/lit/ - Literature

wanted to thank >>22512769 for recommending this. it's a really good fit for "if you liked the talos principle...". the more i read the more appropriate it seems. it's the best genre fiction i've read since rendezvous with rama and though it's obviously a very different take on a first contact scenario it scratches the same itch. i've been looking for something else in which the substance is mostly from the worldbuilding rather than interpersonal conflict.

>>22319396

Its an interesting work that has some neat ideas that are padded out extensively. I will not judge its prose because its a translation, and therefore inherently compromised, but its not very good at convincing you to read further. As well the author does have extremely weird characterizations of people that I don't know if they are bad or if the perspective he comes from is sincerely alien to me.

The concepts it introduces are very interesting and a compelling argument for why we do need competent diversity in SF&F. I don't think westerners could think of the wallfacers, for example. The core twist of the series that I think propels the series into being relevant beyond being a dark first contact story has been done before, although this time the imagery is much more visceral. I would compare it to The Killing Star if you want a more hard sci-fi take on the concept. On the whole its not a bad series and it actually provides a sustainable concept of where modern science-fiction can go, but its bogged down by far too much weight and time spent on things I don't care about, including the characters.

I like bleak/depressing science fiction, and I've been trying to find an ebook version of The Killing Star for a while. Amazon has it as an audiobook, but for whatever reason it's not available as a Kindle ebook or from any other ebook outlet I've checked. Haven't been able to pirate it either.

I eventually gave up and bought a used paperback copy, which arrived earlier today. If anyone's interested I can take it apart and scan it once I'm done reading it.

Has anyone read this? The premise is fantastic:

>The late 21st century seems like a good time to be alive. Earth is at peace. Humans now command self-replicating machines that create engineering marvels on enormous scales. Artificial habitats dot the solar system. Anti-matter driven Valkyrie rockets carry explorers to the stars at nearly the speed of light. All seems well.

>Then, from the uncaring black of space come swarms of relativistic missiles. Though they are merely boulder-sized hunks of metal, they move fast enough to hit with the force of many nuclear arsenals. They are impossible to track and impossible to stop. Humanity is all but wiped out by the horrific bombardment.

>A handful of survivors desperately struggle to escape the alien mop-up fleet. They hide close to the sun, inside asteroids, beneath the crusts of moons, within ice rings, and in the fathomless depths of interstellar space. But most are hunted down and slaughtered.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killing_Star

I can't find it anywhere to download, I guess it was never published as an e-book or scanned?

Its literary merits are debtable, but I enjoyed the shit out of it.