Bio of a Space Tyrant - Vol. 1 Refugee
From the back cover: CALIGULA OF THE STARS Though he was later accused of every crime and sexual perversion in the galaxy, Hope Hubris began as an innocent. Because he defended his older sister against the violent lists of a wealthy scion, Hope and his peasant family were forced to flee Callisto, one of the moons of Jupiter. Pursued by bloodthirsty scions across the airless desert, they barely escaped with their lives. The illegal space bubble was overcrowded with refugees, all hoping to reach Jupiter for asylum. But the space travelers had not reckoned on the terrible threat of high space -- the pirates, barbaric men who rape, rob and murder, with no thought but to satisfy their bestial appetites. It will take all Hope's ingenuity to survive, but the atrocities he witnesses will never die. There is only one way he can be rid of them... REVENGE!
Stats for nerds
2recommend
3mentions
3people
2011–2023years
67% recommend33% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Multiple re-reads:
- Saga of the Exiles by Julian May, which merges science fiction with folklore/fantasy in Pliocene Earth
- Hyperion by Dan Simmons, excellent SF with a feel of the Canterbury Tales about it
- Neuromancer by William Gibson, plus the follow-ups (all the Sprawl) are very good too
- The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner, about the eco collapse of the US in the 1980s (10 years after it was written) and which William Gibson called a "brilliant novel"
And a couple of guilty pleasures:
- Venus Equilateral by George O Smith, 1940s stories based around a three mile long space station at the L4 point in space, a bit like Babylon 5 meets DS9 in the era of vacuum tubes
- Necrotech by KC Alexander, a brutal and obscene body-mod cyberpunk dystopia (the sequel of which, Nanoshock, has a superbly offensive opening sentence)
- Halcyon Drift by Brian Stableford, about a corporate dystopia and a pilot who hooks up his body to merge with his ship (a bit blase now but less so then, especially as I had read far less at the time)
- Bio of a Space Tyrant by Piers Anthony, a 6 book series following the rise of a refugee to becoming the Tyrant of Jupiter
- - The Dune books. The depth of everything in it awes me. Every time I re-read them, I find some nuance I missed from the last reading. The way it portrays politics, religion, and basically the entangled web of life in general blew my mind when I first read it, and still does.
- Bio of a Space Tyrant series by Piers Anthony. I'm not sure I can put into words how it has impacted me, though, but it has. I guess it's more of a visceral reaction? I can't honestly say I can relate to the protagonist, since I've never been in his shoes (and I hope to never be; having every one in your family---save for one of your sisters---murdered, raped, or raped-then-murdered by pirates isn't exactly something to ascribe to). I love how Hope (the protagonist) can empathize with pretty much anyone, though---at least eventually; and I guess I relate to how deeply he feels things.
- Pretty much everything by Heinlein. It has once again become fashionable (I think it goes on in cycles) to shit on Heinlein's works, and I get where naysayers are coming from. Heinlein himself always maintained he wrote primarily to entertain, even though he can get kind of preachy at times.
The very first Heinlein I got my hands on was The Number of the Beast--, while I was a teenager. Flying cars, non-benevolent Other Beings, multiverses possibly made manifest through the sheer act of imagining it... For a kid who dreamt of one day becoming a nuclear physicist after having watched ST:TOS (Scotty is mah boy), that book was revelatory. Every Heinlein I've read after that has just gone on and contributed to who I am as person today: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Stranger in a Strange Land (both editions), To Sail Beyond the Sunset, et al.
It's almost literally impossible for me to overstate how much Heinlein's works has shaped who I am as a person, regardless of whatever flaws others might ascribe to his work.
- I read just about every book of his I could get my hands on when I was growing up. About the time the puns of Xanth got old I had moved on to the Incarnations of Immortality books, Bio of a Space Tyrant and my favorites the Apprentice Adept series. They don't hold up nearly as well to me as an adult but I still have a giant dusty box of his books in my attic that I can't seem to part with.
