To critics who say she should "go away" after losing to Trump, Hillary Clinton says, "they never said that to any man who was not elected" https://t.co/Wya8MMvL4B pic.twitter.com/p0lXJvbQrN
— CNN (@CNN) March 30, 2018
…“I’m really glad that, you know, Al Gore didn’t stop talking about climate change,” Clinton said of the former Democratic vice president who ran for president in 2000.
She continued, “And I’m really glad John Kerry went to the Senate and became an excellent secretary of state.”
“And I’m really glad John McCain kept speaking out and standing up and saying what he had to say,” Clinton said of the Arizona Republican.
“And for heaven’s sakes, Mitt Romney is running for the Senate,” said Clinton, referring to the 2012 Republican nominee’s campaign for Senate in Utah.
Clinton added that she’s “really committed to speaking out and doing what I can to have a voice in the debate about where our country is going.”…
Bob Dole, 94 – still tweeting, btw
Gore, 69 – global leader on climate
Kerry, 74 – became Sec of State
McCain, 81 – Senator, writing memoirs
Romney, 71 – Running for Senate
Biden, 75 – Biden 2020!
Sanders, 76 – Bernard 2020!All have lost presidential runs.
Fact Check: True. https://t.co/M9VG77BFX1
— Jack Miller (@politicalmiller) March 30, 2018
To be fair, failed presidential candidate Jill Stein is most likely also being told to stay out of public & to not talk to the press…by the attorneys representing her in the Congressional & Mueller investigations in to collusion w Russia. https://t.co/VQyPdewra9
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) March 30, 2018
Aaand, up scurries Erick Erickson (the other white meat), hoping to get in a few kicks on an unconscious victim…
Hillary Clinton is the perfect loser for a selfish generation. In the past, the losing Presidential candidate disappeared from the stage. Not Clinton. It's all about her and you're sexist if you disagree.
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) March 30, 2018
Lotta folks have the recent history of this being a spectacularly dumb thing say covered, so I'll start at the beginning and work forward. https://t.co/FXicscwqrh
— Mike Duncan (@mikeduncan) March 30, 2018
Thomas Jefferson def 1796. Started a political party so it wouldn't happen again. Became President in 1800 in bitterly contested race.
— Mike Duncan (@mikeduncan) March 30, 2018
Henry Clay also def 1824. Clay also retired quietly and was never heard from again. These are jokes people.
— Mike Duncan (@mikeduncan) March 30, 2018
(These are excerpts from a longer, highly entertaining thread.)
William Howard Taft. Also def. 1912. Chief Justice of the Supreme Court 1921-1930. Can you imagine if Clinton were nominated for a SCOTUS seat? Hoooooooooo boy.
— Mike Duncan (@mikeduncan) March 30, 2018
Charles Evan Hughes def. 1916. Bounced back nicely. Secretary of State 1921-1951. Succeeded Taft as Chief Justice, 1930-1941. That's two losers in a row who went so quietly they combined to run the Supreme Court for 20 years.
— Mike Duncan (@mikeduncan) March 30, 2018
(Wouldn’t it be just luverly to see Hillary Clinton sworn in as a replacement for, say, Sam Alito? Yeah, I know, nagahappin.)
Excluding Presidents defeated for re-election, has a modern losing candidate been nearly as reticent as H. Clinton? Even Bob Dole was visible on TV in Viagra ads and a paid political commenting gig, and his wife was active in politics.
I don't know who comes close to Clinton!
— Warren Terra (@warren__terra) March 30, 2018
The original tweet would be more valid if it commented on how strange it is that Trump gripes more about a losing candidate than any other president.
Is this not weird or am I missing something in history?
— Britain G. (@sanefacade) March 30, 2018
Baud
Baud! will also not be silenced!
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
You haven’t been defeated yet.
Corner Stone
Somebody tell Biden to STFU.
Jeffro
It’s definitely weird that Trumpov still mentions her at every turn. It’s a combination of his desire to continue trying to humiliate her, while also on some level being pissed that he won and actually has to DO something other than golf, grift, assault women, and tweet at the black guy all day.
JPL
It wasn’t that long ago that Erick was asking for forgiveness for calling a Supreme Court Justice a goat fucker, but that was when he was ill, and thought he might need forgiveness.
kindness
I am so glad I get the Cliff Notes of twitter here & elsewhere. Who has the time for it all?
Remember The Little Rascals? Didn’t they have a Woman Hater Club? So many in the media & on the right remind me of that.
smintheus
They kind of did, actually. There was a guy who ran in 1988 who basically was treated as persona non grata ever after. So effectively written out of memory that I can’t quite remember his name. He blew a lay-up election in a big way.
StringOnAStick
Funny how not being in permanent possession of a pen!s disqualifies HRC from ever being allowed to say anything ever again.
cmorenc
Well, did they hear anything about Alf Landon after 1936?
OK, so unfortunately Richard Nixon didn’t go away after 1960, even though he promised he would in 1962 when he lost the California governor’s race.
