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What is your favorite story arc?
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- Don't complain about lack of options. You've got to pick a few when you do multiple choice. Those are the breaks.
- Feel free to suggest poll ideas if you're feeling creative. I'd strongly suggest reading the past polls first.
- This whole thing is wildly inaccurate. Rounding errors, ballot stuffers, dynamic IPs, firewalls. If you're using these numbers to do anything important, you're insane.
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What is your favorite story arc?
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* m2 stares at the monitor... it looks like a hamburger...
m2 - that's a bad sign
(Score: 2) by WizardFusion on Sunday January 15 2017, @01:09PM
The Wool trilogy (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00I96357W)
(Score: 2) by nethead on Thursday January 26 2017, @03:44AM
It was okay until they got in to using radio under water. He left hard SF there and kind of lost me.
How did my SN UID end up over 3 times my /. UID?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 15 2017, @02:23PM
http://www.poisonedminds.com/d/20010108.html [poisonedminds.com]
16 years later and still following the same story arc.
The ending was spoiled 12 years ago but it stays entertaining because many details are yet unrevealed.
Predicted economic collapse and anarchist uprising to occur in April 2008, since that didn't exactly happen in real life, comic time has remained more or less frozen in 2005.
I hope the author finishes the arc before ironically being hit by a bus himself (hit-by-a-bus was a critical plot point) or Watson becomes the Oracle or Siri becomes Tricia.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 17 2017, @01:09AM
Only a faggot would link to a webcomic and call it a story arc.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 17 2017, @06:02AM
http://www.poisonedminds.com/d/20090519.html [poisonedminds.com]
You cunt, I'm a queer
I'll state my case of which I'm certain
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Gaaark on Sunday January 15 2017, @07:22PM
Firefly... with Wash alive.
And Kaylee!!!! GRIN!!!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday January 15 2017, @07:39PM
Wow... after 14 votes, 4 for Babylon 5 (understandable), but zero for Star Wars (also understandable, lol).
still going for Kaylee, errrr, i mean Firefly! :)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 16 2017, @07:28PM
Kaylee...
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday January 19 2017, @08:37PM
Kaylee is not bad, but I preferred Inara. Always been partial to dark girls.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 15 2017, @08:37PM
The Bible's a pretty good work of fiction.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 15 2017, @10:16PM
Wrong:
It's story arc, not ark story.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ark_of_the_Covenant [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Monday January 16 2017, @04:18PM
Not really. There are so many different tones and purposes that it's like you're reading a whole different book every several pages. Which actually you are. I find the extended genealogies of ancient Israelites in Numbers to be absolutely fascinating </sarcasm>. That's mixed in with mythical history, parables, chronicled history, poetry, social commentary on ancient societies, foundational texts for a completely different religion, and a bunch of random letters.
Honestly, if you actually were reading it you'd know that your zinger makes absolutely no sense.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Thursday January 19 2017, @08:47PM
My favorite is how Abraham, the guy the Abrahamic religions are named after, ran a scheme whereby he pimped out his wife, saying she was his sister, and then blackmailed the guys who had slept with her (apparently adultery was a capital offense in those parts, then). What a role model.
Then there's men having sex with their daughters, which is apparently OK because it was the daughters' idea.
Also, it's perfectly OK for Jews to practice genocide on everybody else to clear land for them to live on after the exodus, because they're god's chosen people. So what they're doing to the Palestinians now is merely Mark II or Mark III of that plan.
The Old Testament appalls me, and paints an awful picture of the Israelites, who reckoned themselves the holiest people on Earth. When I read it I find myself wondering whether we couldn't somehow swap in a more benign group like the Bhutanese.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Funny) by DeathMonkey on Monday January 16 2017, @05:25PM
The Bible's a pretty good work of fiction.
Clearly this is false!
Just consider the mind-boggling complexity of the eye. How does something like that evolve, anyway?
Then, use those miraculous eyes of yours to actually read the bible.
Thusly, it becomes self evident that the Bible is actually a completely terrible work of fiction.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Tuesday January 17 2017, @03:33AM
I want to read the books that the church left OUT of the Bible because they didn't jibe with what the church wanted people to hear.
We've only been allowed to read part of the story arc, cause we only got part of the story.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday January 17 2017, @10:26PM
Well that's complicated because technically by your definition something like Plutarch or Xenophon qualifies. There's a lot of paganism out there that never made the biblical cut.
Usually "Apocrypha" is defined as stuff that was in and then they yanked it out, or stuff that a substantial subset of the population really liked but the majority didn't dig it (like the Mormon literature)
A couple decades before the internet I obtained a copy of the Christian Apocrypha that claimed to have all the stuff that was biblical-ish but got the axe, and every chapter began with the story of how the Catholic church gave this particular book the axe in such and such year by such and such pope or bishop having a cow over the topic. I read thru it thinking it would be all magical and enlightening and stuff and it ... wasn't. I would imagine all that stuff is freely available online today.
Honestly you're probably better off reading some Plutarch.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Thursday January 19 2017, @09:05PM
The Gnostic Gospels are pretty interesting because it gives a different view on the events of Jesus's ministry. There's a lot more eastern mysticism reflected in them. To me it's an interesting window into the philosophical foment before the canon was developed.
In the West our view of Christianity is much more monolithic than it really was. There was the Catholic Church, then the Reformation, and that's pretty much it. Maybe some people are aware of the schism between Rome and Eastern Orthodox churches. A handful know that even centuries later in southern France there was a major splinter movement called Catharism that persisted for a very long time before Rome managed to hang all of them as heretics.
But if you go to Turkey (where the early church took root) and the Middle East and visit holy sites it's quite clear how much disagreement there was on the exact message and form of Christian worship. In Cappadocia you can walk from one cave church with its iconography to another 50 yards away and see a completely different set.
For me, somehow, seeing things through that rawer, more unrefined, less codified form was much more spiritual than walking through St. Peter's.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday January 17 2017, @02:48PM
For an example of how mindbogglingly boring it is, try reading 1 Chronicles - it's the perfect bedtime reading, because it will put you straight to sleep from boredom. The nearest equivalent is the second book of the Iliad, in which Homer lists out in painstaking detail how many ships each of the Greek city-states sent and who was leading the contingent.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday January 19 2017, @09:09PM
Really? The Iliad put me in stitches at points. Spending half a page going on and on about how awesome this dude was, how shiny and strong his shield was, how like a son of Zeus he was, and...he's abruptly cut in half by a spear. We turned it into a drinking game.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday January 20 2017, @01:01PM
Most of the Iliad is fantastic writing - there's a reason it's stuck around for about 2700 years.
The section I'm talking about, though, is often called the catalogue of ships [poetryintranslation.com], and it's a long list of how many ships each city-state brought and who was leading the contingent. It's almost as boring as the begats in the Bible.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Jerry Smith on Tuesday January 24 2017, @04:44PM
We had to learn some of the begats by heart ._.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 29 2017, @07:20PM
You are correct in stating that it is a work of fiction, but your contention that is is "pretty good" is insane. It is a disjointed collection of very short, mostly-unrelated stories, at best. And even referring to "it" is a joke. It has been revised and (mis-)translated multiple times. I would be shocked if current pressings of any versions bear much resemblance to the original authors' (yes, plural; it was developed by committee) rough drafts.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Type44Q on Sunday January 15 2017, @09:33PM
The Culture [wikipedia.org] - enough said.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 16 2017, @02:51AM
What arc though? The Idiran War and its effects on The Culture? (The Lasting Damage was aptly named...)
(Score: 2) by caffeine on Tuesday January 17 2017, @03:17AM
Great to see someone else who loves this series of books.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday January 19 2017, @09:17PM
With the obligatory squick chapter in each book (guy eats his own hand, makes a chair out of his half-sister, etc.) and drug fascination I imagine it'd be suitably hip and dark for the kids these days.
I wish they'd make a TV series or movies or something out of the Jack McDevitt "Priscilla Hutchins" books. Those were great.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 20 2017, @01:48AM
I'd imagine the anarchy is too much for kids these days who are too busy obeying authority, volunteering for military service, torturing terrorists, and finger-raping grandma at the airport. Kids don't get side hustle gigs and five-star ratings from their peers by being anarchists.
Let's not forget Iain M Banks is a dead old man from a past era.
We don't have the same kind of economic prosperity which we had when El Bonko began writing. Risk is risky and kids can't afford to risk disobeying authority, because obedience is money.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday January 23 2017, @01:29PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Tuesday January 24 2017, @10:48AM
After seeing it mentioned here and elsewhere sufficiently often, I started reading Consider Phlebas. I'm currently at 90% or so of the book, and remain underwhelmed. Of course, this is definitely also due to mismanaged expectations - I expected to read a story where the fabled "don't fuck with The Culture" becomes clear. At 90%, it absolutely doesn't. Sure, the finale might fix that. Even then, the book is just falling short of my expectations.
