NationStates Jolt Archive

Nominate a sci-fi/fantasy story you love, then describe it, and give us a few quotes. My nomination is the Dying Earth series, by Jack Vance. It runs four books which can be found in most bookstores collected in one volume called Tales of the Dying Earth. It takes place far in the future, where the sun is going out, and the earth is rampant with magic and verbal frippery. Here is a just sampling of quotes from the books:

Asm of eight-fangs: “Flee if you wish! I need the exercise."

Captain Baunt: “This is unreasonable! If he felt dejection, why not simply jump into the sea? Why suborn our valuable worm to his personal and private uses?”

Cugel: "I am not one to crouch passively with my hind-quarters raised, awaiting either the kick or the caress of destiny! I am Cugel! Fearless and indomitable, I confront every adversity!"

Bubach Angh: “A man I will kill for my eye! Do I toil thirty-one years for the benefit of a vagabond!”

Bunderwal: "I am a dignified citizen of the area, not a fox-faced vagabond in an over-fancy hat."

Chief Elder: “Though formerly a vagabond and a cut-throat, you are now a prince, a man of responsibility.”

Deodand: “I desire the one who has entered. I hunger for her flesh.”

Doulka: “Must your disgust be so blatant? True: we are anthropophages. True: we put strangers to succulent use. Is this truly good cause for hostility? The world is as it is and each of must hope to in some fashion to be of service to his fellows, even if only in the form of soup.”

Drofo: “After a hundred worms and ten-thousand leagues, then with justice you may say, 'I am wise!' or, to precisely the same effect: 'I am a worminger!'

Funambule: “Inconsequential claptrap!”

Fuscule: "I am a worminger, not a student of weird physiological mysteries.”

Guyal of Sfere: “My eye went to you like the nectar moth flits to jacynth.”

Iolo: “Surely you agree that this hole is half my property!”

Kindive the Golden: “Out of the room quickly! Mischief lurks somewhere and I must blast it with magic!”

Krasnark: " I suggest that Master Chernitz retract the term 'moral leaper' and Cugel his 'tree-weasel', and there let the matter rest."

Liane the Wayfarer: “I can suffocate you in pearls, blind you with diamonds.”

Lodermulch: “What have we here? I thought to detect knavery, and here is justification! Return my money on the instant!”

Morreion: ”To inflict but a pin prick upon a single one of my enemies I would have died by torture a hundred times!”

Mermalant: “Do you carry beer? We are beer-drinkers of nobles repute and show our bellies to all.”

Nisbet: “Two hours of lose philosophizing will never tilt the scale against the worth of one sound belch.”

Duk Orbal: “…your exhibit seems somewhat makeshift and impromptu. Contrast, if you will, the precision of Zaraflam’s cockroaches!”

Pharesm: “Ah! Five hundred years I have toiled to entice this creature, despairing, doubting, brooding by night, yet never abandoning hope that my calculations were accurate and my great talisman cogent. Then, when it finally appears, you fall upon it for no other reason then to sate your repulsive gluttony...! I can define the gravity of your act in this manner: should I explode you on this instant into the most minute of your parts the atonement would measure one ten-millionth of your offense. A more stringent retribution becomes necessary.”

Peasant: “Notice: I drink wine, though I may not live to become drunk. Does this deter me? No! I reject the future; I drink now, I become drunk as circumstances dictate.”

Rhialto: “Pryffwyd, your vision is dim; you do not recognize me for Rhialto. I am working to place your eyes at the end of foot-long stalks. You will soon be able to see in all directions at one.”

Shierl: “You are not uncomely.”

Shilko: “What do you perceive? Goblins disguised as pick rats? Or centipedes dancing the kazatska?”

Slaye: “I will make you a grandee of the realm! You shall have a barge of carved ivory, and two hundred maidens shall serve your wants; your enemies shall be clamped into a rotating cauldron—only give me the amulet!”

T’Sain: “I know not know how to explain beauty. You seem to find joy in nothing. Does nothing give you satisfaction?”

