Analog Science Fiction Magazine Story Review, November/December 2025 - SLRPNK

Lemmy

Anyone read Primaterre? opinions? - Lemmy.ca

I’m about a third of the way through the first book. The primary mysteries (what the hell is up with this crazy planet, and what the hell as these “demons”) has not been resolved. The escapism is great, but the writing is mediocre. So I’m wondering if anyone has an opinion. I’ll probably finish the first book either way, but unsure if I should be sale hunting for the rest of the series.

Making sure you're not a bot!

The Mercy of Gods [Review] [Spoilers] - Lemmy.ca

As a lover of The Expanse, I recently picked up The Mercy of Gods by James S.A. Corey and ended up binging it in a day while waiting for work. Spoilers ahead. The book is set on a world inhabited by two competing forms of life: carbon-based organisms introduced by humans around 4,000 years ago, and the native crystalline lifeforms. Just as a team of scientists makes a genetic breakthrough—enabling these very different life forms to coexist—they detect a gravity anomaly that functions as an “Outside Context Problem.” Now, as a newly subjugated species, the scientists must prove to their new overlords that humanity still has something to offer to the vast, interconnected web of civilizations that make up the alien polity. As a soft science fiction space opera, I really enjoyed the book. The Carryx, with their striking orange-and-blue morality, are fascinating, and humanity’s attempts to “humanize” them predictably fall flat. I do wish it had been longer—the 400 pages flew by—and the “science” that drives the plot remains mostly hidden, despite being the central pivot of the story. A lot of the drama—and even the action—comes from the clash of two different moral philosophies: Is it better to cooperate with an oppressor to save everyone, or should you refuse, knowing it could damn everyone to death? It’s a brutal choice, weighing the survival of humanity, and living to fight another day, against the cost of submitting to tyranny. Each section opens with a quote from the Carryx perspective, often hinting at how humanity eventually contributes to their downfall. I’m really looking forward to seeing that play out. Solid 8/10. Bring on the sequel—and the fall of the Carryx.

The Politics of Neal Asher… - Lemmy

Neal Asher has a new book out called Dark Diamond. The dedication page in it is quite frankly pretty horrifying. >Five years ago, I watched the two Falcon Heavy side boosters come into land at Cape Canaveral Space Force Base. Honestly, it was like something in a game animation and seemingly too perfect to be believable. Others, I’ve seen landing on drone ships with names taken from lain M. Banks’ Culture books. Just recently, I saw a huge booster for the Starship come down to be caught between two metal arms - y’know, they caught something the size of a skyscraper like a dropping stick - and that was an astounding feat of engineering. But these are not in isolation, since SpaceX, as of last month, has launched over a hundred rockets in 2024. >Meanwhile, the guy who brought this about, the guy who is aiming to make humanity multi-planetary by putting us on Mars, has a few other projects on the go, like building electric cars, burrowing tunnels under cities, putting up a satellite internet system and, perhaps the most important of them all, preventing the totalitarians of our world from killing free speech. >So thank you, Elon Musk, for bringing to reality, right before my eyes, those things I read and dreamed about as a teenager. That… is a REALLY unfortunate, given Musk’s apparent aspirations to be a Culture-level Bad Guy™. It’s like Asher’s paid absolutely zero attention to the fact that the Starlink is considered pollution on a massive scale, from an astronomy perspective and numerous environmental aspects. And that Elon’s Boring Company is widely acknowledged to have been a ploy to stop Cali from approving light rail projects. And that his purchase of Twitter was in fact a splurge to destroy a free speech platform and bend it to be another disinformation platform instead. Yuck. I should add that while I personally don’t really enjoy Asher’s books all that much to begin with, I was utterly unaware of his politics until now. I will strongly recommend against him going forward, much like I do with Orson Scott Card, despite an extreme fondness for some of Card’s earlier works. Do you guys worry much about the politics of the authors you enjoy, or is it more of a me thing?

Struggling Through Gravity's Rainbow - lemm.ee

Holy heck what a slog. It’s 90% incomprehensible 1940s pop culture references, nonsense poetry, and word salad. Then, BLAM, the rest is brilliantly hilarious and fantastically written. (Extremely graphic depiction of coprophilia aside.) It seems like every time I’m about to put the book down for good, Pynchon throws me a bone and massively entertains. I’m 40% of the way through, and I’ve almost given up a half dozen times. I am at least starting to maybe glean a little bit of the plot out of the jumble. A little bit. I really hope it becomes a little more clear at some point because it’s a little discouraging. Has anyone here made it through? Worth it? Did you understand what was going on? What a book!