What Are You Reading?

As per a suggestion from TheEconomist (see http://sclegacy.com/forums/showthrea...000#post189000), basically entered book territory. Lists of books were suggested, so I'll start things off. Key note, it's come one come all. Also note that I'm including both fiction and non-fiction, and certain reads that aren't technically novels, but I've classified them as such due to their length and/or structure.

Currently Reading: The Wheel of Time: The Eye of the World

Novels, Anthologies, Novellas, and Non-fiction

The Excellent

The Well of Lost Plots

Venus Revealed

Halo: The Kilo-Five Trilogy: The Thursday War

The Good

The Fifth Miracle: The Search for the Origin of Life

A Song of Ice and Fire: A Dance With Dragons

World of Warcraft: Trial of the Red Blossom

StarCraft: In the Dark

Guild Wars: Ghosts of Ascalon

The Okay

StarCraft II: Flashpoint

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

L.A. Noire: The Collected Stories

Halo: The Forerunner Saga: Silentium

Star Citizen: The Lost Generation

Dead Space: Catalyst

StarCraft: Frenzy

Star Citizen: Tales of Kid Crimson

Star Citizen: Cassandra's Tears

Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Backlash

Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Omen

The Wheel of Time: The Eye of the World

Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Allies

Ace Combat: The Last Ace

Year's Best Australian Science Fiction & Fantasy: Third Annual Volume

The Bad

World of Warcraft: Bleeding Sun

Warhammer 40,000: Priests of Mars

Mustn't Grumble: An Accidental Return to England

War and Peace

The Picador Book of 40: 40 Writers Inspired by a Number

The Terrible

Fostering Sustainable Behaviour: An Introduction to Community-based Social Marketing

Graphic Novels and Guidebooks

The Good

Dragon Age: Those Who Speak

Homeworld Manual

The Okay

Dead Space: Salvage

Warhammer Armies: Bretonnia

Ultima: The History of Britannia

The Bad

Dota 2: Are We Heroes Yet?

InFamous: Post Blast

Defiance: Ark Hunter Chronicles

I just finished Dan Brown's Inferno. Gotta say it was 455 pages of Brown giving his audience the finger -- and no ladies and TE, not in that way, alas. It isn't until you're about three-quarters of the way through the book and certain expositions that you realize why that is; he essentially wrote himself into a corner when it came to story and content for much of the book. For filler, Brown injects long essays on Danye Alighieri and Renassaince art -- which, for me, being an artist, wasn't so bad, but could have been better. It was delivered in that professorial way that says, "I'm trying to show just how much smarter I am than you." Hah.

I just knew you wouldn't let me down Hawki. Be back later with my list :D

Dune - I enjoyed it but I'd have to say that it's overrated. Perhaps it suffers from LotR syndrome in that it's been redone so much that its lost its original effect, or maybe I was just expecting more of a science fiction story instead of a fantasy story in a futuristic setting, but I was pretty disappoined. Still a great book, but whenever I hear it mentioned by critics its always with ridiculous praise.

Assassin's Apprentice - This one was a pleasant surprise. I picked it up as an early audiobook because it was cheap and on-sale. The blurb didn't seem to be anything great, but the book turned out to be damned good. Its a coming of age / training book, I guess in a way similiar to Ender's Game, but the emotional and physical trials are explained better, I would say. Either way, pleasant surprise.


Neverwhere - It was an okay book. I don't feel that the time I spent on it was wasted per say but I could think of a hundred books that I would have rather read. The description seemed to be so me, "Hidden demonic underworld hidden in the subways of London" but it ultimately seemed to be lacking something that made it connect with me. Odd since it was universally praised. Oh well, damn me and my odd ball opinions.

Leviathan Wakes - One of my favorite books that I've read recently. This book has everything. Big sci fi, vast universe concepts, with lots of action and political intrigue (more greatly expanded upon in the second book). I can't recommend this book enough for the resident StarCraft fans here.

Altered Carbon - This is cyberpunk done right. I had always been disappointed in classical cyberpunk since, as a genre, the concepts seemed to lose its appeal as technology became less mysterois. As a part of the generation that was raised on computers, the messasge is lost. This book boils down cyberpunk into its most important and engaging concepts, which is something of a dangerous noir setting with bat shit insane technology wrecking havocs on the natural laws of the universe. If you enjoy Deus Ex (which is what I had always compared books like Neuromancer and Snow Crash to, but felt "something" was missing) then this is book for you.

In The Woods - An absolutely fantastic mystery novel with a lot of psychology and a very interesting main character. Can't say too much without spoiling it, since it is a mystery novel after all, but I was really impressed with the characters and the topics of the human condition and human nature raised in here. For some reason, I tend to relate less to realistic characters (too many irl problems?) but this was the exception.

The Blade Itself - This was a series I started because of all the praise I seen piled on it. It was said to be deep, action-packed and violent, with unique characters. It is certainly action packed with unique characters and definitely violent, but it lacked a depth to the characters and the world which made it as interesting as other books of its kind. If I were truly burned out on less unique characters, I might have enjoyed this more, but, as it is, I am not, so a story with the depth of characters like Ice and Fire would appeal to me more. Great series (I'm towards the end of the second book) but it didn't turn the genre upside down for me like it did for a lot of people. Although I hear his book get better and better.


Revelation Space - Another book I can't recommend enough to resident StarCraft fans. This book has some of the most unique and just plain "big" ideas I've ever read in science fiction. The scope and scale of the series is manificent and if there's a itch left in you from the drop off of these things in StarCraft then this might just help you out as much as it did me. The flip side though is that characters are pretty plain. They used more as methods to continue the plot from one outrageous setpeice to the next. So, yeah, feels that gap StarCraft left. I'd also have to say that Mass Effect took its main plot from this book. I feel okay saying this since there's enough other stuff for someone whose played Mass Effect but it really does seem like ME just took one of the plot points and then made it into a game. Unless there's another book as similiar as this but, if I were to read you the synopsis of the later half of this book, you'd probably say, oh wow, that's Mass Effect. Like I said though, don't let that stop you. This book as enough other large concepts and plot points to justify the read.

The Passage - Maybe I'm just a sucker for apocalyptic fiction but this might be the book I've enjoyed the most recently. It's a huge, monstrous book with lots of varied characters, spanning several generation, before and after the end of human civilization. It contains monsters similiar to vampires but the horror elements and the actions of the "vampires" makes it anything but these cliches. If you liked Walking Dead, I'd dare to say you'd enjoy this too, as much if not more. I haven't started the second book, but I plan to soon, and, from what I hear, it gets even better and more complex. 'Ice and Fire' for the zombie apocalypse generations? Might just be.

Ender's Game - I've spoken about this book before on this forum so I'll keep it short. Good book, better when I was younger, and better when it had fresh ideas. I could recommend a few books that cover these ideas but done better.

The Lies of Locke Lamora - Another one of those new era of fantasy books that is supposed to be a modern classic. This time, I enjoyed it quite a bit. It's got all the morally ambiguous, yet very likeable characters you could want. It's got all the swagger of mobster stories like Godfather, but in a fantasy setting, though, yes, no where near as good, but as close as you'll get in this genre.

I've read more and I'll leave my thoughts on them later. Maybe someone has read some of these books and would like to comment or maybe there's a book they'd like to share. Hope this topic gets some good discussion going even if for no other reason than stopping it from spilling into other topics.

More a response by subject than specific post:

Dan Brown: Of his work, I've only seen the film adaptation of Angels and Demons, which was...okay, at the end of the day. Concerning VoK's comments, I've kind of got the impression from word of mouth that "I'm smarter than you" is a feeling that people get from many of his works.

Dune: Got all of the Brian Herbert books and a few Frank Herbert/Anderson ones in the house. However, I admit to have never read them. Certainly Dune is a book I'd like to read someday, but what's put me off so far is its length and that it's an unknown quantity (e.g. if a short book is bad, I don't have to bear it for long). I will say that its influence on other medias is something I've noticed to an extent (Star Wars, Warhammer 40,000 and arguably Homeworld off the top of my head), but not to the extent that it's detrimental ala Wheel of Time.

Cyberpunk: Not a genre I'm fond of admittedly. There's a few exceptions (e.g. Blade Runner and Perfect Dark), but Altered Carbon isn't one of them. Tried reading it ages back, just couldn't get into the writing style or characters. I did struggle through Snow Crash, and...well, "struggle" is the key word. Has some interesting ideas (e.g. the Tower of Babel thing) but it's masked by trite writing and incoherant characters.

Ender's Game: Another book I'd like to read, preferably before the movie comes out. However, while there's a copy of Ender's Shadow and [I]Xenocide[/I in the house, Ender's Game itself is unfortunately missing. Still, more a question for TE, if you've read it, is it possible to get a full experience from Ender's Shadow without reading Ender's Game? I know they occur in the same timeframe and all that, but obviously EG came first, so...

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Originally Posted by Hawki

Cyberpunk

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William Gibson's Neuromancer. Do it. Now. Peter Watts' Starfish Trilogy and Blindsight are also good reads.

I'm currently working through the first book of The Wheel of Time as well as The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi.

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Originally Posted by TE

Neverwhere - It was an okay book. I don't feel that the time I spent on it was wasted per say but I could think of a hundred books that I would have rather read. The description seemed to be so me, "Hidden demonic underworld hidden in the subways of London" but it ultimately seemed to be lacking something that made it connect with me. Odd since it was universally praised. Oh well, damn me and my odd ball opinions.

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You didn't like it? I loved it. In that case, you probably wouldn't enjoy Gaiman's Anansi Boys, which is also in the quaint "Otherworld" sort of urban fantasy, and reminded me a lot of Douglas Adams. However, American Gods, though similar but much darker in tone, though it meanders a lot.

@Hawki: I definitely agree that it has incoherent characters, as well as an incoherent world. I look my time reading it but I still largely confused about many aspects of the story, setting, and plot. But, that was the charm and probably by design. Given its noir influences and the fact that the story is based in a world where death means basically nothing since you can be resleeved at any moment and the main character was basically revived out of nowhere and asked to work for a man full of secrets to uncover a plot that only gets bigger as the story gets along. I tend to like convoluted plots though. I guess its just me. I'm an odd ball.

@VoS: I actually has Quantum Thief in my wishlist. It was a book I happened to find happen stance and thought its premise sounded intriguing. Let me know how it is and I might just make it one of my next few books.

I've also been considering giving Gaiman another chance, since I said Neverwhere was very close, with American Gods. I liked Neverwhere, don't get me wrong. It just seemed short and ultimately pointless. Maybe I'm just too used to 700+ page multivolume epics :D Audiobooks make it so easy to digest monstrous tomes of literature so I do lots more reading than I've ever done.

Also, here's some books I'm thinking of reading soon.

1) The Likeness, the next part in the series with In The Woods. I really enjoyed that book. Needs a Dexter or House style HBO series :D

2) Hyperion, gonna give this one another shot. It got away from when I first tried to read it years ago, although for no real justifiable reason.

3) Under The Dome, A town full of Stephen King characters trapped under a dome and forced to live together as they all go mad. Sounds like something I'd love. I haven't read any SK novels other than the Dark Tower, but I have seen the Mist movie which I liked, and I loves me some Stephen Kingness.

4) Conan the Barbarian, been meaning to get into this for the longest time. Bought this book about two years ago but keep getting side tracked with other books instead of diving into this.

5) Sherlock Holmes, same as the above, I really want to read the series but whenever I get into the mood for mystery, I always end up with some other book that probably a whole lot darker than SH.

