In Ancillary, wasn't it the AI that was non-gendered, but not the society? I kinda liked that take (or at least that's how I saw it). I haven't read Terra Ignota, though.

The Left Hand of Darkness by Le Guin I thought did a good job at telling a story about a non-binary, literally gender-fluid society.

Octavis E. Butler's Lilith's Brood / Xenogensis series also does a good job telling a weird story about gender and aliens. Though it was a very challenging read (it hits some weird angles about consent and agency). Also, TCTTS's production group was/is looking at adapting this into a TV series.

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In Ancillary, wasn't it the AI that was non-gendered, but not the society? I kinda liked that take (or at least that's how I saw it). I haven't read Terra Ignota, though.

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The entire Radchaai society is genderless, but their default is use of feminine pronouns. All the human built AI are of Radchaai design, so they follow this convention as well.

Ahh. In that case I didn't take Radchaai as superior - weren't they pretty oppressive a-la The Empire?

(I know I can look this up, but it's more enjoyable to converse here).

The Radchaai was the dominant human civilization, and there were definitely Evil Empire overtones to it. More than just that in general were some of the specific instances. Radchaai were known to be arrogant, and they are constantly insulting gendered societies in the every book as inferior. There was also a case where a gendered society had the entire population of anatomic males castrated so their society would be entirely female like the Radchaai, stupidly not realizing that the Radchaai are non-gendered as use female pronouns purely for convenience. As if this gendered society was so dumb that they couldn't possibly comprehend of a non-gendered society.

None of these are major plot points, BTW. This is all background worldbuilding info

07ag said:

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First half was a slog for me,, last third is getting more interesting though. i've heard the 2nd book is better

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I think the thing that stands out to me is just the very different writing style. There are so many times that I'm not entirely sure what's happening, but I want to keep going. But those times feel purposeful. They don't feel weird just for the sake of being weird or trying to be different.

And it also raises some really like... I guess for lack of a better term philosophical questions that are interesting to ponder/think about/discuss.

israeliag said:

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Also another +1 for Hyperion by Dan Simmons - my personal favorite, and even if I recognize other novels as better I don't know that I'll find one I enjoyed more. You can read the first two in the series and end there, or continue with the next two if you like them.

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I loved Hyperion as well, and was then shocked by how much I absolutely HATED Endymion. Some may still like it, but to me it was like everything he wrote was specifically to top and outdo Hyperion. It was like the Gremlins 2 of Sci-fi.

heddleston said:

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israeliag said:

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Also another +1 for Hyperion by Dan Simmons - my personal favorite, and even if I recognize other novels as better I don't know that I'll find one I enjoyed more. You can read the first two in the series and end there, or continue with the next two if you like them.

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I loved Hyperion as well, and was then shocked by how much I absolutely HATED Endymion. Some may still like it, but to me it was like everything he wrote was specifically to top and outdo Hyperion. It was like the Gremlins 2 of Sci-fi.

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That's fair. I still love them, but can see them not going over well with others - I've read them twice, and both times I had trouble finding the right voice for the male protagonist in my mind. But some of the technological, religious, and evolutionary concepts were pretty cool.

Still waiting for its adaptation to the small screen (c'mon Bradley Cooper, get this going).

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Expeditionary Force Series by Craig Alanson (RC Bray) - Skippy the Magnificent might be the best modern AI character.

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First book was only $0.99 on Kindle, so I picked it up based on this post. Just met Skippy, and I'm literally laughing out loud after a page of his dialogue. Thanks for the recommendation!

Yeah i will absolutely concede that the tech and stuff is really cool. We may have even talked about this before on another thread now that i think about it.

Horus Heresy series within Warhammer 40K universe.

First Colony series by Ken Lozito.

Nothing deep here but purely entertainment. Basically, humans send off a colony ship to another region of the galaxy. I found it fun and am about to read book #6.

I'm on book two of the "Renegade Star" series by JN Chaney. It's one of the best I've listened to in awhile. Kind of like star wars meets the fifth element. You get two books for one audible credit as well.

Love a lot of the series on here. One I haven't seen mentioned is Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It's a stand alone book by an author who doesn't have a lot of others to choose from. I listened and it was a very enjoyable SciFy book.

