Sly Mongoose (Xenowealth, book 3) by Tobias S. Buckell

[james_davis_nicoll]

Sly Mongoose (Xenowealth, book 3) by Tobias S. Buckell

Comments

[dsrtao]

I have enjoyed every Buckell novel and most of his short stories. I'm vaguely contemplating reading his Halo tie-in novel on the assumption that he can probably even tell a good story set in a fps video game.

[(Anonymous)]

I didn't try Crystal Rain (Buckell's first) because it was described by the author as "steampunk," a sub-genre I've had little luck with, and skipped the others as they were apparently set in the same universe. The review doesn't make it sound very steampunk, though.

I'm vaguely familiar with Landis' idea of Venusian cloud settlement. (I know Buckell's story is not set on Venus).

But for people more familiar Landis' paper, I have a question: okay, sure, the pressure is Earthlike, you get radiation shielding, etc.., but is there any conceivable reason you would want to put a significant manned settlement in Venus' atmosphere (as opposed to a robotic planetary science lab)?

[jessie-c.livejournal.com]

Rule of Cool (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfCool). There is no other justification necessary.

[w. dow rieder (from livejournal.com)]

Jurisdictional arbitrage.

"No, we can't just go in there and arrest him. They signed the Planetary Treaty, so Space Patrol doesn't have authority--it's inside an atmosphere. And the Martian and Jovian moon colonies would raise a stink if Earthgov tried anything."

[(Anonymous)]

The review page is currently giving me an internal server error

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

What about now?

[(Anonymous)]

Now working.

[ravenskyewalker.livejournal.com]

I read the first two in this series, but have never gotten around to this one. I should probably track this (and the fourth one) down.

[nelc.livejournal.com]

Pepper shows up in a space suit and improvised reentry gear, falling at terminal velocity. An interstellar man of action of quite some accomplishment,

For some reason this made me think of Othar Tryggvassen, gentleman adventurer. Certainly, managing to hit an aerial city with an improvised re-entry vehicle is the kind of high-odds venture that very few could pull off.

[thebluerose.livejournal.com]

I really really wanted to like his first book but for reasons I cant remember (has been a while) I didnt and I haven't bothered with any of his other ones.

I have the same issue with Felix Gilman.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

I thought the Aztec revivalists in the first book were pretty silly.

[selki.livejournal.com]

Yes, but not entirely implausible given human nature. Also there was a *The Tick* episode with Aztec revivalists IIRC.

I read the first book and the third book. Pepper wasn't my fave either, but there was so much interesting stuff in the books that I will look up his other stuff.

[mcbadger.livejournal.com]

I couldn't get my head around them, either. Which was a shame, because there was a lot else I was enjoying; certainly enough that the second book has been sitting in the to-read pile.

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

I liked the Aztec revivalists. It worked for me in the context of different societies trying to recapture Earth as they remembered it.

[dionysus1999.livejournal.com]

Have not read the first book, but am currently reading Ragamuffin, thumbs up so far. Everything I've read by Buckell has been good.

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

For me the link is currently broken.

[awesomeaud.livejournal.com]

Buckell did some interesting things with young people in this book. From male anorexia to crowd sourcing *all* your decisions. I've been meaning to read the two earlier books, and now I know there's a fourth as well.

Thank you James.
:)