>/tg/ recommends Honor Harrington >Premise of Space British

>>51777339
I originally wanted to post about how stale this bait is, but then I realized that remembering a bait thread from a few months back down to exact words makes me an autist.

>>51777339
You're not wrong.

>>51777339
>autist

Not wrong though. As the series drags on, Weber is more and more just jerking himself off to his Mary Sue special snowflake character. I fully expect him to pull a Robert Jordan and drag the series out until he's dead.

I don't remember if it was Honor Harrington but I remember a thread on /lit/ about how its engineers the people who like that crap and that day /lit/ and /sci/ joined together to hate on engineers.
Good old times.

>>51777339
Lost Fleet, Jack Campbell

>>51777468
I mean that happens with any sufficiently long fantasy series.

I mean it happened with Pratchett, it happened with Tolkien, it happened with Moorcock, it DEFINITELY happened with Hickman, etc. etc. etc.

>>51777487
Why would engineers like it?

>>51777339
Your first mistake was trusting /tg/
Make it your last

>>51777339
It sounds like you got took on the /tg/ Ruse Cruise.

They did the same to me with that diarrhea abortion Sword of Truth. First book was just bland and luls you into a false sense of safety. Then the shit starts. And it never fucking ends.

Sadly when it comes to actually reading books read for the love of reading /tg/ has always been more loving and lovable than /lit/ who treat books as snark points in their games of asshole superiority. Down side is that many denizens of /tg/ have an odd sens of humour and once one dude gets prodded in the direction of the septic tank everyone else will continue to prod for sheer mischief.

Remember that poor bastard we convinced to read the Twilight books? Truly we are damned.

>>51777553
For the same reason they love The Martian.
Engineering and technical knowledge saves the day all day every day.

>>51777523
It really did happen with Pratchett, and I never noticed how preachy his books can get when I started but eventually it really became noticeably blatant.

>>51777627
Snuff was just... painful in that regard.

Like the prevailing anti-bigotry narrative in the the Watch series was definitely a bit too much telling and not enough showing, but they were also really well written books.

However Snuff was just him ranting at the reader for a couple hundred pages.

Which is sad, because I genuinely think he wrote some of the best fantasy when he wasn't talking about how badass his own characters were or ranting at the reader.

>>51777627

Well, by the end, I think he was just really angry over his condition and it started to bleed into his works.
You can chart a pretty interesting course with his writings as things develop.
You have the lackluster Fifth Elephant where he doesn't want to admit there's a problem, but by Thud you can tell that he knows and he's not quite fully come to terms with it. I still really enjoyed the football one, although there were a few weak places for sure.
But that's mostly because the Unseen Universtiy is second only to the Watch in terms of entertainment value. Plus I like how Rincewind basically got a good end after all the bullshit he went though over the years.

>>51777607

First rule of Star Trek: If you want to survive, wear Blue.

>>51777339
>I really just wanted to read about exciting space battles and the difficulties of economy in an FTL-equipped space empire, but I had to stop.
Let me give you a nearly complete list of good books that have exciting but realistic space battles as well as the difficulties that FTL introduces.

The Forever War

There ya go. Now you don't have to read crap anymore.

>>51777704
Well, Snuff was written towards the end... right?

Huh, looked it up and surprised I've never even heard of the two books that followed it, one released before his passing and the other after.

>>51777716
>But that's mostly because the Unseen Universtiy is second only to the Watch in terms of entertainment value.

I can't be having with that.
Witches Abroad was essentially one long self aware polemic on British tourism and the nature of stories featuring grumpy women.

My favourites were one offs though, Equal Rites and Mort.
The development of the main characters, and dealing with class issues and finding your place were dealt with excellently in a fantastical setting.

>>51777741
Raising Steam is essentially one big book about how great trains are.

>>51777795

Never clicked with Witches Abroad. Loved Masquerade though.

>My favourites were one offs though, Equal Rites and Mort.

I've only read Mort in Comic Book form oddly enough. I forget which one was Equal Rites. In terms of one-offs, I loved Pyramids and Reaper Man.

If it's not Discworld were talking about Carpet People was my first Pratchett book and anyone who hasn't read it NEEDS TO. Especially if they remember fondly the Truckers/Diggers/Wings trilogy.

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>>51777339
OP,
try this series.
only a couple of space-battles, but the ground fighting is as detailed and Ringo and his style somehow makes the series flow FANTASTICALLY.

IT'S 2 AWFUL TASTES THAT TASTE AMAZING TOGETHER!

whats more, this universe is just barely exposited(expositioned?) enough to make for some fantastic campaign settings

>>51777339
if it's any consolation, she was SUPPOSED TO DIE in book 12 or 13...but some author writing a book in the same universe had her make an appearance AFTER that point so weber made a different character take the death...

>>51777860
I could never click with Moving Pictures myself...
not sure why though.

>>51777795
>Raising Steam is essentially one big book about how great trains are.
but trains ARE great.

>>51777339
I liked the first couple, and the spinoffs with actual good authors aren't too terrible, but iirc the last three published books have been literally the same events from different viewpoints.

Weber is even more out of ideas than grrm.

>>51777860
Equal Rites is about the only female wizard, being the 8th child of an 8th son and her staff.

Reaper man isn't really a one off though, death is the main character in more novels.
Although Reaper Man was the best yeah.
What can the harvest hope for if not the care of the reaper man?

>>51777919
>but trains ARE great.

If you want to read a couple hundred pages about how true that is, read Raising Steam.

I mean Moist doesn't even get to do shit until like halfway through, because it's busy talking about how cool trains are.

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>>51777901
>March series
You are definitely my nigger.

I got recommended a sci fi book by the internet like... 10 years ago?

Anyway, it was a book about this planet filled with all kinds of biospheres and enforced technology levels to keep things "Balanced. (The big strong species' didn't get to use advanced technology)

And the main character was this bad ass Han Solo esque woman.

But then the author started his fucking Magical Realm shit, and she was like transformed into something less than human by her captors and she was basically used as a portable cocksleeve by every single antagonist over and over again.
It was super fucking weird, and turned me off sci fi for years.

I believe it had "well of" in its name.
I just... couldn't deal with it.

>>51777997
indeed
a pity there will never be other series in that universe...I could get behind reading about the Satanists war on Armah or the Force Recon squads spying on the Greenpeace Commandos...

for that matter I'd play the SHIT out of that in a TTRPG.

>>51778079
That sounds pretty fucked up anon, more than Gor even

>>51777795
I thought lovecraftian trains were great. But I won't argue that raising steam and snuff had begun a descent.

>>51778106
Like it starts out pretty okay, like this woman is exploring the universe and being badass and everything, and then suddenly it's all rape every day while she talks about how she can't fight back because of her arm and leg stumps.

It was pretty mainstream too for weird sci fi, like to the point of being translated into a wide variety of languages. (I read a translation)

Star fire series.
Insurrection, the stars at war, shiva option, in death ground, etc.

>>51778140
I honestly think his depiction of "The things from the dungeon dimension" from Equal Rites beat Lovecraft in terms of horrifying descriptions of weird shit from beyond the stars. (Too bad they stopped mattering after that book)

He was good at weird.

>>51777607
Engineers hate this shit, because it's the tech is basically just handwave bullshit and any engineer can tell you that real engineering has nothing to do with technical knowledge.

>>51777704
I generally refuse to accept the existence of anything he wrote after about 2007-2009, because the Alzheimer's kicked in soon afterwards. And I heavily prefer his earlier stuff.

>>51778237
I'll believe it as soon as my engineer friends stop shiling it and the Expanse.

>>51777468
Apparently you can see the precise point where he switches from typing to dictation software, as the rambling ramps up tenfold.

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>>51777553
I remember something about needless descriptions of spaceship machinery

>>51778610
FUCK OFF.

SOME PEOPLE LIKE THAT KIND OF SHIT.
I did, years before I even started my engineering courses.

>>51777901
>>51777339

The stuff he's written in the same universe with Timothy Zahn is much better.

>Navy is being built
>Economy is just getting figured out
>Honor is not born yet

It's got everything Weber critics want, and it's still the Honorverse.

>>51777339
Some parts of Stephen Baxter's Xeelee Sequence have space battles, and also the complete time fuckery that happens when two intergalactic empires with access to time travel fight each other.

The author is absolutely terrible at writing memorable characters, though. The only one who I actually remember is Micheal Poole, and that's because of some more time-travel fuckery.

>>51778677
>The stuff he's written in the same universe with Timothy Zahn is much better.
MOTHERFUCKER
for a second I thought you meant the March series...

>>51777901
>March

Ahh, yes, the Series That Shall Not Be Named.

I need more Roger ripping through enemies on a toad-rhino-dino with the mentality of a Cape Buffalo.

>>51778725
>March series as written by Timothy Zahn

I'd read the FUCK outta that.

I got recommended Monster Hunter International by a friend. It started out really fun and action-packed, but the author liked to remind the reader about his political beliefs at every turn.
Every character is a southerner except the ones you're supposed to hate. The protagonist organization proudly displays confederate flags, and its leader hates Yankees. The secondary antagonist of the book is the Federal Government, represented by sociopathic thugs who are as evil as they are incompetent.

The main character is really obviously the author, a goatee'd, severely overweight, gun collector who is somehow physically fit and also the best at shooting things.