I'm hoping it'll get better later on in the series, but the first book is just not a good example of why this series got famous.
(Note that the same thing is true for other popular series - e.g. the Dresden Files book 1 is rather crap. It starts to find its footing around book 3 and gets awesomely pulpy from there on out)
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday January 25 2017, @01:20PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Thursday January 26 2017, @12:41PM
Indeed. I finished Phlebas and now started on Player of Games. Since it's (at the start at least) in Culture environment, maybe I'll get to read more of that than before. First few pages managed to keep me interested - so far, so good :).
(Score: 4, Interesting) by theluggage on Sunday January 15 2017, @09:40PM
Has to be B5 for, almost uniquely on TV, actually having a planned-out story arc from the beginning (even if it did get messed about by reality). Also, a vote for B5 is also a vote for LOTR and a bit to (major missing option) the Lensman series, from which it rather profusely took inspiration...
Battlestar Galactica (the 21st century incarnation) started off OK bit it turned out that, although the Cylons may have Had A Plan, they forgot to tell the writers... and, what, is Bob Dylan (or was it Hendrix) God?
Star Wars... well, some of the films were classics, but I wouldn't really rate it for story arc.
Harry Potter is probably another missing option... such fun watching the cast grow up. Tell me, what happens with younger kids now all the books and films are available, but with a 7-year target age gap between first and last?
...interesting that nobody has started rooting for Game of Thrones/Song of Ice and Fire yet. Are we starting to get the feeling that the only way any subplot ever gets "resolved" is by having someone chop the relevant protagonists into meaty kibble?
Oh, and what about Stargate SG-1 - at least up to the point where they beat the original Big Bads and all went fishing?
Not Doctor Who, because a wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey... thing is not an "arc", and the Doc has had to destroy and re-create the whole freakin' multiverse a couple of times to fix the continuity.
Indiana Jones had the best Ark plot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 16 2017, @02:59AM
Oh, and what about Stargate SG-1 - at least up to the point where they beat the original Big Bads and all went fishing?
Ori arc, Bigger Bads. Atlantis arc, Hungry Bads. Universe arc, try to survive in the vast wilderness without a Big Bad keeping the little bads down.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 16 2017, @05:09PM
Atlantis arc definitely, although SG-1's Jonas Quinn arc is great also.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 17 2017, @01:29AM
Vampires! from SPAAAACE
For wraith hunger burns like a fire.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 01 2017, @08:37PM
I went with stargate too.
Saw this on another board. Those poor dudes working at NORAD. Every few days they are on lockdown for no real reason. You know they would be thinking 'what the holy living fuck are those top secret guys doooooing down there that I cant go home for 3 weeks?'
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday January 18 2017, @06:27PM
I like the Star Trek universe. I grew up with it for decades. So I'm not into the new star trek reboot movies so much. I don't care to rewind the last five decades of trek and then start re-writing it, screwing with the characters, etc. It's just fine if younger people want to start out with a new trek universe, but I suspect that these movies won't end up going that far.
I loved the Babylon 5 universe and story. Spin off movies (well, most of them). It is too sad that more didn't come of this.
So a couple weekends ago, internet service was out. Fiber cut. On Saturday for about four hours. Then, again, on Sunday for about six hours. So I watched DVDs the way people did back in ancient times. Had to blow off a lot of dust. (No cable, cord cutter.)
After watching a few movies, I decided to watch the first episode of B5. (I have boxed set.) Boy was that a mistake. Now I'm almost done with the first season. The story arcs begin right in the very first episode. They just jump right into it. Subsequent 1st season episodes, might *seem* like a trek-style "alien of the week", but it's not. Those episodes are building the arc. But when B5 first aired, I didn't suspect this story arc until late season 1, and then was convinced early in season 2. At that point I couldn't get enough. Had to wait anxiously for every episode.
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(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday January 18 2017, @06:49PM
Those of you who grew up with Star Trek missed the excitement of seeing all that impossible technology, like self-opening doors, cell phones, tablets, Uhura's bluetooth ear plug, flat screen voice operated computers... McCoy's futuristic sick bay looks absolutely primitive today.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DannyB on Wednesday January 18 2017, @07:34PM
While I still enjoy the old 1960's star trek, maybe just because it is familiar, I recognize something.
Both the original star trek, and also the next generation depict the future environment using what the future is expected to look like from their POV.
In the 1960's, they seem to imagine control panels of PHYSICAL switches, both push button and toggle switches. And glowing indicators. (incandescent maybe?) All hardwired. The controls on a control panel are all the controls it will ever have.
In the next generation they had the foresight to envision touch screens (even if they couldn't depict them very well in the early episodes). You could, in principle, control anything from anywhere. A lot more like how modern computers are today. Also they imagined that the computer understood who had permission to do what.
The next generation technical manual is interesting and entertaining. It deliberately (and quite wisely) is vague about the storage capacity and memory of the "main computer". Although they still seem to think there would even be a "main" computer. The user interfaces are wisely described as being upgradeable. The UI might downgrade for a crewman who has not yet been trained on the latest UI version. They also took the idea of replicators to quite an interesting level.
At this point, once you imagine everyday practical technology like this, there are applications for it that make you wonder why they wouldn't do this. For example, why not just make much of the ship interior be a single large holodeck, or a series of interconnecting holodecks. If engineering crew are always doing various routine maintenance of systems that need periodic maintenance, why not automate that? Why not a lot of small robots?
With today's self driving cars, it seems obvious that starships would be self driving in a similar way. Just give the order for where to go and forget it. If we try to imagine the Star Trek future from today's POV, it starts to get so wild that it could border on magic, at some level.
Maybe this is partly why I liked the future vision of tech in Babylon 5. No transporters. No replicators. And a lot of practical problems to solve.
And another thing. Dirty gritty humanity. Crime. Poverty. Corruption. All the trimmings. By the time I watched DS9, the utopia aspect of Star Trek starts to wear thin. Man will get better. Be peaceful. Etc. It won't happen. People will still compete for resources, and there will be greed. Unless you can produce more wealth than anyone would want, this will be the case. And I fear that even if you could produce enough wealth to satiate all greed, people would still have conflict. With each other. And with aliens who are the wrong color and we need to build a wall. Etc.
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(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 19 2017, @12:10AM
At this point, once you imagine everyday practical technology like this, there are applications for it that make you wonder why they wouldn't do this. For example, why not just make much of the ship interior be a single large holodeck, or a series of interconnecting holodecks. If engineering crew are always doing various routine maintenance of systems that need periodic maintenance, why not automate that? Why not a lot of small robots?
With today's self driving cars, it seems obvious that starships would be self driving in a similar way. Just give the order for where to go and forget it. If we try to imagine the Star Trek future from today's POV, it starts to get so wild that it could border on magic, at some level.
The very first holodeck episode was a holodeck malfunction episode, way back in the Animated Series when a holographic recreation room was introduced. By the Next Generation holodecks were still constantly breaking down and becoming lethally dangerous, and the AIs inside were prone to going insane. The technology wasn't mature enough yet to be reliable. But by Voyager there was a holographic doctor who was trusted with the health of the crew, and there were prototypes of fully holographic fully automated self flying ships. See for example Moriarty's control mechanism in the Next Generation, the holoship in Insurrection, the Prometheus prototype in Voyager. Prometheus was advanced enough to be completely computer controlled with holographic crew who could simply give the order, ship attack the Romulans.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday January 20 2017, @02:07PM
The Trek universe, as much as I enjoy it, is filled with inconsistencies. A few years ago I saw YouTube video with many back to back clips where the first clip said something and the next clip directly contradicted it. For example, is data waterproof.
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(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Thursday January 19 2017, @06:14PM
With today's self driving cars, it seems obvious that starships would be self driving in a similar way. Just give the order for where to go and forget it.
That's pretty much how space ships work in my fiction. The captain inspects engines and makes sure all four computers agree with each other, and that's about it. Robots do the actual repairs.
And another thing. Dirty gritty humanity. Crime. Poverty. Corruption. All the trimmings. By the time I watched DS9, the utopia aspect of Star Trek starts to wear thin. Man will get better. Be peaceful. Etc. It won't happen.
I don't agree, and neither does history. The past has always been worse than the present in every era. Hell, just fifty years ago (I was a teenager then) the world was a hell of a lot dirtier, more violent, and more corrupt than today. And when robots grow all the food and construct all the "things" and anyone has anything he or she wants... well, I just finished a story about that, a sequel to Kurt Vonnegut's 2BR02B. In my story, society's biggest problem is boredom. It's one of three I haven't posted, you guys will have to wait for the book.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 20 2017, @02:12AM
I don't agree, and neither does history. The past has always been worse than the present in every era.
