Recommend good space opera literature. Veeky Forums is useless and you know it...

>Also, how did the Mule hail from Gaia?
Two possibilities

Possibility 1
>Foundation's Edge frequently suffers from unreliable narrator, and main characters with imperfect information. At the end when you realize that even with all the information of Gaia at his fingertips, Trevize still doesn't know where Earth is, has made an explicitly reversible decision, and is now following a trail of breadcrumbs to "Earth," it all starts to reek of manipulation. It's almost like lies Trevize is fed are custom tailored to bring him to the literal "Just As Planned" secret lord of humanity, and trick Gaia into thinking "merging" with the super-intelligent master manipulator is a good idea, instead of a way to give up its identity to the will of RoboTzeench. All the information uncovered during and leading up to the search for earth were literal breadcrumbs planted by R. Daneel Olivaw to allow him to directly control humanity just like he alwys wanted. Bear in mind that lying is NOT in the three laws.

Possibility 2
>Foundation's Edge was poorly written decades after the true trilogy, when the author was well past his prime, as a shameless cash-in on a resurgence in the series' popularity and the burdgeoning market for shared universe wankery that puts worldbuilding before storytelling, and should largely be ignored.... sort of like another popular space-trilogy we know of that was given unnecessary expansion decades later by an aging and now-less-equipped creator. Therefore revelations in Prelude/Forward/Edge/Earth should be taken with as much credence as the revelation of midichlorians.

>Veeky Forums is useless and you know it.
What, did there discussions about how anyone who didn't have leatherbound first editions on a solid cherry wood bookshelf was a pseud turn you off? Or there endless bitching about how Frank Herbert didn't draw enough from 'da Greeks'?

Fuck Veeky Forums. No, really, fuck 'em. Legit. Fuck Veeky Forums, pretentious hipsters.

Perilous Waif
Pretty Mary Suesh but the setting is crazy enough to be enjoyable. Features Space Yakuza and Transhumanist space nazis.

I really love The Night's Dawn Trilogy from Peter F. Hammilton, really cool ships, living stations, post scarsety societys and some good old frontier violence.

The monkposting there is the worst part I'd wager.

>The first three Dune books are great.
Dune is absolutely fantastic. Dune Messiah is pretty decent when taken on its own, but hardly fantastic, and definitely a letdown after Dune. Children of Dune is schlock. I recommend just reading Dune and calling it quits.

A Fire Upon the Deep is really good.

>Try Iain M Banks's Culture novels, starting with The Player of Games.
nah, they're shitty soapboxing for communism

Read Peter Watts.

>Dune is absolutely fantastic
Why do so many people praise Dune so highly? I really don't see the appeal.

>Whynotboth.jpg

I visited Veeky Forums once or twice and wasn't impressed. Thought it was a bad day.

When I read that I am pretty much convinced the whole board is a perpetual wank that is proud about reading a few Classics.

Too dry?

I never get the praise for Tolkien.

Guess everyone has some classics he is bound to dislike.

Veeky Forums is considered by many to be the worst board on Veeky Forums.

Because Banks' novels are a waste of time. The plots are boring and obviously just a vessel for the shitty 'message', the characters are flat and underdeveloped, and the entire internal logic of the setting just doesn't hold up. It's like they expanded a weak Star Trek episode into a series of books.

Too uninteresting. Everything felt so plot-driven I just stopped caring. Paul is probably one of the 5 worst written MCs in mainstream literature, and tension is completely killed off by all the super special abilities he gets. Additionally, the books just feel incredibly 'bland' with very little attention given to aesthetic or feel of the world.

The lavish descriptions for everything create a great theatre of mind. If you're not into that or into reading up on the autistically expansive background, the prose will keep you from enjoying the solid narrative. Same problem as with the Odyssey, really.

Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga.

Red Rising trilogy, not a bad read.

It's an intricately detailed setting with great attention paid to technology, religion, culture and history. It's surprisingly readable given how dense it is with information. Herbert really went all out laying the foundation for Dune, and spent no small amount of time doing research for it. And with all this, it could have just meandered about and relied on the setting to carry it through, but the plot is just as intricately detailed and that's what makes it into a true classic. The one complaint I've heard from people that I can understand is that the characters are portrayed rather matter-of-factly, and this can make them seem a bit distant and lead to a feeling that the book lacks human warmth.