>>51778732
>Patty, best waifu in the thread...

I don't even need Roger to enjoy it. tell me a story, the backstory to Armand Pahner or Eva Kasutic. I'd sit and read those for DAMN sure

>>51778774
>Timothy Zahn
I actually am not familiar with him.
whats he written?
and since I am going on a long driving trip soon, is any of it on decent audio-book?

>>51778786
fucking hit submit too early

Anyway, the sheer level of "MUH GUNS" was too much for me. It would've been a great book if the author tried even slightly to keep his politics out of it.

>>51777582
>Sword of Truth

Hilarious, but come on, its all on good humor. Just imagine playing someone else like that.

>>51777339
..../tg/ has NEVER recommended honor Harrington.

>>51778891
/tg/ did, at one point, recommend Honor Harrington.
It was many long years ago and we've all rightfully forgotten it, but nevertheless it occurred.

>>51778891
objectively wrong

>..../tg/ has never SINCERELY recommended honor Harrington.
>fix'd

and I have a friend who LOVES THE SHIT out of the series because complicated politics give him a frighteningly massive boner...

>>51777399
You're the only anon in this thread who knows what's up.

>>51778891
/tg/ has made people play FATAL.
We used to have challenges of trying to make characters.

>>51778197
What was specific about their depiction there? Different from other instances of the dungeon dimensions?

I always liked "ocean trying to warm itself around a candle".

>>51777339
The economic stuff is shit too, they unironicly talk about non productive people draging down one empire while the other is realizing they should be using 100% automated production. There is no discution of the people this will put out of work.

>>51778818
>I actually am not familiar with him.
>whats he written?

This stylish suave motherfucker wrote the only books I consider to be canon for SW EU: THE THRAWN TRILOGY

EMPIRE RESURGIN'
PELLAEON ASSISTIN'
RUHK COMMANDIN'
CLONE CLONIN'
CAABOTH ARGUIN'
KATANA-FLEET STEALIN'

THRAWWWWWWWWWWWWN BITCHTITS, GO AND READ IT

>Heir to the Empire
>Dark Force Rising
>The Last Command

go and read now, you will not be disappointed

>>51778786

>The protagonist organization proudly displays confederate flags

Bullshit you read the book, Where and when does Earl or Ray show off a Confederate flag? Julie makes a point to tell the audience that the founder of MHI bought the land from old slavers and then fought the Klan.

>Everyone's a southerner.
By what exact definition? Holly's from Vegas. Owen's from Utah, originally. The SEAL who's one of the team leaders is from Colorado. Shacklefords are southern, yeah, but they're not the only people in the book.

>Hates Yankess

Granted, but Earl was only one generation removed from the Civil War. He fought in WWI. Also, I'm from out West, and I hate Yankees. People who only recognize you exist when you bring them artisan coffee or run their ski-slopes tend to get on your nerves. They're all filthy, vulgar sods who couldn't find their own asses with a map, a guide, and a flashlight.

It is no sin to hate a Yankee. They fucking suck as people.

>It self-insert-fic

Well, that I will grant you. Owen gets it entirely too easy in the first book. And the cheap way he gets Julie is first-novel-itis written all over it. The main antagonist is less of a threat than a nuisance, and the bully is hilariously one dimensional.

>Severely overweight gun collector who is somehow physically fit and also the best at shooting things

This is a guy who used to run a gun store because he likes guns. Yes, it is possible to be big and also fit. Strongfat is a thing.
I would not call Larry Correia overweight. He's just goddamn huge. Exactly the type of build I'd expect from someone who used to run cattle and do PMC work. I am overweight. Larry is just built like fucking Gregor Clegane.

>>51779119
>SW
star wars?

ewwwwww.....
as the son of an original super-fan who was named after one of the characters, I'd almost prefer sticking my dick in a blender.

>>51779151
your loss, anon, your loss.

>>51779151
Dude, the Thrawn Trilogy is not to be missed.

It's the sequel trilogy that should have happened, and it literally built the old EU.

>>51777494
Dumb, quick reads, but definitely enjoyable.

>>51779131
>Bullshit you read the book, Where and when does Earl or Ray show off a Confederate flag?
Must have misremembered. The book is the literary equivalent of a raised Ford F150 covered in second amendment bumper stickers and matching gadsden/ confederate flag window decals.

>I hate Yankees. People who only recognize you exist when you bring them artisan coffee or run their ski-slopes tend to get on your nerves. They're all filthy, vulgar sods who couldn't find their own asses with a map, a guide, and a flashlight.

And there it is. Wait a minute.
>sods
That's not an American word you goddamn limey.

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>>51778079

Midnight at the Well of Souls maybe?

>>51777704

The thing that bugged me about Snuff was how special he made the Goblins. It's kind of a running theme, first you wonder how humans even exist on Discworld when everyone around them is obviously so much better at just about everything. Second, despite being ham-handedly anti-bigotry it still managed to invoke white savior tropes left and right.

>>51778549
I was going to insult you, but I had a look at the publication dates, and there's so little from '07 onwards that it basically doesn't matter. Making Money is pretty cash though, so I'll fight you over '07.

>>51778994

He focused on them as being tragic as well as malevolent. These are misshapen, horrible things, which is not really a pleasant state of existence. I always really liked that line about the candle as a motivation for them as well.

>>51779411
Making Money is good, yes, but it's probably the last good thing he wrote.

But after that, the Alzheimer's started killing his brain piece-by-piece, and I'm sure that his writing skill was one of the earlier losses. Especially given that he lost the ability to type and had to dictate most of his later stories to a computer.

>>51779383
Sorry, Brit roommate for two years, things rub off. Brits do have a talent for invective.

I'm from Montana. And Yankees, and their cousins the Left-Coasters still suck and will always suck. They do nothing but move here and try to make the place they moved to into the same shit hole they left.

Or protest legitimate resource opportunities. Like mining and logging.

>>51777399
This.

Yep, we're all autistic down here.

>>51777582
I'm not familiar with the Sword of Truth series, what is bad about it?

>>51779957
It's the author's political tract.

>>51778079
I did some googling and I think you're talking about the "Well World" series. Most of the books have "Well of Souls" in the title.

>>51777339
This is pasta

>>51779119
I'm really excited, because in April we're getting a new novel by Zahn centered around Thrawn.

>>51777736
Look up Rich Man's War by Elliott Kay.

>>51779957
It constantly breaks the standard "show, don't tell" rule. It creates the feeling that it's really just the author talking at you.

>>51779971
What's his political tract?

>>51778680
>complete time fuckery that happens when two intergalactic empires with access to time travel fight each other

If they have time travel, why doesn't one just wipe the other out before they're a threat?

>>51780108
Objectivism

>>51780108
Objectivism.

>>51779490
I really don't blame Pratchett for his last works dipping in quality.
It's not like some authors where it's an ego trip, or ignoring the advice of their editors, or whatever. I virus was killing his brain, it is not a character flaw.

To go back to Honor Harrington, I used to kinda defend Weber, not as good but as alright if you liked very detailed british navel stories in Space. Partly because I sprinkled the Eric Flint books in there, and those are legitimately pretty fun.

But I read Weber's most recent book in the series, and I'm fucking done. The man has gone completely up his own ass. And he doesn't have a brain disease to blame it on.

>>51780206
What happened in it? I am the OP and stopped after five books.

>>51780122
Because Humans can only go back so far in time, the Xeelee are are basically as old as the universe, and the Xeelee see Humanity as closer to a pest infestation than an actual threat.

>>51780273
Nothing.
Or to put it in more detail, the series kinda splits into different paths covering various areas Galaxy things are happening at the same time. This book covers the same things that happened in the previous two books from two of those paths. Not the good one (the Eric Flint ones), and not Honor.
It instead focuses in great detail on minor characters. Not telling you anything new they do, at least for the 2nd string characters, just lots of little details.
It also develops takes the evil plot from the books, where they're setting up minor planets to fail and blame Manticore. And then shows 5 of those plots in great detail, 3 of which were already covered.
We know in general how those end, and in 2 cases specifically how they end, but now you get to read about it again. Only in the two cases that we know the specifics skipping the actually somewhat cool action scene.
Because that wasn't what we wanted, we wanted to tones of meetings and minutia of local politics. The colonial powers League are oppressive and bad and people don't like them, repeat 5 times over 300 pages.

Also, 50 pages of one of the 2nd strings character's wife trying to go out and meet him. These are some of the better part, because she's actually kinda insteresting and will matter after this book, maybe.

Then the last chapter actually advances the plot by shitting over what happened in the Eric Flint books and making no goddamn sense.

>>51780206
>It's not like some authors where it's an ego trip, or ignoring the advice of their editors, or whatever. I virus was killing his brain, it is not a character flaw.

No one is faulting him as a person for the dipping quality due to Alzheimers, people fault him for preachiness which was present since pretty far back. (The first one where I really started noticing it was Small Gods´)

>>51777553
Because they generally have autism

>>51780421
oh and 100+ pages of some people in the Solarian league government finally catching onto the giant evil conspiracy, which was openly announced a while ago but now some people start to believe.
This also happened in the previous book, but now there are twice as many characters so they can explain how the two groups they introduced before start talking to each other.
Not doing anything, just talking about it.