You're full of shit, old man. Where's my basic income? Oh right, it was over 2000 years ago, that's when.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cura_Annonae [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses [wikipedia.org]
I see plenty of circuses in the modern era, but where's my bread??
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday January 20 2017, @02:13PM
I tend to think we presently live in what is probably the best time ever to be alive. You're probably right about violence and corruption being worse in previous times.
But people have not changed. And will not change. Ultimately everyone is greedy for limited resources. Unless we can create enough wealth (eg, resources, food, housing, smartphones, etc) to satiate all of that greed, there will be human conflict.
As for the utopia of the Trek universe, yes, I enjoy that. That is the world I would like to live in. But I think it is a fantasy that can never be unless we had some of the kinds of technology of Trek. Even then, the trek universe seems to have plenty of conflict. People competing for power. Position. Title. There will probably still be plagiarism. It is highly likely there would be conflict over the affections of other people.
Nonetheless, I like the utopia of Trek. It's just that after many years of it, I found B5 a refreshing view of what will probably be reality.
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(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday January 19 2017, @11:24PM
And another thing. Dirty gritty humanity. Crime. Poverty. Corruption. All the trimmings. By the time I watched DS9, the utopia aspect of Star Trek starts to wear thin. Man will get better. Be peaceful. Etc. It won't happen. People will still compete for resources, and there will be greed.
I have to disagree here about this wearing thin. This is why I like watching TOS and TNG so much: why would I want to watch fiction about "dirty gritty humanity", crime, poverty, and corruption? I can see that just by watching the news, or visiting Walmart. TV is supposed to be "entertainment", not just the same crap you can see in the real world. I don't want to see humans as they really are; it's just too depressing. I'd rather see an idealistic human society which is a place I'd like to live because it isn't plagued with all those things. If I wanted to watch something realistic, I wouldn't watch sci-fi at all, I'd go watch some modern-day drama about cops or something. I watch sci-fi because I want to escape from today's world. I don't care if it's supposedly unrealistic about human nature; that's fine with me because I don't care much for human nature either. I'd much prefer if humans were like the virtuous beings crewing the Enterprise in TNG, so that's what I want to watch.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday January 20 2017, @02:24PM
I mentioned this in another reply. The utopia of Trek is the world I would really want to live in.
I agree with you that some sci fi is too dark. I see enough bad news in reality. I like the escape of a nearly utopian future. It entertainment and escape. I'm just saying that as an adult, rather than when I was a teenager watching reruns of trek in syndication, I don't believe that the trek utopia is likely to happen. See other reply I wrote about human conflict. For that reason, I found B5 refreshing in that it seemed like a more realistic future. Brown sector. People come to B5 for opportunity, don't find it, and are too poor to return to Earth. That is very believable. In B5 even as you saw all of the various conflicts, corruption, etc, there was constantly believable hope that it would all get made right in the end.
Here is an example of just the opposite.
The Battlestar Galactica remake of a few years ago is an example of a show that I had the same type of feelings you describe. It was dark. Then got darker. And darker. And darker. It just got worse and worse. From bits I would hear, they had a plan for an ending. So I kept watching. When four of the final five cylons were revealed, I just couldn't believe they would do such a thing given the backstory of the characters. I began to think they were really just making it up as they went along. And indeed, in hindsight, they were. At that point, I watched the final season since I was already invested. And the ending was terribly disappointing. After all that depressing darkness, the ending didn't really fix much. I decided these clowns would not fool me again into watching anything they ever write.
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(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday January 20 2017, @04:24PM
I'm just saying that as an adult, rather than when I was a teenager watching reruns of trek in syndication, I don't believe that the trek utopia is likely to happen.
I completely agree. Instead, I think the future is going to look a lot like "The Walking Dead" in a decade or three. But that doesn't mean that I want to watch that.
I just couldn't believe they would do such a thing given the backstory of the characters. I began to think they were really just making it up as they went along.
That's how just about every TV show that has a "story arc" operates. There's not really a way around it. (Notable exceptions are B5 and Game of Thrones.) There's no way for the writers to know how long the network will keep ordering new seasons, so they constantly write it so they can end it at the end of that season, or come back for a new one. But yeah, it makes me now want to bother watching a lot of stuff too.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday January 20 2017, @05:05PM
What would be great: If new original content producers (Netflix, Amazon, HBO, etc) would produce a long form story arc in 2 or 3 seasons, all pre-ordered and paid for, that has a definitely planned ending. A logical ending that is highly satisfying.
Yes, it might only have only 1, 2 or 3 seasons. You might not be able to drag it out for 5 or 6 years.
But on the other hand, if it is immensely enjoyable like a great novel, then it might be watched over and over again. It might also be watched for several generations of people, just like a good book.
I don't expect TV networks to be able to wake up to this fact. Even if they do, I don't think they can escape the trap they are in. They can't afford the risk to make a great show, several seasons long, and that it might not get high enough rating in its first run.
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by TheRaven on Monday January 23 2017, @02:15PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday January 22 2017, @09:51PM
Also they imagined that the computer understood who had permission to do what.
Also somewhat far fetched that no one ever screwed around with that system, or it was highly unusual. You'd think Wesley would have gotten messed with by his peers quite a bit.
UI was vaguely realistic in that its all fad and fashion based today and much like vacuum tubes are cool today I'm sure we'll have controls again. Remember 20-30 years ago when every machine had to have a digital clock because digital clocks were new? At one time my kitchen had like 30 digital clocks. Thankfully we outgrew that fad. Some day telephones will have buttons again. Maybe smart buttons with LCDs on them, which are available today.
The depiction of PADDs and Tricoders and communicators over the decades was pretty interesting. They certainly liked small displays, or at least the non-STEM artists thought thats what they'd like. The real world seems to like ipad sized things and giant as hell phones.
The cultural view of how future people would be masters of old tech was pretty hilarious. I can't flint knap knife blades out of river rocks, my coworkers don't know a damn thing about Z80 assembly language programming, and Scotty isn't going to be able to start a lawnmower engine much less have any useful commentary on any historic object. That is one (of many) thing that Voyager got right, the crew will have spare time and at least some will have strange retro kicks and if you need to change the oil in a 57 Chevy or repair a vacuum tube TV from 1960 then that dude will be useful for once.
it seems obvious that starships would be self driving in a similar way
There were a couple TNG episodes where the plot revolved around all you need to be underway is an officer of the deck, a navigator/helmsmen to know where you are and where you're going and lookout at all times, and an ops guy to keep the systems running and monitored. Everyone else had side jobs (science, engineering, looking hot in a skin tight dress while advising the captain on psychological issues, weapons, all that)
Why not a lot of small robots?
One of the 80s tech manuals went into a discussion about power usage which is vaguely believable. I need a couple hundred watts of food to keep booted up and we can assume a couple hundred years of life support advancement means they get all their O2 and H2O pretty cheap, so my main energy cost is likely food which they imply is practically a rounding error. A couple thousand watt robot arm is much less capable than a human small engineering team yet uses more energy. Also the tech manual implies the famous scene from DS9 where he replicates/prints some kind of screw for a menial task required enormous amounts of energy. That's why you don't replace shields with hull plate replicators or why you don't just replicate shuttles (or ships) on demand.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday January 23 2017, @08:05PM
A society that has technology like replicators, transporters, shields, warp drives would seem like they should have made some significant improvements in robot technology. Like Lt. Cmdr Data
But even if not . . .
The purpose of maintenance robots is not to reduce energy use, but to free humans from unnecessary menial tasks. To focus on more important things. Like designing more energy efficient maintenance robots.
Lt. Cmdr Data himself would not be a maintenance droid because the purpose is to free conscious entities to do more enriching things.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday January 23 2017, @01:37PM
Although they still seem to think there would even be a "main" computer
That's not particularly unbelievable. Computing swings between distributed and centralised. Both have advantages and disadvantages. In NextGen, they have PADDs that have some processing ability (and a few times even show that combadges have a lot of processing power), but there's a big advantage to having a big pile of compute and storage resources in the same location, as long as the latency to the display device is sufficiently low and the bandwidth is high enough. In something as small as The Enterprise, the latency wouldn't be an issue and the bandwidth would be more than adequate, so there's little incentive to have a load of small computers for anything other than emergency backup and disconnected operation.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday January 23 2017, @08:01PM
I would think they would learn the benefits of distributed computing throughout the ship. Oh, but then face a patent lawsuit from the Borg.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Thursday February 02 2017, @08:20PM
I hate that when the Ribbon UI controls change with the context. "It looks like you're trying to dock the ship." No! I'm trying to fucking ram this fiery wreck into the Klingons, not dock with them!
