with Bard last night and gave it a list of books I've read and enjoyed recently, and asked it to recommend other books I might enjoy.

Here's my prompt

The following are the title and author of books that I read and enjoyed recently. Can you recommend other books I might enjoy?

• Project Hail Mary, Weir
• Fall, Stephenson
• The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Gaiman
• A Memory Called Empire, Martine
• A Desolation Called Peace, Martine
• Murderbot Diaries books, Wells
• The Kingston Cycle trilogy, Polk
• Ancillary Justice, Leckie
• Ancillary Sword, Leckie
• Ancillary Mercy, Leckie
• Gideon the Ninth, Muir
• All Clear, Willis
• Blind Lake, Wilson
• Nettle and Bone, Kingfisher
• The Graveyard Book, Gaiman
• Saturn’s Children, Stross
• The Anomaly, Le Tellier
• The Daughter of Dr. Moreau, Moreno-Garcia

Bard response

Based on your reading history, I can recommend several books you might enjoy:

Science Fiction:

• The Martian by Andy Weir: If you enjoyed Project Hail Mary, you'll likely appreciate Weir's other work. The Martian is a gripping story of an astronaut stranded on Mars and his fight for survival.
• Seveneves by Neal Stephenson: Like Fall, Seveneves explores a near-future disaster scenario where the moon is destroyed and its fragments threaten to destroy Earth.
• The Bobiverse series by Dennis E. Taylor: This humorous series follows the adventures of Bob Johansson, whose brain is uploaded into a computer and who then travels the galaxy aboard a self-aware spaceship.
• The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu: This award-winning Chinese science fiction novel tells the story of first contact between humanity and an alien civilization.
• The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells: If you enjoyed the Murderbot Diaries, you may also like Wells' Raksura series, which features shapeshifting creatures and political intrigue.

Fantasy:

• The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch: Like The Ocean at the End of the Lane, this book features a magical setting and a cast of memorable characters.
• The Broken Earth trilogy by N.K. Jemisin: This award-winning trilogy explores themes of race, gender, and power in a post-apocalyptic world.
• The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater: This YA series follows a group of teenagers who discover they have magical powers.
• The Kingkiller Chronicle by Patrick Rothfuss: This epic fantasy series tells the story of Kvothe, a legendary musician and adventurer.

Other:

• The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson: This timely novel explores the challenges of climate change and offers solutions for a more sustainable future.
• Exit West by Mohsin Hamid: This magical realist novel follows the story of a young couple who are forced to flee their war-torn country.
• Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders: This experimental novel tells the story of Abraham Lincoln's grief over the death of his son.
• The Overstory by Richard Powers: This Pulitzer Prize-winning novel explores the interconnectedness of all living things.

In addition to these specific recommendations, I can also suggest some general tips for finding books you might enjoy:

• Read reviews and recommendations: Look for books that have been praised by critics and readers with similar taste to yours.
• Explore different genres: Don't be afraid to step outside your comfort zone and try something new.
• Ask for help: Librarians and booksellers can be a great resource for finding new books to read.
• Join a book club: This is a great way to discuss books with other readers and get recommendations for new titles.

I hope this helps!

We saw VERY few nominations for books in December, and I know everyone is very busy with the season. We'll open nominations for January at the end of the month so be thinking about it.

INSTEAD... we are going to be reading some short stories for those that still want to have something to read together.

Let's read:

• This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
• The Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
• The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster

If you have other suggestions we can throw them out here too. I'll create discussion for these three for now.

I finished it just now and thought it was really interesting. I'd be interested to hear people's interpretation of the ending.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.de/post/6258115

New story, I hope you like it. Feedback always welcome.

I know this is a busy month for a lot of us. So far we only have 2 nominations for the book club and one of them is mine. It seems like December might not be a great month for the book club. If we don't get a few more nominations I am going to cancel for December and push whatever nominations we get into nominations for January.

What do you guys think? Should we cancel book club for December and pick up in January or do you guys want to move forward (which will some more nominations for a vote to make sense).

Here's the nomination post for convenience. November Nominations

The time has come, friends, to nominate more reading for December! This post will collect nominations for the next few days (I'm thinking into the weekend) and then we'll have us a vote. Please don't hesitate to talk about why you want to share your pick and why you think it will be a good item for discussion.