To add some small defense, one of the 5 planet revolt subplots was kinda alright by itself, it just doesn't matter on the large scale and is burried in the rest of the shit. Including another planet subplot that made me learn more Russian names than fucking Dostoyevsky.
He had to put a goddamn appendix in the back just for those names, and somehow didn't think that was a problem.

Also one of the planets was supposed to be psuedo Scotland, and the other was psuedo West Virginia, ie also many very scottish names. And having to remember which one which, when neither matter.

>>51780130
>>51780128
>>51780095

ITT: people without moral clarity who just want to throw bricks and call it literary criticism.

>>51780642
Moral clarity, aka living off government handouts while calling anyone else who takes welfare a worthless parasite.

>>51779119
MY LITERAL NIGGA. Best books of all SW

>>51780047
>>51781169
ooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH GET HYPE SON

I love Weber and his books (Why yes, I even like Heirs To Empire: Naval Warfare Edition and SUDDENLY VAMPIRES (Spoiler Alert: There's Vampires)), but he has one major issue: his specialty is history. And that means major wanking over minor details told as major details by another characters viewpoint.
Put him with Ringo or Flint, or any other author, and the issues go down. Even the infodumps make more contextual sense.
Flint is... Best with other people and he knows it. You wanna know what happened the last time Flint wrote something major by himself (that I can remember)? The prologue to Forward the Mage happened (highly suggested, I can still make my dad fall out of his chair just by saying "lustful herd of pachyderms" and it's been over 5 years since that book was read at the dinner table).
Ringo... Ringo doesn't have a wife. She's the cover for his love affair with a George Washington blow-up doll made from M16 rifles, M1A1 armor plates, and bald eagle feathers.
Ringo does not top. On the other hand, the second part of Ghost is a great intro to BDSM. Just watch out for his constant theme (IN EVERY FUCKING BOOK! JUST GIVE IT A FUCKING REST JOHN!) of "America shall rule forever, no matter how much bullshit I have to make up for their survival".
Make him work with Weber and you get awesome (see, The Series That Shall Not Be Named). Make him work with Flint and... Ringo knows some guys who knows some guys who have about 20 acres and a backhoe.

>>51781693
Eric Flint got solo credit on several of the 1632 series. Imhsome of those are pretty great.
Baltic war, 1633, Eastern front.

>>51781693
You're not wrong about any of this.

I enjoy Weber's writing more often than not, but the dude has absolutely no sense of pacing. In the very first Honor Harrington book, in the buildup to the climax (the chase before the final space battle) he drops a 10 page infodump about the in-universe history of FTL travel. Weber really is a historian first and novelist second, and he writes his novels exactly like you'd expect a historian to write them.

The Eric Flint Honor Harrington books are probably the best in the series, despite (or possibly because) Flint focuses on entirely different shit than Weber. What's more, he is actually capable of being funny, whereas Weber is only really capable of writing snark.

And yeah, Ringo is ridiculously over-the-top 'murrican. In his defense, he's an army vet and it's probably hard to find anyone in the armed services who isn't extremely America Uber Alles. His Posleen War series reads like someone who stumbled on a Humanity Fuck Yeah thread, thought to themselves "holy fuck this is the coolest shit ever" and then put The Star Spangled Banner on endless repeat and started writing.

>>51781918
1633 was with Weber, I think.
But basically anything he had a major hand in was great. I still love the other stuff (Canon law was awesome, and so is anything that Harry gets to play a good part in), but when Flint does more than edit and keep a vision, it's awesome. Still needs other people though, because then... Well... Foreward The Mage, Prologue.
Flint can pull what Weber is trying to pull: explore multiple interweaving plot threads that happen at the same time, over multiple books. The difference is, Flint knows how to make every single plot thread stand on its own, even when major decision points are influenced or decided by other events - because then it reads "Random Sensible Background Event Table: The Bad Rolls", and not "Master Traynyr is not aware of how big the universe is".
>>51782105
I could barely stand The Legacy of Aldana series thanks to that. Cally's war was okay, but that's because Ringo and I share many fetishes. The best part of the Posleen War was Daisy and the Reformed Nazi party of HUMANITY, FUCK YEAH! Shared magical realm is why I loved Paladin of Shadows, even though Mike is my least favorite character. Out of any of them.

>>51782347
Flint also knows how to do a quick recap, where Weber spends four chapters retelling shit.

>>51778093
>Armagh Satanism

My favorite fake religion. A plausible DIY heresy that spreads because of philosophy, not theology. Contrarian enough to be believably human.

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>>51777582
>First book was just bland and luls you into a false sense of safety.
The seemingly endless chapter of the main character being raped all day erry day by BDSM nuns, the hilariously awful romance subplot, or the awkward moral absolutism might have tipped you off that this wasn't going to go anywhere nice.

>>51783450
>The seemingly endless chapter of the main character being raped all day erry day by BDSM nuns
Man I read that as a kid that was young enough that I just thought it was a torture scene.

Then my mom read it after me and tried to talk with me about it and I had no clue what the fuck she was going on about.

Then the book mysteriously disappeared.

>>51777339
Read David Drake's RCN series, he writes great military sci fi

>>51783333
Armagh Satanism screams "we got drunk with Flint and shitposted on the Bar".
Despite not being a barfly, I'm 99% sure those three have drunkenly shitposted on the Bar a minimum of once.

>>51778564
Words of an engineer.

It's shit.

It's horrid shit.

I've forced myself through some godawful shit before on the expense of a favor, but I couldn't get through this shit.

Slap your "engineer" friends who probably also like SAO and tell them to unfuck themselves.

Most of /tg/'s suggestions are shit but they did recommend to me the Deed of Paksenarrion as required Paladin reading and I still re-read it every few years. I think I've read the series five times now.

>>51783880
Yes.

Also that rape-torture scene at the end that just kind of makes you feel bad afterwards.

>>51783891
Honestly it all went so quickly I never really felt much about it other than sad for the poor random girl that got murdered. I felt worse about Paks's struggle to get back on her feet after getting chucked into not!commorragh

>>51780206
>Brain virus is not a character flaw
I think it's worth a few points, at least. It's a serious flaw, unlike colour blindness.

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>>51777339
>Ctrl+F
>Vatta
>Trading in Danger
>0 results

I'm disappointed in you, /tg/.

The Vatta's War series is great hard sci-fi right up the alley of what OP wanted with a far less annoying main character.

>>51777627
At the end Terry was dictating his books
I just assumed the Tumblr Goblin parts were written by his daughter to extend the page count and skipped them

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>>51783976
>Elizabeth Moon

>>51777339
It has the epic polygamous semi-lesbian marriage that is the staple of any Mary Sue-story.

>she is so good looking and perfect she can have TWO partners - Legally!

>>51784003
This.

Although her recent work sucks balls. Fuck, I thought I hated elves last time around.

>>51783547
...yeah, but is that really so bad?

I mean, it's a reasonably sound core concept..

>>51777901

The March series was pretty good, andt the epilogue explicitly says Roger's adventure made him a barely-functional tyrant who shot first and asked questions never, only held in check by his wife. Centuries later, his reputation is shit and historians consider him to be a murderous psycho.

I keep hearing there's going to be a fifth book, but it hasn't materialized yet.

>>51784125
in my eyes, it doesn't warrant a book 5

it warrants a Series 2 Book 1 Greenpeace Boogaloo

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>POS
>MC calls parents to say i'm going to shag your daughters BDSM style.
>Moms fine with that.
>Oh John Ringo no.

>>51777947
>Equal Rites is about the only female wizard, being the 8th child of an 8th son and her staff.

THAT was what that book was called. I could not remember it, and I was 90% certain it wasn't Sorcery, since that's the book where Rincewind accosts a Sorceror with a Half-Brick in a Sock.

The best parts of Reaper Man for me was when Terry started dicking about with fonts and had a scythe literally start cutting words in the book up, and the part where Death sees his replacement riding a skeletal horse, and then notices the crown and loses his temper.

>>51777339
>/tg/ recommends Honor Harrington
I'm sure others will already have said it, but it needs repeating; you got mercilessly trolled.

When you get a recommendation, always vet it first.
Incidentally, free the darkness is a brilliant book, that won't make you want to kill yourself and anyone who claimed it was good against your better judgement.

>>51777339
I don't know why, but every time I see that pic, I think she isn't wearing pants.

>>51783547

Armagh Satanism seeks less like an actual religion and more like tongue-in-cheek "fuck you" that they keep up purely out of spite and as an in-joke.

>>51784049

Yeah, that was about the point I started losing interest. I'm a historian myself, so I absolutely love the infodumps, the space combat is well thought out (and consistent with the established rules/technology), and the politics and historical in-jokes/references (Rob S. Pierre? Hilarious.) are endlessly fascinating... but dammit, Honor's life is just so fucking PERFECT that it loses my immersion in the story.

>>51779131
Slightly OT, but having worked in Royal Mail for over 5 years, I have seen this fat-fit-fast guy in reality. Overweight guy with a massive belly was the fastest postman in the office....and has been at it for 20 years.

On topic, no mention of Lisanne Norman?

>>51778786
I found that it had an entertaining start, dipped very hard just after, where the Self Insert issues become REALLY obvious, then it starts getting better when the main character gets the shit beaten out of him by Frankenstein's monster .
After that, he starts getting more of the humble pie.
That said, the issues with the rabid anti government slant are an issue with how invasive they are, but at least the author seemed to recognise it in later books. Depends how much you can stomach t really, and I don't blame someone who found it too much.