Fair Economist
Mike Duncan’s soon-to-be-complete thread of Presidential losers is a treasure. (only up to 1924 as I post; distracted by Legos with his son).
JR
Mike Duncan a newcomer to AL twitter threads. Picked up Revolutions, I gather?
Corner Stone
Testament to how effective the 30+ year attack campaign against HRC has been. She can’t speak the truth anywhere on this planet without being disavowed by fellow Democratic politicians. Hurry, Elon! Only Mars can save her now!
SiubhanDuinne
Some troll this morning (can’t remember who, can’t be arsed to go back and check) suggested that Adlai Stevenson was an exception. Apart from having to go back to 1956 to make his* point, he* totally ignored the fact that after losing twice to Eisenhower, Stevenson went on to be a distinguished Ambassador to the U.N. from 1961 until his death in 1965.
*Gender assumption here. Sue me.
Fair Economist
@cmorenc: From Alf Landon’s Wikipedia:
Doesn’t sound very silent to me. Incidentally, he lived 50 years after his defeat, to the age of 100.
oldgold
@kindness:
Wasn’t the leader of that club named Spanky?
Juice Box
@kindness: That was the “He Man Woman Haters Club”. Seems appropriate.
SiubhanDuinne
@smintheus:
Dukakis, do you mean?
Major Major Major Major
Hello open thread people,
I am looking for some book recommendations so I have something to read during an upcoming trip! I got good tips last time I asked here, so I am doing it again. I like good procedurals, sci-fi, and urban fantasy. I do not like high/low fantasy or and romance, and very rarely like Literature.
Recently I very much enjoyed Charles Stross’s Merchant Princes books.
The tips I got here last time that I enjoyed were The Peripheral (William Gibson), Lock In (Scalzi) (I am aware the sequel is next week), The Player of Games (Banks), and Altered Carbon (good enough, wouldn’t go back for a sequel).
Any tips?
Juice Box
@SiubhanDuinne: That troll skipped over Richard Nixon to get to Adlai Stevenson. Reagan lost a primaries in 1968 and 1976 too.
Thoughtful David
FTFY
ETA Was supposed to be a response to @Jeffro:
Feebog
@Major Major Major Major: j
Just finished The Ambassador’s Wife by Jake Needham. Police procedural set in Singapore. Interesting lead character.
SiubhanDuinne
@Juice Box:
Not to mention, Goldwater lost to LBJ in the 1964 landslide, yet he was the heroic Republican who led the GOP Congressional delegation to the WH in 1974 to inform Nixon that if he didn’t resign he would surely be impeached and likely convicted.
MisterForkbeard
@Major Major Major Major: I’m rereading Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson. I also just finished reading most of the “Rivers of London”, by Ben Aaronovitch. It’s basically London policing with magic thrown in, but fairly funny to read.
And if you haven’t ever read it, “The Lies of Locke Lamora” is ducking fantastic, despite being a fantasy book. As is “The name Of The Wind”
Captain C
@Major Major Major Major: If the idea of a hard sci fi space opera written by a former ESA astronomer sounds appealing to you you could try The House of Suns (a standalone novel) and the Revelation Space series (starting with Revelation Space itself) by Alastair Reynolds.
Pete Downunder
@Major Major Major Major: You might like Ben Aaronovitch’s PC Peter Grant series – police mystery plus magic – titles include Midnight Riot, Moon over Soho and about four more. Well written and kind of fun.
ETA I see Mister Forkbeard got there first and agrees
Major Major Major Major
@MisterForkbeard: Do I really seem like the sort of guy who hasn’t read Cryptonomicon three times?
A friend also recommend Locke Lamora, and I’m on the wait list at the library :)
@Captain C: @Feebog: I will look them up.
Gin & Tonic
@Major Major Major Major: I’m going to do that thing where somebody asks for Indian restaurants in Chicago, and somebody replies that you should go to San Francisco instead of Chicago and eat Hunan instead of Indian – but I recently very much enjoyed a historical novel entitled HHhH, about the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in Prague. It has pretensions to literature, in a post-modern sort of way, but it works very well.
smintheus
@SiubhanDuinne: That was the name. I don’t think he was even welcome at future conventions.
joel hanes
@Major Major Major Major:
If you have not yet read Lucifer’s Hammer, by Niven and Pournelle, that might do.
It’s a page turner, and the characters are deep enough to be interesting and shallow enough not to be challenging.
Or Gateway, by Pohl
Mandalay
I certainly don’t think that Clinton should go away, and I am all all in favor of this (from the OP):
But she really needs to stop saying stuff like this:
It doesn’t matter how much truth there is in that comment – it’s still ugly, and counterproductive for other Democrats, and just feeds into the notion that she is an elitist. She even acknowledged that her “deplorables” comments contributed to her loss, yet she’s just doing the same thing all over again with different words. Go after your political opponents but not the voters.
