Re: So, What Games Are You Looking Forward To? (2025 Ed)

On 2/11/2025 8:18 PM, Xocyll wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> looked up from reading the
entrails of the porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs
say:
 

On Fri, 07 Feb 2025 18:42:23 -0500, Xocyll <Xocyll@gmx.com> wrote:
>

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> looked up from reading the
entrails of the porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs
say:
>

On Sat, 25 Jan 2025 18:47:22 -0500, Xocyll <Xocyll@gmx.com> wrote:
>

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> looked up from reading the
entrails of the porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs
say:
>

On Fri, 24 Jan 2025 09:30:21 -0800, Justisaur <justisaur@gmail.com>
wrote:
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On 1/23/2025 9:00 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

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I don't even know if I can rouse myself to play PC games much anymore.
I got hooked on reading sci-fi/fantasy again and have been blowing
through books like crazy.

>
Heh. Oddly enough, me too. I mean, I tend to go through books fairly
regularly anyway, but recently I've been hitting the pages a lot more
often. It's definitely cutting into my video-game time!
>
I'm working my way through Ian Bank's "Culture" series again.Well,
most of them. A couple of his books are written in first-person, and
that's just not a format I enjoy. But all the rest.  They aren't
/great/, but they're imaginative and passably well written (even if
every book does seem like he just ran out of ideas and just decided to
end it at some random point).

>
Consider Phlebas and that execution method?

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Or "Matter", where the heroes are all (mostly) killed off and the
story ends. "Excession" is similar too.
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I don't actually think it's the author running out of ideas; it's part
of his style and messaging. But given the pacing and tone of the rest
of his books, the sudden end leaving so many things unresolved (the
latter of which, I think is the whole point) is incredibly jarring.
>
It's as if Star Wars ended right when the X-wings start attacking the
Death Star. Because of how the rest of the story goes, you know the
heroes --armed with mystical powers and knowledge of the planet's
secret weakness-- are likely to win... but you sort of want that
resolution. And I think that's an apt comparison, because in many ways
the Culture books are very space-opera sci-fi, and that genre
typically gets its heroic end. Banks is obviously writing in a way
that purposefully subverts those expectations, which is an interesting
experiment but overall not to my liking.

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I did not get a space opera vibe from the culture novels, but then I am
a fan of the original space opera author, E.E. "Doc" Smith.

>
Galaxy-destroying levels of power are hardly necessary for it to be
space opera. I mean, Star Wars still largely limits itself to
destroying mere planets, and it is definitely space opera. And The
Culture universe is definitely within that range (in fact, far above,
since they not only destroy planets, but build them at times)

 Star Wars and Star Trek are NOT science fiction, they never have been.
Science has never been the foundation of those shows, not ever.
 E.E. "Doc" Smith was always about the science of the era and taking it
as far as it could go.
 Yes that meant using tube technology - i.e. spacehounds of ipc (1948)
 I do not recognize Star Wars as space opera, not even close, it's pure
fantasy in space.   Literally every element is from fantasy.  The Hermit
who is a powerful  wizard, the magic sword, the bad guy who is the
hero's father - every damn element is pure fantasy - setting it in space
does NOT make it sci fi, it's still pure fantasy.
 George Lucas pulled the wool over a lot of eyes, but not mine!
 

I have no problem calling Star Wars 'Science Fantasy'.  But Star Trek is science fiction.  It isn't _hard_ SF, as it includes social changes but SF has a long tradition of that as well.  (And Doc Smith had no real world science to base any of the psi based aspects of Lensmen upon even at the time he wrote those books.)
--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky dirty old man.