The gun parts I just found hilarious; I can't not enjoy something so ridiculously OTT, especially when it brings literal Nazi Vampires to exasperation

>>51784150

This. I wanna hear more about the psychotic environmentalist nutjobs who "liberate" planets, enslave the survivors, and starve them to death while forcing them to dig up every single plant on the planet by hand. And how Roger kicks the shit out of them. Because you know Roger ain't gonna fuck around with anyone he considers an enemy at this point, his Plan A consists of scorched earth.

>>51784235
Lesbian MCs in sci-fi are usually written horribly too because they're portrayed as porn fantasy lesbians and not actual ones.

I agree with you completely though, the setting is great, but the main character is just a terrible Mary Sue that makes it hard to follow and cheer for.

>>51777736
Don't listen to him, the Forever War devolves into pure degeneracy pretty quickly.

>>51777582
Man, I read some of those books before I even started going there. I liked some parts (part of the magic sistem and the monsters were cool) but the rest was a trainwreck.

>>51784290
I hope you're not going to sperg out over the gay issues, which were there primarily to highlight the feelings of isolation and being left behind

>>51777339
What about this formula make for hundreds of guaranteed replies?

>>51784235
Her only flaw was feeling bad about things she did better than everybody else.
Really a shame, though. The HHUniverse can be quite interesting, if Admiral Sue isn't around...

>>51784283
Well, at least Weber spared us from that. xD

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>>51780206
>virus
Come on lad.

>>51777523
>it happened with Tolkien
Hobbit and LotR were the only works he meant to publish, the rest is shit he was always working on for fun so I don't see why he'd ever be expected to finish.
Add Toady One to your list.

>>51784283
No one likes real lesbians, not even real lesbians.

>>51784363
Don't humor that idiot.

>>51777736
>The Forever War is a good book
One of the major plot points is that everyone on Earth decides to be gay. The main premise makes absolutely no sense. Why would the government decide to only draft geniuses as infantry in a space war? If the point was because they would be the most valuable soldiers then why do they then throw their lives away in training exercises like it's nothing? Oh yeah, let's not forget about how in boot camp all females were required, by law, to have sex with any male who wanted it.

That book has ZERO redeeming qualities.

>>51784049
David often forgets to mention background details. Honor is the first poly marriage shown off Grayson, despite the text itself saying that it's an option available to anybody.
For example (of Weber forgetting details), did ou know that Sarnow was gay? I didn't, until someone showed me the forum post where David said it. He couldn't even put in a detail of there being a picture of Sarnow's husband on his desk!
>>51784063
Anything that I describe the probable orgins of as "we got drunk with Eric Flint and shitposted to the Bar" is bound to be awesome. Flint gets amazing off-the wall background details and ideas and is not afraid to show them (see my bitching about David not putting background details in the text)
>>51784408
Honor is about as 2d as Follet: Her character is built on the following:
>Duty
>Angsting about her duty
>Angsting about how her personal life "interferes" with her duty
Come on Honor! Stephanie Harrington is a better character than you, and she's written to be a stereotypical teenage adventure girl! That the readers can actually empathize with!
>>51784426
To be honest, I would totally read a book series about Countess Emily Alexander-Harrington and Allison Harrington going on adventures in knitting, medical science, and beating up muggers with medical equipment. Just Honor's wife and mother, getting shit done.
>>51784165
Pretty sure that entire conversation was based on actual conversation Ringo had. Convention people are weird (said the person who helps staff a few cons).
>>51784125
I don't want a fifth book. I want Roger's mother fucking up everybody.

>>51784966
See, this is why sci-fi has to "justify" everything, it's for these fucking autists. You can't just write an allegory anymore. "Why is Jesus a lion," "farmyard animals don't have the organization to overthrow their master," screeches the maladapted one as he's thrust by literature to the ghetto they created around anything featuring space as a setting.

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>>51777704
I can't be the only one who really enjoyed Night Watch, right?

>>51777582
Please give me more /tg/ recs. /co/ isn't making a lot of sotrytimes of pain anymore, I need a fix.

>>51777901
>John Ringo.
Wait, he's a real author? I thought Posleen war was self-published.

>>51784966
Advanced equiment and expedition size restrictions ?
If the next mars mission had soldiers, those wouldn't be dumb marines.

>>51779381
What makes me laugh the most: I have no idea how any of the characters does look like. I've read whole Lost Fleet and the first book of Beyond Frontier and we got hair colour of one character and only because they were green.

>>51778959
Oh yeah. Can we do that again some time?

>>51777553
Engineers inherently want to know how something works. If something cannot be explained then an explanation must be sought out and applied. So a lot of us find it quite satisfying when a book grounds it's technology with science, even if half of it is ooga booga pseudo-science.

That being said, tech porn does not, on it's own, make a good story. In the same way that expansive lore doesn't make a good story. If your characters are shit then there's no saving it.

>>51784999
>Waaah, waaah! You shouldn't be allowed to call out science fiction stories for being stupid or else you're autistic

>>51785068
if they're supposed to be the best of the best then why do they a) not use volunteers. Volunteers are going to be more dedicated and loyal b) kill off half of the recruits. These are supposed to be such a precious resource c) force all these ultra qualified women who are literal geniuses and have survived extremely brutal basic training to act like 2-but whores?

>>51784363
Gay issues? You mean the fact that the entire population of earth decides to be gay? Mocking that for being a fucking stupid plot point is not exactly sperging out.

>>51777339
You fell for the trap: You listened to /tg/ recomending books.
Get some Van Voght to clean your palate and be more careful next time.

>>51785173
Sperging out confirmed
Enjoy the last (you)

>>51785173
>Gay issues? You mean the fact that the entire population of earth decides to be gay? Mocking that for being a fucking stupid plot point is not exactly sperging out.
It's only in the last thousand years or so that almost all the societies on Earth agreed that pederasty wasn't such a cool thing.

>>51784527
Well the free speech brigade arrived.
See You space cowboys this was a good thread as long as it lasted.

>>51785040
It was allright. Competently written, but not exceptional.

>>51785040
Night Watch is great - I'd say it's a contender for his best, even.

>>51783475
Your mom is good at her job

>>51785040
My absolute favourite, especially when you take it as a two parter with thief of time.

>>51777795
My favourite was Soul Music. What can I say, I'm just a sucker for rock music references in fantasy/rock and roll as a supernatural force.

The Tiffany Aching books up until Shepherd's Crown were a favourite for me as well, mostly because when I was a kid on a family holiday, my dad would stick on the audiobook of Wee Free Men when we were driving anywhere.

>>51784521
Thus all the domestic abuse.

>>51785189
>he posted literally a dozen sentences. He must be autistic

Good work, detective dipshit

>>51785195
That's not the same thing at all. Even in the places where pederasty was commonplace men still fucked women. In the Forever War homosexuality becomes so fashionable that Mandela is literally the last straight person on earth.

>>51785311
>Shepherd's Crown
I liked it, but it works best in context of it being the last thing he wrote and finished by his daughter

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>>51785384

>>51785384
>literally the last straight person on earth
Want to know how I know you didn't read the book?

>>51785384
He's neither the last straight person, nor on earth.

>>51783475
Go home right now or some time soon and thank your mother. If your childish interest in this shit series died with the loss of that book then you owe her a lot.

>>51779388
>>51780036
Is it really as randomly fucked up and Magical Realmy after a certain point as it sounds?

>>51785068
>Please give me more /tg/ recs.


Go for the Thomas Covenant books. You'll either love them, or you'll hate them and have a great time yelling about them on /tg/

>>51784521
Porn lesbians are such a cliche that it makes me cringe every time it happens rather than get erect. For some reason male gays are always portrayed better and as characters you can care for rather who just happen to be gay rather than caricatures like lesbians often tend to be written as.

>>51777339
M O T E I N G O D ' S E Y E
O
T
E

I
N

G
O
D'
S

E
Y
E

>>51785885
>Midnight at the Well of Souls
Yup. Like, holy shit fenoxo doesn't como close with Corruption of Champions, he only states the sex more.

>>51780128
>>51780130
Objectivism is laughable, how can people still have a hardon for that bitch Rand?

>>51786112
>#18 in 1978 Locus Poll Award for Best Sci-Fi
There's actually an RPG for the Well of Souls setting, too.

>>51786135
The best part is that the bad guy literally bans fire.
That's how deep the strawman goes

>>51785069
Only read the first book myself, but I noticed that as well. So I choose to believe that every character looks like the high school anime stereotype they most act like. For example, the snarky captain who always hangs around with Jack after strategy briefings has 80s rock hair and wears his uniform jacket open while leaning on things. And the nervous but eager captain of the flagship with whom Jack has inexplicable sexual tension is about 5'2" and has a pony tail which is severely past regulation length.

This approach breaks down a bit with Jack himself though, since he very swiftly goes from Gormless Gary to Commander Competence. I imagine the crew were all taken aback when he went from looking like Marty McFly to Shiro from the Voltron reboot.

>>51785040
ALL THE LITTLE ANGELS RISE UP, RISE UP.
ALL THE LITTLE ANGELS RISE UP HIGH.

