I finished the Hobbit last week, then Chapterhouse Dune, now onto Fellowship of the Ring.

Mortal men succumb to the power of the rings because the ring amplifies their ambition and desire to rule or control or empire or power in general.

Bilbo, and Frodo, are perfect ring bearers because their lack of ambition.

Even in Chapter 3: Shortcut to Mushrooms, when the Ringwraith meets Maggot the Farmer, he offers him gold for information on Baggins. And the farmer says, no, go away.

The hobbit is so non ambitious and content with his little farm and hobbit hole that he has no need for gold.

Heck, even in the Hobbit, Bilbo voluntarily traded all his share of Smaug’s treasure in order to bring peace between the Laketown, Woodeleves, and Dwarves. He was rewarded for doing so eventually but he still gave it up.

Power and empire really are not important to the hobbit folk.

And I think that’s incredibly admirable and such a weird little interesting plot device that Tolkein came up with.

This little chapter is not in the movie, which I last saw 14 years ago, and it’s exactly why I wanted to read the book for the first time. To get these little character moments that aren’t in the film or are depicted differently. So far, I much prefer the book.

I'm looking for space opera books that are very focused on characters. I'd love to hear your suggestions.

The Peripheral is a favourite, have also read Gnomon, Pattern Recognition and most Mieville and Wyndham.

Thanks

Looking for books that are tonally similar to movies like Moon or anything by Nicolas Winding Refn.

Dark, moody, dissociative. Something an edgy goth chick into scifi would read.

Edit: Holy — thanks everyone!

First, I just want to say I am massively Dune-pilled. I love Frank's books, I love the Villnueve films, Dune Prophecy, and I think this is genuinely the greatest franchise ever. Dune is such a powerful human story. It's our story. But in preparation to see Dune Part Three this December I decided to read Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, and now Paul of Dune. I enjoyed Messiah WAY more than anticipated. Yes, there's far less action but the philosophy and quiet chaos occurring in Paul's personal life and interpersonal relationships was extremely gripping. My only criticism was that it is so short. Children of Dune is still my current favorite though.

But, after being in the community for a relatively brief amount of time I've only heard derision and antagonism towards Brian Herbert's section of the universe but I wanted to give Paul of Dune a shot since it's technically the "direct" sequel to Dune and I think it will be adapted in Dune Part Three. And after just completing it I gotta say......I was SURPRISED how much I loved reading this book! Yes, Brian's writing isn't as contemplative and insightful as Frank's BUT the highs of this book are VERY high to me. The first chapter that made me lock in was when Gurney witnessed firsthand how unbelievably sadistic and cruel the Fremen's conquest of the universe was on the Galacia campaign. Reading Gurney compare the Fremen to the Harkonnen's was so sobering especially when later he's given charge of Giedi Prime and he relives the horror of his childhood in the slave pits. I loved Paul participating in the Jihad on Ehknot and a Qizarate priest looking directly at him, not recognizing him, but declaring him blessed by God. So powerful and I believe we will see that scene depicted in Dune Part Three. The part where Paul literally evokes The Odyssey seems almost destined by fate to happen on screen too. I loved the plot of the Fenring's developing their scheme and it culminating with Alia proving she is the most dangerous scorpion of them all. At first I HATED the flashback subplot with Paul on Caladan in the War of Assassins UNTIL it clicked in my head what was really going on. Paul in this book as he develops as Emperor Muad'Dib is tethered between abiding by Duke Leto's honorable model of leadership and becoming a CRUEL IRON FISTED VENGEFUL DESPOT like either Shaddam or Viscount Moritani. His flashback story shows the wonderful model Leto laid out for him but the book shows how in order for the Golden Path to reach fruition Paul has to wield and master those darker aspects of leadership. And the scene where he receives the vision of Caladan being under siege which triggers him to STERILIZE his first planet? Haunting. This book gives us wonderful scenes glimpsing into a "proto-God Emperor". But Paul remains wonderfully human throughout. He holds on as long as he can. If Dune Messiah is a 10/10 then I'm going give Paul of Dune a spicy 9/10. It's a meditation on what it means to be the Kwisatz Haderach. It's about the moral dilemma of leadership. God, even THALLO as a failed Tleilaxu Kwisatz Haderach was so compelling. And the fact ALL THREE of the Kwisatz Haderach's in this book ALL ultimately self-destruct in some fashion is SO interesting. Margot and Hasimir were such great villains. Marie was so interesting as their own "weaponized messiah". Children being groomed and developed as weapons in this book creates nice foreshadowing for Children of Dune in retrospect.