T’Sais: “Only killing and destruction. So these must be beautiful.”

Varmous: "I am not apt for magic; weirdness makes me ery."

Voynod: “Take care, you dunghill-cocks!”

The first time I read Dying Earth, I realized where the whole magic system in Dungeons and Dragons comes from :)

The first time I read Dying Earth, I realized where the whole magic system in Dungeons and Dragons comes from :)

The term "Vancian magic" had not tipped you off ;) ?

Stanger in a Strange Land. Robert Heinlein's best work. And not even so much becasue of the science fiction but becasue the satire/parody/comentary of modern religion and other trends is just outrageously insightful.

The term "Vancian magic" had not tipped you off ;) ?

I hadn't heard that term until relatively recently. I first read DE sometime in the late '70's/early '80's IIRC.

The first time I read Dying Earth, I realized where the whole magic system in Dungeons and Dragons comes from :)

That's not all. "Excellent Prismatic Spray", "IOUN stones", not to mention an anagram: Venca.

I hadn't heard that term until relatively recently. I first read DE sometime in the late '70's/early '80's IIRC.

Read the sequels. They're far superior.

The entire Foundation set by Asmiov. From I, Robot all the way through Foundation and Earth.

15 Novels, a million and a half or so words, twenty thousand years of "history".

Dang good stuff.

A passage?

Hmmmmm.

I'll go with R. Giskard Reventlov and the "Zeroth Law":

""A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.""

THAT, my friends, is deep.

"Asm"? Sounds like a mov-ing character indeed. Mark my WORD.

The original Dune trilogy (Dune, Dune Messiah and Children of Dune) are, by far, my favorite scifi books, right now. I can't vouch for any of the sequels/prequels by both Herbert and his kid because I've not read them, yet, but the original trilogy is a masterpiece. In case you don't know the basic premise, the story is set in the far future after most people don't even know what Earth was. The known universe is run by a technophobic feudal society, with houses controlling small empires that are, all together, a part of the total human empire. Computer technologies have been banned and nothing may be designed to mirror the human mind (forget the precise quote) but, to compensate for this, humans have found ways to train people's minds in such a way that they are pretty much human computers. Spice is the major resource in the universe as it allows for interstellar space travel, increases the human life span and offers a limited prescience (depending on who you are). The story centers around the House Atreides taking control of the planet Arrakis (or Dune), which is the sole supplier of Spice (or melange) in the world, and the young boy Paul Atreides (in the first two books).

There's, um...a lot of good quotes in the books. It contains great observations on human nature, the nature of the heroic character (Frank Herbert's famous quote that the biggest catastrophe for humans is a hero for a hero's mistakes affect everyone), the nature of politics, economics, and religion and how the three interact.

After that, I second Stranger in a Strange Land, though. I love Heinlein and, while Stranger in a Strange Land is my favorite, of course, Job: A Comedy of Justice comes in a very close second.

"Asm"? Sounds like a mov-ing character indeed. Mark my WORD.

http://www.dyingearth.com/complayout.pdf There's a picture of an asm there.

Context: Cugel had carved a sacred stone and made a salute to his right buttock.

"I commend this pebble to the attention of Wiulio!"...

...he felt a presence and whirling about he discovered an asm of eight fangs almost on his heels.

Cugel held high the object and cried out: "Away with you! I carry a sacred object and I do not care to be molested!"
The asm spoke in a soft blurred voice: "Wrong! You carry an ordinary pebble. I watched and you scamped the rite. Flee if you wish! I need the exercise."

http://www.dyingearth.com/complayout.pdf There's a picture of an asm there.

Context: Cugel had carved a sacred stone and made a salute to his right buttock.

"I commend this pebble to the attention of Wiulio!"...

...he felt a presence and whirling about he discovered an asm of eight fangs almost on his heels.