>>51780421
>>51780508
As someone who is still reading the series and the donor series, my biggest issues with this last book (and there were a lot of them) were a) chronologically, this book was set before the most recent book in all three series b) the spin-off series did the exact same book, just better, making the book completely worthless

>>51781693
>Ringo does not top. On the other hand, the second part of Ghost is a great intro to BDSM
And here I was thinking I was the only motherfucker on the planet that read the keldara series

>>51786629
Isn't that full of child rape?

>>51786813
And justifications for statutory rape, yes. And vague caricatures of Arabs

>>51786908
It's the justifications that make this shit 10 times worse.
Like how Goodkind's Self Insert massacres pacifists, and the apologists claim it was the only way, ignoring the fact that Goodkind specifically set the scene up specifically so the protagonist could kill them all, and the fact that he feels absolutely no regret in doing so.

>>51787013
It really is. The character, who has already confessed to having a thing for under age girls and is law unto himself in his little section of Georgia, who really wants a harem, needs to be tralked into how is culturally acceptable to have a harem of underages girls in "this part of the world" and how he'll yet then better than their own families. The fact that it is some of the potential harem girls doing the justification really doesn't help things

>>51783450
Reading that book at 12 or so was a real eye-opener.

>>51786112
>>51785885
>>51785885
>>51779388
>>51778079
>and she was like transformed into something less than human by her captors and she was basically used as a portable cocksleeve by every single antagonist over and over again.
So, uh, is this worth checking out?

F-for the plot, of course.

>>51786244
>>51785069
It took me like... 2 or 3 readings of the series before I decided what everybody looked like. For some reason I thought the Flagship captain was black, but everybody having vaguely east European names made me change that. I also thought of John's buddy captain as a middle aged dude who looked kinda like the Captains of the Starships in Starcraft, but then I remembered that John specifically comments on how YOUNG everyone is.

So I have his newest book on pre-order...

>>51786244
>>51787310

That's the shit I am talking about. I myself imagined the flaghsip captain as blondhaired Tania from Red Alert, Bro-captain as older dude in style of old admirals (missed the age mention) and Politician Side-girl like Kaileena. The whole book should be treated more like a transcript than a novel all things considered.

And Jack? Standard, unremarkable officer with black hair. Or maybe Chris Evans? That would fit.

But now I am going to read them again like if it was an anime.

>>51787771
>>51787310
>>51785069

But I bet you could all tell me what a null field, a kick or a syndic is.


The midway spinoff is my favourite

>>51777339
Yeah you're SOL, really. BUT WAIT THERE'S A NEW CHALLENGER!

https://www.amazon.com/Into-Dark-Alexis-Carew-Sutherland/dp/149922320X/

Or, you know, Larry Niven.

If you just want the space economics: https://www.amazon.com/Quarter-Share-Traders-Golden-Clipper-ebook/dp/B00AMO7VM4/

(I, too, found Honor Harrington unreadable.)

>>51786081

On one hand, I agree that that is a good book. On the other hand, I can't remember much in the way of space battles in it.

On the gripping hand, the Moties might be one of the coolest alien concepts I've encountered in SF

>>51785040
I couldn't make it through the book. Granted I was reading the original Russian and Russian is a boring as fuck language. It just didn't pop.

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>>51787940
not that night watch.This one.

That said, I quite enjoyed the first three of the russian books. Not so keen on the next two, and I've not got sixth watch yet.

>>51787253
Actually yes.

Even if transformation fetishes and feisty Asian girls aren't your thing there is some genuinely interesting world building to be had. Both the well world itself and the wider universe have potential as space adventure/exploration setting.

I'd say at least give the first book a go

>>51787973
Oh, I never made it through all of Pratchett's books. The prose is wonderful but the point elusive.

>>51777339
why did you post it for 3rd time

>>51787801
Any news about the five volume? It was getting very interesting when it ended.

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>>51777339
I remember reading this exact OP about a month ago.

>>51788134
if copypasta is used as an excuse to talk about science fiction books, I don't mind it

>>51788159
>Be me
>Vaguely fond of Weber's work but understand his flaws
>Set out to write a book without those flaws
>70,000 words in
>Monarchist-socialists fighting against a libertarian nation, main characters are the monarchist country's princess and her junior officer girlfriend
>Technology is dieselpunkish 1930s in an alternate world with tesla death rays and skyships
D-did I do good, /tg/?

>>51788187

Depends on if you're exceeding his strengths.

If it's dieselpunk with Telsa grade energy emitters then there's going to be some shenanigans with who controls the fuel.

Best of luck and here's hoping the characters are interesting enough to support interest in the world you've built around them.

>>51788187
>Monarchist-socialists
How is that even a thing?

>>51788187
Is there any punk in your dieselpunk?

>>51788235
I actually generally avoid the term dieselpunk because not only is there no punk, there's also no diesel. But it is handy for giving people a rough idea of the aesthetic without dumping all my art.

>>51788230
The monarch considers it her responsibility to care for all her subjects, and requires the rest of the aristocracy to do the same.

>>51788220
Yeah, there's a lot of fighting over control of power crystal sources later on, though at present the libertarians are the only ones who have a really good source for them.

>>51788230
>>Monarchist-socialistsHow is that even a thing?
Monarchist: Believes people are dumb and easily duped and that a ruler with enlightened selfinterest will best look after her people.
Socialist: Decries perceived injustices of non-socialist systems and believes people will do work regardless of perceived reward because it's ? The right thing to do to not leech? Required to maintain an ego? IDK?

>>51788255
>Dumping art.
So you have art. Show it slut.

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>>51788282
Commencing dump.

Kiserre's Warsuit Mk II, the first operational mecha.

>>51788312
>literally Bioshock

Gross.

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>>51788321
Early Kiserran mechs are adapted from the deep sea diving suits used to harvest power crystals from the ocean floor

Astaria's Model 181 "Vanguard", on the other hand, is a later model benefiting from a few years of development

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>>51788347
While Shoshkepal's M79 "Herald Of Oblivion" is designed around their electrical power transmission technology. With no need to carry a power source of its own, it can devote mass to a Teleforce Beam

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>>51788372
The same technology was earlier mounted aboard ships. This is a picture of the first use of them in combat, the Astarian battleship HMS Sword Of The Throne destroying the Kiserran heavy cruiser KFS Liberty

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>>51788394
Our actual focus in the story is Princess Arminia(left) and Lieutenant Markha Rentavi, shown here taking a brief respite from the war to enjoy each other.

From here on out it's just character art and the map. Should I keep at it?

>>51788312
>>51788347
>>51788372
How big are those guys?

>>51780453
Jingo really took it too far and he never quite stepped back from that

>>51788468
4-6 meters tall. There's a human nestled entirely within the torso.

>>51784363
>gay issues
I'd be perfectly fine with it if it was done well. Instead it's just degeneracy for its own sake after random survival on erth scenes and followed by caveman alien slaughtering scenes. Or whatever it was that happened.

>>51779757
Logging is fine when loggers don't touch old growth and actually stick to environmental standards. The companies that do this stuff always cheat.

Mining things like coal is largely on the way out due to that resource being obsolete as a source of energy. We can use recycling to get iron and plenty of other resources and frankly should. Rare Earth Metals are the new hotness in terms of resources.

I'm all for employing people but failing to recognize the damage resource extracextractionis stupid.

>>51778237
>any engineer can tell you that real engineering has nothing to do with technical knowledge.


That's the truth.

My neighbor rewired the entire sound system in his car because the new deck was 50w and the old one was 25w with enough finesse that it still looks stock. Everyone who hears of it thinks he's an engineer or a engineering student simply because he understand basic electronic principles. Jokes on them, he's an English teacher.

>>51788230
Benevolent dictatorship is not diametrically opposed to socialism, but is to anarchism.

Do you even politics?

>>51778237
Engineering is basically critical thinking as applied to checklists.

>>51788312
>>51788347

>First one is just deep diving version of a titan from titanfall
>Next one is some shitty knight walker with a damn hammer and shield and for some reason and katyusha launcher

Get a better artist and work on the aesthetic.

This has promise but needs more fleshing out.

>>51788613
>Engineering is ...
... anything a professional engineer does in the course of his profession.

>>51788640
Critical thinking as applied to a checklist is what a significant majority of engineers do.

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>>51788640
>>51788613
There are four different types of engineers, you fucks. Picrelated.
Personally, I'm lower-left type, and I'm not proud of it.

t. professional engineer

>>51788623
There's plenty of fleshing out, like an explanation for why the Vanguard goes mainly melee, that I don't exactly have time to include in a 4chan post. Keep an eye out for the book, it'll all be explained there.

>>51788710
I can tell you what your checklist is from that image.

If you want.

You probably don't.

Engineers hate it when they realize they've been caged.

(I was the demo guy too.)

>>51788710
> Personally, I'm lower-left type
Upper right, fite me.

>>51788558
>the companies that do this stuff always cheat
Wrong; the smart companies treat Forestry like crops with a fifty-year gap between starting growth and harvesting time. Plots of forested land are essentially long-term investments, so you want it to keep on producing so that you can rely on the income from it. It's landowners who are just looking to make some money off land they inherited and aren't concerned with long-term operation that are the problem.

>>51788710
I did my level best to be upper left, but this constantly annoyed the managers who I think were really looking for lower left guys like you whose work was more visable and easily charged to the clients.

>Management didn't like it when I fixed the clients heating system by twiddling valves for half an hour rather than ripping it out and replacing it with new premium stuff.