AgHawkeye said:

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Love a lot of the series on here. One I haven't seen mentioned is Children of Men Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It's a stand alone book by an author who doesn't have a lot of others to choose from. I listened and it was a very enjoyable SciFy book.

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FIFY. I really liked this book.

Thanks. Corrected. Spent too much time worrying about how to spell Tchaikovsky that I wrote the movie instead. I do like Children of Men though too.

Started Malazan Book of the Fallen. A lot going on but seems interested and have heard good things.

Do not read Man in High Castle. What a boring slog that just ends out of nowhere with no resolution. I've heard to show is much better.

Forum Troll said:

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Started Malazan Book of the Fallen. A lot going on but seems interested and have heard good things.

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Try to enjoy each book individually, remember the major characters, and don't stress too much about the big picture. The overall picture of what is happening in the series doesn't come together until later in the series but it is pretty awesome when it does. I loved that series the first time and may revisit it soon.

Malazan is not pure sci fi if we are trying to keep this thread pure in that regard. It is awesome though and maybe my favorite fantasy series of all time. I read all of those books back to back. Took me about 2 years to finish it.

I'm halfway through book 3 of Malazan right now. I feel like the narrative is really starting to pick up in this book. My Malazan experience so far:

Gardens of the Moon: Ok this is pretty cool, I don't understand every detail of what's going on but I'm sure it will make more sense later

Deadhouse Gates: WHAT, I HAVE NO IDEA, IS THIS IN ENGLISH

Memories of Ice: Ooooh, NOW that incomprehensible thing in Deadhouse Gates makes more sense (repeat every 25 pages or so). But still, WHAT

Malazan is the best book series I've ever read. Keep reading

The true joy (and genius) of the Malazan series isn't experienced until the second read through. I re-read books 1-4 and it was like reading entirely different books. Some day I'll bite the bullet and re-read all of them straigh through. They just take a long time to get through and it really is all I would be reading for a year or more.

YouBet said:

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Malazan is not pure sci fi if we are trying to keep this thread pure in that regard. It is awesome though and maybe my favorite fantasy series of all time. I read all of those books back to back. Took me about 2 years to finish it.

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This.

I appreciate the info but let's stay on topic here

The Passage by Justin Cronin. Only book I've read more than once. It, to me, is an absolute masterpiece. His writing style and storytelling are amazing. It's about to be a series on Fox which I'm sure will suck. There's no way a network can do the books justice.

ramblin_ag02 said:

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The Radchaai was the dominant human civilization, and there were definitely Evil Empire overtones to it. More than just that in general were some of the specific instances. Radchaai were known to be arrogant, and they are constantly insulting gendered societies in the every book as inferior. There was also a case where a gendered society had the entire population of anatomic males castrated so their society would be entirely female like the Radchaai, stupidly not realizing that the Radchaai are non-gendered as use female pronouns purely for convenience. As if this gendered society was so dumb that they couldn't possibly comprehend of a non-gendered society.

None of these are major plot points, BTW. This is all background worldbuilding info

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Yes, not a major plot point, but it's so distracting to the reader that it just gets in the way of the story. Example: Is this character male or female, because I can't tell yet, and maybe it's not that important, but dammit I like context, and there's enough confusion to deal with already with multiple versions of central characters with names that have too many vowels, so this gender thing feels like a gimmick, and UKL already played with this sort of thing better anyway.

So yeah. Put me in the "stopping after Ancillary Justice" camp.

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bearamedic99 said:

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I'm trying to read 3 body problem in my downtime but it isn't easy (especially when unused to keeping Asian names straight)

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Man no kidding, it's definitely not an easy reading book, but I really like it so far.

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First half was a slog for me,, last third is getting more interesting though. i've heard the 2nd book is better

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Bump post google search. I started skimming half way through the three-body problem because while I wanted to know what happened I just didn't care enough to read it completely. After finishing the book I made the executive call to read the plot summaries on wiki in lieu of the next two books in the series.

I feel like I made the right call. On to something new.

Iain Banks' Culture series. Very out of the ordinary sci-fi.