best new fiction you've red recently?

[jollyreaper]

Took a tour through the barnes and ignoble and am feeling a bit indecisive. There are some really excellent graphic designers and artists working in the publishing industry right now but you know the old saw about a book and its cover... The usual approach I've taken is reading the negative reviews on Amazon first and seeing if they hit my personal pet peeves. I don't mind someone just not liking a genre or writer, it's more about hating poor characterization, lazy and cliched plots, and Stephen King weak tea endings.

So, across all of science fiction and fantasy, what's been good recently? I'll take anything from "This is the next Dune!" to "Ok, this is totally a guilty pleasure but I like it."

[jollyreaper]

Oh, figure I'll toss a nomination of my own in here. The duology Daemon and Freedom(tm) by Daniel Suarez.

Daemon
Daemon, the first book, begins with the death of wealthy, legendary computer game designer Matthew Sobol. At the time of his death, he had a program running that was scanning obituaries on the Internet. That program, coupled with his death (due to cancer), sets in motion a series of other programs (daemon) that move money, recruit operatives, and even kill. Detective Peter Sebeck initially leads two murder investigations which reveal The Daemon. Sebeck and others try to combat this murderous technological construct in an increasingly complex and interconnected world. But Matthew Sobol already anticipated Sebeck's actions and frames him for murder.

Soon after the death of Matthew A. Sobol from brain cancer, a computer daemon is activated. Its first mission: to kill anyone and anything that stands in its way. Detective Peter Sebeck is called in to investigate the death of two programmers who worked for a computer game manufacturer, CyberStorm Entertainment. During his investigation, Peter meets and befriends Jon Ross who is a technology consultant. Unfortunately, their traditional investigation methods are useless against Sobol's Daemon program. The Daemon anticipates every move, seemingly one step ahead of anyone who tries to interfere with its operation.

I was skeptical going in but was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt based upon recommendations. My assumption was that this was going to be someone's bad attempt at a CSI script stretched out to a novel. Poor understanding of technology, ridiculous plotting, cookie cutter characters, by the number twists you could see a mile off. I figured it was gonna just be a howdunnit based on the whodunnit format.

The results were anything but. A lot of the cliches were introduced to be subverted. The biggest subversion is where you thought the story was going is nowhere near where it went. Sobol's plot constantly pushes at the barriers of plausibility with wheels within wheels Xanatos Roulette. It couldn't possibly happen this way. But the writer has you convinced, the same way you know zombies aren't real but a good writer will have you checking every structure you enter for defensibility.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... osRoulette

The other thing that really stretches credulity is the tech displayed in the book. You read about it and think "No, we're not there yet. It's too far away." But a lot of it is closer than we think. Self-driving cars were featured heavily. I'm sitting here thinking practical models that can work in real world traffic must be twenty years out. Turns out Google's been testing them in secret for the past year.

The Daemon itself is not presented as sentient, is not thinking or doing anything like strong AI. It's a programmed thing. It combs news feeds for event triggers. It can send commands to real world assets that were put in place by Sobol. The best way to think about it is as a maze filled with deadly traps, a lethal puzzle to work through, except it's not just a structure you're trapped in but the world itself. Each action you take could be the one that tugs a digital tripwire.

My one personal theory though, and one I would have been convinced of if I was a character in the story and not a reader benefiting from plot omniscience -- I would have been convinced the whole Daemon thing was a misdirection. Have people running the thing from behind the scenes but make it look like it's an automated system. If law enforcement can be convinced it's automated, they're not going to be looking for the people running it, right? And this takes the plausible deniability Mafia leaders use to a new level. They filter orders through two or three layers so they can't be directly fingered as the guy who gave the soldier the word. Well, the Daemon's masters would have taken it to the next level and used an untappable and untracable means of delivering orders that can't turn state's evidence. Wasn't the case in the novel but it is something I think we'll see in the future.

[keen320]

How recently is recently? Because I have one or two ideas, but they're a few years old now.

[Stark]

Does any suggestion need to be couched in tvtropes terminology? Metro 2034 was pretty good, but don't ask me what the crowning moment of awesome was.

[Artemas]

There's a sequel to Metro 2033?