Shes’ just throwing Democrats an anvil in future elections by saying stuff like that.
Jager
@Juice Box: Wasn’t the R backwards on the sign?
SiubhanDuinne
@smintheus:
I could be very wrong, of course, but my sense is that Dukakis (perhaps aided and abetted by his wife, Kitty, who had issues of her own) deliberately chose to keep a low public profile after his 1988 loss to GHWB.
ETA: To clarify, I think it was his choice rather than any concerted effort to keep him out of DNC conventions and other events. Again, could be very wrong.
Corner Stone
@Mandalay: Fuck those fucking losers. We aren’t ever going to win them. Fuck them. Fuck them up their stupid ass.
smintheus
@SiubhanDuinne: I’m not sure he had much choice. He was treated almost as if he were a Soviet non-person.
MisterForkbeard
@joel hanes: I haven’t read that since high school. Still loved it, great book.
In a similar vein: “The More In God’s Eye” by Niven and Pournelle. So good – it was originally describes to me as a realistic depiction of first contact, and it IS. Its really great, but has some sexism due to being written in the 70s. Though to be fair, it’s also lampshaded a bit in that book and much more so in the sequel.
MisterForkbeard
@Pete Downunder: I was honestly surprised by how much I liked the PC Peter Grant series. I ended up reading a few small passages to my wife, which I never do. It was just that cleverly written.
Jager
When trump crowded Hillary during the debates, I think she should have told him to “back off fat boy” then slapped the shit out of him. He would have cried like the man-baby he is. Speaking of trump, I wonder if he knows (or anyone in the WH) that the EPA fight he is picking on mileage and emissions is not just with CA, there are 16 other states with the same standards. Those states account for almost 44% of US auto sales. Idiot.
Mandalay
@Corner Stone:
Maybe, maybe not. You’re probably going to lose Wyoming either way. But comments like that also make it harder to win states like Pennsylvania, and for folks like Claire McCaskill to get re-elected.
ETA: McCaskill was a bad choice. I wouldn’t blame Clinton in the least for some schadenfreude if she lost her re-election.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mandalay:
Oh, no! She will never be elected if people think she is an elitist. She is never running for anything again. Also, our path to victory in the future is getting people who are on our side to the polls not winning over douchebags.
Narya
@Major Major Major Major: anything by Daniel Abraham, especially the dragon & coin series
Schlemazel
@MisterForkbeard:
I loved “The Mote In God’s eye” but have not read it in 40 years. Don’t remember the sexism but I suppose it wouldn’t surprise me given the time.
Crazy Eddy
jl
@Baud:
” Baud! will also not be silenced! ”
You need to make a lot more progress at losing elections before you start bragging.
Not even near the Stassen league yet.
Ladyraxterinok
@Major Major Major Major: One of best science fiction books of all time is Hal Clement’s Mission of Gravity. Also good – Henry Turtledove’s The Toxic Spell Dump. Sara Woods wrote a good series of books about a British lawyer. Josephine Tey wrote 7 mysteries. Two of the best are Brat Farrar and Daughter of Time. In the latter, a detective immobilized in a hospital bed investigates a famous historical mystery.
Gravenstone
@joel hanes: “Hot fudge sundae, which falls on Tuesday next week.”
I find that’s a novel that hasn’t aged as gracefully as I might like, but it still has its moments.
MisterForkbeard
@Narya: That book series is weird. I loved the coinage aspects and the history of the world, but the political stuff veers from excellent to extremely dumb.
I haven’t read the latest one, though. Still worth reading if you’ve got the time, but I hope this last one is good.
Mandalay
Another one gone…
efgoldman
@SiubhanDuinne:
Yup.
He stayed very active around Boston.
MisterForkbeard
@Schlemazel: It’s the stuff about how the female character is overly emotional and so forth. She’s actually smarter than most of the men and the book does show a lot of that, but it also notes that she’s been raised differently than the men as well.
It’s relatively mild, especially for the time period it was written in. Compare it to Heinlein, for example – especially his later books are clearly written for teenage boys who haven’t gotten any.
Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]
@Major Major Major Major: Try Charle’s Stross’ “The laundry files” series. Urban fantasy, the best elevator pitch I’ve heard for it is 007 + Dilbert + call of Cthulhu.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jager:
Yup. HRC mostly didn’t put a foot wrong (if anything, she was far too cautious throughout the campaign), but I do wish she had turned on Trump during that debate and ripped him a few new orifices.
With the obligatory rusty farm implements.
Sideways.
Major Major Major Major
@Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]: Love the laundry files!
RSA
@Major Major Major Major: For urban fantasy, my favorite currently is the short Twenty Palaces series, by Harry Connolly, starting with Child of Fire. It’s well-written, I think, with solid characters and great world building (obvious echoes of Lovecraft, more subtle echoes of Jack Vance).
efgoldman
@Mandalay:
Comments by some angry, rude commenter on the five-thousandth whatever blog will do that, right.