6) Pandora's Star, THE place to go, I hear, for monstrous multivolume science fiction epicness, in the same vein as Wheel of Time in terms of expansiveness but with some GRRM characters (why do I keep using these as examples? makes it seem like I lack the ability to express myself :D), atleast that's what I hear. I just am a bit hesitant to get into these monstrous books because I'm getting better and better at flying through books as I work my brain muscles and I keep saving them for down the road when I can read the entire book without needing a break for more than a day.

7) Ian M Bank's The Culture series. I've talked about this before and it seem slike another book to fill the gap left by SC2.

I'll get back to you both later with some more books I've read. I'm actually quite surprised you've all read some of the books I've read.

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Originally Posted by TE

Pandora's Star

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This is one of my all-time favorite series, when coupled with the Void Trilogy. You're right in that it's sort of like Game of Thrones in space; you follow the life and times of numerous characters, with the added spice of transhumanism, aliens and noospheres. I can see a lot of the mechanics and technologies depicted becoming real in several centuries -- provided we survive each other and get off this rock.

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Originally Posted by Visions of Khas

William Gibson's Neuromancer. Do it. Now.

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Maybe someday, but the same people who recommended Neuromancer to be were the same who recommended Snow Crash. Heck, the only reason I read it was because it was kind of a form of 'writing group homework.'

Apart from that, and looking at other stuff, the only writer I have in common is Neil Gaiman, and only then from his Doctor Who episodes.

BTW, I was thinking of creating duplicate topics, such as "What Are You Watching?" (movies, TV, cartoons, etc.) and "What Are You Playing?" (games). Think it's worth it?

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Think it's worth it?

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I was actually thinking the same thing. I'd definitely be down with it.

Posted watching and playing threads:

http://sclegacy.com/forums/showthrea...re-You-Playing

http://sclegacy.com/forums/showthrea...e-You-Watching

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Originally Posted by Hawki

The Excellent

Halo: The Kilo-Five Trilogy: The Thursday War

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Now that I've cleaned spit and Diet Coke from my keyboard, I have to hear read your thoughts on the book.

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Originally Posted by Hawki

Homeworld Manual

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As in the /game/ Homeworld? I LOVED that manual. And the game!

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Originally Posted by Hawki

Dune: Got all of the Brian Herbert books and a few Frank Herbert/Anderson ones in the house. However, I admit to have never read them. Certainly Dune is a book I'd like to read someday, but what's put me off so far is its length and that it's an unknown quantity (e.g. if a short book is bad, I don't have to bear it for long). I will say that its influence on other medias is something I've noticed to an extent (Star Wars, Warhammer 40,000 and arguably Homeworld off the top of my head), but not to the extent that it's detrimental ala Wheel of Time.

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I'd say that it's probably worth picking up.

Anyhow, what do you mean about "Wheel of Time"? Is WoT too influential, or too derivative? It's been so long since I read the first book, I can't remember which it is, though I'm leaning towards the latter.

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Originally Posted by Hawki

Ender's Game: Another book I'd like to read, preferably before the movie comes out. However, while there's a copy of Ender's Shadow and [I]Xenocide[/I in the house, Ender's Game itself is unfortunately missing. Still, more a question for TE, if you've read it, is it possible to get a full experience from Ender's Shadow without reading Ender's Game? I know they occur in the same timeframe and all that, but obviously EG came first, so...

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I dunno. I've only read Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, and Xenocide (Good, okay, crap, in that order). From what I remember of the Ender/Bean relationship, you should probably hold out for the original.

So, I guess it's my turn to list books I've read recently.

The Excellent

Small Favor
Hey, trust Jim Butcher to deliver a good read.
So, yeah, it's more conspiracies and intrigue between the Summer and Winter Fey, with the Denarians* getting involved. All of them.
Which is kind of crap, because that means that the Conservation of Ninjitsu is in full effect. A few books ago, Dresden got his head handed to him when he went up against one. The Knights of the Cross prefer to outnumber the Denarians they fight. The attrition rates among the Denarians in this book? Terrible. The first encounter alone has them losing eleven members to Dresden and Kinkaid.

I guess not all Denarians are built equal, because Snakeboy went down easily. Small Favor makes it clear that the Denarians all have their specialties. Some are deceivers, some have actual magical talent, others are just dumb muscle.

Other than that minor speedbump, it's one hell of a ride.

*Fallen angels with a human host, for those who ain't in the know.

The Last Centurion by John Ringo.
OK, I'll admit it: I'm starved for good military science fiction. Sitting through Halo 4 and Spartan Ops was a chore. Hearing that Sarah Palmer, the worst fictional representation of an officer in recent memory, is getting her own comic and game nearly sent me over the edge.
The Last Centurion was a breath of fresh air because Bandit Six wasn't just a great character with balls of depletalloy, but he was also a believable leader. Because the book is written in a journal style, you get inside his head and learn the rationale for the decisions he makes.

A fair warning: if you have a charitable view of government, you ain't going to like this book. If you hate infodumps, you are going to hate it. It takes place during a worldwide disaster, sort of a repeat of the Spanish Flu combined with a miniature ice age brought about by solar activity. It's a tough time, and it's only tougher because the President of the United States in 2020 is a leftist control freak.

Most of the first quarter of the book is infodump, but it's very GOOD infodump*. Bandit Six explains a lot of things, like how tough farming actually is, why some states collapse and some survive when 30-60% of the population is wiped out, why nationalizing industries and forcing farms to grow organic is a stupid idea. And it's still entertaining.

And kudos to John Ringo for managing to take a Bird Flu epidemic and make it sphincter-clenchingly terrifying. Not only that, but the book was written in 2008. In five years since, it's rather disquieting to see the parallels between the politics in the book and real life.

*Please note that this is me saying this. Your mileage may vary, and probably will be lower.

Honor of the Queen
David Weber is great and all, and this book is definitely an improvement over the first one. There's still a lot of parts that make me think of Honor as a Mary Sue, and that Treecat ain't helping matters.

Anyhow, political intrigue, space combat, and promise of an all-out war in future novels. Count me in.

Monster Hunter International
Take a world where monsters are real and a clear and present danger, but the Enlightenment has pushed them from the public consciousness. Outside that world is a parallel universe filled with eldritch abominations and uncountable armies of bug-eyed soldiers.
Monsters are tough, fast and mean. Humans are crunchy and probably taste like french fries.

Standing between the armies of darkness and the unsuspecting humans are Monster Hunters. This is the story of one monster hunter, who has joined up with the fantasy counterpart to Blackwater... only with more guns.

"Evil Looms. Cowboy up. Kill it. Get paid."

Guards! Guards!

It's Terry Pratchett. Need I say more?

Silentium

OK, let's get something straight: Halo 4 is still a steaming pile of crap. But Silentium makes it somewhat better. Now we understand why the Didact was a drooling moron.

Overall, the Forerunner Trilogy did a good job at fleshing out the Terminals from Halo 3, while pushing back the mysteries of the Forerunner. Silentium was probably the best-written, with Cryptum coming a close second.

And that's it for the "Excellent". Will have to post more tomorrow. For now, sleep!

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Originally Posted by Quirel

As in the /game/ Homeworld? I LOVED that manual. And the game!

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*Sniff* I still remember how heart-breaking the loss of Kharak was.

Probably the best example of how to write a manual for a game. In hindsight most of it seems likes filler since most of it wasn't essential reading/irrelevant to play or understand the game's story until you realise that it's whole purpose was nothing more but to give you a true sense/weight of the loss that is to come. Remarkable.

@Quirel: I've been reading Hard Magic, first book in the Grimnoir series which is written by the same guy that did Monster Hunter International. I bought it as my "silly fun" book and was not disappointed. Lots of fun. Lots of action. Was going to do a type up on it in my next batch of "recently read". I'll probably dig into MHI whenever I get in the mood again for that silly fun instead of moving on to the next book in Grimnoir. The setting of MHI seems to appeal to me more but I chose to read Hard Magic since I had just gotten off of a Zombie/Vampire binge.

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Originally Posted by Quirel

Now that I've cleaned spit and Diet Coke from my keyboard, I have to hear read your thoughts on the book.

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Silly Quirel. If you drink coke of all things, it's inevitable the taste will catch up with you.:p

Luckily for us gentlemen of more discerning taste, The Thursday War is more like a lemon, lime and bitters. Not the best beverage that's avaliable in the cabinet of liquors of a certain brand (which is still FoR), but still tasting good nonetheless. So, while I can't remember every taste of said beverage, I can recall some key factors:

*The lemon: No, not like that, you fanfic, M-rated wanabees! No, the lemon is the first thing I'll give it for is writing style/flow/pacing. This may seem petty, and maybe it is, but structure-wise, the book is very sound. The plot moves forward and never bogs down, the writing manages to avoid entering "Drearsville" which practically every other Traviss novel has done to one degree or another. Basically, the writing begins good, and stays good.

*The lime: Not as impactful as the lemon, but still a taste of its own, and that's the characters. Characters that made far more of an impact on me than in Glasslands. Osman's still Osman, but I'm fine with that, she's the "straight woman," the "ordinary character who's distinguished by being ordinary around characters who aren't." There's Black-Box, who's still snarky and the equivalent of Durandal for the setting (Cortana being Leela, I suppose Mendicant Bias would be Tycho or Traxus IV, I suppose Guilty Spark could fill in), Parangosky's a "magnificant bastard," not Admiral "I hate Halsey because Halsey's no worse than myself, but I want to harp on her because nevermind that arc should have closed in Ghosts of Onyx and while Traviss is leaving things open a bit it's clear she wants us to agree with me" Parangosky, the other Kilo-Five members are okay, Naomi's at least somewhat sympathetic, and the Covenant characters feel more like Covenant (especially Jul, who I liked) rather than aliens who can't utter a single sentence without the words "as the humans say." Which brings me onto the bitters.

*The bitters: Glasslands did this too, but its moral ambiguity was focussed on the Halsey debate. A debate I didn't mind as much as others, but still felt like a rehash of what had gone before. The Thursday War however, does things a bit different, where humans are no better than sangheili, and it's up to the reader to realize that. Gone are the moralizing speaches that have plagued Traviss's previous works, works that often had such ambiguity, but never made it a secret on where her own side was. Here we have a sangheili civil war that takes up most of the novel, interweaving with the context of said novel, and feeling natural to what might happen to their society post-Halo 3 (and does). And here we have humanity. This isn't Halo 4 humanity, the "we're so special because the Mantle says so, and we're really good at rebuilding over four years," this is a humanity who's willing to play dirty, let the sangheili kill themselves, use the Infinity only when it suits them (being constructed during the war, Infinity kinda gets a free pass), and are quite happy to plan to wipe the species out through their own food supply. Not because they're evil, but because it's a grim setting, and it's a practicality. It's perhaps the setting's only case of grey morality - true, it's been touched on (e.g. UEG/Insurrection), but I've always felt that it was clear who I should be siding with. I'm not 'meant' to feel sorry for the Innies executed at the beginning of Contact Harvest. I'm not 'meant' to mourn the loss of High Charity, even if millions of alien non-combatants are being killed and/or infested. Here however, I felt I was truly given a choice. Is Jul's choice to seek vengeance for Raia and reform the Covenant a moment to mourn, to curse another split-lip and go "you damn dirty alien!" Or should I cheer, that maybe, justice can be achieved?

That's what seals the deal for me. Moral ambiguity across the entire board. Dropped by Halo 4 of course, but on its own, I appreciate it. It's all the good elements of Traviss's writing I've gotten used to, with none of the bad.