[Stark]

Its not out in English yet, to my knowledge. Its quite different in tone to 2033, as well, a bit more Stalker and a bit less worldbuilding.

[Batman]

'And Another Thing' by Eoin Colfer. Sixth installation of HHGTTG. I haven't finished it yet but so far I like it a lot, and truth be told it feels a lot more HHGTTG than Mostly Harmless ever did.

[madd0ct0r]

thinkbot by David Tossell

http://www.thinkbot.co.uk/The%20Book.htm (first three chapters up for free)

found it in a local bookshop, and it's still probably one of my favorite genial Sci-fi books.
Sort of Douglas Adams if he'd worked in a research industry.

[keen320]

Old Man's War by John Scalzi.

Not only did it have some pretty good action, it also raised some interesting questions, and was often hilarious. I'm pretty sure it had at least some original ideas, but I can't say for sure how many, because it was the first book I read with lots of concepts, so they might have seemed original to me when they actually weren't. What I really like about his books, though, is how he can go from being funny to being serious quite often, without them diluting each other.

I also liked every other book of Scalzi's I read, which is all his sci-fi except The God Engines, which is supposed to be a lot darker than his other books, and I'm worried It won't seem the same as his others.

[cosmicalstorm]

I recently finished Blind Lake by Robert Charles Wilson. That was the first time in a very long while that I have not been disappointed by a sci-fi story. The "sci-fi" part of the book was IMO very good, it didn't fall into many of the cliches and the entire read was a cliffhanger, almost every single chapter. The characthers felt real and personal, he did a very good job of making the "lectures" feel like they were a part of the story and not forced into the plot. The description of aliens (they are on the cover so I'm not spoiling now) was very good and unusual. And for once it actually felt like it "delieverd" when the ending came along, which is also unusual for most sci-fi cliffhangers. The book introduced a few sci-fi ideas that I had not been introduced to before. It also did a fairly good job of dealing with some of the "big" questions that many writers seems to skirt around or ignore.

[othi]

While it's not 'new', I can't go past Stephen Baxter. There are very few Sci-Fi books that I have encountered recently that can compare. It seems like Sci-Fi, as well as fantasy, is getting Hollywood-ised and caters to the lowest common denominator....

[Shortie]

Old Man's War by John Scalzi.

Good rec.

Mine would be Feed, by Mira Grant. Best zombie story I've read, set about 20 years after the apocalypse. Society has stabilised in a new form (some fun ideas there), but the zombies are still a major presence. It's reasonably realistic, once you accept the zombie thing, although there's a little mystical stuff in there.

It's got a pretty good mix of humour and seriousness, with neither taking away too much from the other, and some nice, actually human main characters. The ending's a bit of a kicker, but I'm looking forward to the sequel.

[jollyreaper]

Thanks for the suggestions. Gotta finish Wave, then Griftopia, and then I'll move on to the suggestions here.

[The Dark]

Sharon Lee and Steve Miller's Liaden Universe. It's a series that started in 1988, and has two omnibus editions and a new novel due out next year. To read the novels in internal order, you'll need the following:

1. The Dragon Variation (for Local Custom and Scout's Progress).
2. Mouse and Dragon
3. The Dragon Variation (for Conflict of Honors)
4. The Agent Gambit (for Agent of Change and Carpe Diem) (due January 2011)
5. Korval's Game (for Plan B and I Dare) (due May 2011)
6. Fledgling
7. Saltation
8. Ghost Ship (due August 2011)

There are also three prequels to be released in an omnibus next September.

The publication order is totally different - Mouse and Dragon is actually the newest book, with Lee and Miller going back to explain what happened between two other novels. There are multiple intertwining plot lines revolving around Clan Korval. Lee and Miller are probably the least Baen-ish authors that Baen has.

[jollyreaper]

Hmm. Nothing about the universe itself seems all that compelling but it's the fan response that has my interest piqued.

History of the series

The series is notable because it almost failed to take flight, and probably would only be three books long except for the Internet. The authors had written the first three books (Agent of Change, Conflict of Honors, Carpe Diem) but were told that sales were not sufficient to justify continuing.