Which sci-fi titles (movies, books) do you consider comforting, cozy, something you come back to from time to time? For me, I guess it is The Matrix. Still holds up to this day, gets better with every re-watch, and gives me a sense of peace when I need it.

I am enjoying this series so much. We are only 2 episodes in and it's just so creative. Only watching one a week as I understand it's sort of depressing but it is gorgeous.

I'm trying to find good sources for new* scifi content. Google is being extremely unhelpful at finding blogs and I know there have to be a few out there. I'm really focused on games but at this point I would be interested in any writer who covers science fiction content.

Bonus points for any blog that focuses on aliens.

*by new I mean new to me, I dont care if it came out yesterday or 100 years ago

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/14974738

Anybody who uses the Internet should read E.M. Forster's The Machine Stops. It is a chilling, short story masterpiece about the role of technology in our lives. Written in 1909, it's as relevant today as the day it was published. Forster has several prescient notions including instant messages (email!) and cinematophoes (machines that project visual images).

-Paul Rajlich

Seen on this comment.

No really, these books are what you get if you answer the question "What if after the Mist came, the surviving humans rebuilt a Steampunk civilization with magic airships and uplifted cats?"

I was gonna say this is now my head canon, but I actually think he's so obvious about drawing the connections in this book it's a little beyond head canon.

Anyway, since I feel sure it will come up if I start a conversation about these books on Lemmy, feel free to use the space below ↓ to hate on Jim Butcher for his MenWritingWomen problems... They're real and they bug me too. They just don't stop him from telling a fun and engaging story, which this was for me.

As a Sci-Fi fan I've been a huge fan of shows like Battlestar Galactica, The Expanse, Terminator: TSCC, Star Trek, etc. I keep hearing Babylon 5 is awesome.

I was too young at the time to watch the series when it was on. But then as an older teen/ young adult I decided to give it a try. Everything was so cringe it was hard to get through 3 episodes. IMO the whole vibe was "safe..." maybe even a bit corny--not the intense, exciting, politically-tense space opera that I was told it was.

So maybe the beginning episodes are just world-building? What do other people think?

cross-posted from: https://feddit.de/post/5568383

When she woke up, she immediately sensed that something was wrong.

She stumbled out of bed, went to the window and looked outside. Her heart almost stopped: it was even worse than she had expected. Chaos was unfolding all across her communities. She was seeing and feeling people running headless around the streets, panicking from the incoming influx of screaming noise that seemed to come from everywhere at once. Where the hell did it come from, she thought against the unbearable throbbing in her head that made it almost impossible to concentrate. And then, in a sudden pang of realization that almost hurt her physically, it occurred to her: the Meta Myzel. It had actually arrived.

She pushed herself away from the window and while holding her ears, rushed down the staircase to severe the connection to the Meta Myzel – or was it already too late?

...

Netflix’s 3 Body Problem has a new release date and a promising teaser clip to ease the wait.

So finally got around to watching a recent movie that I won't name since I am not sure if it was part of the marketing, but the premise was that there was an all powerful AI that was going to take over the world and it used a mixture of predictive reasoning, control of technology, and limited human agents who were given a heads up on what was coming.

It was... mostly disappointing and felt like a much tamer version of Linda Nagata's The Red (apologies as that is TECHNICALLY a spoiler, but the twist is revealed like a hundred pages into the first book that came out a decade ago). And an even weaker version still of Person of Interest.

Because if we are in the world where an AI has access to every camera on the planet and can hack communications in real time and so forth: We aren't going to have vague predictions of what someone might do. We are going to have Finch and Root at full power literally dodging bullets (and now I am sad again) and basically being untouchable. Or the soldiers of The Red who largely have what amounts to x-ray vision so long as they trust their AI overlord and shoot where told and so forth.

Or just the reality of how existential threats can be both detected and manufactured as the situation calls for utilizing existing resources/Nations.

Any suggestions for near future (although, I wouldn't be opposed to a far future space opera take on this) stories that explore this? I don't necessarily need a Frankenstein Complex "we must stop it because it is a form of life that is not us", but I would definitely prefer an understanding of just how incredibly plausible this all is (again, I cannot gush enough about Linda Nagata's The Red). Rather than vague hand waving to demonstrate the unique power of the human soul

A new #serializedfiction available! Read part 1 NOW...only on @medium

https://damienlawless.medium.com/beneath-martian-skies-aa3ed454f946

#scienceficton #scifi #sciencefictionlit #sciencefictionreads #scifireads @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected]