11 KiB
The Apocalypse Score by Charles Stross [recently released]
-
Author: u/Jello_Raptor The Last Tool User*
-
URL: http://www.amazon.com/Annihilation-Score-Laundry-Files-Novel/dp/0425281175/charlieswebsi-20
-
Score: 3
-
Created: 2015-07-08T03:45:33
Post:
Comments:
u/alexanderwales [+3] Time flies like an arrow (13 hours later)
I'm about halfway through this right now; it's pretty classic Laundry Files, even with a different main character. I highly recommend all the books in the series; /u/cstross does a really good job with both research and that quality of "thoughtfulness" that I associate with rational fiction. "The Rhesus Chart" in particular had a few moments of discovery and exploration of principles that tickled that same spot in my brain.
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+1] Mouse Army (18 hours later)
Say, do you happen to have a recommended SF/F list handy? I like all your works a lot, and wonder if you are not a good source for new books. Or better, a top 5 of any media?
u/alexanderwales [+9] Time flies like an arrow (18 hours later)
The Name of the Wind: main character is super smart, uses his wits to get out of (and into) trouble, and is mostly awesome - there's another book out right now, The Wise Man's Fear, with the third, concluding volume coming at some point in the future (and a few short stories in the meantime).
The Lies of Locke Lamora is about a bunch of gentleman thieves, has a lot of trickery, deceit, plotting, and meta-plotting that I think readers with my tastes would enjoy. The first book is self-contained; there are four books out right now, and they're likewise clever and enjoyable, with lots of the "solving problems under ridiculous constraints" type stuff that I like. It's also a series with some fantastic worldbuilding.
Mistborn is a fantasy trilogy that (like most things Brandon Sanderson writes) has a very structured magic system, which hides lots of secrets that a clever reader can figure out. I'd actually recommend most of what Sanderson has written, if only because of the attention he puts towards making his worlds make sense and follow rules. The Stormlight Archives is a currently unfinished series, but some of the best stuff that he's written - only two of a projected ten books are complete though, so don't start on this if you don't like unfinished things.
Pretty much anything by Charles Stross. Accelerando is what I consider to be the definitive Singularity novel, and is absolutely densely packed with ideas. The Laundry Files is his James Bond meets IT department meets Cthulhu series. Palimpsest is his time travel novella, and what I'd consider one of the single most important entries into that genre. The Merchant Princes is generally considered to be a love-hate thing, but it goes from "standard worldwalking outsider fantasy fiction" to some utterly awesome and mindblowing stuff in the late books - get the British rerelease if you can, which edits things down.
For deconstruction/reconstruction, I'd recommend The Magicians trilogy by Lev Grossman, which is sort of a take on the Chronicles of Narnia (and a little bit Harry Potter). They're supremely literary, in a very good way. The main character is sometimes a jerk, but try to get past that.
For deconstruction/reconstruction of the superhero genre, I'd recommend Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman (Lev Grossman's twin brother!).
I also can't go without recommending It's Superman! by Tom De Haven. The Metropolitan Man owes a lot to that book.
Iain Banks wrote all the Culture books, which I'd recommend, but specifically The Player of Games or Surface Detail for the rational crowd, though I think they're all pretty great.
World War Z is a reconstruction of the zombie genre, told in the style of an oral history. I've heard the audiobook is also quite good, if you're into that sort of thing. They made a movie out of it (loosely) which wasn't very good.
Most things by Neal Stephenson, though he's an author that gets mixed reaction. Anathem is quite long and has lots of explanations of philosophical concepts, which I think would make it a good fit for people who really like the kind of things that I like. Stephenson is terrible at endings.
Finally, The Wizardry by Rick Cook is about a computer programmer who gets summoned through a portal to a world of magic and has to learn all the rules of magic to save the day. I only ever read the first book, but it stood by itself pretty well, and is available for free online. Come to think of it, a similar story that you might like is Erfworld, a webcomic about a wargamer who gets sucked into a wargaming world and has to learn its rules to survive, and is also pretty good.
Anything by Vernor Vinge (with only a few exceptions) is good; A Fire Upon The Deep and A Deepness in the Sky are two are very well thought out space opera, and often reccomended as books for people who like "very alien aliens" (meaning not just the rubber forehead aliens of Star Trek). Rainbow's End is a near-future Singularity fiction piece (Vinge is the guy who popularized the concept of the technological singularity) with artificial intelligences, brain-computer interfaces, and lots of cool stuff. The Peace War and its follow up Marooned in Realtime are two books in the vein of "introduce a technology that does something cool, then extrapolate". Overall, Vinge offers a very good blend of intelligence, well thought out world-building, and strong characterization.
