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Juanxer β USS Roadrunner - lateral view
Published: 2011-06-18 02:33:03 +0000 UTC; Views: 4542; Favourites: 32; Downloads: 106
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This is some old stuff that I posted at www.scifi-meshes.com a few years ago. Somehow being tired of the currently extremely crufty Star Trek universe (tech, politics and culture-wise) and an ardent fan of Iain Banks' The Culture series of novels (that depict a panhuman/artificial Minds civilization that knows how to have fun and whose Prime Directive is "of course we'll interfere, you'll thank us later, want a cookie?"), I began to think about what I would want a "ST:The Next-Next-Next Generation" to look like. I decided I wanted it to grab ideas from the new literary wave of space operas in terms of tech-spectacle, be more Golden Age-happy and less "why so serious"-Shakespearian. And go chrome and glass, starships-wise, a bit a la Andromeda Ascendant.So this USS Roadrunner (Coyote Class) was an attempt at that: small starship, powerful, lots of hopefully fresh technobabble, and a certain sense of fun; Martian machines-like glowy bits, no aztecs and such, and lots of reflective chrome.
I'll post a few more views. I have a couple of animations published in Youtube (under the Escifi alias), too:
[link]
[link]
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Comments: 20
THIS SHIP IS NEEDED IN THE NEXT STAR TREK MOVIE!!!!!!!!!!
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Would it be okay if I used your ship in a photomanipulation piece?
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Argh, sorry for not noticing your message and not answering on time. Of course: be my guest 
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Thank you!Β
Hope you like it.
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Cool ship. It's interesting to look at and different than I'd ever considered.
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Nice work!! I'm also a big fan of Bank's culture novels. My favorite is Player of Games.
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That one is quite probably his slickest Culture work. I like it a lot, too. Look to Windward and The State of the Art would compare well to that one, in that sense.
(His last two ones are rather quite uneven, I think)
The thing is, I'd like a future Trek era to be less Shakespearian and more Banksian. I need the fun, the smugness and the grand spectacle
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I understand what you mean completely. I love the darkness, decadence and wit present in Banks' stories and in his characters, machines, humans and aliens. While, I like Star Trek, Starfleet seems really pompous and sterile and dull compared to The Culture. I'm thankful to Banks for creating such a brilliant and gritty universe and most of all for creating witty sarcastic drones, minds Special Circumstances and the names and nick names the Culture craft give themselves.
Have you read any books by Peter F Hamilton? His books are equally brilliant in my opinion.
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I read his Night's Dawn trilogy. The premise was really original and its development truly astounding. And I found the series to be extremely funny, in a certain way: the author kept throwing soap opera and scifi tropes to the reader with such glee and abandon that by the third book I was splitting my sides, really, and in a good way: and now, he has a brother, and now a BDO, and now a bit of cyberpunk, and now⦠Great fun!
The Pandora Star/Judas Unchained duo didn't click with me, and that's a bit strange, because on paper it should have worked great, given its elements. Instead, it became a chore to finish it. Since then, I've become a bit afraid of reading any of his other biggies. I'm thinking about getting some of his short tales compilations, see what happens.
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I enjoyed reading your feelings about The Night's Dawn series and Pandora's Star. I Feel the same way, although I did enjoy Pandora's Star /Starflyer series. I recently finished the last of the series, The Evolutionary Void and enjoyed it very much. Overall, my favorite Hamilton book is Fallen Dragon. It's a stand alone novel. Have you read anything by Neal Stephenson? His books are extremely original, and ooze large quantities of intelligence and wit. What titles/authors can you recommend? I trust your taste.
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Stephenson, I'm most curious about his books, given his renown.
Recommendations⦠I'm not the best person to rely on for that, as I'm rather too narrow in my readings. Now, a few writers and boks I've read recently, or that I'm fond of:
Charles Stross: hard sci-fi, even hard⦠uh⦠sci-fantasy (you should read his Merchant Princes series to see what being a long lost princess from other realm really implies), and some humorous though nailbiting pageturners (his Laundry series, a la Pratchett in some ways, riveting through and through). Also, one of his themes is combining the horror of the Cold War with Lovecraftian sci-fi. Check this short one: [link]
His blog: [link]
His most known book would be Accelerando, sort of a Foundation Trilogy for the Singularity era (the guy knows his Singularities and their consequences⦠which aren't too pretty)
Accelerando and several of his books are available under the Creative Commons license.
Peter Watts: another hard-scifier, this one using his marine biologist background to provide for interesting insights in topics such as free will, determinism and so. And sort of an angry, edgy writer. Nearly all his books are available under a CC license, too. The most remarcable one could be his Blindsight novel.
His web and blog: [link] [link]
His books and shorts: [link]
And, now that the Thing prequel is out, check this short of his: [link]
I've tried a few others, recently:
Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space series: quite fascinating, his characters a bit prone to affectations although that matches the worldbuilding.
Neal Asher's Polity series: by chance, I happened to read an interesting one, The Skinner. After that, things went a bit downhill, as the guy can be rather quite boring or go-through-the-motions in places.
Stephen Baxter: I guess he's the Arthur Clarke of today. Knows his physics, juices his science ideas in each of his short stories like the old SF authors used to do, somewhat cold when doing long form, fascinating nonetheless.
William Gibson: I just love the guy
Ken McLeod: I read his Engines of Light series, and his Cassini Division. They are fun (McLeod and Banks are chummies), though a bit⦠I don't know, easy to get you lost, perhaps (that, or I'm easily distracted. Most probably the latter).
And that's it, mostly.
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Thank you for your recommendations. I will check out the Authors and books that you mentioned this month and the Christmas / new year break. I really appreciate it. I have started reading The Thing prequel short at the link you provided. It is brilliant and beautifully written and am looking forward to reading the full version as well as other works by Peter Watts.
I have read books by Ken McLeod and Alastair Reynolds and enjoyed them.
Thanks again for taking the time to point out some excellent authors and books. I am fussy and careful about the books I read and before I moved to Japan, used to spend a lot of time carefully browsing the shelves in bookstores in search of suitable reads. Now I am in Japan and the biggest city bookshop in Nagoya which also has the biggest English books section in the region nevertheless has a pitiful range of sci-fi books.
You've really done me a good favor.
I wish you all the best for Christmas and the New Year.
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Likewise
Happy Christmas!
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By far the best looking Star Trek ship Ive seen.
and I agree I hate the culture trekkies are self asorbed into.
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I recall it as well from scifimeshes
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I remember it from the youtube vids you posted on SFM some time ago 
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