Fuckem
SiubhanDuinne
@Mandalay:
I actually thought Ruby Tuesday had gone out of business. Maybe it was just the ones near me.
Last time I dined at a RT was on some road trip a couple of years ago. Still trying to decide which was worse, the food or the service. (It was pretty late at night, and nothing else near my hotel was even open.)
Currants
@kindness: EXACTLY. I love B-J curated Twitter.
Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne:
Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday?
lamh36
BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman: He also teaches a class at UCLA.
Schlemazel
@MisterForkbeard:
At least had not gotten any from their mother.
There were many things I liked about RAHs work but he really went around the bend as he got older with his eternal life and interesting sexual fantasies.
Omnes Omnibus
@lamh36: Geh?
Amir Khalid
@SiubhanDuinne:
She definitely should have done that. Trump richly deserved both a slap and the new orifices. But then the haterz would have rushed to call her a face-slapping, orifice-ripping b*tch.
efgoldman
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Visiting prof? Good choice by them
Jay
@Mandalay:
As the MSM’s continual “safari’s” to Treason Tribble’s Minion’s diners continually show, it’s not “economic anxiety”, it’s racism, mour gunz pew, pew, pew, Fauxified Fear and Cleek’s Law.
As the The Guardian and The Independent’s forays into the wilds of the Leaver’s show, it’s not “economic anxiety” and a loss of “Ddmocracy” , it’s a politer form of British racism, utter and complete ignorance of the EU and Britain’s relationship with it, and Cleek’s Law. Grimsby, (78% Leave) sent several delegations to Parliament, to petition for Grimsby being made a special “Free Trade” port, because after voting “Leave”, they suddlenly discovered that 90% of the town’s jobs depend on the felationship with the EU for their existence.
You ain’t gonna win any of these people “over” with “reason”. They don’t “reason”, they don’t “learn” and they live in a Fauxified Bubble you will never be able to penetrate.
Might as well make an example of them as a warning to others.
Pete Downunder
@MisterForkbeard: I am not keen on Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London graphic novels – maybe because I just don’t care for the form, but I wish he’d just write a few more novels.
For Major^4 another thought is Arthur Upfield’s Napoleon Bonaparte series about an outback half-caste detective in 1920s-50s Australia. They’re mostly out of print but widely available in used books shops (try abebooks.com) and give a realistic look at Australia outback life at the time, including, sadly, the rampant racism toward the Aboriginal people. Boney as he’s called is kind of a Sherlock Holmes of the outback. All good reads. There are about 20 of them.
MisterForkbeard
@Schlemazel: Entirely agree with you on RAH.
This thread illustrates what we really need is a thread where everyone can recommend two books and then spend our time arguing and explaining it. God knows I’ve written down several titles after reading this thread. :)
Ladyraxterinok
@Major Major Major Major: Highly recommend Eric Flynn’s aternate history series 1632, about a WV town mysteriously picked up and placed into Germany during the Thirty Years War. The local members of the UMW take the lead in helping the townspeople cope with their situation.
Also another vote for Locke Lamora. It’s free on the internet at several sites. J Tey’s works are at gutenberg.au.net and several of Flynn’s books are at freespeculativefictiononline.de.
Mary G
My dentist raved about a book called “Children of Time” by Adrian Tchaikovsky yesterday. He is a Republican masquerading as a libertarian, so who knows, but he loved it and he’s a fan of Scalzi, not those sad puppy guys.
ETA:
I put a hold at the library, it sounds pretty good.
Schlemazel
@MisterForkbeard:
I like that idea a lot! Hopefully one of the front pagers will see it and save it for some time when they can’t think of anything and we need a break.
At the moment my black dog will not allow me to read but I have a list of books when I can get started again
HinTN
@Major Major Major Major: I’m reading The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017, which is short stories edited by Charles Yu, and liking them very much.
EBT
I sure as fuck have been telling Romney and McCain to fuck right the hell off.
schrodingers_cat
HRC can say and do what she wants. Haters can go fuck themselves.
SiubhanDuinne
@Schlemazel:
Sorry about the black dog. I hope he retreats soon and leaves you in peace for a while.
MisterForkbeard
@Mary G: I just read That! It was interesting, but didn’t grab me. Let me know what you think of it after you read it.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: This is basically a corollary to to my Aretha Theory. People gave Aretha shit for the hat she wore at Obama’s first inauguration. My response: She is Aretha; she can wear what she wants. End of story.
AliceBlue
@Amir Khalid:
I was wishing she would turn around and say sweetly “can I help you with anything Donald” or some such thing. I don’t remember who moderated that debate, but s/he should have told Trump to knock it off.
SiubhanDuinne
@Amir Khalid:
Yeah. She was really in a no-win situation, or so it (must have) seemed to her at the time. I guess the moral is, Go with your first instincts and let the chips fall where they may. We know from her memoir she wanted to turn and confront him. Would her doing so have made an electoral difference one way or the other? We can only speculate.