Jumper by Stephen Gould features a single person with a single, well-defined superpower. The implications are given a lot of thought, and there are a large number of exploits that are well-defined. They made a movie out of the book, which wasn't very good. The follow-up, Reflex is also quite good, and expands on the fictional science. The third in the series, Impulse, leaves something to be desired and isn't necessary to read. The fourth, Exo, just came out recently, and I consider it a return to form in most ways.
Superman: Red Son is a graphic novel premised on Superman's spaceship coming down in Russia instead of Kansas. Superman grows up communist, and lots of things change. It's basically authorized fanfiction (though not quite as smart as some of these other suggestions are).
The Time Traveler's Wife is a book about time travel, specifically the stable time loop kind. It's sort of odd to me that it's marketed as a love story more often than it's marketed as straight science fiction, but it's a very good book regardless, and a very good story. Mostly when I see people recommend it, they preface it with "Don't judge me but ..." which makes me think that it has some kind of unfair stigma attached to it for some reason (perhaps just because of the marketing). They made a movie of it, which wasn't terribly good.
To Say Nothing of the Dog is my favorite book by Connie Willis. It's a comedy of manners set in the Victorian era with time traveling historians. It uses stable time loops as well. It's quite funny, and mostly about a missing cat.
Altered Carbon and the other Takeshi Kovacs novels are great, with interesting concepts, a badass main character, and a lot of clever puzzles for the reader to solve.
The Discworld series by Sir Terry Pratchett consists mostly of deconstructions and reconstructions of fantasy tropes. It's generally agreed that the first two books were where he was finding his footing, and the series began to go downhill at some point in the past few years (though there's some disagreement about precisely where). I personally think it's best to start with one of the standalone novels like Small Gods, which will let you know whether you like his style. He also co-wrote Good Omens with Neil Gaiman, which is one of my favorite books.
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood is in the theme of science fiction as social commentary, like 1984 or Brave New World (which I'd suggest you read mostly for cultural literacy - I consider 1984 to be the superior of the two). It's mostly about gender. Similarly, the MadAddam trilogy is mostly about ecology (though I still haven't read past the first in the series, which I felt was fine as a standalone).
I was really enamored with Kurt Vonnegut when I was younger, but I think he's one of those authors that I sort of outgrew. Nevertheless, I think that Cat's Cradle is a wonderful book, and I still reread it from time to time, which I can't say about many books. I also really liked Breakfast of Champions, which has a lot of pictures drawn by the author, and is written as though for an alien who was unfamiliar with human society.
u/gonight [+1] i shouldn't be allowed to change my own flair (23 hours later)
Thanks for having read Altered Carbon and the reading list, I have some books to read now!
u/Prezombie [+1] (5 days later)
The fourth Lock Lamora book doesn't come out until October. Are you from the future?
u/alexanderwales [+1] Time flies like an arrow (5 days later)
Er ... nope, just bad at counting. Luckily that's an error that will correct itself in a few months.
u/Jello_Raptor [+1] The Last Tool User (11 minutes later)
Official Spoiler Thread on Stross's Blog
The series has been recommended in /r/rational by many people, so I figured y'all would appreciate a heads up.
The magic system is also one of the most fun I've ever seen, even if it's not precisely defined enough for us to get munchkining.
To quote from the prologue :
A brief recap: magic is the name given to the practice of manipulating the ultrastructure of reality by carrying out mathematical operations. We live in a multiverse, and certain operators trigger echoes in the Platonic realm of mathematical truth, echoes which can be amplified and fed back into our (and other) realities. Computers, being machines for executing mathematical operations at very high speed, are useful to us as occult engines. Likewise, some of us have the ability out magical operations in our own heads at terrible cost.
u/alexanderwales [+1] Time flies like an arrow (13 hours later)
Stross is also doing an AMA in /r/books today.
u/alexanderwales [+1] Time flies like an arrow (13 hours later)
This got spam-canned (probably because the spam filter hates Amazon links); I approved it.
u/Rhamni [+1] Aspiring author (a day later)
I really hope this makes it into audiobook format soon.