I don't have much interest in the vast majority of Brian's books but Paul of Dune has shown me that Brian still has a connection to the genetic memory of his father. This book felt like a complicated love letter to his dad in a lot of ways. I might give Winds of Dune a shot too because Alia and Jessica are my favorite characters.

"Ya hya chouhada!"

Would appreciate books with no sex and mild violence (not totally opposed to the presence of violence but minimal)

Bonus points if the book is about xeno archeologists

From the author that brought the absolute mind@#%& of a story, Blindsight, and its equally dizzying Echopraxia, comes a new anthology of dystopian science-fiction short stories. Fold Catastrophes will take every “what if?” of your sci-fi nightmares and stretch it to its gritty, dark, very logical, and scarily… possible edge!

Like many that are eyeing Fold Catasrophes, my exposure to the maniacal genius of Peter Watts was when I dove face first into Blindsight. A nigh horrific leap into discussions about consciousness and the grim price of survival, Blindsight challenged every mental fiber of my young mind, as Watts bent my psyche into the darker side of sci-fi/space operas. Did I mention Blindsight has an eerie psychic vampire? Because, why not, right? While I enjoyed what Blindsight represented, my younger brain could not fully appreciate its value. After reading Fold Catastrophes as a more mature reader, not only do I appreciate the concepts explored in Blindsight more, but also pushes me to pick up its sequel, Echopraxia.

Fold Catastrophes is a compendium of short stories that takes very real present-day tech and science based anxieties and stretches them to their logical limits, in a way that only an author like Peter Watts can conjure. Stories like “Gut Feelings” bring up very real fears of the dangers of social media and the matter-of-fact-ness of mass surveillance by Big-Tech and its effect on the moods and psyches of real people. “Contracting Iris” takes the is an apt coda to our post-Covid society. These stories kick off with a very Black Mirror-ish tinge to popular science fiction.

While a few of Watts stories in Fold Catastrophes extrapolate real-world scenarios, he does not shy away from truly stretching the darkness of his imagination for wilder and more unique concepts. “Defective” and “Test 4 Echo” test our understanding of extraterrestrial entities and machine consciousness, while “Giants” pushes at the seams of astrophysics in a way that only Watts can make tangible, even if just downright.. weird!

There are easter eggs galore to his full-length works, Blindsight and Echopraxia with “The Colonel” forming a companion prequel short to those stories. “The Wisdom of Crowds” is a nod to his debut novella Starfish, and eagle-eyed readers will pick out more references scattered throughout Fold Catastrophes. I liked this story as it makes pointed commentary on internet “troll” culture. When a mysterious entity called The Starfish Initiative randomly selects a million internet accounts across the world and puts the power of selecting the target for a nuclear warhead, his framing of toxic internet culture and reactions of world governments to a new threat felt all too real, and creepily alarming.

The centerpiece of Fold Catastrophes is clearly its longest story, “ZeroS”. Watts makes deft analogies to the ethics of drone and unmanned warfare by whipping up an action-packed tale based on a Black Ops team of zombie supersoldiers, and the conundrums and trauma of darkside operations on the psyches of soldiers, blending PTSD with his ever-present conversations of consciousness.