HinTN
@MisterForkbeard:
The only difference from his earlier work being the haven’t gotten any part.
I grew up on Heinlein and revere him despite all that.
Anne Laurie
@JR: Actually, I found his tweets via another twitter user I follow… but I’ll probably be getting Duncan’s book, eventually!
efgoldman
@SiubhanDuinne:
Should have kicked him in the nads
If she could find them
Honus
@Mandalay: yeah, because republicans have been consistently penalized electorally for demonizing liberals.
TomatoQueen
Christopher Fowler’s London-centered police procedurals starring eccentric coppers Bryant and May, the first one is Full Dark House. Cats, contrasting sartorial habits, parts of London famous and less so, water, tunnels, and bombs.
Jay
@MisterForkbeard:
I read History, the dense heavy ones. For 99% of “y’all”, they would only be recommended as a cure for insomnia.
Omnes Omnibus
@Honus: He is deeply concerned. Deeply.
Another Scott
@schrodingers_cat: +1
Cheers,
Scott.
Brachiator
Funny. I was recently thinking about how HRC is disrespected and told that she should go away. Some feel free to dismiss a woman in ways that they never would do a man.
Love the Twitter refutations. Conservatives are so used to conversing with gullible Fox viewers that they think that everyone will accept their bullshit without challenge. Clearly, anyone who claims that HRC is violating some rule or tradition in not meekly retiring from the political arena is lying, stupid or ignorant.
Give ’em hell, Hillary!
BruceFromOhio
The Expanse series by S.A. Corey is pretty good.
All of the Scalzi ‘Old Man War’ books are also good.
If you want big fat space opera, The Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton is chewy and delicious.
If you want to be scared witless with some great characters, Seveneves By Neal Stephenson.
HinTN
@HinTN: Let’s turn them damn italics off, what say…
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay: I am currently doing Sebag Montefiore’s Romanovs. I started it a while ago but set it aside. I picked up again a few days ago.
BruceFromOhio
@Brachiator:
Hmm, gee, trying to place that electorate, feels familiar, just on the tip of my tongue …
Corner Stone
@Mandalay: You’re going to lose WY. and ID, UT, ND, SD and a bunch of other places. They are all tourist dependent and/or farmer subsidized places. Let’s bet our future on them!
Ben Cisco
@Corner Stone: I’m with Corner Stone, screw those guys and every single one of their apologists. Don’t need them, don’t want them, going to beat them anyway.
OT: Watching the finale of Deep Space Nine on Heroes and Icons. I miss this show
BruceFromOhio
@TomatoQueen:
Minus the London bit, sounds like a stint in the Cuyahoga County Department of Works.
BruceFromOhio
@Ben Cisco: You have been spending too much time among the solids.
Corner Stone
Let me just say. HRC can not afford to hire me. Because her insurance liability would go through the fucking roof when I started neck punching alllllll the motherfuckers who deserved it.
Jay
@Corner Stone: @Omnes Omnibus:
I’m rereading my way through the 11 volume Canadian Battle Series, covering the Canadian Army in WWII.
Corner Stone
@Jay: I like Canada. My girlfriend is from there and she is totally hot.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay: Got it.
Brachiator
@Ladyraxterinok:
Is this a stand-alone novel or part of a series? I’m dipping into SF again, but don’t have the patience for long, drawn out serialized stuff.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: I am impressed. Really.
Major Major Major Major
@BruceFromOhio:
Just remember to tear off and burn the last section when you get there.
@TomatoQueen: I love those! Taking a break after #5.
Jay
@Corner Stone:
Just get a taser, a 9mil, and an LEO Cert, then you can murder whom you want. Just explain that you are colour blind, and therefore the paper bag test on whom you can and cannot shoot doesn’t work for you, so you have to go on their immediate and complete compliance measured against their assholeness in 6 seconds.
MomSense
@Major Major Major Major:
My next read (listen on audible) is going to be The Last Wild Men of Borneo. Some friends heard the author speak and raves about him and the subject. It gets great reviews.
Brachiator
@BruceFromOhio:
Season 3 of the TV show based on the novels starts April 11 on SyFy. Pretty good stuff.
rikyrah
Go Hillary!
Ghost of Joe Lieblings Dog
@Major Major Major Major:
Way late (probably too late) to the thread, but … JanWillem van de Wetering’s series beginning with (I think) “An Outsider in Amsterdam” are remarkable and quite odd procedurals, and a person who likes them generally likes them a lot.
catclub
@Mandalay:
Baloney. Obama won PA by bringing out the voters in the dynamic and forward looking parts of PA.
Corner Stone
@Jay: If I could go back in time I would have 1) Jeb! punch Trump in the face during the R primaries or 2) HRC slide out an extendable asp out of her pantsuit sleeve during their debate and have her beat Trump to death on stage.
Ben Cisco
@BruceFromOhio: BWAHAAHAA!
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty.