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Originally Posted by Quirel

As in the /game/ Homeworld? I LOVED that manual. And the game!

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Yeah, read the manuals. Unfortunately they got shorter with each installment, but the first one was a good read, an example of the 'good ol days' when manuals were actually manuals. Quite good, except I felt a bit letdown when it tells me everything about the Hilgarans/Kharak, then gives me nothing on the Taidaan bar their unit listing. I guess it's to let those things be uncovered in the game, but...well, you know...:(

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Originally Posted by Quirel

Anyhow, what do you mean about "Wheel of Time"? Is WoT too influential, or too derivative? It's been so long since I read the first book, I can't remember which it is, though I'm leaning towards the latter.

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A definate case of the latter.

I'm fine with Tolkein tropes. I can still enjoy elves, dwarves, orcs, etc. But the thing is, WoT (or at least the first book) doesn't do anything with them, functioning identically. And there's the fact that book 1 is basically copied plotwise, the protagonists starting off in the equivalent of the Shire and ending in the equivalent of Mordor.

Still, book 2's off to a more promising start.

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Originally Posted by Quirel

Guards! Guards!

It's Terry Pratchett. Need I say more?

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Not for that book at least. It was the first Discworld novel I brought, courtesy of taking on the role of Carrot in a school play.

Good times...:o

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Originally Posted by Quirel

Silentium

OK, let's get something straight: Halo 4 is still a steaming pile of crap. But Silentium makes it somewhat better. Now we understand why the Didact was a drooling moron.

Overall, the Forerunner Trilogy did a good job at fleshing out the Terminals from Halo 3, while pushing back the mysteries of the Forerunner. Silentium was probably the best-written, with Cryptum coming a close second.

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I agree that's the best of the trilogy, but for me, only by virtue of being "okay," the others being "bad."

Unfortunately, I can't share the enthusiasm. So, to reverse my analogy:

*The Diet: Too much being covered in too little a time. Or rather...well, I'll put it this way - it's like reading two different stories in one book. We spend the first half with the Librarian and Path Kethona stuff, then the second with 'war stuff.' Not enough time for either to really flesh it out, and it makes me wonder why we couldn't just, say, replace Primordium with Path Kethona stuff as opposed to aimlessly walking around for 200 pages.

*The Coke: The 'war stuff.' This is very subjective, but I can't help but be disheartened. It's clear the Forerunner-Flood conflict isn't such a conflict, but rather "Forerunners vs. Precursors with the Flood just being a weapon like any other." True, kinda simplifying it, but going by, say, Origins, I never felt the need for orbital arches being used against the Forerunners. I never felt the need for Graveminds/Key Minds to just be Precursors in all but name. I never asked for the Flood to be gimped just so the Precursors could be bolstered as a threat.

Like I said, subjective, but IMO, the Flood's been gimped, turned from this mysterious, unstoppable parasite to just the tool of a race of beings who aren't mysterious, and if they're unstoppable...well, we stopped the unstoppable back in H3, I'm not exactly quaking in my boots.

*The Pepsi: I don't hold pepsi or coke to be superior, since they taste the same. But going by the analogy, pepsi tastes better because there's some stuff I like, especially the IsoDidact. Maybe I'm just glad he's no longer Bornstellar Makes Eternal Whining and contrasts nicely with the Ur-Didact, their conversations/debates/question of who was the 'true' Didact being what I liked most. But then I realize pepsi does taste like coke and learn that the Ur-Didact is as he is because of Flood/Precursor/Gravemind exposure stuff.

I suppose I can't complain. It's at least an explanation as to why he acts as he does in H4. But again, it reinforces my notion that Faber would have been a better antagonist because Silentium aside, he has means, and motive. By the same logic, the Ur-Didact should be lashing out against the Forerunners and Flood rather than just humanity. It's just...well, that thing you know is coming. It's like an inoculation that'll solve an illness that passed its most painful stage long ago, but all you actually feel is a painful prick.

So yeah. "Okay" in the end.

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Originally Posted by TheEconomist

The setting of MHI seems to appeal to me more but I chose to read Hard Magic since I had just gotten off of a Zombie/Vampire binge.

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Huh. Have you tried werewolves?:p

Werewolves are for ugly gothic chicks.

TEAM VAMPIRE!

Goth chicks huh? Well, I suppose that explains why Bella chose Edward over Jacob then.:rolleyes:

Anyway, keeping it rolling, read more of The Great Hunt, my reaction having gone from "hey, this is kinda interesting" to "Light dammit, get on with it already!" To be fair, they have, but I would have preferred to plot to actually start moving before the end of the first 150 pages.:(

Epic fantasy is the antithesis of a fast moving plot.

Yeah, but even by epic fantasy standards it was dragging.

Key word being "was" though, because I'm since up to page 285, and by the Wheel, the plot's actually moving! Or, rather, the characters are moving. Or, rather, Egwene and Nyvanae are at Tar Valon and I've got the feeling they'll be staying there for awhile, while Rand and co. keep searching for the Horn of Valere...for...some reason. Um...McGuffin!

It's no wonder the series lasted fifteen books.:(

Meanwhile, I'm reading 'Under the Dome' which has about fifteen grade A Stephen King characters moving a mile a minute. It's an 1,100+ page monster, and, from what I can tell, no slow parts.

Come to the dark side my friend. It's much more fun.

In all seriousness, The Malazan Book of the Fallen might be a better choice. The general opinion I've come across is that its what the Wheel of Time should ahve been, epic multivolume storyline with a plethora of characters that actually go places. Or, perhaps, you should get the audiobook editions. I can "read" 1000 page monsters and feel like I've done nothing but sit through a season of television. Just load up the audiobook, pick a nice visualizer, and space out, all of the effort is taken out of reading. Atleast that's what I get. I can read about 15x more in audiobook form that physical form. It's probably not for everyone, but maybe you should try it sometime. Eye of the World flew by for me.

I don't know, GRRM seems just as slow. I mean, what really happened in the last 2 ASOIAF books of import?

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Originally Posted by TheEconomist

Come to the dark side my friend. It's much more fun.

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Only if I get cookies.

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Originally Posted by TheEconomist

In all seriousness, The Malazan Book of the Fallen might be a better choice. The general opinion I've come across is that its what the Wheel of Time should ahve been, epic multivolume storyline with a plethora of characters that actually go places.

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Huh, haven't heard of that series before. Anyway, let's just do a quick wiki search and...

...OH COME ON!

Yeah, I know they say to never judge a book by its cover, but it's another case of calculated risk to get invested in such a long series. Not a no, but don't expect me to make a start anytime soon.

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Originally Posted by TheEconomist

Or, perhaps, you should get the audiobook editions. I can "read" 1000 page monsters and feel like I've done nothing but sit through a season of television. Just load up the audiobook, pick a nice visualizer, and space out, all of the effort is taken out of reading. Atleast that's what I get. I can read about 15x more in audiobook form that physical form. It's probably not for everyone, but maybe you should try it sometime. Eye of the World flew by for me.

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I'm not really an audiobook person. I enjoyed cassete books back in the day, but nowadays...well, as cynical as this sounds, in many cases, I only read so I can write. To get as much lore out of a book as much as its story so I can thus write in said media, what with my policy of trying to spread over as much as possible. Course I still enjoy reading at the end of the day, but an audiobook doesn't really give me that. Besides, when reading, I often listen to music at the same time, which would make listening to an audiobook difficult under such circumstances.

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Originally Posted by Gradius

I don't know, GRRM seems just as slow. I mean, what really happened in the last 2 ASOIAF books of import?

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To each their own, but while very little did indeed happen in the last two books, it didn't feel as detrimental. Partly because they were after three books where stuff did happen, partly because at least in A Dance with Dragons, it was with characters I was already invested in. True, their circumstances don't change all that much, but at least in terms of pacing the writing flowed well, and kept me invested. With Wheel of Time...well, maybe this'll change, but I haven't been able to invest in the characters nearly as much. And while A Song of Ice and Fire always had clear goals for the protagonists (and antagonists), the goal of The Great Hunt so far seems to be "retrieve this horn or bad stuff will happen."

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it's another case of calculated risk to get invested in such a long series.

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Did you see the six or so canon books written by the co-author and the new trilogy that just started? Yep. It's an epic series, and, if the masses are to be believed, it never really gets dull in the way that WoT does. Meh, but who knows. I liked Dragonlance a lot when I was a teenager and that's considered generic fantasy drivel. It was parly for the sake of nostalgia for that classic fantasy formula that I chose WoT over ASOIF or MBOTF. Like you, I will probably get a ways into WoT before I even consider the alternatives.

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I only read so I can write.

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Well, if its writing you want to do then I would say audiobooks can still help you. The visualizer is a great right-brain trainer to, well, help you visualize the world. Whenever I read books, the scenes never anywhere near as vivid as if I turned off all the lights, turned on a good visualizer, and sat back and listened to the audiobook. Sometimes I forget I'm not actually seeing anything because it can seem so vivid just in my own imagination. Sure, you can do that with a physical book, but your right-brain will never be engaged in the same way.

Oh well, just some thoughts. Many grains of salt and all that.

Also, you ever plan on being a published author?

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Originally Posted by TheEconomist

Did you see the six or so canon books written by the co-author and the new trilogy that just started? Yep. It's an epic series, and, if the masses are to be believed, it never really gets dull in the way that WoT does.

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Yeah, I did. But six books is still an investment in terms of both time and money. This isn't a "no," but it's still a gamble I'd have to weigh up.

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Originally Posted by TheEconomist

Like you, I will probably get a ways into WoT before I even consider the alternatives.

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Depends. The first Wheel of Time book I got was a calculated risk, one that may or may not have paid off at the end of the day. The only reason I'm reading The Great Hunt is because there was already a copy of it in the house (yet no book 1 beforehand...go figure). As per my usual M.O., once I'm done with it, it'll be back to shorter reads for awhile before starting on something bigger. Neither WoT book I'd call outright "bad" per se, but they haven't left me scrambling for more.

Certainly such gambles have paid off in the past - I didn't expect to enjoy A Game of Thrones (as in, the first book), but was pleasantly surprised, to the extent that I read the first four books over 2012, and the fifth at the start of this year. WoT, unfortunately, hasn't paid off in the same way. Hence why I'm cautious of 'gambling' further unless another one pays off in the same way (e.g. Dune or Ender's Game, both of which are similar 'gambles' I'll likely undertake at some point in time).

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Originally Posted by TheEconomist

Also, you ever plan on being a published author?

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Not really. I've considered it and attempted it to an extent, to be published requires a certain cream of a certain crop that I don't possess, and probably never will. It isn't just the writing itself, but also generation of original ideas, something that is an Achilles heel for me. At the end of the day, I realize that fanfic is probably the best I can aspire for.

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Originally Posted by Hawki

Silly Quirel. If you drink coke of all things, it's inevitable the taste will catch up with you.:p

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Coke has taste?
If it does, then it would follow that it tastes different from Pepsi and Sprite and Dr. Pepper and Fanta... But all I ever feel is fizzy sludge pouring across my tongue. Maybe there's a vague hint of flavour, but it's transient, there and gone.

Diet Coke and diet Pepsi do have flavour, however. Unfortunately, I'm convinced that it's from metal salts that are added when the soda pop eats into the mixing vats.

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Originally Posted by Hawki

Luckily for us gentlemen of more discerning taste, The Thursday War is more like a lemon, lime and bitters. Not the best beverage that's avaliable in the cabinet of liquors of a certain brand (which is still FoR), but still tasting good nonetheless. So, while I can't remember every taste of said beverage, I can recall some key factors:

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I need to be the designated driver a lot less. I get the feeling that I'm missing out on a lot.