>>51788767
>>51788710
you're both lying, all engineers are bottom right

>>51788810
I'm so sorry that all you've ever met are charlatans or that you're too dense to know the difference.

>>51784966
>everyone on earth decides to be gay

this is wrong and you're retarded for spouting shit off it's very clearly explained in the book that the government started really pushing homosexuality as a means of population control. Remember that this book was written in the fucking 70's when nobody really knew how any of that shit worked and the whole thing was just an allegory for returning Nam vets who saw a totally different country than the one they left. To them it sure fucking looked like everyone was fags after the hippie movement swept the US. It sure felt like an unwinnable war where they were constantly getting shipped out to bumfuck nowhere to piss away their lives.

The other posters are right. You ARE autistic.

>>51788753
>>51788796
Eh, I just don't give a fuck as long as the thing is fixed, and I won't have to fix it for a long time.
I'd want to be an upper-left type, but I live in a shithole and often don't have the necessary tools to manage the upper-left approach, so lower-left for me it is.

>>51777582
The first book or three weren't actually that bad. I mean, they were pretty mediocre but it was still a fantasy story with moralizing overtones (which isn't necessarily a bad thing because at its heart fantasy is just a way to get rid of the presumed complications of real life and explore questions of morality in a setting with only the arbitrary amount of complexity that's required to make the author's point). And then at some point he just forgot about the setting entirely and went straight from author to evangelist of the church of Rand in nothing flat.

>>51788372
>giant robot with khopesh, railgun, and BEAMU
boner

>>51788497
Nice,that's the size I like my mechs too. The only I get my doubts is the last one, with the whole egyptian statue in the torso.

>>51788941
Shoshkepal's mech pilots are drawn from the Immortals, an order of warriors who give up their soul in this world to the god of death in exchange for power in the next world, so religious iconography prevails through Shoshkepal's mech program.

>>51788372
Wait, so if you can magically transmit energy to the robot to power the gun, why not transmit that energy straight to the target and blow it up?

>>51789010
Because the target isn't carrying the antenna that converts the transmission back into energy; without that antenna, it just passes through solid matter.

>>51788583
Benevolent dictatorship is generally not a real thing. There have been a handful of examples in human history, but the vast majority of dictatorships turn out as both oppressive and nasty places to live because that is what a dictatorship's incentive structure encourages.

>>51789076
>Benevolent dictatorship is generally not a real thing.
Hence it's a FANTASY novel.

>>51789076
whew

>>51777901
I really enjoyed those books. I'd hesitate to recommend them to anyone, but I really liked them.

>>51789108
My point is that trying to place it with or opposed to something else politically doesn't make any sense. It isn't allied with or opposed to anything because it isn't really a political system in the first place. It's more just a stroke of luck than actual ideology.

>>51789057
So why haven't you made guns that shoot antennas?

>>51789108
>>51789076
>>51789235
Since it was my worldbuilding that started this discussion I feel like I should chip in the actual subject.

Astaria is one of four or five monarchies left in the world, and it does have a participating democracy, with what's essentially a house of commons and house of lords, but the lords are actually elected, with a limited number of seats available compared to the number of landed aristocrats.The monarch has a significant amount of power, but for the most part, the current Queen rarely breaks out the iron fist; she spends most of her focus on international politics while parliament and the ministers handle the actual job of running the country.

Even at this level, Astaria is considered one of the more backwards countries in the world, with most people thinking it gives way too much power to its monarch, and they'll fall apart as soon as they have a bad one. A big focus of the book is the crown princess learning to not be awful at being a Queen.

>>51789248
I'll admit I just hadn't thought of that idea. My first thought is that they're probably too fragile for that to be anything resembling practical.

>>51789076
Except that's not actually true. It's bureaucracy that shits everything up, and no government is safe from that.

>>51789076
Benevolent dictatorships do exist, or at least they did back before countries became more-or-less established like they are today.
The problem is, they always die when the benevolent dictator dies; all the heirs/officials who take up the reigns either abuse the power or tear the whole thing apart with infighting.
In short, it's not a matter of them not existing, it's just that they're unsustainable by nature of being directly tied to the dictator.

>>51789300
A literal antena is perhaps too crass, but shooting "simpathy" nodes than can conect the target to a damaging current doesn't sound that bad.

>>51786629
You probably thought you were the only motherfucker that stopped fapping after the first book.
You probably were, I was 16 when I got my hands on the series.
>>51786908
>>51787013
>>51787088
Mike at least has that interesting struggle with "I like this kink, but IT'S FUCKING WRONG!", and the fact that all the other characters push him into accepting it is a part of the horror that is never touched on. There are two characters that recognize this: Mike and Katya. Katya is the best character there (and Ringo has basically confirmed that), and the Keldara? Oh, you thought you've seen super special snowflake OC Donut Steel?
THose fucking Keldara are descended from the VARANGIAN GUARD! What the fuck, RIngo?! I know you decided the book would give up on being realistic and - eh, I forgive you for that.
Just promise me a good end Ringo.
Promise me a good end where young Katya wakes up, still in the van, and realizes, she doesn't need to wait for that kind of badass to come and protect her. She can be that badass, and protect herself and the people around her.
And show us the 11 year old Katya killing slavers.
THen you can give us MIke, in the wheel well of a plane, dying with a smile, because hopefully someone less fucked up than him can be a Paladin of Shadows.
You know you want to Ringo.I know you do.
YOUR OWN FUCKING CHARACTER KNOWS IT!

>>51789384
Which is why we need an immortal benevolent dictator, like an AI.
Haha, jokes on you, I believe that humanity should be left to its own devices, consequences be damned, because that's what defines it.

>>51789384
>all the heirs/officials who take up the reigns either abuse the power or tear the whole thing apart with infighting.
Yeah, Rome sure was fucked after Augustus used his powers to fuck everything up.

>>51789395
Well, they've already got lightning cannons. I guess I could explain them through this rather than just handwaves.

>>51778171
The problem with Starfire in general is you can hardly go one fucking page, either in the rule books or the fiction, without the author telling you how much better the humans are than the Orions. Seriously, I have the rulebooks, and you can't even go through the ship descriptions without him telling you every other page how much better the Terran tech and economy is than the tabbies's, And when worlds are devastated, it's always little human colonies, never a Core World, while the Tabbies lost billions in ISW 3 and 4. Not to mention virtually every battle in ISW1 was a one sided slaughter in favor of our human heroes. It's tiresome.

>>51789422
iirc he's on record saying he wanted to write Mike dying in that plane, but thinks the fans would lynch him.

>>51787088
>>51787013
>>51786908
>>51786813
>>51786629
To be fair, Ringo wrote it entirely out of his Id. No editing, no planning, just hammering away at the keyboard to get it out of his mind so he could get back to writing actual novels. He even put it up for free on his blog.

And then it turned out there were people actually willing to buy his absolute trash, so he took it off the blog and got it published. To this day, he knows its garbage, but people are still willing to buy them. He even linked a long scathing review of the books, and pointed out how these were "the most accurate review of the books ever"

>>51789472
SATHAN SD-class SD AM(2) 26 XO racks 130 Hull TL 11
[3] S1x60Acx57H(BbS)H(IIII)(IIII)(IIII)(IIII)Dxzx4WcDxzWcWcDxzQWcXrMgDxzDxzMgDxzMgDxzMgDxzQ(Mi2)DxzZ2?DxzLhQ(IIII) [5/2]
130 RCP; 20 MCP • Trg:11 Atk +2 Def -3 • PV = 287 Cost = 4780 / 717
169 HTK S1x60 Acx57 Dxzx13 Wcx4 Mgx4
NOTES: Unlike the TFN, the KON had not assaulted a heavily defended WP since ISW3. Despite a careful study of the TFN's operations
against Thebes, the Orions' actual experience against modern defenses remained purely theoretical, and the KON was unaware of the TFN's
preliminary R&D on the warp-capable AMBAMP. Without such technology in the offing, the Khan's design bureau saw no option but to produce
an updated version of the TFN's Theban War Finsteraarhorn-class minesweepers in the form of the Sathans. They were seen as pure "fortressbreakers,"
not true combatants, so the KON saw no reason to give them ECM3 and used the hull volume for additional point defense.The lack of
cloaking ability degraded their usefulness in the deep-space screening role, but a Sathan (like a Finsteraahorn or China Sea-class BB) was a
fearsome opponent for any fighter strikegroup . . . or Arachnid gunboat squadron. In accordance with the KON tactical philosophy which divided
WP assaults into two phases (first, the break-in, which was a battle-line responsibility, followed, second, by exploitation, which was a carrier
responsibility), the pre-war KON built more Sathans than it did of any other SD type.

Case in point. The Orions never seem to make tech leaps ahead of the Terrans or if they do they use them wrong and die horribly while the Terrans instantly pick up new tech and use it perfectly, at least in ISW 1 and 2.

>>51789323

You literally cannot have an advanced society, particularly an empire, without bureaucrats though. Not to say bureaucracy is wonderful. Pretty much everyone hates it. But without the bureaucrat, particularly the mid-level sort, the kind of plodding unimaginative freak who's job is the rules and genuinely believes that everyone following the rules is more important than say, how much they can get in bribe money, or at the very least who understands that if you're going to be corrupt you damn well better deliver the goods at the end of the day, you're going to find it very very hard to do anything at all no matter what form government you have.