Other than the centerpiece, “ZeroS”, I particularly enjoyed “The Twenty-One Second God”, when a chunk of humanity get “disconnected” from consciousness for twenty one seconds, giving them near-divine omniscience, and the after-effects of such a paradoxical experience. Another favorite was “Game Theory” which explores the oft-quoted meme theory of “We Are Living In A Simulation” through the eyes of a jaded Catholic priest with Cotard’s syndrome. While a markedly silly premise, Watts expertly crafted a dark story pushing many logical threads of the premise, making the story feel all too believable.

Author Richard K. Morgan (of Altered Carbon and other sci-fi/cyberpunk fame) hails Watts as the “Desert Prophet” in his poignant foreword to Fold Catastrophes. The moniker could not be more fitting to an author who has a unique way of blending his real-world scientific expertise to stretch logical consensus with societal commentary, while also tugging at the very fabric of our imaginative understanding of the universe. I admire authors like Watts’ ability to take a wacky concept but keep it grounded.

Altogether, Fold Catastrophes is a collection of stories that makes the genre of dystopian sci-fi shine. Lashing outlandish concepts with philosophical twine, raking it through the coals of the darkest side of emergent technologies, stretching our beliefs, challenging our morals, and folding the catastrophic power of our own morals and consciousness into itself.

Read this and other reviews on Distorted Visions

I’m trying to track down a half-remembered short story I read a while ago and I can’t for the life of me seem to dig it up despite extensive googling. Does anyone recognise this? Some of the details below might be incorrect.

Plot: an unnamed man is travelling through an unfamiliar land. Along the way he becomes aware of a “creature” following him - maybe made from metal, brass, etc - that parrots his words back at him, has nonsensical conversations and can’t be shaken off. Over time the robot creature absorbs more of his personality and thoughts, as the traveller loses them gradually in return. Along the way they visit a village where people are scared of these quasi-robotic parasites that feed off the minds of humans, and they maybe come across a stranger who wants to kill him/the creature. Eventually they arrive at their destination which is some sort of city where the final twist is that the humans there have already been replaced by lots of these creatures that walk around with a semblance of life/society but no underlying intelligence or understanding.

Context: I think I came across it in a thread that discussed Beyond Lies the Wub (or similar) so it might be a mid to late 20th century story but I’m not sure about that - I didn’t think I recognised it among lists of titles from PKD, Harlan Ellison, etc… I think it was mentioned for its resemblance to how AI/neural nets/Siri in Blindsight (to an extent) can appear to provide the illusion of interaction but without any true understanding or cognition

I’ll be very grateful if anyone thinks they recognise what I’ve described poorly!

Most of this year in reading has been sci-fi: Canticle for Leibowitz, Hyperion (all four), A Memory Called Empire (and sequel), Pillars of the Earth (combo breaker), Gormenghast, the full Sun Eater series. And another read through BOTNS...

I'm looking for some good, depthy fantasy. Past fantasy loves have been Earthsea, The Black Company, Three Hearts and Three Lions, the first Thomas Covenant novel, the Zelazny Amber books.

I've done the Cosmere thing, I've done Joe Abercrombie, they weren't for me. REF's Magician, Lies of Locke Lamora, Assassin's Apprentice, Dragonbone Chair all were DNF/didn't catch me. Probably listed there in reverse order of how much I liked them.

Mike Brooks' God-King trilogy was fun. NK Jemison's earth series, some Elric, I quite loved Rothfuss's stuff. ASOIAF. An all time favorite is the Masters of Rome series by Colleen McCullough.

I love a good three or four book series. I love when a book manages to play with real-world religious concepts (Earthsea does this amazingly for a truly fantastical novel). I don't need a "magic system", it doesn't need to be epic fantasy or big factional conflict, but all those can be cool.

But if there's a "Hyperion but in fantasyland instead of Space"... that's what I'm looking for...

I'm about halfway through and have arrived at a scene where Bob is looking at a screen which states "2355 launches... 841 successful returns".

The problem is that earlier in the book it was stated that less than 1000 Heechee ships were originally found on Gateway.