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday February 02 2017, @08:39PM
Clippy: It looks like you're trying to dock the ship. Would you like me to help you install Windows 10? If you would like Windows 10 installed, then do any of the following:
1. Click Yes
2. Click No
3. Click Cancel
4. Click the X in the window's title bar
5. Pull the electrical cord from the power outlet to have Windows 10 conveniently installed on the next reboot
6. Order self destruct to have Windows 10 installed in the last five seconds before auto destruct
As per the EULA, Microsoft is not responsible if Windows 10 ultimately results in erroneous self destruct.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Thursday February 02 2017, @08:49PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urcO5OzKwPo [youtube.com]
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday January 19 2017, @09:16PM
My wife and I have the boxed set, too, and watched it through a couple times. Some of the phrases still turn up in our conversations, like Zathras's classic, "Zathras has such a sad life. Will probably have a sad death. But at least there's symmetry." I can't wait until my kids are old enough to appreciate it, so I can watch it all again.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday January 20 2017, @02:05PM
Nobody listens to Zathras.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday January 23 2017, @02:19PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Thursday January 19 2017, @11:14PM
Battlestar Galactica (the 21st century incarnation) started off OK bit it turned out that, although the Cylons may have Had A Plan, they forgot to tell the writers... and, what, is Bob Dylan (or was it Hendrix) God?
BSG started out utterly fantastic. But then it went to shit after about 2 seasons. That was a real shame; that show really had the potential to be an iconic sci-fi show remembered for decades, like Star Trek (TOS) or TNG or Firefly. But I think they ruined it with the later seasons.
As for Dylan vs. Hendrix, it was both: Dylan wrote the song "All Along the Watchtower", and Hendrix performed the most famous and best version of it. Even Dylan himself said so. From Wikipedia:
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday January 24 2017, @07:39PM
I don't contest the "Babylon 5 is best", but I gotta contest the reasoning. The planned out story is nothing like the story we actually got.
Delenn was supposed to run away with Sinclair's baby in season 2 to return her races' souls, the shadows were supposed to be a red herring distracting from the fact that the Minbari were set to reopen their war with humanity after getting their souls back, leading to season 4 ending with Babylon 5 being destroyed by them. It was kinda a mess and ran headfirst into a number of casting problems and what we got was better.
What actually carried that show was its characters. Every main character, of which it suffered a definite surplus, was just appallingly well written and well played, at least until season 5. The plot was held together by individual characters doing exactly what they thought was best, discovering and overcoming their own weaknesses, in a way that was just fantastic. The quality of the characters, in fact, let them avoid the Star Trekesque [technobabble problem] [token aliens are different subplot] [technobabble solution] format more often than not.
It's one of those cases where what made it excellent sci-fi was exactly what a mundane show needs too.
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Wednesday January 25 2017, @12:12PM
Delenn was supposed to run away with Sinclair's baby in season 2 to return her races' souls, the shadows were supposed to be a red herring distracting from the fact that the Minbari were set to reopen their war with humanity after getting their souls back, leading to season 4 ending with Babylon 5 being destroyed by them. It was kinda a mess and ran headfirst into a number of casting problems and what we got was better.
Hadn't heard that version (was that from the notes that JMS published a few years back?) - although it was obvious that the plot had major changes (e.g. B5 destroyed and B4 was "stolen" and moved forward in time to replace it) but I think if you look at most stand-alone films and novels you'll find that the plot goes through huge changes during development - Star Wars IV (before it became a franchise) is a case in point. The point was that B5 had a plan from the start whereas most TV shows pretty obviously make it up season-by-season with the possibility of - if the cancellation notice arrives in time - finding the one-armed man in the final episode.
Actually, I think "making it up as you go along" was appropriate for the X-files, since it was all about paranoid conspiracy theories, which in "reality" are continually retconned to fit inconvenient facts and the public mood...
(Score: 5, Interesting) by mcgrew on Monday January 16 2017, @12:34AM
It looks to me like a film buff rather than a F&SF fan wrote that poll, as they're all movies or TV series, or have been made into such.
And the books are almost always better than the films (there are exceptions).
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday January 17 2017, @10:17PM
Serious hard sci fi beyond what will ever be on TV: KSR's Mars Trilogy
Lukewarm military sci fi could be good could be bad if converted to TV: Legacy of the Aldenata aka Posleen War series. How about Frankowski and the cross time engineer series?
Pew pew pew military sci fi not much worse than whats on TV now: March Upcountry series aka Empire of Man series. Can't be worse than Andromeda. Well, they might take that as a challenge.
Strange sci fi: The unseries by Asimov containing R. Daneel Olivaw as a continuing character showing up in the damnedest places in multiple novels.
Alt-history: 1632 series, pretty much all of Turtledove.
Fantasy as good or better than LOTR: Holdstock's Mythago Wood series. Its a flamewar just watching people fight over the "right" order to read the novels. I did chronological because I'm old and that's the order they were published.
I note the numerous Stargate TV shows didn't even get an honorable mention, nor did Buck Rogers. I suppose given enough liquor I might suggest Knight Rider is kinda sci fi, in a hideous deformed sort of way. Hell the A-Team was about 5 minutes of quality makerspace welding per hour, and none of the physics in the show fit ours...
Comet TV has been showing "men into space" a black and white 1960 era TV show. Just watching is a strange experience. I'm not really sure if I should recommend it or recommend changing the channel.
I'm so F-ing old I grew up reading Tom Swift series of books. Before the Aristotle robot went to mars there were like 100 books about Triphibian Atomic Car and the adventures of him and his buddy and his girlfriend Phyllis and the repellatron and I forget the name of the cook.
Because its late (for me) and I'm famous for writing stuff so weird its almost trippy when I'm almost asleep, I hereby propose my favorite story arc is Mythbusters TV show. The cast ages, Kari gets pregnant and somehow ends up even hotter (MILF style), about 10% of the myths get retested over and over (Oh fuck not another episode about the mirrors setting sailboats on fire again...) I mean no one said it had to be a fiction series, so why not some non-fiction? And with that I can go to sleep and wake up tomorrow asking WTF I was thinking when I wrote that....
(Score: 2) by nethead on Thursday January 26 2017, @03:49AM
Turttledove's World War series (the one with the alien lizards) was a good run, could be considered hard HF/alt even.
But really, no Doctor Who in the list? Really?
How did my SN UID end up over 3 times my /. UID?
(Score: 2) by nethead on Thursday January 26 2017, @03:56AM
Oh, and on Keri, yes indeed. Although S02E02 will always be special.
How did my SN UID end up over 3 times my /. UID?
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Thursday January 19 2017, @09:46PM
Exactly the series I meant when I voted for other. The Foundation books are terrific.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday January 16 2017, @01:05AM
Space niggers (Klingons), Space Jews (Ferengi), Space Chinks (Romulans and Vulcans); what's not to love?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 16 2017, @02:47AM
Klingons are Black People. Kazon are Niggers. There's a difference. Even the Borg didn't want the niggers.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday January 16 2017, @03:00AM
The Borg had plenty of niggers, they're just hard to see under all that Whiteface makeup.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 16 2017, @03:10AM
Kazon were the Delta Quadrant niggers the Borg refused to assimilate because even the "assimilate everything that moves" Borg had standards.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 17 2017, @03:30PM
Odd, I thought the romulans and vulcans and such were so designed to reflect a modernized Greek mythology.
Many of the inspirations were based on cultures, since the entire universe couldn't just be white women for Kirk to chase. There can't be hot green women if the universe is filled with ethanol-fueled ships...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 17 2017, @09:21PM
You're right of course, Vulcan logic is Greek stoicism.
The greatest allegorical brilliance of Star Trek was having three superpowers at cold war with each other, so when the Cold War ended in real life, the Klingons could become allies while conflict with the Romulans continued.
Three superpowers in competition in the same quadrant strengthened all three powers, which was alluded to in Star Trek V, and the Alpha Quadrant powers stopped any solitary superpower from conquering the entire galaxy, as seen whenever the Borg or the Dominion tried to invade.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday January 18 2017, @06:51PM
Most trolls post anonymously, asshole.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 19 2017, @01:42AM
Due to excessive bad posting from this IP or Subnet, anonymous comment posting has temporarily been disabled.
Eth-fool is too fucking dumb to bypass an IP Subnet ban.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by PinkyGigglebrain on Monday January 23 2017, @09:00PM
As repugnant as I may find many of Ethanol's comments to be I have to respect that he is willing to put his name on his comments, unlike many who post similar, or worse, comments who hide behind the AC account.
If you don't like what he says you can filter him. And while you can do the same with ACs you also loose out more since sometimes an AC post has a good point or useful information, and it might just be the poster doesn't have/forgot their login creds..