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Originally Posted by Hawki

*The lemon: No, not like that, you fanfic, M-rated wanabees! No, the lemon is the first thing I'll give it for is writing style/flow/pacing. This may seem petty, and maybe it is, but structure-wise, the book is very sound. The plot moves forward and never bogs down, the writing manages to avoid entering "Drearsville" which practically every other Traviss novel has done to one degree or another. Basically, the writing begins good, and stays good.

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Heh.
Because I was asked/I volunteered to rewrite Jul's escape from Trevelyan, I should re-read The Thursday War... but haven't gotten around to it yet. From what I remember though, any time Jul interacted with a human got to be a drag. Magnusson and Phillips were condescending, like Jul was a pet Elite they could talk down to.

Urgh. Am I complaining about the characters, or the writing? well, I guess that the human interactions with Jul could have been interesting, but something about the way that Traviss wrote them turned me off.

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Originally Posted by Hawki

*The lime: Not as impactful as the lemon, but still a taste of its own, and that's the characters. Characters that made far more of an impact on me than in Glasslands. Osman's still Osman, but I'm fine with that, she's the "straight woman," the "ordinary character who's distinguished by being ordinary around characters who aren't." There's Black-Box, who's still snarky and the equivalent of Durandal for the setting (Cortana being Leela, I suppose Mendicant Bias would be Tycho or Traxus IV, I suppose Guilty Spark could fill in), Parangosky's a "magnificant bastard," not Admiral "I hate Halsey because Halsey's no worse than myself, but I want to harp on her because nevermind that arc should have closed in Ghosts of Onyx and while Traviss is leaving things open a bit it's clear she wants us to agree with me" Parangosky, the other Kilo-Five members are okay, Naomi's at least somewhat sympathetic, and the Covenant characters feel more like Covenant (especially Jul, who I liked) rather than aliens who can't utter a single sentence without the words "as the humans say." Which brings me onto the bitters.

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You know what this posts needs more of? Lists! Lots and lots of lists!

• Osman felt flatter in this novel. I think we only got one scene from her POV, and the rest of the book she was just the commander who sat in the bridge and managed Kilo 5. Which is A Good Thing. Her story was largely covered in Glasslands, and we don't need another Miranda/Palmer.
  
• Vas was... well, I still have trouble telling him apart from Mal. He's the guy with a strong sense of right and wrong, but it's in definite need of calibration. Kidnapping children to quell an insurrection is Evil, but leaving a keep full of women and children to die is Right.
  
  Am I a hypocrite? Oh, hell yeah.
  
• Deuverex was always a bit of a wallflower to me. In Glasslands, she was the pilot and sometimes-conversational partner of Malcom and Vasily. She's not much better in The Thursday War, but now she's got a Pelican with a slipspace drive! That is so awesome and cool, I can't believe that nobody ever did it before. /sarcasm
  
• Naomi's subplot with her insurrectionist father is finally getting pagetime! In the next book. Doh.
  Aside from that, I liked her.
  
• Black Box's injury was handled well. The downed internet connection had real consequences, and wasn't shrugged off with a "He's a computer. He'll be fine."
  
• Phillips should be strapped to the front of Deuverex's Pelican during hot insertions, because even Covenant AA weaponry cannot penetrate plot armor of that magnitude!
  More seriously, his lengthy stroll in the Abiding Truth's temple shared the same problems I had with Jul's leisurely walk across the Dyson Sphere. There should have been a Hell of a lot more security.
  Is it bad that I only just realized that Jul's and Phillip's escapes were almost exact mirror images of each other?
  
  Things pick up after he leaves, and I absolutely loved the scenes in the besieged keep.
  
• Parangosky is her old sly, calculating self. Balance has been restored.
  
• Jul, I think, hasn't been sufficiently explored. He escapes because he's treated as an animal, rather than a POW. With better writing, his lax treatment and escape could have come off as less contrived, but it didn't.
  
  As a side note, I'm upset with 343i that we didn't get audio journals in Halo 4 elaborating on Jul's rise to power. He could have been the face of the Storm faction*, but they were left as faceless cannon fodder.
  
  *I know that's not their real name, but I'm NOT calling them Covenant.
  
• Telcam is problematic. The fight against the Arbiter was well-done (With one major exception. See below.)
  
• The high point of the book for me was Raia. While every other Elite was sighing in ruins and watching their civilization crumble, she went out and searched for her husband. I think that, in that search, she showed herself to be the leader that the Elites need (though not the one that they're going to get, sadly).
  
• Lord Hood/Arbiter
  This just in: The Elites have unilaterally declared total war against Humanity. The UNSC Infinity has been destroyed by the Sanghelios Orbital Defense Fleet. The Arbiter has been killed by his own concubines, and his clan is committing mass suicide in the craters left by the Infinity's MAC strike.

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Originally Posted by Hawki

*The bitters: Glasslands did this too, but its moral ambiguity was focussed on the Halsey debate. A debate I didn't mind as much as others, but still felt like a rehash of what had gone before. The Thursday War however, does things a bit different, where humans are no better than sangheili, and it's up to the reader to realize that. Gone are the moralizing speaches that have plagued Traviss's previous works, works that often had such ambiguity, but never made it a secret on where her own side was. Here we have a sangheili civil war that takes up most of the novel, interweaving with the context of said novel, and feeling natural to what might happen to their society post-Halo 3 (and does). And here we have humanity. This isn't Halo 4 humanity, the "we're so special because the Mantle says so, and we're really good at rebuilding over four years," this is a humanity who's willing to play dirty, let the sangheili kill themselves, use the Infinity only when it suits them and are quite happy to plan to wipe the species out through their own food supply. Not because they're evil, but because it's a grim setting, and it's a practicality. It's perhaps the setting's only case of grey morality - true, it's been touched on (e.g. UEG/Insurrection), but I've always felt that it was clear who I should be siding with. I'm not 'meant' to feel sorry for the Innies executed at the beginning of Contact Harvest. I'm not 'meant' to mourn the loss of High Charity, even if millions of alien non-combatants are being killed and/or infested. Here however, I felt I was truly given a choice. Is Jul's choice to seek vengeance for Raia and reform the Covenant a moment to mourn, to curse another split-lip and go "you damn dirty alien!" Or should I cheer, that maybe, justice can be achieved?
That's what seals the deal for me. Moral ambiguity across the entire board. Dropped by Halo 4 of course, but on its own, I appreciate it. It's all the good elements of Traviss's writing I've gotten used to, with none of the bad.

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Yeah, I loved the moral ambiguity too (And even some of the hypocrisy).

Still, I'm worried about Halo getting too grimdark. Want an alliance or ceasefire with the xenos? That sounds like... heresy. Hold him, men, and we shall let Commissar Frankie decide his fate!

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Originally Posted by Hawki

(being constructed during the war, Infinity kinda gets a free pass),

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Not being brought up in discussion for Operation: Red Flag, having shields when Halsey's journal nixed that idea, and being captained by a captain rather than an admiral means that the free pass was probably scalped.
The Infinity strikes me as a ship that's there for the sake of being cool, like something a high-schooler scribbled in his notebook.

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Originally Posted by Hawki

Yeah, read the manuals. Unfortunately they got shorter with each installment, but the first one was a good read, an example of the 'good ol days' when manuals were actually manuals. Quite good, except I felt a bit letdown when it tells me everything about the Hilgarans/Kharak, then gives me nothing on the Taidaan bar their unit listing. I guess it's to let those things be uncovered in the game, but...well, you know...:(

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Yeah, manuals are definitely something that the current generation of games are missing. But then again, I feel the same way about CDs. Where's my lovely lovely album art?

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Originally Posted by Hawki

A definate case of the latter.

I'm fine with Tolkein tropes. I can still enjoy elves, dwarves, orcs, etc. But the thing is, WoT (or at least the first book) doesn't do anything with them, functioning identically. And there's the fact that book 1 is basically copied plotwise, the protagonists starting off in the equivalent of the Shire and ending in the equivalent of Mordor.

Still, book 2's off to a more promising start.

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I can still enjoy arves, dwelves, and orks as well. It's just harder for me to get into, and it also brings up one of the great imponderables: if fantasy authors and role-playing games and Blizzard can get away with using orcs or orks, why haven't science fiction writers used Klingons or Klinjons independently of Star Trek? Is it because... oh, right, orcs are pre-existing mythology, older than Tolkien. Huh, never would have guessed.

On another thought, sounds like the same problem that the Shanarra series had. Only problem is, I got into those books when I was younger and had an order of magnitude more reading time.

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Originally Posted by Hawki

I agree that's the best of the trilogy, but for me, only by virtue of being "okay," the others being "bad."

Unfortunately, I can't share the enthusiasm. So, to reverse my analogy:

*The Diet: Too much being covered in too little a time. Or rather...well, I'll put it this way - it's like reading two different stories in one book. We spend the first half with the Librarian and Path Kethona stuff, then the second with 'war stuff.' Not enough time for either to really flesh it out, and it makes me wonder why we couldn't just, say, replace Primordium with Path Kethona stuff as opposed to aimlessly walking around for 200 pages.

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I'm in total agreement with you here.
Structurally, I think that the trilogy was meant to be structured this way. Cryptum starts out and hits the battle over Janjur Qom somewhere near the midway point. Primordium branches off from Cryptum at that point, as does Silentium... if you exclude the Path Kethona stuff.

Now, I do know that Silentium was delayed for some sort of rewrite, but I doubt it was to include the Path Kethona stuff. The journey to the Andromeda galaxy is just too tangential to Halo 4 for that to have occurred.

Or maybe I'm just seeing things. Truth be told, the divergence point is how I would have told it...

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Originally Posted by Hawki

*The Coke: The 'war stuff.' This is very subjective, but I can't help but be disheartened. It's clear the Forerunner-Flood conflict isn't such a conflict, but rather "Forerunners vs. Precursors with the Flood just being a weapon like any other." True, kinda simplifying it, but going by, say, Origins, I never felt the need for orbital arches being used against the Forerunners. I never felt the need for Graveminds/Key Minds to just be Precursors in all but name. I never asked for the Flood to be gimped just so the Precursors could be bolstered as a threat.

Like I said, subjective, but IMO, the Flood's been gimped, turned from this mysterious, unstoppable parasite to just the tool of a race of beings who aren't mysterious, and if they're unstoppable...well, we stopped the unstoppable back in H3, I'm not exactly quaking in my boots.

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I'm actually happy that the Precursors got involved, because now I can talk about how powerful Forerunner weapons ought to be without some scheznik saying "Oh yeah? If they were that powerful, how could the Flood defeat them?"

More seriously, I don't have a problem with the blending of Precursors and Flood, because I see it as "Flood were Precursors all this time." Or maybe a shadow of them. Point is, the Precursors were the Pheru cocaine that got the Flood started. The Flood lets them create, an immutable aspect of their existence, without the risk of their children rising up and destroying them.

Finally, the Star Roads make sense to me because of the question "If Offensive Bias could finish off Mendicant Bias's fleets with unstable Slipspace ruptures, why couldn't the Forerunner use that earlier?" Answer: Because the Star Roads were pinning their fleets down.

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Originally Posted by Hawki

*The Pepsi: I don't hold pepsi or coke to be superior, since they taste the same. But going by the analogy, pepsi tastes better because there's some stuff I like, especially the IsoDidact. Maybe I'm just glad he's no longer Bornstellar Makes Eternal Whining and contrasts nicely with the Ur-Didact, their conversations/debates/question of who was the 'true' Didact being what I liked most. But then I realize pepsi does taste like coke and learn that the Ur-Didact is as he is because of Flood/Precursor/Gravemind exposure stuff.