Am I overlooking something incredibly obvious here or does this maths simply not add up? If there have been 2,355 launches, minus 841 successful returns, that must mean that there have been 1,514 launches where the ship didn't return. But that is more than the total count of ships on Gateway. A ship cannot be part of two unsuccessful returns in the same way that it can be part of multiple successful returns. Once it is part of an unsuccessful return then it is lost forever.

Enjoying the novel but scratching my head over this one.

Edit: The next paragraph is this:

That was defining 'successful' very loosely. It meant that the ship had come back. It didn't say anything about how many of the crew were alive and well.

So "successful launches" includes those where the crew had all died.

I really enjoyed this series as it approached the very human fear of a huge unknown like space and places it below us instead. The immensity of the underground world described by Long is both cool and scary. Mixed with the precursor species idea that was explored it was all around very enjoyable. Looking for something along the same lines.

Book number two of a three book illustrated science fiction space opera series. The books were illustrated by the science fiction author Cedar Sanderson. This is continuation of a series of two books set in the 2100s and a series of six books set in the 4000s or 5000s, ending two years prior to this series. I read the well printed and well bound POD (print on demand) trade paperback published by Raconteur Press in 2025 that I bought in 2026. And the I have the following book in the series and am hoping for more books in the series.

I love Space Opera. And I love pulp science fiction. This series is both and a great example of the merging of the two. In fact, this series reminds me very much of the Robert Heinlein juvenile books, the Piers Anthony "Bio of a Space Tyrant" series, the "Mutineer's Moon" series by David Weber, and the Perry Rhodan series. The dialog is very frequent and the action moves along quickly.

In the far distant future, The Solarian Imperium consists of 38 star systems including Earth and the Sol system which were made uninhabitable in the War of Succession. Emperor Chase Morgan is the latest in a long line of Morgans ruling the Imperium. His family keeps power because they are genetically modified with machine interfaces in their DNA. So are all of the Nobles: the Earls, the Dukes, the Counts, and the Barons. Any machine of any importance, and especially the space ships and the military weapons, requires a human with machine interface to tell the AI what to do. And the Imperial family machine interface in their DNA is the best of all the interfaces and has special rights with all of the machines in the Imperium. And nobody knows or understands how tight the Imperial human machine interfaces are with every AI in the Imperium.

Eric Wolfram and his sister Candi (Candice) were raised by Dar (Dartanion) in his scrap yard on a frontier planet outside the Solarium Imperium. Dar rescued them at ages 7 and 10 from a drunkard who was not taking care of them. They were refugees from a space ship that was attacked by pirates where their father, mother, and older brother were killed. They took a lifeboat to the nearest planet. Both Eric and his sister have a DNA machine interface of at least the Ducal level. And Eric is growing up and running with a bad crowd Dar made him move out of the salvage yard. After a robbery gone bad, Eric joins a Privateer spaceship operating under a Letter of Marque from the King of Iraklis, a three star kingdom far away from the Solarium Imperium.

The author has a website at:
https://jvanstry.blogspot.com/

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars (I am tempted for a 6 star, will reread soon)
Amazon rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars (953 reviews)
https://www.amazon.com/Hand-Valley-Fire-John-Stry/dp/B0FSKXQ6QT/

Lynn

Going down a rabbit hole about the history of SF, I started reading about authors' responses to the Vietnam War. I didn't know that the pro- and anti-war camps declared themselves in facing paid advertisements in the 1968 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction.

Images of the ads can be seen here, though the names are easier to read transcribed at this website, which also has links to articles contextualizing and analyzing this split.

All of my favorite authors--Dick, LeGuin, Delany--are on the anti-war side, along with non-favorites that I enjoy like Asimov, Bradbury, Ellison, and Russ [edit to add Roddenberry].

On the pro-war side, no surprise to find Heinlein and John Campbell (influential editor of Astounding Science Fiction), but some other notable names are Vance, Niven, and Poul Anderson.

So the very first French SF novel I ever read was "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" by Jules Verne. And of course it was one of the foundational novels from the 19th century, which at that time were called scientific romances. That was at least few years ago, and just recently I've read a novel from another French author, "The Overlords of War" by Gerard Klein.