Remember, censorship starts with people going after the extreme contents first, and then works it's way into the rest of the comments. Remember that line about "First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out..." I would rather know that their are people who have such views, and let them speak them, than have them censored and angry that they can not speak their minds, because hidden hate festers, and becomes more dangerous than just spoken words,
And the words that I live by "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Thursday January 19 2017, @11:32PM
The Ferengi represent modern-day Americans. Profit uber alles fits perfectly with American philosophy. It's especially applicable to those who ascribe to Libertarianism.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 20 2017, @01:05AM
from season 1, the season nobody watched, when Patrick Steward himself was expecting TNG to flop.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by archfeld on Monday January 16 2017, @04:45AM
My favorite story arc is definitely The Chronicles of Amber. There are countless excellent series out there from Foundation, to Recluce, and Dune to Thomas Covenant, but I am forever hooked to Corwin of Amber.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Monday January 16 2017, @06:06AM
Yes, this is my "other" as well - Zelazny's Amber. I started reading an ostensibly science fiction story (that's how someone recommended it to me) and ended up reading a story with wyverns and swords that were called by name. I'm not much into fantasy, but this is not only a good read but also a good re-read. Always something new to discover.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @03:50PM
>Amber
Anything with bunnies and automatic weapons has my vote !
(Score: 2) by termigator on Tuesday January 24 2017, @08:47PM
Agreed. Zelazny had a writing style that is fun and with good pace. Much of today's writing is over verbose and bloated, likely due to publishers requiring so many pages per book. I red the Amber series to my son at bedtime, and he really enjoyed it. IIRC, I read the books from grade school to high school.
I do prefer the books with Corwin as the main protagonist. I thought the quality dropped a bit with Merlin as the main character, but Ghostwheel was interesting since it was a creation of computers and magic.
It would be completely cool if the Amber universe got translated into a premium TV series like GoT. I think the Amber books provides a richer source of material than the GoT books.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Thursday January 26 2017, @11:52PM
I like Amber, but Zelazny wrote so much more than that. He has several Hugo and Nebula Award winners: Lord of Light, This Immortal, and some short stories. A personal favorite is the short story For a Breath I Tarry. Sure, it's a blatant retelling of Faust, with the main character named Frost, but it's still fun all the same. I very much enjoyed the art discussion.
For those who've read Lord of Light, I have one nagging question. One of the characters picks a fight he knows he can't win, to send a message. To whom and what the message was is not revealed, and I've long wondered what it could be. The other characters can't figure that one out either, and can't ask him because he didn't survive the fight. However they didn't spend much time on that subject. Maybe an astute reader can figure it out? Anyone have any idea? I have several guesses.
(Score: 2) by termigator on Friday January 27 2017, @04:47PM
I have Lord of Light, but have yet to read it, so cannot help you on your question. Actually, I think I strated to read it when I was very young, but never finished it. Maybe time to try again ;)
I know of his other works since I own several of his books. My mom allowed me to join the science fiction book club when I was in grade school, so I amassed a modest science fiction and fantasy collection since the late 70s (she eventually gave me the books she had purchased). At the time, the club was a way to get past works of the classic writers. Have not been part of the club in a long time. Got disinterested in the later offerings and the rise of Internet commerce made it obsolete.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday January 27 2017, @06:23PM
Lord of Light does have a reputation as a difficult book. At the start, Zelazny dives right into the middle of the story, and for a while the poor reader has little to no idea what's going on. Readers unfamiliar with Zelazny's penchant for telling stories out of chronological order, or awareness of fashionable literary devices, won't know to suspect this is another of those, which it is. Nor will the unfamiliar reader quite be able to tell immediately if this one is hard core fantasy or not. In Zelazny's Creatures of Light and Darkness, the characters are the gods and demigods of the Egyptian pantheon who sometimes use devices that are not clearly wholly magical or wholly scientific. Lord of Light features the Hindu pantheon. There are clues which are much clearer in hindsight, but I'll say no more, don't want to spoil the story for you.
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Sunday January 29 2017, @02:16AM
Another favorite is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Hound_and_the_World's_Pain [wikipedia.org] by Michael Moorcock, and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job:_A_Comedy_of_Justice [wikipedia.org] by Robert Heinlein.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 2) by Marand on Saturday January 28 2017, @01:35PM
My favorite story arc is definitely The Chronicles of Amber.
I came here to mention this one as well. My two favourite stories are Amber and C. J. Cherryh's Morgaine Cycle (four books). I went into both not expecting very much, and by the end of each I was enthralled with the settings and characters. They're completely opposite in style and I hold them both in high regard.
Runners up would be C. S. Friedman's Coldfire Trilogy and Eddings' Sparhawk and Belgariad books.
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Sunday January 29 2017, @12:58AM
I had forgotten about the Coldfire series, that was dark but a very good read. I was very fond Dave Duncan's A man of his Word series also.
Another one I'd forgotten was Piers Anthony https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apprentice_Adept [wikipedia.org]
It crossed the Sci-Fi/Fantasy line quite entertainingly as well.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 2) by Marand on Sunday January 29 2017, @06:39PM
Coldfire was great, though I hated the ending, which marred the memories a bit. Still, excellent books up until the finish. I apparently missed Duncan; I did read some of Anthony's Xanth stuff, but preferred Robert Lynn Asprin's MythAdventures and Thieves' World work more.
I can't suggest Cherryh's Morgaine Cycle strongly enough, however. It seemed like it was going to be generic fantasy novel fluff at the start, but the writer did an excellent job having the complexities of the setting unfold over time, so that the reader learns more as the main character does. I know that's vague, but explaining it better would take away from it.
I remember the Amber books doing something similar, but in that case the perception of the characters changed more than the setting. Corwin started out seeming like an overpowered Mary Sue to me, but as the story unfolded, I saw that he wasn't especially powerful compared to the other important characters; rather, the perception of his power was intentionally tied to how the story revealed the setting and changed the scope of the plot.
Thinking about it, Coldfire sort of did a similar play on perception, presenting a fantasy story that was built off a soft sci-fi underpinning and revealing more of it over time. I guess I just find that sort of writing sleight-of-hand intriguing. It's like the storytelling equivalent of an ant learning there's an entire world outside its anthill. It's not an easy way to tell a story, but pays off IMO when it works.
The Morgaine Cycle books also were memorable to me because the main characters generally tried to avoid trouble. There was a goal to be met, and that drove the progression, and suspense in the story often came from the main characters trying to avoid unnecessary conflict along the way. It gave it a different sort of feel than most sci-fi and fantasy stuff.
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Monday January 30 2017, @04:43AM
Xanth was not one of my favorite settings, seemed teeny bopper, and relied far to much on puns, Anthony's bio of a space tyrant and the apprentice/adept series were both excellent. I loved Skeeve's adventures and the Thieves world original anthology was excellent.
I've recently read the Iron Druid series by Kevin Hearne, very good, and the Dresden files by Jim Butcher were also excellent reads.
If you haven't read the Number of the Beast by Robert Heinlein I'd suggest it. As part of the plot huge numbers of worthwhile books and writers universes are mentioned. It is a veritable what's what and whose who in the Sci-Fi and Fantasy world.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 2) by Marand on Tuesday January 31 2017, @01:27AM
Xanth was not one of my favorite settings, seemed teeny bopper, and relied far to much on puns
The puns were the best part. (I know, I'm a horrible person...) Didn't care so much for the rest of it, but didn't hate it either. I always had mixed emotions about both Anthony's work and Jack L. Chalker's. The latter had some interesting settings and concepts (like The Wonderland Gambit) but it seemed like everything he wrote had to have some sort of unwilling physical character transformations, to the point that it seemed like some kind of author fetish. He was a pretty good author aside from that, though.
Thieves world original anthology was excellent.
The one I read was Tales from the Vulgar Unicorn. Never found any of the others, but it was good enough that I still fondly remember the setting and style of it. It's what got me reading RLA; I only later found the MythAdventures stuff.
Haven't read any of the others named. I had to pack up all my books for a move a while back, don't have space to unpack them still, and it really fucked up my reading habit. Can't check what I already own so it makes me reluctant to get more. I miss my bookshelves. :/
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Tuesday January 31 2017, @05:20PM
I recently sold my house and in the process sold nearly 3000 old colored spine paperbacks, and close to that many newer nearly worthless paperbacks and hardbacks, so I know your pain. I've since acquired a Kindle eReader and have a kindle unlimited subscription which I've grown to absolutely love. Nothing can replace the tactile feel and smell of a book, but my apartment and life simply doesn't have the space for a physical library like I used to.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 2) by Marand on Wednesday February 01 2017, @02:58AM
Oh yeah, that sucks. At least I still have my books, even if I can't get at them right now.
