Tuffleyverse fiction was: RE: Cross Dimensions

Are we both talking about LOS' work?

http://www.stargrunt.ca/articles_interest/rothafen/rothafen_index.htm

Doug

[quoted original message omitted]

One in the same. Last time I looked at it there not all the links to the
chapters worked. I used to have it in word but that was years and several
computers ago.

It must be important I sent it

> On Apr 29, 2014, at 11:11 AM, Douglas Evans <devans@nebraska.edu>
wrote:
> Are we both talking about LOS' work?
wrote:
> I know it was for one. ;->=

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Always loved this one, was the basis for a game where to quote one of the
players "We had to stop as the miniatures were getting tired". Los being
military the feel is spot on. Don

On Tuesday, April 29, 2014 1:11 PM, Douglas Evans <devans@nebraska.edu> wrote:

Are we both talking about LOS' work?

http://www.stargrunt.ca/articles_interest/rothafen/rothafen_index.htm

Doug

[quoted original message omitted]

> "We had to stop as the miniatures were getting tired".

Needs to be on a sampler at all game cons...

If it's not that real, try again.

I once tried a couple of short stories using my then quite young daughter name
as 'merican member of the NAC navy. Had bits suggesting Brit nobility bias in
officer corps, her rising almost by accident, bravely pulling though.

All shite; I'm a vacchead. NOBODY does good space naval space. (No, I don't
care for the Honorverse)

Did like Yesterday's Children until Gerrold rehabilitated Korie...

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Have you ventured into the Lost Fleet series any?

I would also suggest the Odyssey One series, as long as you can overlook the
technical gaffs and blatant astronomical errors the author makes. Get past
that, the series is pretty good.

Mk

On Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 8:26 AM, Douglas Evans <devans@nebraska.edu> wrote:

> > "We had to stop as the miniatures were getting tired".

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Get
> past that, the series is pretty good.

I would also recommend Ian Douglas' "Star Carrier" series (4 books so
far) - fun and a good read, some nice treatments of (very) non-human
aliens and some rather esoteric tech (ships pulling multiple thousands of G by
projecting artificial singularities that they then "fall" towards) but nothing
that's any worse for PSB than the
Honorverse and/or Drake's RCN novels.
Very "US Navy In Space Saves Humanity", but then that's what a lot of readers
want from Space Naval fiction; some elements have quite an FT feel to them, at
least that's what I felt while reading them.....

Jon (GZG)

> On Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 8:26 AM, Douglas Evans <devans@nebraska.edu>
wrote:
> > "We had to stop as the miniatures were getting tired".

> On Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 03:13:34PM +0100, Ground Zero Games wrote:

If you're looking instead for "RN in Space", a less well-populated
field, Chris Nuttall's _Ark Royal_ isn't too bad: definitely a guilty
pleasure even for me, but it has some solid moments.

My longer review:
http://blog.firedrake.org/archive/2014/03/Ark_Royal__Christopher_Nuttall
.html

> Have you ventured into the Lost Fleet series any?

Have to go back and retry; a friend is deep into it, and says my recollection
of mostly groppo action is wrong.

As for Odyssey One, no fears, I'M no rocket scientist...

> Very "US Navy In Space Saves Humanity", but then that's what a lot of

I'm sure I've read some Douglas, but not sure about that series; you've
actually talked me into looking up the Drake stuff. ;->=

'Lady Megan' saves the day, but, in both stories, as sole survivor, knows the
credit undeserved. Everyone in the navy knows her peerage is a
sop to the 'colonials'. Selfdoubt-R-Us US.

Yesterday's Children, in the original, even more so. Rather The Caine Mutiny
or The Bedford Incident in space.

Really? No one else thinks Weber's or Bujold's feel a bit like RN in
18-19c?

By the way, if anyone feels this has gone on TOO long, please do pop up and
say so. If not, I should like nominations for the best FT book not called
FT...

> > Have you ventured into the Lost Fleet series any?