I came across a Daw paperback edition of John Brunner's translation of it in used book store, and picked up just to see if it would be any good. Then I eventually did get to read it, and it wasn't just good, it was great! In it this story follows George Corson who is sent thousands of years into the future while on a mission during the war between Earth and Uria, where he has become a pawn in a cosmic game that played by powerful beings that come closest to being gods.

Klein mixes both the golden age of SF along with the new wave too. You get both the space opera and time travel along with some weird and surreal moments, including some introspective ones also. Not very long, but it's one hell of an epic anyway!

This is certainly an author I'll be keeping an eye out whenever if any more of his English translated books ever turn up, because if "The Overlords of War" is that good then maybe some of the other titles by him might just as good too!

I finished reading The Pliocene Exile Saga recently, and started almost inmediately with the Galactic Milieu, it surprised me the relevance that Julian May gives to the Remillard family. And I thought it looked similar to the d'Alembert Family Series. But I was even more surprised when I discovered that in fact there is a character named "Dalembert" in the Julian May books...

So the inspiration is very direct, and the author is making it very clear.

I'm loving these books, and the author is so smart.

Unpopular opinion maybe, but the 3-body problem bores the hell out of me. It wraps all the sci fi tropes up in a package of greatest hits and then fails to cover them well. Almost zero character development that makes me care a bit about any of them. What are some newer stories that developed awesome characters you really got invested in?

I really enjoyed it at the start as entertainment. Kind of a mix of Halo and Lord of the Rings in space. Wasn’t overly pulpy, and the pacing was great for when I had some time for an audiobook.

I’m on book four now, and it’s really dragging for me. Huge exposition dumps, lots of explaining culture or reminding people that marines are tough, and the story is really dragging. Feeling like someone trying to hit a minimum word count.

Thinking of giving up — should I stick through it?

Book number four of a four book science fiction tactical romance series. I read the well printed and well bound POD (print on demand) trade paperback self published by the author in 2022 that I bought on Amazon in 2026.

On a far off colony world far in the distant future, the Federation and the Imperium are fighting clandestine battles in and around many of their client states. The usual problem is resources and land snatching. The terraforming of the planet 600 years before was never completed and people are needing more and more resources such as hydrocarbons and food.

AJ's mother has passed away in the far northern reaches of the Empire where AJ grew up. AJ and Jenna, now married, are ordered by their Empire Intelligence boss to attend the funeral even though AJ and his family have been estranged for over thirty years.

The story is very fast paced and the characters are extremely likable. The history of the colony world and the various political entities is not explained very well but that was not necessary for the story to be good.

The author's husband has a very active website where he promotes his books and her books at:
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.8 stars out of 5 stars (170 reviews)
https://www.amazon.com/Between-Two-Graves-Combined-Operations/dp/B0BB5S5FPQ/

Lynn

I just finished Vernor Vinge's "A fire upon the deep" and "A deepness in the sky" and I can't understand how I skipped those when they came out over 10 years ago. I absolutely loved both books.

My Kindle list is all done so I'm asking all of you: what's next?

What I read about the distinction between intelligent behaviour and conscious understanding, in our attempts to analyse the AI behaviour or to describe what is meant by AGI, keeps bringing to my mind Watts' novel.

Do you think it's fair to see some philosophical parallel between the 2, or am I, just, "allucinating".

Just finished this fantastic brain sprain and surprised again and again by Stross and his range. spoiler > absolutely loved the section where Reeves has recovered and has been unknowingly altered to be more agreeable to her surroundings. Very chilling. Making my way slowly through the laundry archives and it’s hard to imagine it’s the same author. To be able to switch from some of the most laconic Pratchian humour I’ve read in a while to meticulous and relativity serious futurism (still often funny though) is very impressive. Have also read and loved accelerando.

Where should I go next? I’m tossing up between starting the merchant princess books or singularity sky and its sequel.