I looked into going the ebook route for the convenience and space-saving -- plus I find ebooks offer enough advantages over paperbacks to be worth losing the tactile aspect -- but getting older stuff in ebook form can be a pain in the ass, at least legally. Doesn't matter if I'm willing to pay twice for the same book for the convenience, if nobody will make it available :/
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Monday January 16 2017, @09:46AM
I loved the Honor Harrington series years ago, I would find it a little more difficult to read now with what I've learned of physics...He had massive battleships in space "lie doggo." It might of worked for WWII submarines, but not for spaceships, as I would have to assume if you have the tech to push into "hyperband" for FTL you certainly could see a huge hunk of metal right next to you regardless of stealth tech.
I've read so many though , Foundation, Rendezvous with Rama series, The Chronicles of Amber, The Weapon shops of Isher, The Angel Experiment (Maximum Ride), Bova's Grand Tour Series, Dune, .......God I feel so old now....
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Monday January 16 2017, @10:11AM
Ok, I kinda made up my mind: Fantasy would be The Morgaine series and Science Fiction would be Cyteen both by C.J. Cherryh.
And hey, she lives in my hometown and sometimes has readings down at Aunties Bookstore. A favorite hangout with three floors of books, couches, espresso......I can chill out there all day. Hmm, it's cold and snowy, I'm off for the next three days....I think I know where I want to go tomorrow, I just finished the Hunger games series and I'm in need of something new.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 16 2017, @10:18AM
Genre: Sci-Fi Fantasy.
Not so much a story arc as a "story ourobouros" (planned from the beginning).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saga_of_Pliocene_Exile [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_Milieu_Series [wikipedia.org] (not as good in my opinion, but a continuation or prequel depending on how you look at it ;) ).
First book starts like this: https://books.google.com.my/books?id=sORouRynkk4C&pg=PT7&lpg=PT7 [google.com.my]
Her writing style might not suit some people. There's even a reference/guide-book to the first 4 books (Pliocene exile)! : https://books.google.com.my/books?id=Wiv7s1N3JtkC&pg=PT10&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false [google.com.my]
The Galactic Milieu series seems smaller more boring and less planned and thought out.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Tuesday January 17 2017, @06:53AM
Julian May is a she? I never knew that, and have enjoyed many books she has written.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday January 16 2017, @11:08AM
Computer screen, I have to go with Starcraft over anything put out in Hollywood.
Kindle screen, The Dresden Files. I mean it's one hell of a story arc when you set out in college to write a twenty-plus-book series plus a capstone trilogy.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by FunkyLich on Thursday January 19 2017, @04:34PM
Warp field stabilized.
Do you seek knowledge of time-travel?
(Score: 4, Informative) by looorg on Monday January 16 2017, @08:20PM
Does Star Trek technically have a unified single story arc? Isn't it mostly X episodes per season telling stories that doesn't really have all that much to do with each other except that they are on a five year mission (or exploring, or lost in the delta quadrant, or running a space station or they get cancelled before we really find out that the story arc was supposed to be - was it the xindi or the temporal war or was it just 'hey look at us we are pre-kirk and can still bang aliens chicks).
One could probably say the same for everything else on TV in some regard but some shows at least have a more cohesive arc such as Stargate SG-1 or Stargate Atlantis or Babylon 5 (I voted for this one).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 17 2017, @04:37AM
Deep Space Nine had the Dominion War, which the Federation won by attempted genocide.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 17 2017, @08:58PM
Only DS9 and Enterprise had actual season-length or longer arcs, the other series were episodic with the occasional two-parter and callbacks or recurring characters.
And I for the most part consider that a good thing, I'm just so burnt out on arcs in TV series. I like being able to jump around the series at random and not have to keep continuity in mind. I can back and watch TOS, TNG, or even Voyager at any time but have trouble getting back into DS9 and never liked Enterprise.
I think that the overemphasis on arcs in TV series these days is a big reason why I don't watch anymore TV, I simply don't have the patience to follow multiple storylines for years at a time and "binge-watching" bores me. I don't bother starting with established series as I don't want to go back and catch up on years of lore.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday January 17 2017, @10:35PM
I like being able to jump around the series at random and not have to keep continuity in mind.
Because its expensive. I was badgered (in a friendly way) into trying to watch B5 and its just so incredibly expensive and after 10-20 hours I gave up. Yeah I'm sure the experience between hours 110 and 120 are sublime, but I don't have 110 hours laying around to get to that point.
I had a similar experience with "Sopranos" where I tried to break in around episode 70 and all I got out of it was they say fuck a lot and theres like 10 seconds of nudity and its extremely violent and I'd rather watch paint dry. I'm sure if I invested 70 hours to get to episode 70, then watched episode 70, its downright Shakespearean in its brilliance but its too expensive, so oh well.
I have another sleep deprived weird suggestion of a "story arc". "Adventure Time". Nobody said it had to be above room temp IQ and its gets a laugh occasionally.
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Tuesday January 24 2017, @01:27PM
I was badgered (in a friendly way) into trying to watch B5 and its just so incredibly expensive and after 10-20 hours I gave up.
Well, when B5 was being produced, the target audience was still people watching the latest episode every week over 5 years, not binge-watching. Also, unlike (say) Game of Thrones, B5 was carefully constructed with episode arcs and season arcs in addition to the "big picture" arc. It only morphed into a serial when JMS thought it was cancelled and crammed the conclusion into season 4.
Problem is, though, the traditional US network season of 20+ episodes is to long a serial drama designed for binge-watching. Its notable that current shows like Game of Thrones, Stranger Things and the Netflix/Marvel shows are going for shorter 8 or 10-episode "seasons" - and (with the exception of GOT) they finish the story at the end of the season (with just enough loose ends for the next season). The latter is critical - even if the show gets cancelled, you get a satisfying conclusion.
Game of Thrones' flaw is that the writers don't seem to be capable of resolving a plot line other than suddenly having all the protagonists arbitrarily killed. There's only so many "Red Weddings" you can pull without it getting tedious - and now they've resorted bringing a character back from the dead (and not as an ice zombie) which is always a plot-weakening move.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 27 2017, @01:05PM
uhm... GOT comes from a series of books, so don't blame the writers of the show, blame the writer of the books.
I haven't actually read the books or watched the series, so I'm not saying they're good or bad, I just wanted you to blame the appropriate person.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday January 30 2017, @05:23PM
The most recent series wasn't based on a book, because George R. R. Martin still hasn't finished writing it. After the second book, I said I wouldn't read any of the rest until he'd finished, but then I saw the complete set for a couple of pounds in a charity shop and relented. The last one finishes with a cliff hangar, but by that point I really don't care. He's killed off most of the likeable characters (which, I suppose, is realistic: it's a fairly brutal world) and there's no sign of any of the story lines being resolved other than by all of the participants dying. The pacing of the TV adaptations made the books feel brisk in comparison.
That said, and back on topic, the story arc in his Tuf Voyaging [wikipedia.org] collection of short stories is the best thing I've read by George R. R. Martin. The only other thing I've read in the same universe was Dying of the Light, which was fairly mediocre. It's a shame that the quality of his early work seems to be a lot higher than his later work.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday January 18 2017, @06:36PM
I was a B5 fan when DS9 came out. At that time in my life I didn't have time to follow both. So it was B5.
A few years ago I watched DS9 on Netflix. Enjoyed it greatly. For some months now I've been considering watching it again.
I thought they did a few screwups like with the doctor character.
They did have a few very ingenious episodes.
I appreciated that it had a pretty good ending instead of a cliffhanger or just abruptly end.
I find TV hard to watch now. I am mostly interested in a story with an arc. And an actual ending. Basically what I want is a really good book in TV form. I hope new content producers (Netflix, Amazon, HBO, etc) might start doing this. A movie is just a book in very short TV form. Miniseries is better. Multiple seasons is better.
But I don't want to waste my time starting to watch it unless I know or am pretty sure it's going to be worth it.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JeanCroix on Monday January 16 2017, @09:34PM
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Tuesday January 17 2017, @06:50AM
It's a crime what sciffy did to Farscape. It won awards and all that, but they had to cancel it not just after it hit it's stride, but had become must-see-TV.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Tuesday January 17 2017, @08:54PM
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday January 18 2017, @05:05PM
Yes, like Serenity: let's wrap the whole thing up by killing Wash, Book. Anybody else???
Wish the powers that be would stop being and let quality TV just exist.
Serenity was nice to have, but a cop out. They should have swallowed their own nuts and agreed to let it continue (and in a better way than they did with ST-TOS).
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday January 19 2017, @09:25PM
You know, everything would have been fine with that show if they had not insisted on naming like it was a feminine hygiene product. And then, they doubled down by naming the movie based on the series like another feminine hygiene product.