>>51789433

Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, short civil war.

That's a pretty consistent downward slope of ability. That's the basic problem with an authoritarian system. It's kind of hard to get more than 2 or 3 good leaders leaders out of a single bloodline. Now if you have a great leader setting the whole thing up, an Augustus, or a Darius, or a Taizong, your authoritarian system can roll along quite happily with fair to middling leaders until you hit a crisis and everything falls apart.

>>51789323
bureaucracy gets a bad name, but people actually have a pretty high opinion of the largest bureaucracies in the USA at least.

They just don't think of them as bureaucracies.

The biggest are the army, navy, airforce... after that is the post office. Pretty massive drop in size there, and another massive drop till you get to the next largest.

>>51789323
Bureaucracy is literally how any government that's too big for one guy to run works. Like, how do you think the President knows what's going on? He isn't personally looking at every single report produced by the US government, he's got lower level bureaucrats to sort out less important info and feed him the important stuff. Bureaucracy is a system where data goes in, is sorted and filtered, and the relevant trends are released to policy-makers/executives.

>>51783628
Oh do tell, I wanna burst some family bubbles as they are hard into I despite it feeling like game of thrones in space

>>51789606
You should listen to Patrick Wyman's Fall of Rome podcast. The whole thing is great, but there's an episode in particular near the end where he talks about the rise of the imperial bureaucracy that's especially relevant to the discussion.

For most of its existence, the Roman empire handled tax collecting by sending a dude to each town or village, asking for whoever was in charge, and then telling him how much the town owed in taxes and to pay it up nice and quicklike. Piss off Rome by shorting them on taxes and you get replaced. Piss off the people by skimming too much of their taxes and you get replaced. Get the taxes from the people, pay off Rome, spend a lot on festivals to remind everyone how awesome a dude you are, and keep just enough to be incredibly wealthy, and you're living large. Likewise, other would-be politicians spend assloads of their own money on public favor, so they can be the guy that gets to skim off everyone's taxes. Now you've got a system where rich people are fighting each other for the chance to throw money at poor people, and everyone stays happy.

This system fell apart at the end as city officials began to be appointed by Rome. These officials typically weren't from the cities they administered, and didn't feel the need to appease the people because they had already earned their position. This creates a separate bureaucratic class and undermines the ideals of civic service and power through popular opinion that the empire was built on at its very foundation.

And that's how you end up with a situation like the US, where colonoscopies have a higher approval rating than Congress and everyone selects presidential candidates based on who they hate less.

>>51789219
>I'd hesitate to recommend them to anyone
DO IT FAGGOT. DON'T HOARD THE GOOD SHIT...

>>51789836
And then a bunch more guys, then Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius. Commodus was a mistake, sure, but he didn't destroy the empire the same way Caligula didn't.

>>51789882
Everyone hates all of those, especially the people who actually have to deal with the bureaucratic upper crust. Part of it is it's impossible to get promoted that high if you're capable of doing something useful.

>>51790047

I think the Roman practice of tax farming may not have been as pleasant or effective as you're mentioning. And it was reformed by Augustus, which is 4 centuries before Rome collapsed.

However, interpretations of history aside; That's a perspective I hadn't considered. For me a bureaucrat is, by definition, not appointed by a politician and meant not to really interact with the political system. They're the people who provide continuity of government, and in order to do that, the overriding principle is they don't express an opinion on politics. I'm Canadian though, and I hadn't considered places without the tradition (however imperfect and blatantly ignored by the unions) of a non-partisan civil service might see the issue.

>>51788372
What keeps the bad guys from just leeching off the broadcast power to run their own gear? Other than you being able to turn it off then it's tactically expedient, that is.

>>51790281
so you're saying that the common opinion of American's is that the armed forces suck, and that the people in them are terrible?
Particularly among people who complain about bureaucracies, the EPA or the FDA. Those people hate the Army?

>>51790450
>, the EPA or the FDA
Which function exactly as they should, and are actually good examples of why the deep state works, and why democracy doesn't

>>51790450
If you're just referring to rednecks and republican politicians, the simple answer is that those people are retarded and only hate the FDA because Fox told them to.

But yeah, among people who actually despise bureaucracy (typically because they had to deal with it), the armed forces are considered to be in just as bad a crisis as the rest of the country.

>>51790283
I would urge you to listen to the podcast and not my shitty synopsis.

https://m.soundcloud.com/fallofromepodcast

I imagine you guys are a bit less fucked than us, but I can't believe you guys elected the son of the man that literally suspended your bill of rights on his personal merits alone. Once your electoral system has devolved into political dynasties, (the same way we have the Clintons, Bushes, Kennedies, etc) it's a clear sign that your field of potential candidates is being manipulated to force you to select the predetermined candidate. It becomes more of a coronation than an election. We recently bucked that trend by electing Trump, it's just a pity that he was such a garbage fucking candidate in his own right. We'll see if he manages to change anything or if the powers that be will turn him into an example of what happens when the filthy plebs dare to vote against the system.

>>51777399
I'm glad I'm not the only one.

Fuck this gay memory of mine

>>51790800
>or if the powers that be will turn him into
so you think he's incapable of doing that purely on his own merits?

>>51790800
>But yeah, among people who actually despise bureaucracy
that's the majority
>typically because they had to deal with it
if you mean the armed forces, now a distinct minority.

You may have a point that people despise bureaucracies they actually have to deal with, but most people also despise a number of bureaucracies they don't have to deal with, except for the armed forces.
And the post office. Oh, they complain some, but they also still expect it to work most of the time, which it does.

>>51791008
No, I just think he's a mistake on his own merits. He alone isn't enough to poison the well of political outsiders for all time.

>>51790800

Trudeau is interesting. Because he both suspended civil rights, and pretty much wrote the bill of rights for Canada.

Long and the short of it is this. Canada did not have a constitution in the US sense in 1970 when the October Crisis occurred. Basically a Quebec separatist group, the FLQ, (kind of a way less effective francophone IRA) kidnapped two people. Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act and declared martial law in response. One kidnapped people got killed, one got released, the kidnappers went to Cuba and the concept of the army on the street and people getting killed by terrorists kind of spooked everyone into separatism becoming a political process. Which, in true Canadian fashion, we talked about until the whole thing became kind of a moot point.

In 1970 we had the British North America Acts, and most of these were enacted by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and formed the effective constitution of Canada. But fundamentally were just acts of the UK Parliament. There was a Canadian Bill of Rights, but this was just a law. Given that it didn't have any special standing it didn't really work as a guarantee of rights in any practical sense. The UK is still in this position where if Parliament decides "Fuck it, we're taking some rights away", there's really nothing legally that can be done about it (Yes, European Court of Human rights, but that treaty can {and May [HA!]} be repealed).

Trudeau's big project was basically to remake Canada according to his utopian vision. Unusually he was smart enough to actually pull it off. A big part of this was repatriating the Constitution of Canada from being an act of the UK to being something controlled by Canada, and from being just an act of Parliament to something that was binding upon Parliament. In 1982 the UK divested itself of the power to amend Canada's Constitution, and Canada adopted the Constitution Act. This contained The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. which is our Bill of Rights.

>>51779957
This is a long, complicated question. I could write pages on the subject.

IN SHORT
Dude can't write for shit: The first fight of the first book has the character stand up twice after getting knocked down. The author wrote him getting knocked down, then stand up, then FORGOT HE WROTE THE GUY STANDING UP and had him stand up again.

It's full of retarded morality. Anyone who doesn't instantly recognize that the hero is good and everyone who doesn't immediately side with the hero is evil lacks "moral clarity". This is used to justify the hero killing a village full of pacifists. They didn't agree to fight for the hero, so they're obviously evil, and the hero killed them all.

The author is a huge tool. When asked why he wrote fantasy, he said "I don't write fantasy. I write stories that have important human themes. They have elements of romance, history, adventure, mystery and philosophy."

>>51789384
What about a benevolent dictatorship with an immortal dictator? Not even an AI, just an immortal human or alien. Though I guess maybe even he would get bored and eventually adopt a 'hands off' approach, leaving to bureaucracy to shit up the government.

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>>51777582
>he got tricked into reading the sword of truth

I laugh at you, but I also feel your pain.

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>>51790800
>>51791092

So that's Trudeau the Elder. Now, Trudeau the Haircut got elected more or less because Canada's electoral system is kind of fucked. We have three national parties: The left wing NDP, the center left Liberals, and the right wing Conservatives. They used to be that glorious Canadian oxymoron, the center- right Progressive Conservatives, but well, Alberta. The rabbit hole tracing the connections between Trudeau the Elder, Alberta, and the election of Trudau the Haircut is so deep I would very much like to avoid it for now. We also have a first past the post parliamentary democracy. What that means in practice is that it's possible to form a government even if you never get 40% of the national vote.

Long story short we got pic related, Stephen Harper, the human equivalent of beige, as prime minister for 9 years. The Canadian left got increasingly pissed about loosing these elections and so in the 2015 election everyone on the left was pretty much voting not Harper.

There was a close fight between the leader of the NDP, Tom Mulcair, and the leader of the Liberals, Trudeau the Haircut to be the least Harper. Then Mulcair spoke out against a proposed Quebec values charter, which caused NDP support to dip. Once the Liberals and Trudeau the Haircut opened up a lead, he was felt to be the most not-Harper, and the whole thing snowballed, as everyone on the left lined up behind the most not-Harper.

