Re: Tor 2006

In article <dn4csk$ief$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
James Nicoll <jdnicoll@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>In article <Xns9723C472C89D3pluskradfordedu@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
>Paul D. Lusk <plusk@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:;
>>isbn: 0765308630 - The Draco Tavern - by Larry Niven (Tor Books)
>
> Short bar stories, in a universe where a fairly benevolent
>alien race has run the galaxy for billions of years. Pleasant fluff,
>with dark moments.

How much of it is new?
>
>
(_Tatja Grimm_)

> Minor, old Vinge (In general, the better a Vernor Vinge book
>is, the more recent it is).

There aren't too many authors you can say that about.
>
>
>>isbn: 0765312271 - Crystal Rain - by Tobias S. Buckell (Tor Books)
>
> Buckell is an author to keep an eye one.
>
> This is set on a world that suffered a horrific war that
>happened to pass the low tech regions of the system over (in much
>the same way that a nuclear war in 1963 might have passed over Head
>Smashed In, Alberta on account of having N nukes and NxY possible
>targets), although the sudden loss of the upper end of the economy
>had serious long term effects.
>
> The antagonists are still around and have a Cunning Plan,
>not unlike the Schlieffen Plan as implimented by Aztecs, to unify
>the upstart humans (or as many as they allow to survive) under
>their rule. Not all the Old Tech is gone but the people who know
>how to use it and where it is are rare and do not all have the
>same agenda.
>
> Definitely worth a look.

Thanks for the heads-up. There's remarkably little on the list that
looks promising.

Admittedly, some of it is by authors I haven't heard of that I might
like, but most of it seems to be authors or series I've written off.

>>isbn: 0765314908 - The Carpet Makers - by Andreas Eschbach (Tor Books)

I've reached the point where I not only hate Orson Scott Card, I'm ready
to hate anything he recommends.

I read the first section, a stand-alone story which exemplifies Card's major
crazinesses.

>>isbn: 0765303302 - The Armies of Memory - by John Barnes (Tor Books)-

I'll keep an eye out for that one.

>>isbn: 0765351293 - Building Harlequin's Moon - by Larry Niven, Brenda -
>>Cooper (Tor Fantasy)
>
> This is SF, not Fantasy.
>
> The best book with Niven's name on it in 30 years, which
>says to me that Cooper is a person to watch.
>
> This is rather A GIFT FROM EARTHish: an elite, operating out
>of what they see as necesssity, is prepared to commit a terrible
>atrocity to preserve humanity. The story is told from the POV of
>one of the people who will pay the bill, someone who fairly reasonably
>prefers not to see herself as an expendible crewmember.

Didn't Brenda Cooper write some fantasy novels quite a while ago?
>
>
>>isbn: 0765309300 - The Clan Corporate : Book Three of The Merchant Princes
>> - by Charles Stross (Tor Books)
>
> This is Charles' take on LORD KALVAN OF OTHERWHEN, informed
>by a grasp of modern economics. It's a lot more fun than the word
>economics may imply.

I might follow the series. The first book wasn't bad, though kind of
diffuse.
>
>
>>isbn: 0312856849 - Rainbows End (Zones of Thought) - by Vernor Vinge (Tor
>>Books)
>
> Unfortunately Charles Stross's blurb for this is better than
>what I will come up with. ***.
>
> It's the future, which is better in most respects than the present.
>The capacity for wide-wpread disruption has grown with the GDP but there
>are people whose jobs it is to detect and prevent such things. Unfortunately,
>definitions of what constitutes a threat differ.
>
> Told from the points of view of various high school students, from
>genuine teens to geezers on their second pass through life.
>
> Features the most appalling information storage system that I
>have read.
>
> This would be a recent Vinge and therefore one of the better ones.

I'm looking forward to it, though I'm wondering about the world of "Rainbow's
End". Is there any explanation of why the kid hadn't had any previous
exposure to the pleasures of learning? (I'm hoping I remember the story
adequately.)

--
Nancy Lebovitz http://www.nancybuttons.com
http://livejournal.com/users/nancylebov

My two favorite colors are "Oooooh" and "SHINY!".
.

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