Joss Whedon is great, and all, but man, do not name your sci-fi like feminine hygiene products if you want them to succeed.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 20 2017, @01:32AM
Joss Whedon is great, and all, but man, do not name your sci-fi like feminine hygiene products if you want them to succeed.
And don't cast an actor named Summer's Eve Glow to play your fan favorite character, right?
Whedon's mistake was being ahead of the trend for radical feminist domination. If only he had waited another decade until after social media attracted all the women who have taken over the internet.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Saturday January 28 2017, @01:49PM
And then he doubled down by later naming a series Dollhouse. [wikipedia.org]
Which I actually liked, for the most part. Didn't care much for the apocalyptic future parts that got weaved in late in each season, however; it felt like it was tacked on to give the show a feeling of completion in case it got axed. Pretty smart thing to assume, considering it was sci-fi, on Fox, by Joss Whedon.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday January 19 2017, @09:22PM
I'm aghast nobody nominated Lexx.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Friday January 20 2017, @06:01PM
(Score: 2) by caffeine on Monday January 16 2017, @11:57PM
My favourite SF series ever.
The big issues of AI as citizens and the interactions or advanced societies with less developed ones is handled brilliantly.
A good example is the Simming Problem. An exert from The Hydrogen Sonata
“Most problems, even seemingly really tricky ones, could be handled by simulations which happily modelled slippery concepts like public opinion or the likely reactions of alien societies by the appropriate use of some especially cunning and devious algorithms… nothing more processor-hungry than the right set of equations…
But not always. Sometimes, if you were going to have any hope of getting useful answers, there really was no alternative modelling the individuals themselves, at the sort of scale and level of complexity that mean they each had to exhibit some kind of discrete personality, and that was where the Problem kicked in.
Once you’d created your population of realistically reacting and – in a necessary sense – cogitating individuals, you had – also in a sense – created life. The particular parts of whatever computational substrate you’d devoted to the problem now held beings; virtual beings capable of reacting so much like the back-in-reality beings they were modelling – because how else were they to do so convincingly without also hoping, suffering, rejoicing, caring, living and dreaming?
By this reasoning, then, you couldn’t just turn off your virtual environment and the living, thinking creatures it contained at the completion of a run or when a simulation had reached the end of its useful life; that amounted to genocide.”
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 17 2017, @02:05AM
Sure because those Culture Minds weren't flying around mind-raping and murdering each other all the time either.
Each Culture Mind possessed enough processing power to simulate entire universes in its own imagination, and mind-reading was forbidden, so who would ever know if every Mind was committing gigadeathcrime every nanosecond?
The most damning criticism of The Land Of Infinite Fun is it was simply author wankery. Iain M Banks dreamed up a universe which was biased the way he liked it, and that was his hobby, so naturally his super intelligent fictional creations should also adopt dreaming up universes as their hobby too.
The universe in which the Culture exists is ridiculously biased. "Post-scarcity" is possible because there isn't any scarcity at all. As soon as anyone discovers how to tap into gridfire, they immediately gain unlimited free energy, because the universe conveniently provides it. FTL travel is possible because it's convenient. Time travel is impossible because it's confusing. The setting is carefully crafted to force exactly the right kind of drama and solve the boring problems by hand waving them away.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @03:54AM
Every ship was a meatfucker but Grey Area was the only ship who was honest enough to admit it.
(Score: 2) by caffeine on Thursday January 19 2017, @08:21AM
If you are looking for something less fantasy, have a look at Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space series. No FTL travel and fairly grounded in science. The immense time frames of space travel act as a key plot element in many of the stories.
Personally, I'm happy to forgo reality when reading science fiction. I quite enjoyed the Culture because it was so different from the usual dystopian societies and space marines.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 19 2017, @12:34PM
I'm perfectly fine with one or two big lies based in science that hasn't been discovered yet. FTL, time travel, teleportation, force fields, beam weapons, intelligent machines, these things are at least remotely possible. The cosmos is conveniently designed with energy grids where you can plug in your perpetual motion engine? Now that just breaks suspension of disbelief.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday January 25 2017, @01:28PM
Of all of the Alastair Reynolds, I think his best works are the ones not set in the Revelation Space universe. Pushing Ice is by far my favourite and House of Suns probably comes in second.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by caffeine on Thursday January 26 2017, @05:03AM
I really enjoyed The Prefect. I can see that being a great first book recommendation for the series. I'll put Pushing Ice and House of Suns on my to read list.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Thursday January 26 2017, @09:46AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 17 2017, @04:01AM
Domestic policy of The Culture: "Lick me out, stuff me up."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNu8XoDeC30 [youtube.com]
Foreign policy of The Culture: "Fuck them all to death!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSFZktZNySg [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 17 2017, @04:07AM
The average tourist from The Culture: "I'm so fucking bored! Can I fuck up your planet?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET8IFxPo61w [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Tuesday January 17 2017, @06:48AM
But Battlestar Galactica was hard to resist. The rest of the options don't even come close.
I'm hoping The Expanse will be the new #1 in 10 years, but I don't really know how they can do it. I watched the first season, didn't really know what was going on, then read Leviathan Wakes, then binged the first season, and it worked.
/ on the other hand I'm old
// Insurance actuary's give me a 50/50 chance of being dead in 10 years
/// I'm hoping I'm still around
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 17 2017, @07:25AM
Too much political fiction in The Expanse, not enough science fiction. Earth-and-Luna is like England-and-Wales, I get it already, for God's sake. Earth is acting imperial like the British, I get it already, for God's sake. OPA are IRA, I get it already, for God's sake. Not even subtle with the obvious political metaphor.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday January 19 2017, @09:28PM
Huh. I read Earth-and-Luna as the New England plus the Midwest, the Belters as the South, and Mars as California (based on how many teeth those different groups have).
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 17 2017, @07:46AM
Andromeda had a story arc, but Kevin Sorbo tried to replace it with "Captain Hunt beats up bad guys."
There was supposed to be a grand universal conflict between stars and black holes and their respective avatars. Some of the story survived to the screen. Andromeda ventured outside the known worlds and discovered all but three galaxies had already been collapsed into black holes by the Abyss. The Vedrans had a secret plan all along to save the three galaxies which involved abandoning their empire, deliberately causing the dark ages, hiding their homeworld, and luring the Abyss into a trap.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 17 2017, @09:03PM
That sounds like a rather soul-crushing discovery to make via FTL, finding out that due to the speed of light you didn't know that the entire observable Universe was already long dead.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 17 2017, @10:16PM
It makes a great space opera though. Not only is the fate of the universe at stake, but the universe has already been destroyed. Even worse is everyone spends 300 years resenting those aloof aliens who couldn't risk telling anyone they were trying to save the last remnants of life anywhere.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday January 18 2017, @05:15PM
I started watching Andromeda a week or two ago, and couldn't get by the bad acting, bad slo-mo action, bad fight scenes.
Does it get better? Honestly asking.
(I had trouble with B5 at the start, but it did get better (than had trouble when Smiley McBean took over command... took a long time before i got over "All i will do is stand here and smile like a fecking fool: everyone is dying?? That's okay. Smile!"
Once i get through all the episodes of the original Doctor Who run (still on the first doctor WHO I LOVE! The Doctor who WOULD!, until he decides it's not polite to say or do things like that.
I love that the original doctor is usually as lost as his companions.... now, it's as if he's an omnipotent god. Trouble? Shadow proclamation. Lame episode? That's okay: special effects will make up for it, as will custard (ewww.... i don't like custard).
The monster is the stuff you wipe from the corner of your eye?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
The original doctor rocks.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @11:47PM
I started watching Andromeda a week or two ago, and couldn't get by the bad acting, bad slo-mo action, bad fight scenes.
Does it get better? Honestly asking.
No, the production quality doesn't change, but by season 5 the plot becomes significantly more surreal when the setting changes from "wandering the Slipstream" to "stranded in the Seefra system." Earlier seasons fumbled between being arc-driven or episodic. Season 5 finally picks up the story arc and runs with it.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday January 19 2017, @09:40PM
Does it get better? Honestly asking.
On the contrary, after season 2 episode 22 they fired the original guy who was doing the story, too :P He published a script for how to wrap up the original story online though that was a tantalizing glimpse of what could have been (try googling Robert Hewitt Wolfe "Coda").
The entirety of season 5 is basically an exercise in trying to act all enigmatic and philosophical and failing at it. Or at least, I hated it.
As for production values, it wasn't too much worse than Star Trek I thought, other than they basically CGId up a single space fight scene each season and just replayed 3-second clips of it constantly :/
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday January 23 2017, @02:25PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 02 2017, @08:05AM
Oh, now the whole TV series actually makes sense. Thank you. I was near completely confused by season 5.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Sulla on Tuesday January 17 2017, @05:04PM
Personal favorite is the CoDominium arc/universe containing a bunch of crappy pulp tier SF as well as the two Mote in God's Eye books. Niven and Pournelle are great.