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Ahem.
"I've proved my point. I've demonstrated there's no difference between me and everyone else! All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day. You had a bad day once, am I right? I know I am. I can tell. You had a bad day and everything changed. Why else would you dress up as a flying rat? You had a bad day, and it drove you as crazy as everybody else... Only you won't admit it! You have to keep pretending that life makes sense, that there's some point to all this struggling! God you make me want to puke."

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Originally Posted by Hawki

I suppose I can't complain. It's at least an explanation as to why he acts as he does in H4. But again, it reinforces my notion that Faber would have been a better antagonist because Silentium aside, he has means, and motive. By the same logic, the Ur-Didact should be lashing out against the Forerunners and Flood rather than just humanity. It's just...well, that thing you know is coming. It's like an inoculation that'll solve an illness that passed its most painful stage long ago, but all you actually feel is a painful prick.

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Agreed with Faber, though I doubt that 343i could do any better with Faber.
Faber was a politician. What evil he wrought was for the purpose of staying in power. Now that the Forerunner Ecumune has been dust for a hundred thousand years, what would his motivation be?

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Originally Posted by Hawki

Huh. Have you tried werewolves?:p

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MHI had one of those, right in the beginning. It's amazing what you have to default to when you left your silver bullets at home.

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Originally Posted by Gradius

I don't know, GRRM seems just as slow. I mean, what really happened in the last 2 ASOIAF books of import?

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I tried to pick up Game of Thrones.

Ever wonder how Superman shaves when he can't find a mirror? Jamie Hyneman theorizes that he must fly at supersonic speeds along a highway, letting the asphalt grind his stubble off.

Game of Thrones was the same feeling at 1/10000th speed.

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Originally Posted by Hawki

Only if I get cookies.

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There might be coffee.

http://www.audiodrums.com/audio/2012...u5-300x183.png

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Originally Posted by Hawki

I'm not really an audiobook person. I enjoyed cassete books back in the day, but nowadays...well, as cynical as this sounds, in many cases, I only read so I can write. To get as much lore out of a book as much as its story so I can thus write in said media, what with my policy of trying to spread over as much as possible. Course I still enjoy reading at the end of the day, but an audiobook doesn't really give me that. Besides, when reading, I often listen to music at the same time, which would make listening to an audiobook difficult under such circumstances.

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Hmm...
Inserting my experience in here, I usually prefer silence when I read. Never tried reading while listening to music because most of what I listen to can be filed under "Acid rock", "Electronica/Dubstep", and "Music to invade Poland to".

As for reading so you can write, are you reading to make sure that your fanfiction conforms to canon, or are you looking to see how authors use description/characterization/sentence structure and stuff? I'm more of the latter, myself.

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Originally Posted by Quirel

From what I remember though, any time Jul interacted with a human got to be a drag. Magnusson and Phillips were condescending, like Jul was a pet Elite they could talk down to.

Urgh. Am I complaining about the characters, or the writing? well, I guess that the human interactions with Jul could have been interesting, but something about the way that Traviss wrote them turned me off.

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There was a bit of smugness from Magnusson I suppose, but if anything, I appreciated it. It's...I dunno, 'realistic smugness?' Smugness that comes from finally getting sangheili on the other end of the boot after nearly three decades of that boot being on the Covenant's foot. All things considered, I think humans can be expected to gloat a bit.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Quirel

Yeah, I loved the moral ambiguity too (And even some of the hypocrisy).

Still, I'm worried about Halo getting too grimdark. Want an alliance or ceasefire with the xenos? That sounds like... heresy. Hold him, men, and we shall let Commissar Frankie decide his fate!

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Moral ambiguity doesn't necessarily equal grimdark.

Since 40K's been brought into this, its "moral ambiguity" can basically be amounted to "humanity are prats, but you shouldn't look too harshly on them, because not only is every other sapient species prats, but being prats is what keeps you alive in the setting."

Maybe I'm being too kind, or too harsh. On one hand, moral ambiguity doesn't necessarily equal "good" (in terms of writing). On the other, when The Thursday War sets up that ambiguity, and when Halo 4's explanation for Jul's actions are "a lot can change in four years" (in other words, if you're not familiar with the EU, you could logically assume that this is the same Covenant rather than a splinter faction), it does feel like oversimplification of the issue. Getting to a third hand, I accept that shooters are based on game mechanics that aren't that inclusive to such themes, but it's not to say it can't be done (Spec Ops: The Line is one such touted title, I could kinda classify Half-Life 2 as another).

So basically, yeah. I don't think there's risk of the setting going grimdark, especially when 343 is pushing the whole Mantle/humanity's destiny/insert cliche phrase here thing. For better or worse, The Thursday War seems to be the exception rather than the rule.

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Originally Posted by Quirel

'm actually happy that the Precursors got involved, because now I can talk about how powerful Forerunner weapons ought to be without some scheznik saying "Oh yeah? If they were that powerful, how could the Flood defeat them?"

More seriously, I don't have a problem with the blending of Precursors and Flood, because I see it as "Flood were Precursors all this time." Or maybe a shadow of them. Point is, the Precursors were the Pheru cocaine that got the Flood started. The Flood lets them create, an immutable aspect of their existence, without the risk of their children rising up and destroying them.

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Maybe...but with the first sentence, I can reverse it by saying "oh yeah? Well if the Flood were so weak they needed Precursor tech to win against the Forerunners, why are they such a threat in the modern day?" Like I said, subjective, but if it's a choice between Precursors and Flood, I'd go with Flood, especially when that choice involves putting the former on a pedastal at the expense of the latter.

Which also brings me to the second issue, as to what the Precursors' goals actually are, because they seem to change between Cryptum and Silentium? Is its the Precursors' goal to ensure humanity gets the Mantle? If so, why are they still hostile to humanity on Alpha and Delta Halo when humanity passed their 'test' way back in the day? Is it to ensure the Forerunners get what's coming to them? If so, why bug out, wait ten thousand years before appearing, and then reappear in the hopes that the Forerunners don't nip their initial infestation in the bud? Is it to wipe out all life so they're never challenged again? If so, again, why spare humanity back then?

I guess these goals aren't entirely mutually exclusive, but the whole notion makes me look at the Gravemind from the initial trilogy in a different light, and not in a good way. If the Precursors are 'good' and want humanity to take the Mantle and whatnot, then the Gravemind isn't really helping with that. If the Precursors are 'evil' and want all life to be destroyed/consumed, then they seem intent on shooting themselves in the foot. Maybe there's some grand plan that's yet to be revealed, but I remember when the Flood had clear objectives - consume, reproduce, spread. Nowadays, I'm left confused as to what the Gravemind's motives even are, or if it can be considered a Flood or Precursor, or if such a boundary can even be drawn with the whole Precursors=Flood thing.:(

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Originally Posted by Quirel

Ever wonder how Superman shaves when he can't find a mirror? Jamie Hyneman theorizes that he must fly at supersonic speeds along a highway, letting the asphalt grind his stubble off.

Game of Thrones was the same feeling at 1/10000th speed.

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Eh, look on the bright side. It could be Ramsay Snow dragging you along.:p

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Quirel

As for reading so you can write, are you reading to make sure that your fanfiction conforms to canon, or are you looking to see how authors use description/characterization/sentence structure and stuff? I'm more of the latter, myself.

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Not really...in as much that reading familiarizes me with more material, but if I'm checking up canon facts (or real-world ones), I'd just go to a wikia or Wikipedia, since it's far quicker and easier to do than scour through a book in the middle of writing something. Reading to get style kinda helps to an extent, but when it comes to feedback on writing technique, I get what I need from writer's group meetings. If anything, copying a writer's writing style can be a hazard - there was a brief period after reading A Game of Thrones where I realized I was writing material in its style and tone that wasn't suited for the media it was based on. Luckily that's passed, but if anything, writer's style is also respective to style and tone. What works in one setting doesn't necessarily work in another.

Got about half way through 'Under the Dome' (~500 pages) and decided I needed some intense sci fi action. Which seems to be like picking out comic books in a comic book store, so many, many options, many of them good, but no one can tell you which one is the right one for you. So I decided to go with 'Swarm' by B.V. Larson which is the go to series right now for the masses of military sci fi fans. I get the feeling I picked the equivalent of Call of Duty for the genre (dumber, simpler, but more action focused). It's an alright book so far though. Lots of action. Mostly earth invasion focused right now, which is played out for me, but gets more interesting when lots of alien races are introduced later, I hear. It's a short book though, about 275 pages, so I'll be finish it really soon, might move one to another sci fi series right afterwards. Anyways the take away for you guys is that if you're wanting an action packed sci fi series this seems to be a good place to start. I don't know if you guys are into that though :D

if I can't find another series sci fi series for me so I might just have to start digging into the Halo books, which I've been wanting to do since I discovered that there actually were video game based books around 2005.

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Originally Posted by Hawki

There was a bit of smugness from Magnusson I suppose, but if anything, I appreciated it. It's...I dunno, 'realistic smugness?' Smugness that comes from finally getting sangheili on the other end of the boot after nearly three decades of that boot being on the Covenant's foot. All things considered, I think humans can be expected to gloat a bit.

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*Takes notes*

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Originally Posted by Hawki

Moral ambiguity doesn't necessarily equal grimdark.

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No, but in the grim, dark future of the twenty-sixth century, there is only war!

What gets me thinking "Grimdark" is how war seems to be the default state of being in the Haloverse these days. Half of The Thursday War seems to be justification for reigniting the war between the ex-Covenant factions and Humanity, while Halo 4 gave us a blank look and a "Wait, we need to justify it? Since when?"

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Originally Posted by Hawki

Maybe...but with the first sentence, I can reverse it by saying "oh yeah? Well if the Flood were so weak they needed Precursor tech to win against the Forerunners, why are they such a threat in the modern day?"

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Because the modern civilizations don't have galaxy-spanning empires and planet-cracking technology.

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Originally Posted by Hawki

Like I said, subjective, but if it's a choice between Precursors and Flood, I'd go with Flood, especially when that choice involves putting the former on a pedastal at the expense of the latter.

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I think that the Flood has always been a 'scavenger' reliant on advanced technology to spread.

I'm being a hypocrite though, because the Flood defeated the Forerunner by being able to use long-dormant Precursor technology, almost exactly what Humanity is doing. And I'm really starting to dislike the latter.
Maybe the Flood isn't a 'scavenger', so much as it's a force that turns the Forerunner's strengths against them. Though I'd love to know how they captured entire fleets of (Presumably) hermetically-sealed warships.

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Originally Posted by Hawki

Which also brings me to the second issue, as to what the Precursors' goals actually are, because they seem to change between Cryptum and Silentium? Is its the Precursors' goal to ensure humanity gets the Mantle? If so, why are they still hostile to humanity on Alpha and Delta Halo when humanity passed their 'test' way back in the day? Is it to ensure the Forerunners get what's coming to them? If so, why bug out, wait ten thousand years before appearing, and then reappear in the hopes that the Forerunners don't nip their initial infestation in the bud? Is it to wipe out all life so they're never challenged again? If so, again, why spare humanity back then?

