[FT] Novel - Gap Series.

Has anyone tried to simulate or design ships based on the Stephen R. Donaldson
"Gap Series".

It has been a long time since I read the novels and they had some inspiring
moments - very brutal.

Regards

> Has anyone tried to simulate or design ships based on the Stephen R.

There were spaceships?!?!? I thought it was another 'fantasy' series! *blush*

The_Beast

> There were spaceships?!?!? I thought it was another 'fantasy' series!

Fantasy.. Far from it. There has never been a space opera so brutal as the
Gap, it does not pull any punches. I must get my set out and dust them off
again! Not light reading with a lot of adult content.

Some people have mixed feelings, because the books are brutal with a close
focus on the character's core. I found this tense character generation made
for better space combat because I felt closer to the characters... R

Some reviews:

http://www.sffworld.com/authors/d/donaldson_stephen/reviews/gapseries.ht
ml

http://www.alternative-worlds.com/authors/d/stephen-donaldson/stephen-do
naldson-gap-reviews-1.php

[quoted original message omitted]

Actually scrap this comment:

> Fantasy.. Far from it. There has never been a space opera so brutal as

Peter Hamilton is maybe just a tiny bit more brutal..:)

[quoted original message omitted]

Well, fantasy CAN, and occasionally IS, dark and brutal.

However, I'll have to get back to you on using 'Gap' universe ships in Full
Thrust. I've some books to read. ;->=

The_Beast

Well, the Gap series is one for the vector crowd. B5 had ships with rotating
sections, but they never had to worry about hydraulic fluid from damaged
conduits sloshing around because the ship is under rotation. Donaldson gets
some of his time and distance formulae wrong, and the Swarm is beyond
impossible, but for the most part ships do accelerate as per Newton and nobody
has artificial gravity so you spin, thrust or do without.

Ships have a basic beam weapon, the Matter Cannon (the trick with these is,
you make photons revert from wave to particle as they hit the target) and
various special weapons like singularity grenades. There are

shields. Seriously big cannon exist, a couple of ships have them
mounted, they fire slowly but kill things - think spinal mounts. One of
the key design factors of the large warships is that they are designed to
rotate in combat. This allows them to bring fresh weapons and shields

to bear while the others get a period to cool down and recharge. Gyroscope
critical hits must be allowed for. Donaldson allows for lightspeed lag, but I
think he's wrong on the scale it really plays a part on. Face it, if Niven
wrote these the physics would be right, there

would be no horrific overtones, and it would wrap in at most two
medium-length novels.

As for the characters, what happens to them and what they do to each other,
allow me to quote from the second review linked below. "If you
can handle well-developed but deplorable characters, brooding atmosphere

and continual violence, then here's a long read to indulge in." That sums it
up nicely but leaves out the intricate future history, genuinely

different aliens and a plotline taken (with acknowledgment) straight from the
Ring Cycle. Yes, he's drawing inspiration from Wagner. It's that grim. You
might want to read the author's notes at the end of the first book *first* if
you're unsure about these. They're short enough to

get through in the bookstore.

To summarize stuff that is revealed fairly early on, there's a corporate

group of characters, including the directors of the megacorp that runs
space, they are derived from characters in the Ring Cycle -
larger-than-life mythological types. The other group is made of of a
young police ensign who is captured and mind-controlled by a vicious
criminal and then flees to the romantic space pirate figure rather than
return for therapy - and shame. Naturally, the romantic space pirate is
arguably the most frelled-up, sick, and twisted individual in the series

- Angus Thermopylae is almost sane next to Nick. Old nemeses come into
play, obsessions become compelling, terrible choices must be made,
apocalyptically bad ideas look good at the time. Nobody dies well. The final
list of survivors is *not* completely predictable. And the ending is solid and
wraps things up nicely.

If you liked the movie "The Bad Lieutenant" then you have a treat in these
books, if you avoid movies like that then avoid these books for
the same reasons - and at all costs. Read something by Bujold or Moon.

If you *do* like the darker sort of fiction, let me also recommend Susan

R. Matthews' Jurisdiction series. Terrific stuff, but you don't see a lot of
books written about torturers for a reason.

> Robin Fitton wrote:

> There were spaceships?!?!? I thought it was another 'fantasy' series!