Sentences I wasn't expecting to read

[fclbrokle]

I have just finished The Temporal Void, the second book in Peter F. Hamilton's "Void" series, which featured the following rather staggeringly unexpected description of a creature that seems to live in space (mild spoiler warning that is unlikely to affect your enjoyment of the book):

With the sensors able to penetrate the haze of the vacuum wings

Comments

[ukelele]

a rabid George R.R. Martin fan and unable to cope with the fact that his book isn't done yet

whimper. Yes. I'll add your recommendation to my list.

[fclbrokle]

Do keep in mind the limitations I mentioned, too! His books are good but flawed, so it's hard for me to tell how others will react. :)

Probably best to start with Pandora's Star, which is not quite as good, but nicely brings you into the world at an early point. (Starting with the first in this series, The Dreaming Void, assumes some stuff about the earlier two books even though they happened 1500 years previously!)

[secret_panda]

You know, I have never been able to get into Martin, which is strange, because his stuff should be right up my alley (or at least right up my fourteen-year-old-self's alley). With a recommendation like that, though, I'll give Hamilton a try...next time I have time in my life...which may not be for many years to come... :)

[fclbrokle]

Hehe. Take your time; they're good for someone in the right mood.

How hard did you try to get into Martin? I wasn't totally drawn in for several hundred pages, so...

[secret_panda]

I got maybe 100 pages into A Game Of Thrones, and then a year later maybe 50 pages into a book that I remember as "A Feast For Crows," but a quick googling reveals that A Feast For Crows is the fourth book in his series, and I probably would have avoided it for that reason, so who knows what I'm actually remembering...clearly it didn't make a strong impression...

[fclbrokle]

Well, I hope it wasn't A Feast for Crows, because not just was it the fourth, it also wasn't very good. (Because of the length of what was supposed to be the fourth book in the series, Martin split it into two parts, not sequentially by page but rather by taking half of the character viewpoint chapters (roughly geographically) and putting them into one book, leaving the other characters for the other book. Feast for Crows took the much less interesting half of the characters.)

If you have patience for these things, I'd suggest going for more than a hundred pages. If not, ah well!

[fclbrokle]

That was me --- I was reading it at the time. The comparison is still rather striking.

As to Greg Egan --- no, I haven't. I've certainly heard of him but know little about his work. What's it like?

[fclbrokle]

*laugh*

I'm usually not much for hard SF with poor writing, but might take a look at some point. Thanks!

[oxeador]

Inigo? Shouldn't that be Íñigo?

[fclbrokle]

Being a quite significant character in the book, I imagine that they didn't want to have to remember to put all those accents everywhere. But yes, I believe so. :)

[oxeador]

That is not an "n" with an accent, but an "ñ". It is an entirely different letter, pronounced in a different way.

[fclbrokle]

Fair enough --- not my place of expertise. I really don't know. :)