I guess these goals aren't entirely mutually exclusive, but the whole notion makes me look at the Gravemind from the initial trilogy in a different light, and not in a good way. If the Precursors are 'good' and want humanity to take the Mantle and whatnot, then the Gravemind isn't really helping with that. If the Precursors are 'evil' and want all life to be destroyed/consumed, then they seem intent on shooting themselves in the foot. Maybe there's some grand plan that's yet to be revealed, but I remember when the Flood had clear objectives - consume, reproduce, spread. Nowadays, I'm left confused as to what the Gravemind's motives even are, or if it can be considered a Flood or Precursor, or if such a boundary can even be drawn with the whole Precursors=Flood thing.:(

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Are the Precursors around like they were 100,000 years ago? The Halo Pulse destroyed the Orgonon, which may have been used to preserve them. That could mean that the Flood is a free agent, and no longer bound to the tenets of the Mantle. In that case, the Gravemind would be a vast library of memories and experiences bound into an organism that exists only to spread and consume.
Alternatively, the tinkering that the Forerunner did to us may have called our ability to carry the Mantle into question. In that case, we may need to be tested anew... and I think the books mentioned something to the fact that "our time is coming".

Hell, we're assuming that the Precursors were all in agreement, and that some weren't in favor of simply wiping out all life they didn't control.

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Originally Posted by Hawki

Not really...in as much that reading familiarizes me with more material, but if I'm checking up canon facts (or real-world ones), I'd just go to a wikia or Wikipedia, since it's far quicker and easier to do than scour through a book in the middle of writing something. Reading to get style kinda helps to an extent, but when it comes to feedback on writing technique, I get what I need from writer's group meetings. If anything, copying a writer's writing style can be a hazard - there was a brief period after reading A Game of Thrones where I realized I was writing material in its style and tone that wasn't suited for the media it was based on. Luckily that's passed, but if anything, writer's style is also respective to style and tone. What works in one setting doesn't necessarily work in another.

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Understood.

Mostly, I'm in a rut as far as writing goes, and I've been reading other authors and looking at their writing styles as a way of bootstrapping me through my writers block. How does Jim Butcher write his action scenes? How does Harry Turtledove pace his dialog? How did I pace my action scenes and write my dialog?

So, since the other posters have given me a mandate to vent my spleen again, it's time for the latest batch of vitriol for The Great Hunt. 681 page book (minus apendecies and the like), up to page 367, and...well, actually, it's entered territory that means it's looking at an assessment of "good" from me.

Then again, I'm not sure if that's a mark in the book's favour. The charitable way of looking at it in that the story has become more focussed on character relationships/interactions rather than just "go get the horn and let the side characters develop superpowers for the 10-plus books that are yet to come." Yes, Rand's still carrying the horn, but now that he has it, it isn't the dictating force for his actions. Nynaeve's gone/is going through her "Yoda teaches Luke" part of the plot, but at least it was relatively interesting to read.

On the other hand, maybe it's because it's entered 'shipping territory,' that time of the story where now when we've got to know the characters, the author can tease us all with pairing material that in our 21st century world, we can use as ammunition for our shipping wars. Rand can't help but notice Selene's...feminine aspects, Moraine has severed her connection with Lan for reasons I doubt are entirely utilitarian (and sparked my subconcious mind to go on a chanting round of "kiss him you fool!") and it seems that every male in Tar Valon is interested in getting into Egwene's pants and cockblocking each other in the process.

Or maybe I'm confusing the novel with a JRPG and seeing things that aren't there. Either way, the book's back in "good" territory right now, but no idea if it'll stay there.

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Originally Posted by TheEconomist

Which seems to be like picking out comic books in a comic book store, so many, many options, many of them good, but no one can tell you which one is the right one for you.

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I dunno, I've yet to see anyone appreciate the New 52.;)

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Originally Posted by TheEconomist

Anyways the take away for you guys is that if you're wanting an action packed sci fi series this seems to be a good place to start. I don't know if you guys are into that though

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Not really.

Okay, let me rephrase that. I can enjoy action in sci-fi. It's just that in so many books and movies, it seems that so often it boils down to humans who are "good guys" versus aliens who are "bad guys," whose sole defining feature is "we're invading aliens, and we're invading because we're dicks, and we're dicks because obviously any species capable of interstellar travel has to be dicks, because goodness knows exploring the idea that we aren't dicks would take away from time that we have to show that aliens are dicks, and humans aren't dicks, and humans get to show that we're not dicks by showing our "indomitable human spirit" and beating back those aliens."

Okay, I'm overgeneralizing, but it seems so often with military sci-fi in books and movies that fleshing out antagonists has become taboo bar "they're here, time to shoot them." Even an 'evil' faction/species can still be a fleshed out one, but so often in the genre, I'm not even granted that privilige. Movie-wise, for every Oblivion and Avatar, there's a Battle: Los Angeles and Battleship. Bookwise, for every War of the Worlds, there's a plenthora of Lost Fleet novels. It seems that in military sci-fi in books and films, there's a predisposition to make it black versus white with aliens being as evil and undeveloped as possible.

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Originally Posted by TheEconomist

f I can't find another series sci fi series for me so I might just have to start digging into the Halo books, which I've been wanting to do since I discovered that there actually were video game based books around 2005.

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2005? Huh. I still have my old Sonic the Hedgehog books from the 1990s tucked away on my shelves.:o

Snark aside, the Halo novels can probably be enjoyed without knowledge of the games. I say "probably" though because I could say the same of numerous pieces of such fiction, and often such fiction is what keeps my interest in the setting without ever purchasing the games they're based on. But overall, they'd probably be to your taste. Quite a few are fleshed out enough to stand on their own, quite a few have links to one another, and while there's absolute stinkers IMO (e.g. Cryptum and Primordium), there's absolute gems as well (e.g. The Fall of Reach and The Thursday War). Overall, probably worth a look.

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Originally Posted by Quirel

No, but in the grim, dark future of the twenty-sixth century, there is only war!

What gets me thinking "Grimdark" is how war seems to be the default state of being in the Haloverse these days. Half of The Thursday War seems to be justification for reigniting the war between the ex-Covenant factions and Humanity, while Halo 4 gave us a blank look and a "Wait, we need to justify it? Since when?"

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Um...

Okay, slight tangent, but I think "grimdark" is a phrase that gets used far too often. "Grimdark" is, IMO, "fiction where the situation is grim and generally unpleasant. What distinguishes grimdark from just plain "gritty" however, is that in grimdark, a requirement of the setting is that the protagonists do not possess the means and/or motives to change the setting for the better, but rather, the best the reader can hope for is a maintenance of the status quo, rather than improving the status quo." Hence, medias such as 40K and Aliens are grimdark. Halo isn't, especially post-H3 where humanity's gone from a grim situation where extinction was a real threat to a situation where they're the top dogs and the galaxy's their oyster.

Then again, maybe the UEG is indeed a predecessor for the Imperium. We emerge from aliens trying to wipe us out, we maintain our power through genetically-augmented supersoldiers, further boosted by legions of expendable grunts, we believe we have a manifest destiny, and...oh, wait. Nevermind. The Spartan-IVs can't be Space Marines because they're led by Palmer. And if anything, Palmer is more like a Sister of Battle.;)

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Originally Posted by Quirel

Because the modern civilizations don't have galaxy-spanning empires and planet-cracking technology.

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Except the Flood has to start off from scratch in both places. So the Covenant is the closest thing to a galaxy-spanning empire, and humanity has its NOVA bombs. It's a smaller conflict, but in terms of 'power level,' it kind of balances each other out.

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Originally Posted by Quirel

I'm being a hypocrite though, because the Flood defeated the Forerunner by being able to use long-dormant Precursor technology, almost exactly what Humanity is doing. And I'm really starting to dislike the latter.
Maybe the Flood isn't a 'scavenger', so much as it's a force that turns the Forerunner's strengths against them. Though I'd love to know how they captured entire fleets of (Presumably) hermetically-sealed warships.

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Eh, don't worry. Honestly, by this point, I was expecting Gradius or Turalyon to come in yelling "wait a minute, how can you criticize the derping of the Flood/Gravemind, yet be okay with the derping of the zerg/Overmind!?" And to that I say...um...

So yeah, I don't think "hypocrite" is a word that necessitates usage right now. But you did kind of nail it with the whole Flood turning the Forerunners' strengths against them. So with Flood going from "we win because we can use your strengths against you" to "we win because there were all these Precursor artifacts lying around," can they really be called "the Flood" anymore? They're not really 'flooding' their foe, but rather just building dams and whatnot.

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Originally Posted by Quirel

Are the Precursors around like they were 100,000 years ago? The Halo Pulse destroyed the Orgonon, which may have been used to preserve them. That could mean that the Flood is a free agent, and no longer bound to the tenets of the Mantle. In that case, the Gravemind would be a vast library of memories and experiences bound into an organism that exists only to spread and consume.
Alternatively, the tinkering that the Forerunner did to us may have called our ability to carry the Mantle into question. In that case, we may need to be tested anew... and I think the books mentioned something to the fact that "our time is coming".

Hell, we're assuming that the Precursors were all in agreement, and that some weren't in favor of simply wiping out all life they didn't control.

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All of this is possible, but "possible" is the key word. If new evidence comes to light, then I'll reconsider it. But it just feels so far that the Precursors seem to be unable to make up their mind as to what their goals are, and I'm left asking questions about the Flood in the original trilogy. Questions that didn't exist back then and IMO, didn't need to.

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It seems that so often it boils down to humans who are "good guys" versus aliens who are "bad guys,"

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I have the same problem as you. In an action series, you have to hate the villain and love the good guys. Hard to do when the bad guys are simply on another side or "just plain evil." From what I can tell though, there's plenty of military sci fi that rises above this, or, if it doesn't, its not really about the combat anyways but more about the effect on the characters.

As for B.V. Larson's series, he avoids this pretty well since, at least for most of the first book, you don't know who is the bad guy or the good guy. I know who they are, from the blurbs about the sequels, but I shouldn't. The enemies aren't interesting yet though. It's a pretty simplistic novel that I'm starting to think only got so many 4-stars of GoodReads because of a rush from the Halo and Call of Duty crowd trying out their first novel. I just figured I needed to get this book out of the way, since I bought it, and can return it to Audible, if I send it back soon enough. It does have action though. So like I said, if you don't mind simplistic worlds (not enemies) then you might like it. As for me, I have a really hard time connecting to anything that isn't massively epic. I don't know why now. I used to not have this problem. I blame it on the ease of listening to audiobooks. Kind of like watching a miniseries versus a full, multi season series.

There still seems to be a lot of books that would interest me out there, however.

On an unrelated side note, I never knew how many space horror books there were. Up until now I had thought that movies like Event Horizon, Pandemonium and games like Dead Space were unique, but, nope, there's books just like them. Go figure. I'm not even sure if Alien or Predator are all that unique anymore, and, if not, I don't even know who I am.

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Originally Posted by Hawki

Eh, don't worry. Honestly, by this point, I was expecting Gradius or Turalyon to come in yelling "wait a minute, how can you criticize the derping of the Flood/Gravemind, yet be okay with the derping of the zerg/Overmind!?" And to that I say...um...

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You rang?

Luckily for the both of you, I've never played any of the Halo game (eh, so sue me) so I don't have much to say on the matter. I take it that what we know of this Gravemind so far is that the information is filtered through the lens of an in-universe perspective and not from a position of audience omniscience (the audience knows only what the in-universe characters know)?