Feels kind of silly to include Star Trek given that it no longer exists. A major theme throughout the many renditions is that going back in time erases the other possible reality. Plenty of Next Gen and Voyager episodes covers this. Conveniently the new movies went back and erased everything Star Trek ever, and I can't imagine anyone thinking that Enterprise followed by the new movies is a good story arc.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday January 19 2017, @09:32PM
Feels kind of silly to include Star Trek given that it no longer exists.
You mean aside from the new series that's airing later this year? :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Discovery [wikipedia.org]
And yes, it's set in the original universe. For some dumb reason they're only airing the first episode on broadcast TV then it's some streaming-only thing. "Prepare to bring up the Google, Number One."
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 17 2017, @10:28PM
It had a pretty good intra-episode (?) storyline that converged more and more towards the final season. But... I do think the final season sucked because it was thrown together very sloppily to end the series.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Saturday January 28 2017, @01:57PM
Fringe was a damn good series, good call there. It did a good job of weaving in an overarching plot into all the plot-of-the-week type stuff, at least up until the last season like you mentioned, and the characters were great. As silly as the concept was, it was presented well enough that it was easy to suspend disbelief and just enjoy the ride.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Wednesday January 18 2017, @02:49AM
Mine is the manga adaptation which had a movie remake a few years ago of the various arcs. The latest arc was released as TV episodes last year. Great stuff.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Webweasel on Tuesday January 24 2017, @11:17AM
I just came across this 2 nights back.
The information super tubes say that the 1997 series is the best one to watch.
I have only watched the first 10 mins of the first movie, but all I could think was "This looks like mount and blade".
Then stupid sword guy fights onionbro and I realised Dark Souls was heavily influenced by Berserk.
As we are on the anime topic, give Steins Gate a try. It's one of the best time travel story arcs I have every watched. Utterly heart breaking in places.
Priyom.org Number stations, Russian Military radio. "You are a bad, bad man. Do you have any other virtues?"-Runaway1956
(Score: 2) by arslan on Tuesday January 24 2017, @10:48PM
Yea.. the new movies are a condensed version of the manga, so the older series are better since it is less so. But the movies are at least revamped with more modern animation, so better eye candy. As like in the manga, the beginning arc is a more mundane medieval affair to setup the story line. It gets a lot more interesting and graphic once you get past that first arc...
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Wednesday January 18 2017, @09:39AM
or the Dirk Gently universe, which is more or less ours. Either works for me.
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Wednesday January 18 2017, @11:38AM
Horatio Hornblower series by C.S. Forester. Great stuff, and the mini-series adaptation of the first (in story timeline if not written order) is excellent as well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @11:53AM
Jean-Luc Picard was modeled after Hornblower before Picard was raped by the Borg, after then Picard developed some character of his own.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday January 23 2017, @02:27PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 20 2017, @02:45PM
I do like CSF, but patrick obrien is a more page turning read,
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @05:48PM
Lexx, by far, has the best story arc.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday January 19 2017, @09:30PM
Haha I should have read downthread before posting the same thing. I cannot believe that show made it through so many episodes. Even the soft porn wasn't all that compelling.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 20 2017, @01:21AM
I was introduced to Lexx by the episode P4X which is quite possibly the worst way. I didn't realize at the time that P4X was essentially a spoof for Red Dwarf fans and not quite representative of Lexx as a series. Of course once I heard about a big bad named His Divine Shadow and a universe-spanning bureaucracy, I went back and watched from the beginning. The plot is much easier to appreciate if you know the characters' motivation and backstory.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 27 2017, @06:36PM
Dead thing pie is now a tradition in our house at the appropriate time of the year [wikia.com]
(Score: 2, Informative) by stingraz on Thursday January 19 2017, @01:06PM
the Neuromancer books?
the Virtual Light series?
Granted, that's more near-term future than most space-opera options mentioned so far, but I think that would make them at least *as* interesting, albeit in a different way...
Anyone?
(Score: 2) by sgleysti on Thursday February 02 2017, @06:50AM
The Peripheral is one of my top two books (Contact by Carl Sagan being the other, and perhaps first). However, it stands alone, so it doesn't count for this thread. I found the "Pattern Recognition" / "Spook Country" / "Zero History" series quite enjoyable, but I wouldn't rank it as my absolute favorite.
I haven't read any of his earlier work. If you've also read the books I mentioned above, how would you compare them to his earlier stuff?
(Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Thursday January 19 2017, @01:11PM
Dune, particularly the first trilogy and then God Emperor of Dune. God Emperor of Dune was probably my favorite book. The series, particularly the first book, were a major influence on many of the other series in the poll.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by LoRdTAW on Thursday January 19 2017, @09:21PM
X-Files during the first five seasons before it turned to shit. And even then, it wasn't half bad. The first season was magical for a budding teenager.
(Score: 1) by gauauu on Friday January 20 2017, @04:14PM
Great story, great characters, well-planned, and it can be equally enjoyed by me and my young kids at the same time.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by RedIsNotGreen on Saturday January 21 2017, @09:34AM
Mars Trilogy by ksr.
(Score: 2) by mr_mischief on Monday January 23 2017, @11:42PM
I love Star Wars and Star Trek. I'm a pretty big fan of Firefly. But if I had to, at this point, convince someone to continue a show that got served poorly it'd probably be Ascension.
I'm also certainly looking forward to season 2 of Stranger Things.
(Score: 2) by termigator on Tuesday January 24 2017, @09:08PM
Some better than others:
Heechee saga - Frederik Pohl
Chronicles of Covenant - Stephen R Donaldson
Mars trilogy - Kim Stanley Robinson
Dune series - Frank Herbert
Chronicles of Amber - Roger Zelazny
Dragon and the George, et.al - Gordon R Dickson
Ender's Game, etc - Orson Scott Card
Mote in God's Eye/The Gripping Hand - Larry Niven
Ringword/Ringworld Engineers - Larry Niven
Book of Swords - Fred Saberhaggen
Shannara - Terry Brooks
Uplift saga - David Brin
Foundation - Isaac Asimov
Rama - Arthur C Clarke (and Gentry Lee for later books)
Space Odyssey - Arthur C Clarke
Forge of God/Anvil of Stars - Greg Bear
(Score: 2) by nethead on Thursday January 26 2017, @03:58AM
Commonwealth series by Peter F. Hamilton is quite the read.
Discworld anyone?
How did my SN UID end up over 3 times my /. UID?
(Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday January 28 2017, @12:48AM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1) by bolek_b on Thursday January 26 2017, @01:06AM
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Sunday January 29 2017, @11:35AM
Ah, Babylon 5. The one where the long-haired guy saved Ivanova, and uh... yeah. I'm sure it was good.
There was some anime I saw which took place in Shibuya, where there was this kid who seemed like he was going insane but it turned out he was not even real. He was an "エラー," an unintended side effect of some sinister plot to cause mass hallucinations or something. You know which one I mean.
How about Turn A Gundam. I don't recall what happened at the end, but up until then it was interesting. Princess Diana switched places with the お嬢さん, and ロラン wasn't chronically pissed off like most Gundam kids in the other series.
Sometimes games have good stories. When they're not drawn out just to make the game longer. Or you're running around with a sword in a seemingly historical setting and suddenly space ships and giant robots show up.
Oh crap, look what time it is.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 02 2017, @08:11AM
What other story arch has aliens almost completely wiping out our grand star-based civilization mid-series and upending everything? (Well I guess Andromeda and Battlestar Galactica do that in their first episodes) And the good guys accidentally kill each other at the end (after murder a few innocents along the way). What an ending! The bad guys win. The good guys weren't perfect.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 02 2017, @08:26AM
Can 9 concurrent timelines operating within each other at the same time be considered an epic arc?
(Score: 2) by pkrasimirov on Thursday February 02 2017, @10:52PM
Anyone for John Brosnan's Sky Lords?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 03 2017, @02:06PM
The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear are two of the finest novels I have read in my life. I love Lord of the Rings but I feel the Kingkiller Trilogy has edged out as my favorite. The world is vivid, the cultures are unique (a people who record their language with knots instead of writing? Very cool.). The writing doesn't insult your intelligence, but Patrick Rothfuss also does not go out of his way to use unusual words to assert any sort of snobbery like some authors do. He doesn't have to. It's a perfect blend of readability and well exercised vocabulary.
I highly recommend it to anyone.
(Score: 2) by Username on Saturday February 04 2017, @01:39AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_of_the_Galactic_Heroes [wikipedia.org]