Unbeknownst to them the books had caused such a stir on the Usenet group rec.arts.sf.written that they were added to the group's FAQ.[1] Upon gaining Internet access, the authors were surprised to find so many people looking for the next book, and even more surprised that its title was already decided upon: Plan B. They published some chapbooks to stave off the hungry fans and started writing: Plan B and a further three books followed in due course to complete the "Agent of Change" sequence. There are also a number of short stories, some filling in gaps between novels, some providing background on minor (and not so minor) characters. The series is ongoing as of 2010.

A strong response like that either indicates the series will be very good or start sucking. The descriptions make the stories sound relatively self-contained while the universe is shared which avoids story decay that happens when an author tries to make a serial.

[Stark]

The best stories are written because newsgroup nerds demand it.

[Artemas]

They fucking decided what the title would be even?

[Stark]

A self-referential title, even. The article even says that they're basically just shoveling shit to feed the angry nerds; background fluff, short stories, etc. This is what an 'ongoing' series looks like.

[jollyreaper]

A self-referential title, even. The article even says that they're basically just shoveling shit to feed the angry nerds; background fluff, short stories, etc. This is what an 'ongoing' series looks like.

Sometimes that yields some great stuff, other times you get Twilight. lol

[The Dark]

Sometimes that yields some great stuff, other times you get Twilight. lol

Fledgling and Saltation were both done by donation - chapters were posted on the authors' website, and as each donation goal was met, new chapters were posted. Their publisher went out of business, so they did that as a self-funding way to support their writing. The support for the two books was sufficient to get them a new contract with Baen, who's their fifth publisher (after Del Rey, Meisha Merlin, Ace, and Embiid). They're good fun books, and the authors are fairly well established in the writing world (Lee is the only person to have been VP, President, and Executive Director of SFWA). And hey, it has its own TVTropes page .

[Artemas]

Having a TVTropes page is not, and never will be, the mark of good literature.

[The Dark]

Having a TVTropes page is not, and never will be, the mark of good literature.

And it was a joke, based on Reaper referencing TVTropes in his own post. Run along now, and come back when you have something constructive to add to the thread.

[jollyreaper]

Old Man's War by John Scalzi.

Not only did it have some pretty good action, it also raised some interesting questions, and was often hilarious. I'm pretty sure it had at least some original ideas, but I can't say for sure how many, because it was the first book I read with lots of concepts, so they might have seemed original to me when they actually weren't. What I really like about his books, though, is how he can go from being funny to being serious quite often, without them diluting each other.

I also liked every other book of Scalzi's I read, which is all his sci-fi except The God Engines, which is supposed to be a lot darker than his other books, and I'm worried It won't seem the same as his others.

Finished Old Man's War. It pretty much felt like a retelling of Starship Troopers and Forever War and I'm sure both of those had their own antecedents. This is not meant as a criticism; it was a fun read. But the setting left some confusion. For example, I'm not sure why infantry combat with soldiers armed with rifles featured so heavily in the future. It seemed like every species fought this way more or less. You couldn't tell the story the author wanted to tell without that still the sort of thing I'm thinking about after the story's done. Also, it's very convenient that all of the nearby races are near-human in their tech, that we're not marching up with flintlocks against someone else who has MP42's.

[Kingmaker]

This thread needs more fantasy.

The Etched City and Finch, by KJ Bishop and Jeff Vandermeer respectively, are both awesome. Both are secondary world weird urban fantasy (think Bas-lag, but not so overtly fantastic or political), and both are fabulously written. I won't go into much detail to avoid spoiling things, but Finch is a noirish detective story with a somewhat bizarre conclusion. The Etched City doesn't really having a plot, but it does have Gwynn, who is quite possibly the most awesome fantasy/fictional character I have seen in a long time.

[RedImperator]

Not new, but the most recent sci-fi I read was The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. It's pretty much the bleakest novel I've ever read, the plot is just a man and his son wandering through a post-apocalyptic landscape, and McCarthy's style takes some getting used to--no quotation marks and as few dialog attributions as possible, just for starters--but it's fucking gorgeous. McCarthy is just unbelievably fucking good with the English language. I finished The Road and immediately went out and started buying other McCarthy novels, starting with Blood Meridian, which is even better, but it's a Western and not strictly what you're looking for.