http://www.idkfa.com/v3 idkfa: syndicated http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4730&msg_id=4740 I already voted via email, but I'm voting A Fire Upon the Deep. Because the only way I like things is hard. So hard. conrad@idkfa.com (conrad) The Historical Pre-Enactment Society Thu, 08 Nov 2012 22:05:09 -0900 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4730&msg_id=4740 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4730&msg_id=4735 Cripes. kaiden@idkfa.com (kaiden) The Historical Pre-Enactment Society Thu, 08 Nov 2012 12:17:38 -0900 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4730&msg_id=4735 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4730&msg_id=4733 Thanks for putting up the section, Josh! That being said, while I eventually want to get to Mistborn, I don't want to start a series quite yet... so I will say, A Fire Upon the Deep! Note, however, that amazon says the mass market paperback is 624 pages... Scrotor@idkfa.com (Scrotor) The Historical Pre-Enactment Society Thu, 08 Nov 2012 11:56:40 -0900 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4730&msg_id=4733 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4730&msg_id=4730 My book choices. ---- Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep, (391 pages) From Wikipedia: "A Fire Upon the Deep is a science fiction novel by American writer Vernor Vinge, a space opera involving superhuman intelligences, aliens, variable physics, space battles, love, betrayal, genocide, and a conversation medium resembling Usenet. A Fire Upon the Deep won the Hugo Award in 1993 (tied with Doomsday Book by Connie Willis). [...] A human civilization high in the Beyond (see below for an explanation of the Zones of Thought) dispatches an expedition to a planet in the low Transcend, having learned of a massive 5-billion year old archive of data there which had been off the Known Net for all that time. It offers the possibility of unthinkable riches for the ambitious young civilization of Straumli Realm, and an expedition of archaeologist programmers is dispatched to open the archive and discover its secrets." This has been on my list a while. Probably the hardest of hard scifi. Delicious. ---- Brandon Sanderson, Mistborn: The Final Empire, (646 pages) From Publisher's Weekly: Sanderson's eerie second fantasy (after 2005's Elantris), set in a mist-haunted, ash-ridden world, pits Kelsier, "the Survivor of Hathsin," against the immortal Lord Ruler's 1,000-year domination of both the Great Houses and their serflike "skaa." Through Allomancy acquired in the Ruler's most hellish prison, Kelsier can "burn" 10 metals internally, fueling superhuman powers he uses to assemble rebels in a loose plan to destroy the nobility, the empire and the Lord Ruler himself. Kelsier uses Vin, a street urchin with the same Mistborn powers Kelsier possesses, to infiltrate the Great Houses' society, where she falls in love with philosopher prince Elend Venture. This mystico-metallurgical fantasy combines Vin's coming-of-age-in-magic and its well-worn theme of revolt against oppression with kaiden@idkfa.com (kaiden) The Historical Pre-Enactment Society Wed, 07 Nov 2012 23:19:28 -0900 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4730&msg_id=4730