Cugel held high the object and cried out: "Away with you! I carry a sacred object and I do not care to be molested!"
The asm spoke in a soft blurred voice: "Wrong! You carry an ordinary pebble. I watched and you scamped the rite. Flee if you wish! I need the exercise."My post was a thing of horrible punniness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_language), though I guess a proper xchg (and this post is now no better) of its meaning was unlikely.

Still, interesting; seems to be a rather "interesting" (in other words, mad in a good way ;)) fantasy setting. Suitably, seeing as this asm creature is a demonic thing, I guess you could refer to it as something low level. (ouch!)

I nominate Isaac Asimov's Foundation series for best Sci-Fi, and Robert Jordan's (R.I.P) Wheel of Time for fantasy.

I love Isaac Asimov because his writing is so simple in the way he conveys such intrinsic and complex worlds. It takes a really good writer who knows exactly what he is doing to do that.

And I love Robert Jordan's world. The plot is exciting (although convoluted), the characters wonderful, and the world believable. I gotta say, though, it went downhill in the later books. He should have tied it up at three, and went on to new stories in the setting! Oh well, his books, he could have done whatever he wanted.

I recently read "Darwin's Radio" by Greg Bear (a great author; I put him up there along side Clarke and Asimov), and it's sequel "Darwin's Children".

The story involves human evolution being accellerated by a retrovirus. The first book covers the lead up to the independent discovery of situation occuring like this in the past by an anthropologist, and a medical researcher discovering the presence of retroviral DNA inside the human genome (and later the appearance of one of these retrovirus being transmited between people). I won't say anymore, but the story is filled from that point on it is filled with political intrigue, mob fear by the populace, etc... Greg Bear knows how to hold an audience in his novels.

I recently read "Darwin's Radio" by Greg Bear (a great author; I put him up there along side Clarke and Asimov), and it's sequel "Darwin's Children".

The story involves human evolution being accellerated by a retrovirus. The first book covers the lead up to the independent discovery of situation occuring like this in the past by an anthropologist, and a medical researcher discovering the presence of retroviral DNA inside the human genome (and later the appearance of one of these retrovirus being transmited between people). I won't say anymore, but the story is filled from that point on it is filled with political intrigue, mob fear by the populace, etc... Greg Bear knows how to hold an audience in his novels.

I'm actually reading this now...well, I'm barely 100 pages in and had to take a break from it. I needed to use my local library's parking garage which requires me to go into the library which requires me to check a book out and now I have to finish this book before I have more late fees *sigh*. It strikes me as one of those weird books where it kind of borders science fiction and just fiction, but that might just be my tendency to enjoy the pew-pew-lasers-in-space type of scifi. =P

And, seriously, no other supporters of Dune? 'Tis a sad day, indeed. :(

I'm actually reading this now...well, I'm barely 100 pages in and had to take a break from it. I needed to use my local library's parking garage which requires me to go into the library which requires me to check a book out and now I have to finish this book before I have more late fees *sigh*. It strikes me as one of those weird books where it kind of borders science fiction and just fiction, but that might just be my tendency to enjoy the pew-pew-lasers-in-space type of scifi. =P

And, seriously, no other supporters of Dune? 'Tis a sad day, indeed. :(

Greg Bear is good at writing something which is not far disconnected from our own time. You can almost call most of his work borderline scifi and political thriller. The "Eon" series starts like that, as is "The Forge Of God"...

I'd recommend Charles Stross's Accelerando (http://www.accelerando.org)

Manfred has a suite at the Hotel Jan Luyken paid for by a grateful multinational consumer protection group, and an unlimited public transport pass paid for by a Scottish sambapunk band in return for services rendered. He has airline employee's travel rights with six flag carriers despite never having worked for an airline. His bush jacket has sixty-four compact supercomputing clusters sewn into it, four per pocket, courtesy of an invisible college that wants to grow up to be the next Media Lab. His dumb clothing comes made to measure from an e-tailor in the Philippines he's never met. Law firms handle his patent applications on a pro bono basis, and boy, does he patent a lot – although he always signs the rights over to the Free Intellect Foundation, as contributions to their obligation-free infrastructure project.

