What are you reading?

Started by Undeadite, Jul 16, 2008, 09:14:29 PM

Author
What are you reading? (Read 280,673 times)

SiL

SiL

#3270
Quote from: [cancerblack] on Jul 26, 2022, 08:43:10 PM
Quote from: Xenomrph on Jul 26, 2022, 02:06:41 PMNot yet.

Also I dunno about the leadership talking "rarely", I'm pretty sure they can talk as much as they want.

You know that I mean "before the lore changes I very publicly dislike" you twat
You said they rarely speak and he said they could speak as much as they want. They are not mutually exclusive.

Xenomrph

Xenomrph

#3271
I mean, like, he's not even correct by 3rd edition lore standards. The closest the 3rd edition Necron codex comes to addressing the topic of Necron intelligence and talking is saying that Necron Lords are silent (pages 2 and 16) but also saying that some Necrons retained their intelligence albeit in a diminished capacity (page 25). It doesn't say all Necrons are mute, or even that they rarely speak.

I'm currently getting some 40k lore-hounds to fact check whether or not they were silent in other pre-5th edition lore.

To actually contribute to the thread though, I recently re-read my favorite sci fi story "Virgin Planet", by Poul Anderson from like 1959.

The basic premise is a space explorer lands on a planet populated only by women - the planet had been part of a colonization project centuries prior where the women were on a separate ship from the men, and the men's ship never made it, and the women's ship crashed and left most of their technology in ruins so their society is basically medieval-level tech. The women reproduce via cloning machines (their only surviving tech) so there's, like, 100 different women who all get cloned so all the women on the planet are one of those 100 at various ages, and each woman "type" is something of a specialist or personality type in the society (warrior, builder, artisan, diplomat, leader, cook, etc).

So these women have been waiting centuries for the coming of The Men, these mythical creatures that they know exist but have never seen, and this space explorer lands on their planet not knowing anything about it, and since he's just some dude they completely don't believe he's A Man because he's not bold and smart and perfect and a warrior and superhuman and noble (and they have no idea what A Man looks like), and it turns into a civil war between the women who start to believe he's A Man and the women who are convinced he's not. On top of that, there's a ruling class of women who actively never want the Men to show up because they know it would screw up their power dynamic, so they try to discredit the space explorer and ideally kill him so no more Men show up.

The space explorer, being a guy, tries to sleep with pretty much anyone he can but there ends up being exactly zero sex scenes in the whole story because he either botches it or gets hilariously interrupted or something every time. Even among the women who believe he's A Man, they constantly have to save his ass because he's largely inept and no good in a fight.

He falls in love with two of them (they're genetic twins so it's easy to do) and it turns into a humorous love triangle, and in the end the space explorer helps overthrow the ruling class with the promise that he will bring more Men, and the final page is one of my favorite final pages in any story ever and always makes me smile.

There are elements that haven't aged perfectly (it's a 65 year old story) and some plot elements I think could have been stronger but on the whole it's a lot of fun and doesn't take itself too seriously and plays around with some tropes you'd expect to see in a story like this, and I absolutely love the final page of the narrative.

Xenomrph

Xenomrph

#3272
I'll just go ahead and press that Report button again. I'm pretty sure calling me a twat and telling me to f**k myself are against the rules - if my posts bother you so, you're welcome to put me on ignore instead of being verbally abusive.

Also Xenology is very much canon, just because it disagrees with your narrative doesn't suddenly mean it's "non canon" lmao. You're just upset that the actual fiction you hold so dear doesn't conform to your headcanon about how Necrons "should" be. You yourself even named a source with talking Necrons that I hadn't even thought of.

Believe whatever headcanon you want, GW strongly supports that, but getting verbally abusive when someone disagrees with you ain't okay.

RidgeTop

RidgeTop

#3273
Yeah, that's uncalled for Cancerblack. No personal attacks.

We have enough sniping in here over just Alien/Pred lore so let's cool it, yeah?

Ivan The Insect

Ivan The Insect

#3274
In a twist of irony I anticipated the new Love, Death and Robots episode Swarm so much I ended up finding and reading the original story by Bruce Sterling it's based on only to then hate the adaptation when compared to the novelette.

Sterling's Swarm ended up being one of my most favourite short sci-fi stories I've read and the concepts presented in it are unique but sadly underutilised anywhere else in fiction.

If you've seen the LDR episode and liked the overall premise but felt something was lacking or it was too generic in a typical Hollywood/Gamey way then the short story is something I believe would be one helluva an adventure for you.

That being said I'm now reading the other books set in Sterling's Shapers and Mechanists world (mainly Schismatrix Plus).

Wysps

Wysps

#3275
Starting to read Predator: South China Sea for the first time.  Feel very lucky to have gotten my hands on a copy, despite the extravagant price  :-X

NecronomIV

NecronomIV

#3276
Quote from: Wysps on Aug 09, 2022, 07:29:25 PMStarting to read Predator: South China Sea for the first time.  Feel very lucky to have gotten my hands on a copy, despite the extravagant price  :-X

Oh that should be interesting. Always wanted to read that one. Jeff Vandermeer writes about the experience of writing the novel.

Stitch

Stitch

#3277
Started Gears Of War: Ephyra Rising yesterday. Sat in the garden, in the summer sun, with some cider.

Good experience.

Wysps

Wysps

#3278
Quote from: NecronomIV on Aug 10, 2022, 08:30:37 AM
Quote from: Wysps on Aug 09, 2022, 07:29:25 PMStarting to read Predator: South China Sea for the first time.  Feel very lucky to have gotten my hands on a copy, despite the extravagant price  :-X

Oh that should be interesting. Always wanted to read that one. Jeff Vandermeer writes about the experience of writing the novel.

Very nice!  I think I'll print that out and put it in the back of the book, for future reference.  Good little nuggets of wisdom.

Seedkiller

Seedkiller

#3279
Jus reread predator homeworld. Still have no real idea of why there is 3 predators fighting with 1. Story wasn't bad, but jus didn't go anywhere really and plus maybe I jus didn't really understand what they were going for. Toby cypress art is pretty cool also.

Wweyland

Wweyland

#3280
Quote from: Seedkiller on Aug 12, 2022, 02:11:35 PMJus reread predator homeworld. Still have no real idea of why there is 3 predators fighting with 1. Story wasn't bad, but jus didn't go anywhere really and plus maybe I jus didn't really understand what they were going for. Toby cypress art is pretty cool also.
As far as I remember, they were bad blood young bloods and the ancient Predator was sent to hunt them down.

Ingwar

Ingwar

#3281
Just started The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin.

Xenomrph

Xenomrph

#3282
Reading the Batman: Knightfall comic book arc from start to finish.

I'm 200 pages in.

Out of 2,000:o

KiramidHead

KiramidHead

#3283
I'm alternating between The Last Temptation of Christ and the omnis of B.P.R.D.: Plague of Frogs.

NecronomIV

NecronomIV

#3284
Just watched Annihilation (2018) AD Version. Now doing a re-read of The Southern Reach Trilogy. Up to Authority, which a lot of people hate, but I still find I love the paranoia vibe.

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