>I never get the praise for Tolkien.
He built a great world... which he then relates to us in the most boring, clumsy fashion, because he's a godawful storyteller.

And then Brian Herbert brought out the prequels.

>great attention paid to technology,
point taken, but let's compare it to another setting that fulfills this: LotR
Where LotR uses his detailed background to explore the implications of this (Humans vs Elves, dwindling of Magic, How does Fate work etc) I never felt all that work in Dune. Sure, we got human super-brains that act as computers, but how is that used besides as window dressing? Would the plot change when you replace them with regular advisors?
The most obvious influence is of course that it puts importance upon Arrakis, but I always felt like that was one of the biggest flaws off the series: It shrinks the universe to a world and the world to a city and a desert.

>religion, culture and history
I disagree. Religion and Culture and History all seemed pretty unimaginative, the only part that actually had some character was the Bene Gesserit plot of the Matriarchs (I think they were called). The Fremen were just some generic saviour religion, but that's not enough to carry the book and the Universal culture was pretty bland, possibly because the books don't actually focus on that. There actually was a lot of potential there with the Navigator Houses and stuff, but instead of having some political plot focused on the court and the landsraad we get notJesus beating up the designated ad guy house and SpaceSpetsnaz using JesusSpaceMagic he got because of his genes.
There's just no struggle or conflict apparent in the books.

You could try reading some of Leiji Matsumoto's works but finding them is an adventure itself as most of his works since the 50's are long forgotten and not even internet know them, plus good luck understanding his messed-up universe.

Seconding Revelation Space. Especially if you listen to the version read by John Lee.

His voice is like a gentle brush of satin against your ears.

While the book doesn't appeal to me very much I appreciate that you recommended something that doesn't show up in almost every single thread.

Great series.
Pity about the ending, and the busybody aliens.

thx who ever you are. My job is welding and during it I listen audiobooks. I was tempted to start listening Dune (despite I had tried to read it once but gave up after introduction of main villain) but you convinced me to not.

I would suggest reading Chasm City first. Reynolds established an interesting setting in Revelation Space, but the pacing and dull characters made it a slog. I found Chasm City is much better in this regard.

You're overlooking the truth, which is Possibility #3

>Asimov, for all of his other strengths, frequently wrote at breakneck pace without pausing to consider how this story would impact other stories. He usually wrote unconnected shrots and is instead trying to write a set of pseudo-novels to actual novels which now connect each other.

It wasn't even the first time he'd done it. Caves of Steel came out in '53, and was inconsistent with the Naked Sun on a major plot point: Daniel's ability to see mental states that is completely ignored and would seriously mess up the whole telepathic Giskard line that would develop in Robots of Dawn, but even in the Naked Sun it would have been extremely important, and it's just swept under the rug.

Oh I just meant Revelation Space in general. I'd honestly start with the Perfect if any, it's a good introduction to the setting.

bookfinder.com/search/?author=Leiji Matsumoto&title=&lang=en&isbn=&new_used=*&destination=us¤cy=USD&mode=basic&st=sr&ac=qr

Doesn't look that bad. What's missing here? What do you recommend?

I just don't get this complaint. I first read Tolkien when I was twelve or fourteen or so, and didn't find him clumsy or boring. I can remember having trouble getting into Hawthorne, Defoe, and Fenimore Cooper, but not Tolkien.

I'm not saying you're wrong, exactly, because it's just an opinion, but I don't even begin to see where it comes from. How do you feel about 19th century literature, generally speaking?

No, stop spreading this garbage meme.

The series is fucking awful and filled with random strawman political rants.

>You will never live to see a unified Galactic Empire rule over 25 million worlds

The Gods Themselves. It's another Asimov classic.

I don't know if I'd really call The Gods Themselves space opera. It's more like a detective or political story.

Maybe. But the 2nd part with the Aliens is amazing

Jack Vance's Demon Princes. It's like Space Batman vs Conceptual Artist supervillains

>ctrl+f lens
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LENSMAN MOTHERFUCKERS
READ IT

Crest of the Stars by Hiroyuki Morioka is a very nice space opera. But I don't know if you would be able to find a good translation. All variants that I was able to find sound pretty dry and technical due to inexperience of translators. And I don't think it was ever officially translated.

Also author is definitely crazy because his attention to details is almost insane. Books don't have many space battles but what is there is great.