In IP geek circles, Manfred is legendary; he's the guy who patented the business practice of moving your e-business somewhere with a slack intellectual property regime in order to evade licensing encumbrances. He's the guy who patented using genetic algorithms to patent everything they can permutate from an initial description of a problem domain – not just a better mousetrap, but the set of all possible better mousetraps. Roughly a third of his inventions are legal, a third are illegal, and the remainder are legal but will become illegal as soon as the legislatosaurus wakes up, smells the coffee, and panics.

"Morning, Manfred. How does it feel to owe the government twelve million, three hundred and sixty-two thousand, nine hundred and sixteen dollars and fifty-one cents?"

"My name is Alan Glashwiecz, of Smoot, Sedgwick Associates. Am I correct in thinking that you are the Manfred Macx who is a director of a company called, uh, agalmic dot holdings dot root dot one-eight-four dot ninety-seven dot A-for-able dot B-for-baker dot five, incorporated?"

"Uh." Manfred blinks and rubs his eyes. "Hold on a moment." When the retinal patterns fade, he pulls on his glasses and powers them up. "Just a second now." Browsers and menus ricochet through his sleep-laden eyes. "Can you repeat the company name?"

"Sure." Glashwiecz repeats himself patiently. He sounds as tired as Manfred feels.

"Um." Manfred finds it, floating three tiers down an elaborate object hierarchy. It's flashing for attention. There's a priority interrupt, an incoming lawsuit that hasn't propagated up the inheritance tree yet. He prods at the object with a property browser. "I'm afraid I'm not a director of that company, Mr. Glashwiecz. I appear to be retained by it as a technical contractor with non-executive power, reporting to the president, but frankly, this is the first time I've ever heard of the company. However, I can tell you who's in charge if you want."

"Yes?" The attorney sounds almost interested. Manfred figures it out; the guy's in New Jersey, it must be about three in the morning over there.

Malice – revenge for waking him up – sharpens Manfred's voice. "The president of agalmic.holdings.root.184.97.AB5 is agalmic.holdings.root.184.97.201. The secretary is agalmic.holdings.root.184.D5, and the chair is agalmic.holdings.root.184.E8.FF. All the shares are owned by those companies in equal measure, and I can tell you that their regulations are written in Python. Have a nice day, now!"

anyone read "the name of the wind" by patrick rothfuss? it won the quill award for sci-fi/fantasy this year

Ooh....another author I want to nominate is Kim Stanley Robinson (I think I'm remembering the name right?). He wrote the Red/Green/Blue Mars series and The Years of Rice and Salt. The former are good, though a bit slow at times, while the latter suffers the same fault but is just one book. However, The Years of Rice and Salt isn't really scifi, it's just a kind of weird little historical fiction almost? Pretty much it envisions a world where 99% of Europe was destroyed by the Black Plague and follows the perspective of a group of reincarnating souls from right at the time of the plague to a near-future equivalent (though it's fairly hard to be certain since it goes by a different calendar for obvious reasons). A whole lot of research went into it, I guess, with lots of non-Western historical figures popping up throughout.

I'm actually reading this now...well, I'm barely 100 pages in and had to take a break from it. I needed to use my local library's parking garage which requires me to go into the library which requires me to check a book out and now I have to finish this book before I have more late fees *sigh*. It strikes me as one of those weird books where it kind of borders science fiction and just fiction, but that might just be my tendency to enjoy the pew-pew-lasers-in-space type of scifi. =P

And, seriously, no other supporters of Dune? 'Tis a sad day, indeed. :(
I wasn't so much of a fan of Darwins <whatever>, as I thought it was a bit heavy on the biology and human sides of things, just didn't get into it.
Ooh....another author I want to nominate is Kim Stanley Robinson (I think I'm remembering the name right?). He wrote the Red/Green/Blue Mars series and The Years of Rice and Salt. The former are good, though a bit slow at times, while the latter suffers the same fault but is just one book. However, The Years of Rice and Salt isn't really scifi, it's just a kind of weird little historical fiction almost? Pretty much it envisions a world where 99% of Europe was destroyed by the Black Plague and follows the perspective of a group of reincarnating souls from right at the time of the plague to a near-future equivalent (though it's fairly hard to be certain since it goes by a different calendar for obvious reasons). A whole lot of research went into it, I guess, with lots of non-Western historical figures popping up throughout.
This guy, however is an absolute legend and I'd say one of the best writers of the late 20th century. They are slow, yes, but there is such a sense of place created that the depth makes up for the pace.