The Ancillary books by Ann Leckie.
Central Planning
@Major Major Major Major: Have you read the uplift books by David Brin? They were recommended to me and I ended up reading all 6 of them.
There’s a Wikipedia page about the uplift universe too.
tomtofa
@Major Major Major Major: The Dire Earth Cycle, 4 books (and a novella) by Jason Hough was unexpectedly entertaining.
Library Journal saw it as a mixture of Firefly and Expanse, which kind of makes sense, if you were attracted to either of those.
Ladyraxterinok
@TomatoQueen: Some of these books are free online at several sites.
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
Some (or all) of these you may have read already, as none are exactly new. Short lists follow.
SF:
Footfall by Niven & Pournelle
Dhalgren by Samuel Delaney
Period novels (but not romance novels):
The Alienist by Caleb Carr
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
Dance of the Tiger by Björn Kurtén
Sarum by Edward Rutherfurd
History-minded (and riveting):
Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West by Stephen Ambrose
Son of the Morning Star: Custer and the Little Big Horn by Evan Connell
Peter the Great: His Life and World by Robert Massie
Arundel by Kenneth Roberts
Well, will shelve that list. For now.
MomSense
@Omnes Omnibus:
A friend of mine had a poem published about Aretha’s hat in a book of poetry inspired by Obama’s first inauguration. She was glorious. And then she topped that with her performance of Natural Woman at Kennedy Center. No one lets a full length fur fall to the floor without missing a note quite like the Queen of Soul.
Omnes Omnibus
@<a href=”#comment-6819162″>NotMax: Only Arundel? I would put Northwest Passage well ahead.
CaseyL
@Major Major Major Major: Have you read any of the Miles Vorkosigan books? Author is Lois McMaster Bujold. Definitely space opera, very intelligently and wittily told. (One of the later books in the series, A Civil Campaign, is laugh out loud funny.) Miles is from Barrayar, a kind of “Imperial Russia” planet which presides over a multi-system empire via jump gates. He’s the son of a Count and a Betan expeditionary captain. For various reasons he washes out of the Imperial Forces, so he embarks upon an amazing career (under a pseudonym) as the captain of a space mercenary fleet. Hijinks and shenanigans ensue.
Ladyraxterinok
@Brachiator: @Brachiator: Stand alone. IIRC relatively short. Written in 50s or 60s I think.
Jay
@tomtofa:
Loved Firefly, loved Serenity, my wife got neither.
Bailed on The Expanse when one started to have to use Reference Manuals to keep up with the plotline.
Jay
@Corner Stone:
Treason Tribble would have rolled over and hid in a corner had she “physically” confronted him over his pathetic attempts at intimidation.
Would have won her the election, but then, she’s a better man than me.
NotMax
@NotMax
Just a trio more. Was straining to remember either titles or authors and no later than 30 seconds after hitting Publish the mental Rolodex finally flipped to the correct cards.
SF:
Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe (first novel of the “Book of the New Sun” series – devour ’em all).
Strictly for fun SF-fantasy:
The Misenchanted Sword by Lawrence Watt-Evans
SF-ish (with a toe or two wiggling in fantasy):
Tea With the Black Dragon by R.A. MacAvoy (And guess what? It features a computer programmer!)
tomtofa
@Jay: Same here. Dire Earth isn’t as complex as that, but does have a mix of several human groups and a couple of alien species, with twists and turns regarding who is positive and/or negative at any particular time.
tomtofa
@NotMax: Loved Gene Wolfe ever since Devil in the Forest. It took me a couple of readings of the Book of the New Sun series to realize how . . . passive? . . . Severian was, for such a powerful figure. Not a knock – loved the series.
matt
I have some sci fi recommendations – Roadside Picnic by Stugatsky brothers. Hyperion by Simmons. The excellent Cixin Liu trilogy starting with the Three Body Problem. Xeelee by Stephen Baxter.
Steeplejack
@Ghost of Joe Lieblings Dog:
Those were good. I read them when they first came out. I wonder, as with a lot of procedural series I read back in the day, whether they would hold up to rereading now. Outsider in Amsterdam is indeed the first.
A series that definitely holds up, perhaps because it was written relatively recently, is George Pelecanos’s Derek Strange novels. Black P.I. in D.C. and environs, with sharply detailed backgrounds from a writer who also worked on The Wire and Treme. Right as Rain (2001) is the first book.
scott alloway
@MisterForkbeard: Just reread Snowcrash for the fourth time. His writing is really capturing.
scott alloway
@joel hanes: Agree. Try Melissa Scott’s works as well. Good writing and tight storyline. “Trouble and her Friends” .
Mnemosyne
@Ladyraxterinok:
A caveat on Daughter of Time — Tey based it on the historical information that was available to her at the time, but information that came to light in European (particularly Italian) archives later on shows that her theory and the detective’s solution was deeply flawed.
It’s still a well-written and entertaining book, but it’s factually wrong, so read it as alternative history, not fact.