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Snark aside, the Halo novels can probably be enjoyed without knowledge of the games. I say "probably" though because I could say the same of numerous pieces of such fiction, and often such fiction is what keeps my interest in the setting without ever purchasing the games they're based on. But overall, they'd probably be to your taste. Quite a few are fleshed out enough to stand on their own, quite a few have links to one another, and while there's absolute stinkers IMO (e.g. Cryptum and Primordium), there's absolute gems as well (e.g. The Fall of Reach and The Thursday War). Overall, probably worth a look

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What do you think about Halo: The Flood? I think the Kilo-Five novels have a purpose somewhat as they give an explanation about the Covenant Remnants, despite it being the most absurd thing ever. And Halo: The Fall of Reach, well I sadly can't read it anymore as it has been retconned into oblivion by its' game version, Halo: The Retcon of Reach.

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Hence, medias such as 40K and Aliens are grimdark. Halo isn't, especially post-H3 where humanity's gone from a grim situation where extinction was a real threat to a situation where they're the top dogs and the galaxy's their oyster.

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Aliens isn't grim-dark. Alien 3 and Resurrection basically just kamikaze the franchise into a supernova. You know, after Alien, Ripley is all traumatized about the Alien and such... And then, she finally confronts her fears and defeats the Alien Queen, rescues Newt, etc. In Alien 3 that all gets wiped away and she is doomed to a pointless grim-dark death. Then in Resurrection her 'sacrifice' is completely wasted when the military recreates aliens.

Okay, it's a bit ironic. But to give you an analogy, in Terminator 2 James Cameron has this motif of the future not being set in stone and changeable. Then it all got wasted in Terminator 3. Just like how Cameron had Ripley triumph in Aliens then basically it all went to waste.

In Halo it wasn't grim-dark, you are right. Halo: Combat Evolved? We save the galaxy, wipe out the Flood on the ring and blow up a whole Covenant armada. Then a bit after the game ends, with a few Spartans and marines a gigantic Covenant fleet is wiped out, saving Earth. You call that grim-dark? Halo 2, we annhiliate the attacking Covenant fleet. We defeat the Covenant on Earth, they retreat. We kill one of their three leaders, then the Covenant is torn apart and they fight each other.

Reach is grim-dark, especially because we all know how Reach turned out. But even though the whole planet falls and Noble 6 dies, it turns out that your actions led to the Covenant being defeated. Post Halo-3, it just turns into a joke I have to say, with the Covenant Remnant bullshit. Really, now? Did 343 Industries play Halo 2, where the Covenant tried to exterminate the Elites? Were these Elites on vacation? Didn't they know that Humans are Forerunners (I don't care about the Halo 4 retcon of them being Forerunner)... 343 just seems to be retconning stuff to make it darker.

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All of this is possible, but "possible" is the key word. If new evidence comes to light, then I'll reconsider it. But it just feels so far that the Precursors seem to be unable to make up their mind as to what their goals are, and I'm left asking questions about the Flood in the original trilogy. Questions that didn't exist back then and IMO, didn't need to.

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Reclaimer Trilogy basically just retconned the entire Halo series.

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You rang?

Luckily for the both of you, I've never played any of the Halo game (eh, so sue me) so I don't have much to say on the matter. I take it that what we know of this Gravemind so far is that the information is filtered through the lens of an in-universe perspective and not from a position of audience omniscience (the audience knows only what the in-universe characters know)?

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Yes, and we especially don't have omniscient manuals or a Flood campaign to get information.

I am quite sure that the Gravemind is the same Gravemind from the Forerunner war, and I am curious to see how that is achieved. Maybe Flood infection-forms contain a large amount of information, allowing the old Gravemind to transmit data to the Infection Forms, then when a new Gravemind is created, the Infection Forms transmit information to the new Gravemind.

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Originally Posted by Turalyon

You rang?

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Yeah. Didn't expect an answer though.:p

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Originally Posted by Turalyon

I take it that what we know of this Gravemind so far is that the information is filtered through the lens of an in-universe perspective and not from a position of audience omniscience (the audience knows only what the in-universe characters know)?

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Pretty much, bar the encyclopedias and the like.

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Originally Posted by LestersPetZergling

What do you think about Halo: The Flood?

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In a word..."decent."

It's a "decent" that I feel deserves clarification however, because I have to consider the task Dietz had. Novelize a FPS. I admit, I've done plenty of novelizations but never a FPS, but I can imagine it would be a nightmarish task. In a limited period of time, the author has to cover a certain ammount of material, based on continuous action that wouldn't translate well into written form (e.g. as enjoyable as shooting aliens is, the narrative is often segregated from the action), striking a balance between having that action, and not bogging down the narrative with it. If anything, I think Dietz made the right call by having secondary stories, because the type of gameplay in Combat Evolved isn't condusive to novel form. And as far as FPS novelizations go, it's far better than, say, Knee Deep in the Dead (novelization of Doom) which is basically the entire game and all its 'story' in novel form.

So, is The Flood particuarly good? Nothing to write home about. But for what it is, and for what it was based on, I'd say Dietz did a good job. Certainly much better than many of the other works of his I've read.:(

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Originally Posted by LestersPetZergling

I think the Kilo-Five novels have a purpose somewhat as they give an explanation about the Covenant Remnants, despite it being the most absurd thing ever.

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Why is that absurd? While I feel it would have been better to name the remnants anything but "the Covenant," I appreciate the concept.

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Originally Posted by LestersPetZergling

And Halo: The Fall of Reach, well I sadly can't read it anymore as it has been retconned into oblivion by its' game version, Halo: The Retcon of Reach.

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I can't be bummed by that. We have a game that contradicts EU elements, and then EU elements (Halsey's journal and the data drops) smooth things over. It's technically a retcon, but it was handled well IMO, and certainly the notion of Reach falling over time works far better than confining the game to a far shorter period of time.

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Originally Posted by LestersPetZergling

Aliens isn't grim-dark.

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Actually, I'd argue that it is. It fits the definition - circumstances are constantly grim, in that the xenomorphs will always exist, the yautja will never stop hunting humans, and Weyland-Yutani always exists in its own timeframe. It falls, but by the actions of the plot, rather than characters. At best, characters in the setting can hope to survive, rather than change the status quo for the better.

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Originally Posted by LestersPetZergling

Alien 3 and Resurrection basically just kamikaze the franchise into a supernova. You know, after Alien, Ripley is all traumatized about the Alien and such... And then, she finally confronts her fears and defeats the Alien Queen, rescues Newt, etc. In Alien 3 that all gets wiped away and she is doomed to a pointless grim-dark death.

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If there's one thing that's going to get me garotted it's probably this but I'll say it anyway...I like Alien 3.

Now before the wire reaches my skin, I'll say I don't consider it as good as the first two films, but but it's far better than the likes of Resurrection and Prometheus. Everything you say is true in a sense - Ripley saving Newt means nothing bar granting her a more peaceful death than what she might have had via the xenomorphs. Ripley's efforts for her own part are for naught as well - she couldn't save Hicks, or Bishop, or Clemens, or even herself.

And yet, that's what I like about the film in a way, in that it doesn't hold back the punches. The universe doesn't care that Ripley had overcome her PTSD and formed a bond with Newt, Hicks, and Bishop. The xenomorph doesn't care that Clemens just gave Ripley his full backstory right before he died. Nor does it care that it's made her efforts naught, or that Aaron has a family waiting for him, or anything that humans value. The alien is truly...well, alien. And the universe is cold and cruel, and grants no favours. Alien 3 is to the Aliens series what the Red Wedding is to A Song of Ice and Fire. A reminder that the world doesn't always conform to story expectations.

Movie Defence Force does a far better job of explaining it than me (source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHbBvuo4Yak), and I admit, I've only seen the extended edition. Film Brain is another Internet reviewer who gave the film its blessings. But overall, I like Alien 3. I get why other people dislike it, but for what it is, and what it does, I think it does it well. And of course, the prop work is excellent.

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Originally Posted by LestersPetZergling

Then in Resurrection her 'sacrifice' is completely wasted when the military recreates aliens.

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Xenomorphs were still around post-A3. If anything, why the USM has to use Ripley at all is a plothole. But that's comparatively minor - while I like Alien 3, Resurrection is a film that I don't.

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Originally Posted by LestersPetZergling

But to give you an analogy, in Terminator 2 James Cameron has this motif of the future not being set in stone and changeable. Then it all got wasted in Terminator 3.

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That I agree with. And before I'm accused of double-standards, I'll put it this way - if T3 had ended with Judgement Day occurring, I could take that. What really gets to me about T3 though (among other things) is that it's basically the anti-T1/2. We've gone from "no fate" to "fate is inevitable." It's as if the writers didn't get the themes of the previous films, or wanted to counter them.

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Originally Posted by LestersPetZergling

Really, now? Did 343 Industries play Halo 2, where the Covenant tried to exterminate the Elites? Were these Elites on vacation? Didn't they know that Humans are Forerunners (I don't care about the Halo 4 retcon of them being Forerunner)... 343 just seems to be retconning stuff to make it darker.

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Actually, it was Bungie who carried out the Forerunners aren't humans retcon, and it shows. Halo 3 treats them like they're the same, while the Iris viral campaign and terminals make it clear that they're separate. While I'm not fond of how 343 has put humanity on a pedastal in the setting, or how no distinction is made between the "old" and "new" Covenant, I can't blame them for a retcon Bungie itself carried out.

And technically it's a retcon that only occurred during development, rather than retconning stuff that was in the story/lore itself prior to H3, which is where two "proofs" are presented and up until Bungie clarified things, we were left wondering which account was true. It's not so much a retcon as rather two sets of information being presented at the same time.

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Originally Posted by LestersPetZergling

I am quite sure that the Gravemind is the same Gravemind from the Forerunner war, and I am curious to see how that is achieved. Maybe Flood infection-forms contain a large amount of information, allowing the old Gravemind to transmit data to the Infection Forms, then when a new Gravemind is created, the Infection Forms transmit information to the new Gravemind.

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No, it isn't. It shares the memories, but it's just one Gravemind of many. The Primordial and all the other Graveminds were wiped out when the Halos activated.

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And as far as FPS novelizations go, it's far better than, say, Knee Deep in the Dead (novelization of Doom) which is basically the entire game and all its 'story' in novel form.

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It should of been from the perspective of Zamamee, Foehammer, Lieutenant McKay or another character. The non-game novelization parts had promise.

Maybe Jenkins, maybe Chips Dubbo or Sergeant Stacker. It was never explained how Dubbo and Stacker survived. Also, maybe Lovik -- when you escape the Flood containment facility just before the end of 343 Guilty Spark, he's the guy that says "Sir! Thank god you're here!" and also the guy that talks on the comms to Johnson and Keyes during Jenkins' helmet cut-scene.

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Certainly much better than many of the other works of his I've read.

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You said that a cereal-eating ninja made for a good antagonist, and that was Dietz' work.

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Why is that absurd? While I feel it would have been better to name the remnants anything but "the Covenant," I appreciate the concept.

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Okay, wait. I think I know why humans got retconned from Forerunners into enemies of the Forerunners. Its' so the Covenant could have an excuse to fight humans. If they were the gods they were worshipping, well, you'd have to have the Flood in Halo 4... No but really wait, how could there be so many Covenant loyalist ships? Aren't Sangheili unable to even farm post-Covenant? And didn't pretty much all their fleet except Shadow of Intent go down at the Ark?

And even more, there is eye-witness Sangheili to CONFIRM that humans are Forerunners, so the 'Covenant loyalists' make no sense. They should have been Brutes. And why do the Loyalists believe the Great Journey, still?

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she couldn't save Hicks

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He canonically survives, and gets rescued by his fellow marines. Guess game wasn't over man...