Similarly, I'd reccomend Alastair Reynolds - he's an ex astrophysicist, so if you like your SF relatavistic, with a solid base in current physics then he's the man. His main story arc ends with in novella, with something of a twist... Got a wry sense of humor, too.

The Evil Dead trilogy really got to me. I mean a story about a simple man who is tasked by the supernatural to defeat the Deadites and their book the Necrocomicon, how can one not be changed?

A few quote from the series:

[Shelly has been hacked into several pieces]
Ash: We can't bury Shelly - S-She's a friend of ours.

Ash: Now the sun will be up in an hour or so, and we can all get out of here together. You, me, Linda, Shelly. Hmm... Well... not Shelly, she? We'll all be going home together. Wouldn't you like to be going home? I bet you'd like that, wouldn't you? Scott?

Annie: The first passage will allow the demon to manifest itself in the flesh.
Ash: Why the hell would we want to do that?

[upon gaining the chain saw in place of his lost right hand]
Ash: Groovy.

Henrietta: I'll swallow your soul! I'll swallow your soul! I'll swallow your soul!
Ash: [Aims shotgun at Henrietta's face] Swallow this.

Duke Henry: You're not one of my vassals... who are you?
Ash: Who wants to know?
Duke Henry: I am Henry the Red. Duke of Shale, Lord of the Northlands and leader of its peoples.
Ash: Well hello Mister Fancypants. Well, I've got news for you pal, you ain't leadin' but two things: Jack and shit... and Jack just left town.

Ash: Clatto Verata N... Necktie... Nickel... It's an "N" word, it's definitely an "N" word!

Deadite Captain: [pulling a newly animated skeleton from the grave] Welcome back to the land of the livin'... NOW PICK UP A SHOVEL AND GET DIGGING!

Ooh....another author I want to nominate is Kim Stanley Robinson (I think I'm remembering the name right?). He wrote the Red/Green/Blue Mars series and The Years of Rice and Salt. The former are good, though a bit slow at times, while the latter suffers the same fault but is just one book. However, The Years of Rice and Salt isn't really scifi, it's just a kind of weird little historical fiction almost? Pretty much it envisions a world where 99% of Europe was destroyed by the Black Plague and follows the perspective of a group of reincarnating souls from right at the time of the plague to a near-future equivalent (though it's fairly hard to be certain since it goes by a different calendar for obvious reasons). A whole lot of research went into it, I guess, with lots of non-Western historical figures popping up throughout.

Wow, sounds creative.

Ender's Game, of course. Say what you like about his politics, it's a damn good book.

I've also recently been reading an Asimov anthology, and one of those particularly struck me, but I don't have it on hand.

Wow, sounds creative.

Yea, it's extremely interesting in that in it the world more or less follows the same developmental path as it did in the real world, however the cultural twists that are put on such things is interesting, especially when you get to the chapters approaching the contemporary age. America is a vastly different place since it remains under Native American control, Asia is a powerhouse that is competing with a Muslim empire (this has little to do with current politics, I should note, as it would just make sense that if Europe's population had been completely devastated, the Western world probably would have been lead by a Muslim empire) and India is...umm...I have to admit that I forgot what the state of India was, it was kind of a crossroads between the Muslim West and the Asian governments and had some links with America, if I remember correctly, but I'm not sure. But yea, definitely a book I'd recommend. A common criticism is that the end of the book seems to somewhat deviate from the narrative and borders philosophical preaching but I, personally, think it fits in with the whole narrative.