Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/04/26/heres-your-chance-to-buy-the.html
…
4 Likes
Yes, the series is great. Read it long ago. Yes, the first book is cheap. The other 3 books in the series are about $9.00 USD each. So it’s the old dope dealer technique… The first one is “free”.
3 Likes
Such a great book, and an amazing Audiobook!
3 Likes
You don’t need more than the second book anyway. 
Also, I’d hesitate giving money to Simmons. Has he pulled his head out of his ass and stopped with the raving paranoid islamophobia yet?
8 Likes
It’s The Canterbury Tales in the future with some of the most depressing stories I’ve ever read. It haunts me still.
4 Likes
I can’t remember why, but I read the ebook a long time ago, on one of those One Laptop Per Child machines.
I forget, is this the one where he drops in a little extradiegetic anti-gay-marriage op-ed right at the end, or was that in one of his Homer-in-space books?
Not that an author’s foul personality should necessarily stop you reading (a library copy of) their work. I don’t remember his stuff well enough to comment on it – make of that what you will – though in fairness I guess I did go back and read more than one thing by him.
2 Likes
Ilium/Olympos is some of the most memorable scifi I have read, also.
Simmons is a treasure.
A book I can readily recommend without hesitation. The second book is fine and ties up some loose ends. I seem to read enough comments from people who like the third and fourth books, and I can kind of see why people might think that way – but I am nonetheless firm in my belief that they are as much of a letdown as the first two are extraordinary. (A darn good way to raise awareness about kidney stones, at least.)
You’re not thinking of Orson Scott Card, are you?
2 Likes
Nope, definitely Simmons, and thinking about it I’m fairly sure this is in Ilium. There’s a passage talking about two men, and he sticks in some throwaway line to the effect of “they were partners, but not in the ridiculous sense that men pretended to be married in the 21st century, which was stupid, of course”. I remember how jarring it was. And iirc there were some previous bits of world-building that had set my Islamophobia radar on high alert - I didn’t become aware of his bigoted views until later but it was exactly the kind of thing I’d smelled in the novel.
5 Likes
I dunno, Hyperion was good, great? I haven’t read it again. Unlile say Iain M Banks or Alastair Reynolds or Jack Vance. And he is def a bible thumper in my eyes. By book two it just got tiresome to have that drummed into the narrative. Like reading really soviet sci-fi.
2 Likes
Interested in reading a book but don’t want to support a badly-behaved author or even give stats that show interest to their publisher?
Buy used, preferably brick & mortar. It doesn’t work for e-books, obviously. But anything you can physically get your hands on, only the initial sale counts for royalties. And unlike giveaways, it doesn’t show the publisher that there’s any demand.
ETA: what you do support is a local business, and your community.
4 Likes
Only read the first two, and mostly I found the Catholicism weird, like, explaining a space age future with religion is an interesting challenge, but, Catholicism?
I don’t remember overt homophobia (isn’t one of the main characters a lesbian?) but could see it quickly going there.
If I can’t find brick and mortar, I use thriftbooks. Surprisingly decent selection, good prices, free shipping.
I liked the first half of this series much better than the second. His horror was much better than his books about the love dimension or whatever.
I didn’t think the first two books particularly emphasized Catholicism. It’s definitely much stronger in the second two books. (I expect the rambling description of a papal conclave was somewhat more meaningful before Dan Brown did his thing.)
1 Like
Actually that part felt reasonably well thought-out from a world-building perspective to me. If one was to lay odds on which of humanity’s institutions are likely to be around for centuries to come then it would make sense to put one’s money on the ones that have already endured for thousands of years.
You don’t have to like the Catholic Church to acknowledge that it definitely has some staying power. Even Herbert’s Dune series hints at it (i.e. references to “The Orange Catholic Bible”).
The first one is worth a throw, but I’m not a big fan of the second one onwards. The ending of the first one is brilliant, dark but hopeful and a bit whimsical. The rest suffer a bit from scope creep.
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