But like I said, Alien and Aliens, she's optimistic and survives with another survivor/several, but in Alien 3 and Resurrection? Nope! You lose! Just like what happened to Cameron's other major franchise, Terminator (Ridley Scott did Alien 1, yes).

Ripley is one person yet solos the Alien hive and kills the Queen. How is that grim-dark? In 40k one Space Marine would get killed in the hive alone.

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Halo 3 treats them like they're the same, while the Iris viral campaign and terminals

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I know the Librarian observes the primitive humans on Earth in the terminals. But all the evidence in-game and in Halo: Contact Harvest suggests otherwise...

"You ARE Forerunner!"

How ridiculous that it turns out that the Prophets and Humans were part of an alliance and fought the Forerunners ... but they get called Forerunners?

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No, it isn't. It shares the memories, but it's just one Gravemind of many. The Primordial and all the other Graveminds were wiped out when the Halos activated.

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Well what I mean that since the Flood are a collective entity (and the Gravemind can speak through them), maybe all 'Flood' are the same consciousness. So maybe the Flood on Installation 05 that formed the new Gravemind were the 'Old' Gravemind, in a very dumb, primitive state, just like a few Geth compared to the whole collective. Do you know what I mean? The new Gravemind appears to act like it was around during the Forerunner war.

e.g. say that all Zerg are one thing (at least under the Overmind's control), the Overmind, collectively. When the Overmind dies, say that the Cerebrates merge into a new Overmind, and since that the Overmind was the Cerebrates, does that mean that the new Overmind is the old Overmind?

The longest, most interesting discussions always involve things I've never read.

*sigh*

Gonna hafta make a big long list of the books I've read, find one someone has read, and then latch on to that :D

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Originally Posted by LestersPetZergling

It should of been from the perspective of Zamamee, Foehammer, Lieutenant McKay or another character. The non-game novelization parts had promise.

Maybe Jenkins, maybe Chips Dubbo or Sergeant Stacker. It was never explained how Dubbo and Stacker survived. Also, maybe Lovik -- when you escape the Flood containment facility just before the end of 343 Guilty Spark, he's the guy that says "Sir! Thank god you're here!" and also the guy that talks on the comms to Johnson and Keyes during Jenkins' helmet cut-scene.

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I kinda agree, but I doubt it would have been an option. The Flood is to promote Combat Evolved. Combat Evolved had you playing as John-117. The Flood had John on the cover. Ergo, I think it was a requirement from a marketing standpoint that John feature prominantly.

I'm not disagreeing that the scenario you suggested could have made for better reading, but I doubt it was an option Dietz had.

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Originally Posted by LestersPetZergling

You said that a cereal-eating ninja made for a good antagonist, and that was Dietz' work.

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I said Kai Leng made for a servicable antagonist, and that stems from Mass Effect 3. In ME3, the Reapers themselves are the main antagonists. Kai Leng is a servant of them. Ergo, he doesn't need to be fleshed out or complex in the same way Saren was.

Deception however, is another story. A terribly written story where Kai Leng eating cereal is just part of what makes it so terrible. So terrible in fact that Bioware promised us a corrected version that'll likely never come to fruition, and instead likely wants to make us forget all about it. Oh, and I kinda suspect that Deception killed the Mass Effect novel line given that since then every piece of written Mass Effect EU has been a comic (nothing against comics, but I prefer novels).

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Originally Posted by LestersPetZergling

Okay, wait. I think I know why humans got retconned from Forerunners into enemies of the Forerunners. Its' so the Covenant could have an excuse to fight humans.

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Except Bungie made that retcon itself, and it's not even a retcon from an in-universe perspective. Why would Bungie make a retcon for 343's behalf in Halo 3 when at that stage it owned the IP and, as far as I know, there was no talk of giving it to Microsoft at the time?

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Originally Posted by LestersPetZergling

No but really wait, how could there be so many Covenant loyalist ships? Aren't Sangheili unable to even farm post-Covenant? And didn't pretty much all their fleet except Shadow of Intent go down at the Ark?

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Because the plot says so.:p

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Originally Posted by LestersPetZergling

And even more, there is eye-witness Sangheili to CONFIRM that humans are Forerunners,

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Where?

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Originally Posted by LestersPetZergling

so the 'Covenant loyalists' make no sense. They should have been Brutes. And why do the Loyalists believe the Great Journey, still?

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Few pointers:

-Jul's motivations are anti-human expansion and revenge for Raia, not out of any great belief. His followers follow for religious reasons.

-There are/were jiralhanae in his faction going by Spartan Assault. Dunno where they were in Halo 4, but meh.

-Loyalists still believe in the Great Journey for the same reasons some people still believe Earth is only a few thousand years old, that evolution doesn't exist, and that blowing people up is the fast-track to Heaven. It's because their religion says so, and no amount of proof is going to convince them otherwise. If information contradicts their religion, obviously the information must be wrong.

Same with the Covenant. The Servants of Abiding Truth, Jul's faction, not every Covie was on Delta Halo or the Ark, they've only got people's word for it that the Great Journey was a lie. When you believe something for thousands of years, you're not going to give it up easily.

So, I'll clarify - I don't have a problem with Jul's faction, or the Servants of Abiding Truth, or the storyline development that not every sangheili or other alien was willing to kiss and make up with humanity and abandon their faith. I just feel Halo 4 could have handled it better, and it could have been done so by not treating Jul's forces as the same Covenant, let alone actually naming them Covenant as if nothing had happened.

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Originally Posted by LestersPetZergling

He canonically survives, and gets rescued by his fellow marines. Guess game wasn't over man...

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Ah yes, Colonial Marines. And Hicks. A case where as fun as it was to play alongside him, I have to admit his survival was, in a word, stupid!.:mad:

But yes, Hicks survives, and I accept that. But in the scope of Alien 3, Ripley couldn't save him, and as far as we knew at the time, he was dead.

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Originally Posted by LestersPetZergling

But like I said, Alien and Aliens, she's optimistic and survives with another survivor/several, but in Alien 3 and Resurrection? Nope! You lose!

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Actually she wins in Resurrection, though I'm kinda loathe to bring that in. The Ripley in that is Ripley-8, not Ellen Ripley. They may look the same, but are not the same character, biologically or storywise.

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Originally Posted by LestersPetZergling

Ripley is one person yet solos the Alien hive and kills the Queen. How is that grim-dark? In 40k one Space Marine would get killed in the hive alone.

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The act alone isn't necessarily grimdark, but the setting as a whole is for the reasons I described. And a single Space Marine could have probably taken the queen out too along with every xenomorph before detonation.

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Originally Posted by LestersPetZergling

But all the evidence in-game and in Halo: Contact Harvest suggests otherwise...

"You ARE Forerunner!"

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Actually Contact Harvest was more a way of reconciling the issue, of the Covenant believing that Reclaimer=Forerunner, whilst we in the audience have the benefit of understanding that isn't the case. Spark's declaration of "you are Forerunner" is still a sore thumb (and in both H3 and 4, John's reaction seems to be "huh, okay" rather than questioning either Spark or the Librarian), but I suppose at this point we have to accept that Spark is an unreliable narrator. Or if you want to wriggle out of things, his declaration means that "you Reclaimers have come far enough to be counted as Forerunners."

Iffy I know, but what's done is done.

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Originally Posted by LestersPetZergling

Well what I mean that since the Flood are a collective entity (and the Gravemind can speak through them), maybe all 'Flood' are the same consciousness. So maybe the Flood on Installation 05 that formed the new Gravemind were the 'Old' Gravemind, in a very dumb, primitive state, just like a few Geth compared to the whole collective. Do you know what I mean? The new Gravemind appears to act like it was around during the Forerunner war.

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Kinda. But at the end of the day, it's a new Gravemind. Has the old memories...and with the revelation that Precursors=Flood, its actions are called into question.

(As an aside, Quirel was right in that in Primordium, it's indeed foreshadowed that the Precursors intend to 'test' humanity in the timeframe as the games. But then I'm left wondering - if the original trilogy was the test, then why does the Gravemind never refer to it as such? And if the 'test' is yet to come in the Reclaimer Trilogy, again, what were the Flood doing back then? Is it a case where the Flood and Precursors are now separate entities? If so...well, I actually like that idea. If the Precursors are GLaDOS, the Flood are Chell - silent, deadly, and say "screw you" to testing, we're gonna do our own thing!:D)

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Originally Posted by TheEconomist

Gonna hafta make a big long list of the books I've read, find one someone has read, and then latch on to that

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Could always list stuff in the watching/playing threads...just saying...

Dear Lord, this thread is going so fast, so furious. Not sure if I can keep up!

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I kinda agree, but I doubt it would have been an option. The Flood is to promote Combat Evolved. Combat Evolved had you playing as John-117. The Flood had John on the cover. Ergo, I think it was a requirement from a marketing standpoint that John feature prominantly.

I'm not disagreeing that the scenario you suggested could have made for better reading, but I doubt it was an option Dietz had.

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The Flood came out 2 years after Combat Evolved. Fall of Reach came out basically at the same time. Fall of Reach didn't focus on Chief, really. More about Keyes. If you wanted to market it good, how about Sergeant Johnson or Zamamee or another Elite? The Arbiter, Half-Jaw, Sergeant Johnson or Zamamee would market quite well.

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Same with the Covenant. The Servants of Abiding Truth, Jul's faction, not every Covie was on Delta Halo or the Ark, they've only got people's word for it that the Great Journey was a lie. When you believe something for thousands of years, you're not going to give it up easily.

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How could they be so religious, if they weren't on High Charity, Delta Halo or a ship surrounding it?

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Because the plot says so.

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I couldn't help but laugh when the Arbiter was out-numbered by the pro-Covenant. What the? How in GOD'S NAME do the religious Covenant outnumber the Separatists? Especially when the Separatists wiped out the Covenant fleet that outnumbered them three-to-one and still have Shadow of Intent.

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-Jul's motivations are anti-human expansion and revenge for Raia, not out of any great belief. His followers follow for religious reasons.

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Yeah nice, destroy humans' planets for thirty years then bitch about them expanding.

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Actually she wins in Resurrection, though I'm kinda loathe to bring that in. The Ripley in that is Ripley-8, not Ellen Ripley. They may look the same, but are not the same character, biologically or storywise.

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Yeah, what's so grim-dark about the Aliens franchise? Ripley wins and all the aliens die 4/4 out of 4 times. She even survives 3/4 times! She also kills the Queen every movie it appears.

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The act alone isn't necessarily grimdark, but the setting as a whole is for the reasons I described. And a single Space Marine could have probably taken the queen out too along with every xenomorph before detonation.

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Ordinary woman who's job-experience is sleeping in a tube on a ship. She manages to save Hudson, Hicks et cetera... Then she goes in and solos the Hive. HOW, HOW IS THAT GRIM-DARK?!

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-There are/were jiralhanae in his faction going by Spartan Assault. Dunno where they were in Halo 4, but meh.

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That makes things utterly ridiculous. Did 343 Industries play Halo 2? Did they play Halo 3?

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if the original trilogy was the test, then why does the Gravemind never refer to it as such?

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Ret-cons. Gravemind calls John, 'child of my maker'. Sorry but you can't reconcile the four different universes of Halo (original trilogy universe; includes Fall of Reach, etc, ODST universe, Halo: Reach universe, sequel trilogy universe; includes Primordium, etc).

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Where?

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krKZekl_2xM

at 1:17 (ironically).

Also to note... In the Halo 3 campaign, Elites say the word Reclaimer around you a lot.

Finally picked up Spectres and started reading.

God, Ghost was so much better.