>>51791310
>but well, Alberta.
as an American who lived in Canada, this is an explanation that doesn't make sense until you've lived in Canada.
Then it makes perfect sense.

and I'd say that Harper was worse than beige. He's like badly painted beige. So boring, but also deeply frustrating.

>>51777704
The greatest tragedy was the Science of Discworld series. The first two books were quite alright, and quite insightful. Then came Darwin's Watch, and it was basically if you divided up an anti-religious rant written by some rando fedora on a video game fanclub forum into several chapters and then interlaced it with crappy Discworld fanfiction. I couldn't read more than three chapters of the poor thing.

>>51791525
>>51791525
>So boring, but also deeply frustrating.
It reminds me to canadians in /int/. They aren't funny shitposter like the Australians or Autistic enough like the nordics, also passive agressive and bad baits threads.

>>51791676
Everyone on /int/ is frankly boring compared with Australians and Americans.

Holy fucking shit gas those two countries already, it'll make planet Earth jump up 200 IQ points instantly.

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>>51791716
It's just banter, lad.

>>51779957
Two words my summer child.
Rape. Pit.

>>51791753
flags make funposting pretty entertaining

>>51791839

You know, this probably says something terrible about me, but the most vivid thing I remember about the Rape Pit and Kahlan's exposure to it was

>Oh come on, you've brushed near her getting raped but never actually gone through it like 5 times already. We know you're never actually going to let her be defiled like that.

>>51791853
>suddenly a rare central-african flag shows up
>people ask for proof
>timestamp with jungles on the background
>thread goes wild

Moments like that make me realise why I visit this retarded Mongolian cartoon-sex forum.

>>51777339
>/tg/- shitty genre fiction

>>51791957
back to the pit, /lit/.

>>51791957
not all books can be about sad middle aged men having sad middle aged boners

>>51791991
Hate on /lit/ all you want, truth is that all this fucking genre garbage fucking hides all the quality fantastical stories that actually exist.

I've read fantasy books since I was 4. Now I'm 28 years old, and frankly the only fantasy stories that I still remember are the kind of fantastical stories that even /lit/ likes. Your Howard shite, your Verne shite, your Lovecraft shite, your Burroughs shite (both the adventure guy as the druggie guy), your Borges shite, your Marquez shite, your Orwell shite.

>>51791991
You first, and take all of your terrible Orcs and Elves books with you.

>>51792045
>Oh, look at me being all fancy with my "-e"s at the end of "shit"

How to spot an underage American.

>>51777339
I will say one thing.
Honor had one fantastically written war rape scene that didn't go full magical realm.
Credit where it's due, it's one of the two scenes I've ever read that's made me uncomfortable, the other one being in a book called The Haunting of Blackwych Grange
Which was, without exception, the most uncomfortable thing I have ever read.

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>>51792067
>American

You're off by a fuckload of kilometers. You do realise that we continental Europeans can get Scottish TV?

>>51777901
Do they ever get where they're marching to?

>>51792102
>implying anyone can use "shite" without being an utter fucking tool

>>51792131
>implying anyone can use "tool" as an insult without being an complete cancerous waste of flesh

You fucking sissy faggot. Use a real insult you fucking wanker.

>>51792167
>sissy
>faggot
>wanker
>real insults
I'm sorry, what? Am I supposed to be offended by the implication that I maturbate? I just finished up before switching over to this thread, in fact.

>>51792106
yes, by the end of the series they do. there is one last battle and the epilogue ties up all the loose ends.

series over, story complete, characters make complete developmental arcs, some people die, some people survive, aliens are involved, as well as acceptable levels of treachery, sci-fi exposition that isn't just hand waving. and at least a couple of cases of riding a giant 6 legged amphibian into battle.

10/10 would recommend hands down, first, to anyone with an interest in Sci-Fi.

>>51792167
I already called you an American, didn't I?

>>51784173
Reaper Man was just a fantastic piece of literature in general.

That and Thief of Time ('It says we must ride out, it does not say who against' is straight up a bad ass line) are the best depictions of Death.

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>>51792260

>>51785040
Night Watch is the best of the Watch series
"He wanted to go home. He wanted it so much that he trembled at the thought. But if the price of that was selling good men to the night, if the price was filling those graves, if the price was not fighting with every trick he knew... Then it was too high. History finds a way? Well, it would have to come up with something good, because it was up against Sam Vimes now."

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>>51792260
Well played, well played. A strong 8/10, maybe a weak 9/10.

>>51785068
>>John Ringo.
>Wait, he's a real author? I thought Posleen war was self-published.
Real, and INFAMOUS.
Seriously, check out Ghost and the Kildar series if you dare. Ghost was him exorcising a fucked up story from himself and it getting popular enough for sequels.

>>51792167
>>51792212
Look, you two little cuntnuggets that your whore mother shit out after being gangraped by the entire farm. You really think that two braindead fucktards like you can manage to come up with a proper insult?
Chances are your inbred child rapist of a father would be able to wear a condom properly and prevent the tragedy of you two being born upon this world than you two able to come up with decent bantz.
English isn't even my first language, but even then I'm better at insults than you two failures of miscarriages that would've been better strangled in your cribs rather than let the world suffer your continued existence.
So tuck your dicks back into your asses and go win the Darwin award or something.

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HEY YOU GUYS, DO YOU WANT A BOOK/AUTHOR THAT'LL MAKE YOU LAUGH TILL YOU SHIT YOURSELF?

CAUSE NOT ALL FICTION NEEDS TO BE EDGY OR MAKE A STATEMENT OR DO MORE THAN TELL A FUNNY STORY.

>>51792450
8/10 I have heard better rant/insults but neither frequently nor often

>>51792513
That series is radical. Really I'd recommend anything by the author.

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>>51792669
DAMN SKIPPY

>>51792513
Lamb may be the funniest book I've ever read

>>51788437
Rawb go home

>>51792346
Amen.

>>51792729
The Gospel according to Biff?

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>>51792729
I didn't like lamb as much as his other works
>personal rankings(of the ones I have read)
A Dirty Job
The Stupidest Angel; A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror(the bonus chapter in some printed versions is a fun extra)
Fool
The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove
Fluke; I know Why the Winged Whale Sings
Vampire Trilogy
Lamb; the gospel of Biff Christs Childhood Pal
Island of the Sequined Love Nun
Sacre Bleu(so uninteresting to me that I couldn't get past chapter 2)

>>51792819
I'd suspect so,

What do anons here think of Gaiman's The Sandman?

>>51793702
It's cool, if you cut the fat.

There's some amount of frankly boring or going-nowhere arcs. Some great arcs and some wonderful stories, but you need to cut the unnecessary tidbits.

>>51793702
Enjoyable, in that early-nineties-stories-about-stories way. The multitude of single-issue stories released as part of the main series were the best part, but the spinoffs mostly lost the charm that made the series. Overture is a great coda to the series.
>>51793737
The only arc i didn't particularly like was the one with the princess dream cuckoo thing. Keys of Hell were not super-required for the main series, but it was probably the most enjoyable arc for me personally simply due to the bizarre nature of what was happening. Most everything else served a function or was a single-issue release

>>51786163
>There's actually an RPG for the Well of Souls setting, too.
I found a PDF copy, if anybody gives a shit.

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I so want to love the Culture series but most of the citizens and drones of the titular state are such smug cunts Its just grating. I enjoyed most of the books, but it brings it down. Basically a mary sue in interstellar faction form.

What does /tg/ think of the books.

>>51794560
Go for the ones where it's not about the Culture.

I kinda like Signy Mallory, but literally all I know about her is from this filk song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=424ZIx-mx_U

I assume she's much less likeable in the actual books?

It's not gonna stop me from basing an NPC in my sci-fi campaign off her

>>51790172
Most likely because the author has written some controversial books that vary from edgelord self inserting mary sue protagonist stories to some other magical realm shit.

>>51777399
Hey, I remember that thread. I shitposted in that thread.

>>51794560
I read Remember Phlebas or whatever it was.

All the interesting characters died and the only ones that survived bored the shit outta me.

>>51794251
I've only ever found the character sheet so please post it.
I loved the Well World and Dancing Gods series, but as people note it's pretty obvious he has a transformation fetish. Mavra Chang (Well World) becoming half human-half donkey, one of the main characters from Dancing Gods is turned into a fairy or something. And wasn't there a whole thing in the ...fourth? Fifth? (The original three or four were fantastic, why did he fuck it up) book where Son of now-a-female-fairy-ain Character fell in love with what was essentially a were-futa and became a were-(male equivalent) and became pregnant?
Jesus Christ, what was wrong with that man.

>>51783985
You know, it wouldn't surprise me if that were the case. Rhianna Pratchett is living proof that writing talent is not genetic.

>>51799456
I don't think she was a were-futa, anon. I seem to remember she was just cursed to have a dick but I might be wrong.

>>51799599
>Rhianna Pratchett is living proof that writing talent is not genetic.
What has she written? Was it just generically bad or was there something more to it?

>>51799707
She wrote the new Tomb Raider games and the Thief reboot, among other things. Lots of bland motherfuckery and utterly forgettable characters.

>>51799762
She also did Overlord. I quite liked those games.