I love Dave Drake's RCN books (otherwise known as the "Daniel Leary"
series), they're huge fun - OK, he stretches the concept of PSB to
breaking point in order to have starships that function like
age-of-sail vessels, to the extent of having vaccsuited "riggers"
climbing masts on the hull to set the radiation-catching sails that
propel the ships through multiple bubble universes in hyperspace -
but you can just about let him off with that because the books are
great rip-roaring adventures through a well-visualised universe.
Don't take them too seriously, just enjoy....

> 'Lady Megan' saves the day, but, in both stories, as sole survivor,

Very interested to hear folks' opinions on this...  ;-)

> On Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 03:08:44PM +0000, Douglas Evans wrote:

Weber feels to me too much like an RN fanboy: it seems more like Hornblower
than Cochrane. I went thoroughly off the series at the point where several
people behave wildly out of character merely so that the explodey spaceships
can continue to happen. Every secret weapon and new device works perfectly
first time out. And so on.

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On Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 11:08 AM, Douglas Evans <devans@nebraska.edu> wrote:

> > Have you ventured into the Lost Fleet series any?

His astro/space gaffs were entirely too glaring for me to overlook.  :-(
I really liked the storyline, the plot, the premise, the story arc. But for
his gaffs, which marred it for me in books 1 and 2 (I wrote up a review on
amazon for book 1; haven't written up book 2 yet). Book 3, with the exception
of a couple of his gaffs (seriously, you are not in orbit around Earth if
you're in a Lagrange point!), went much, much better (I'm not yet done with
it, but getting close; hard to put down). I attribute that to his
mostly getting away from trying to put universe-specific details in to
anchor the storyline to reality as we know it (where a lot of his gaffs
are).

> > Very "US Navy In Space Saves Humanity", but then that's what a lot
you've
> actually talked me into looking up the Drake stuff. ;->=

Going to have to put that on my list to check out

> 'Lady Megan' saves the day, but, in both stories, as sole survivor,

Dunno offhand. I've wanted to write some fanfic to that effect, but haven't
gotten a round tuit yet. (working on some other projects right now)

Mk

I have an e-pub version of Rot Hafen if anyone is interested. Do note
this version is heavily edited and I never ran it by the author.

Roger Books

> On Apr 30, 2014, at 10:13 AM, Ground Zero Games <jon@gzg.com> wrote:

> textfilter: chose text/plain from a multipart/alternative
Get
> past that, the series is pretty good.
wrote:
> "We had to stop as the miniatures were getting tired".

If you want something a bit different in the way of space combat, check out
the "Antares Trilogy" by Michael McCollum. The three novels, "Antares Dawn",
"Antares Passage", and "Antares Victory" are available
at low cost as e-books on Amazon for the Kindle, and elsewhere in other
formats. The writing is competent, even if the plot trots along rather
linearly, and the characters are a bit... vanilla.

The physics, astronomy etc. are pretty "hard", apart from the
Alderson-Drive-style jump-point FTL, and some possible glossing over of
the energy-requirements for the ships' photon drives. The navigators do
actually worry about their fuel state in terms of delta-V, and fleets
include tankers. The warships' weapons are missiles, lasers and
particle-beams, while their protection is armour and point-defence
lasers, so the battles are quite suitable for Full Thrust.

> No, I don't care for the Honorverse

Weber's ever-more-turgid writing killed that series for me. The one
thing space-opera should *never* become is a boring slog.

> On Wednesday 30 Apr 2014 15:13:34 Ground Zero Games wrote:

If you want esoteric tech, then Baxter's Xeelee series is good for that, but
the ship combat is nothing like FT, involving the use of things like closed
timelike curves and traversable wormholes.

It's Hard SF, in that though he assumes the existence of some pretty extreme
technology, he does follow through on the consequences of that according to
current known physics. He's not so good on the
story/character side of thing though.

> thousands of G by projecting artificial singularities that they then

I hope they realise that such singularities would make for one hell of a
weapon.