SgrAstar
@Major Major Major Major: Liu Cixin’s Three Body Problem.
(((CassandraLeo)))
Miéville’s The City & the City may be a relevant recommendation for this thread, though unfortunately it sounds like he’s a bit of a jerk IRL. Regardless, it’s basically the police procedural Philip K. Dick would’ve written if he’d written one. IIRC, it’s being adapted by either the BBC or ITV later this year.
SFBayAreaGal
@Ben Cisco: So do I Ben, so do I
Bemused senior
@Major Major Major Major: SF series termed “The Liaden Universe” … Get epub editions at Baen Books. Authors Lee and Miller.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ladyraxterinok:
I count eight. Wonder which one I include that you don’t.
The Man in the Queue
A Shilling for Candles
To Love and Be Wise
The Daughter of Time
The Singing Sands
The Franchise Affair
Miss Pym Disposes
Brat Farrar
Sab
@NotMax: Did you actually like “The Alienist”? I could barely finish it. I didn’t care about any of the characters. Their whole personalities could be written on an index card. No personal development at all.
I couldn’t believe how well it did considering how boring it was. I thought its success was due to Carr’s interest in and knowledge of NYC local history. A lot of readers and journalists in NYC aren’t from there, and want to know more about their new home.
Feathers
The best urban fantasy of recent years has been Richard Kadrey’s Sandman Slim series. It dares to build its fantasy world off the Judeo Christian mythos, connected to the “real” world via sleazy occult and black magic practioners in Los Angeles. It’s ultraviolent and kinky and utterly profane without being misogynist. The books chew up a lot of plot, and each book deals with the shit that went down in the previous ones. I have to confess I don’t really keep up with it all anymore, but just enjoy each book thoroughly.
Also, if you haven’t read the classics of urban fantasy, Emma Bull’s The War for the Oaks and John Crowley’s Little, Big are great, enjoyable reads.
NotMax
@Sab
More than liked it. The city itself was really the primary character, depicted with aching accuracy. Have lent it out to perhaps a dozen people over the years and gotten zero negative feedback.
Not to intimate you are in any way wrong, it just didn’t strike a chord with you.
jc
Hillary Clinton pisses me off. IMO, she should be ripping Trump a new one, no holds barred. What the hell does she have to lose at this point? Trump continues to slag her in the crudest fashion at every opportunity. Fight fire with fire, goddammit.
frosty
I just finished New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robertson. He described it as a “comedy of coping” in a NYC flooded by sea level rise 60-80 years earlier. I really liked all his characters.
James E. Powell
@Major Major Major Major:
I’m late to the game, but I just finished the first three of Adrian McKinty’s Sean Duffy detective novels. I’d recommend if you like procedurals.
Sab
@NotMax: That is what I thought its appeal was. Deep knowledge of local city history.
The plot and the characters were beyond trite and boring.
Ghost of Joe Lieblings Dog
@NotMax:
@Sab:
I’m in what a long-ago co-worker called “agreeance” with Sab on The Alienist – the book felt a mile wide and an inch deep to me, and it took some gumption to stay with it to the end.
@Mnemosyne:
(If you read this) Could you by any chance point me toward some of the later research on Richard III? I’ve re-read The Daughter of Time now and then and would like to know more …
Yutsano
@jc: Nah dude. She doesn’t owe you or anyone else anything. Stop trying to tone police her.
Mnemosyne
@Ghost of Joe Lieblings Dog:
Some of our Ricardian commenters hate Alison Weir and think she’s too much of an apologist for the Tudors, but I found her evidence in The Princes in the Tower to be pretty compelling.
Extremely short version: Tey’s theory depended on the then-current belief that stories about Richard III doing away with the princes only started circulating after he was defeated by Henry VII, but Weir cites more recently discovered contemporaneous reports from various diplomats back to their kings talking about the sudden disappearance from public view of the princes while Henry Tudor was a penniless hanger-on wandering around the courts of Europe trying to convince someone to support his claims.
Weir’s theory also offers a far more straightforward and logical explanation of both Buckingham’s and Elizabeth Woodville’s actions if each of them believed that the princes were dead and that Richard had killed them.
NotMax
@tomtofa
Did you happen to read his tour-de-force inspired by a major error in an article about one of his books?
<
Mnemosyne
@Ghost of Joe Lieblings Dog:
And I don’t want to bash Tey, because I know people love Daughter of Time and find her defense of Richard extremely compelling. The evidence to disprove her theory didn’t surface until long after her book was written.
Sab
@Major Major Major Major: I love sci fy and related history. These are really old and you are a guy so you probably won’t like these, but I love Emma Bull, especially “War for the Oaks” and “Finder”.
Ruckus
@Mandalay:
Don’t be a fucking moron. Clinton didn’t do anything wrong. Not recognizing that the very red parts of the country are doing badly makes the point that bright red politics fucks the very people that vote for it. You can’t change the story by only using the wrong talking points. That’s doing the republicans job for them. Fuck that. I’m glad she’s speaking out, she won the popular vote, and it’s gotten pretty obvious that she’d be president instead of the fucking loser that is if it hadn’t been for Russian electoral fuckery.
Sab
@Ruckus: Agreed. I wanted to put an appropriate emoji but I couldn’t find one.
JAFD
@Brachiator: _Mission of Gravity_ is stand-alone book.
Met Hal Clement (irl Harry Stubbs, high-school science teacher) several times at east coast science fiction conventions in the 80’s. One of the best persons I’ve ever known. Read him, you should.
J R in WV
@Major Major Major Major:
Charlie Stross also does the Laundry series, urban fantasy James Bond type that uses math to manipulate demonic forces from beyond the edge of our universe. His wife uses a hideous violin made by a mad instrument maker during the 1930s in Nazi Germany, it’s white and has a captive demon in it. Of course the Nazis were seeking to control the world via monsters, but the monsters took over their gig.
We have kind of allies living in the vasty deepness of the seas, who have rules about how much of the oceans we are allowed to use, very strict rules… I enjoy them, there are 8 or 9.
Computers are much of the problem, massive population the other part, so much math in minds and chips, and lots of math touches on majick – really bad juju beaking through doors opened by math errors, or even correct solutions of the wrong problem sets.
Being British, there is a formal structure to the office organization that leads to people who don’t understand the real problem winding up in charge of fighting invasive demonic threats. Hard to manage if you don’t believe in the enemy! But SO veddy British.
tomtofa
@NotMax: No – thanks for that. Time to get reacquainted.
Ghost of Joe Lieblings Dog
@JAFD:
I remember Clement’s novel Needle as being fun to read. I was probably 12 or so – not sure whether it’d hold up to adult eyes, but I think I’ll try to find a copy again and see.
ETA – I envy your having met him.
Ghost of Joe Lieblings Dog
@Mnemosyne: Many thanks for the pointer to Weir. I’ll find a copy.
J R in WV
@Sab:
Emma Bull, so good.Twisty complex things.
Another one I like is Ann Bishop’s series about the human enclaves surrounded by the people, who are connected to mystical powerful sources of wisdom and energy. The people are changers, and then allow humans to live among them but under a strict set of rules, mostly environmental and cultural. There’s a young woman who falls amongst the people, who can see future glimpses of what could be when she cuts herself. She becomes closer and closer to a leader wolfe of the changing people, and gets to know some of the very odd and most powerful members of the people… interesting. So ordinary, yet so not ordinary characters.
Boussinesque
@Major Major Major Major: late to a (probably) dead thread, but I’ve really enjoyed Alastair Reynolds’ books. Both The Prefect and Chasm City were good standalone novels in his main continuity, while Century Rain and Pushing Ice were fun one-off standalones.
David Evans
@matt: I enjoyed The Three Body Problem for the plot and characters, but couldn’t get on with the science. A known star system being chaotic on such a short timescale? No, we would have noticed. And it’s dynamically impossible. One star is too far from the others.
Matt McIrvin
@David Evans: The science doesn’t get more plausible as the trilogy goes on. I enjoyed the second volume, The Dark Forest, the best, but if anything the third is the goofiest (as well as being remarkably grim). Liu seemed heavily inspired by Asimov early on, but in the end it reminded me more of Baxter’s Xeelee stories than anything else.
NorthLeft12
Perhaps this has been mentioned a few times but here goes….Does Erickson’s spectacular ignorance on this subject mean;
1. He really does not know anything about US history.
2. He is an amoral serial liar.
3. He hates former Senator and SOS Hillary Clinton with the heat of the flaming sun.
4. He is just a stupid douchebag who creates his own reality.
5. He is just an ordinary RWNJ.
6. All of the fucking above.
Chyron HR
@NorthLeft12:
1. He really does not know anything about US history. – Incorrect, he does know better.
2. He is an amoral serial liar. – Not sure about amoral.
3. He hates former Senator and SOS Hillary Clinton with the heat of the flaming sun. – Yes, but he hates all Democrats, too.
4. He is just a stupid douchebag who creates his own reality. – Incorrect, he only repeats what he’s told to say.
5. He is just an ordinary RWNJ. – Bingo bongo.
Tarragon
@Major Major Major Major:
Have you read Stross’s _Halting State_ and _Rule 34_? They are near future sci-fi police procedurals.
Neldob
@Mandalay: someone needs to be a reality check. Also, she should not have backed down from her deplorable comment. White Supremacists are deplorable, David Duke and such, people who wear duck your feelings t shirts, who promulgate (is that a word?) lies. Whoo boy, they should be called out.
gogiggs
@Fair Economist: Way to go Mike! Making me even gladder I bought your book.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic:
I love that you wrote that.
WaterGirl
@lamh36: Unlike Hillary Clinton, Roseanne needs to go back to the hole she came from. She can’t go there fast enough for me.