Science Fiction!

[yesno]

I alternately love and hate science fiction novels.  I read something great, and then I get on a roll and bump right into Hugo and Nebula award-winner Hominids which is badly written, has a boring plot, and is driven forward by thinly disguised neo-fascist utopianism.  So I get a bad taste in my mouth.

Some of my favorite contemporary authors:

* Vernor Vinge

* Ian M. Banks

* Ken Macleod

* Charles Stross

* Alastair Reynolds (he's hit and miss)

What do you think?

[steve davidson]

good ones i've read:

player piano
slaughterhouse five
the moon is a harsh mistress
stranger in a strange land


currently i'm reading Ender's Game and it's pretty good.

[tenspeed]

Is William Gibson on the "hate" side? 

[yesno]

Is William Gibson on the "hate" side? 

He's always just been dull to me.  Maybe I haven't read the right things.  I tend to like it more when literary authors do sci-fi (Cloud Atlas, Never Let Me Go, Toward the End of Time, Plot Against America) than when sci-fi authors try to get too foncy.  Maybe I'm misreading Gibson.

[bakersfieldchimp]

I was gonna come in here specifically to mention Iain (M) Banks-- he's awesome. I've only read a few of the Culture novels, but they've all been good so far.

[Sarah]

What do you think?

I think everyone should pack up their unwanted science fiction and send it to me, because I like it, there's very little in my library, and I'm poor.

[tenspeed]

Is William Gibson on the "hate" side? 

He's always just been dull to me.  Maybe I haven't read the right things.  I tend to like it more when literary authors do sci-fi (Cloud Atlas, Never Let Me Go, Toward the End of Time, Plot Against America) than when sci-fi authors try to get too foncy.  Maybe I'm misreading Gibson.

I read Gibson's Pattern Recognition.  It was awhile ago.  I can't say I remember being impressed either, but I do recollect enjoying the underworld he created, but maybe it was my own paranoid fantasies that fueled this enjoyment--I can't remember. 

I like dystopian fiction.  So I'll add The Road (McCarthy) and White Noice (DeLillo) to Steve's list.

I loved Plot Against America.  So for alternate history, I'll add The Yiddish Policemen's Union.

[Denim Gremlin]

Is William Gibson on the "hate" side? 

He's always just been dull to me.  Maybe I haven't read the right things.  I tend to like it more when literary authors do sci-fi (Cloud Atlas, Never Let Me Go, Toward the End of Time, Plot Against America) than when sci-fi authors try to get too foncy.  Maybe I'm misreading Gibson.

you're both fucking nuts, Neuromancer is my favorite book ever.


while it's not technically sci fi, I just finished Kim Stanley Robinson's Years of Rice and Salt. On the whole it was really good.

[yesno]

Yeah, Kim Stanley Robinson is great.

As for Gibson, I tried reading Mona Lisa Overdrive when I was 12 or 13, didn't like it, and never really gave him another shot.  Scratch that, I read The Difference Engine (which he co-wrote) and it was pretty good.

PKD, of course.  Also, Walter Miller's "A Canticle for Leibowitz" is one of my favorites. 

[Bryan]

I had a similar William Gibson experience: I read Neuromancer when I was 14 or so, and it seemed boring to me. I was probably just too young for it, but I never tried anything else.

As mentioned in the other books thread, I really liked Spin by Robert Charles Wilson. (The sequel, Axis, wasn't as good.)

[Spoony]

Gibson got a little too abstract for me. I had a hard time wrapping my head around his narratives because he wrote more about the physical sensations of what was happening, rather then whatever the hell was going on. Still good reads though.

The grand-daddy of the 90's tech sci fi would be Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. It was way ahead of it's time and coined a lot of the language we use to talk about the internet. (Boy does it ever love language.) If you thought Gibson did too much of acid, holy crow, get a load of the beard on Stephenson.

For some really hard sci-fi, check out Stephan Baxter's Manifold series. I think Manifold: Space is the best and since they all stand on their own, none of them really relate to another. Read the three and you will probably put your head in an oven.

Niven & Pournelle's Mote In God's Eye & The Gripping Hand are terrible and should be avoided at all costs. Yes, they did the solor-sail crap first. Good for those two, they informed Count Dooku's dumb ship.

Nerd, nerd, nerd. That's all I have to say.
C

[yesno]

I think Mote is good (though it has a weak ending--I reread it this weekend anyway) but the sequel is pretty awful.  The Moties are cool aliens.

[Kim Kelly]

currently i'm reading Ender's Game and it's pretty good.

That's my book club's current book. I need to get cracking on it.

My personal favorites include:

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Leguin
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon
the VALIS trilogy by Philip K. Dick

Actually, I've liked every Philip K. Dick book I've read, and I've read quite a few.

Anyone read Lord of Light by Zelazny? It's in my to-read pile.

[Spoony]

Addendum: Manifold: Time is the better one.

Yeah, the Moties were cool, but if the ending was a let-down, then The Gripping Hand will push you into the red. There is a horny old man undercurrent to it that made me want to wash my hands.

Ender's Game is great, but there are diminishing returns with everything that follows. Ender's Shadow is interesting, but Giant series that follows becomes a military fanatic's wet dream with Morman undertones. Be warned.

[yesno]

There is a horny old man undercurrent to it that made me want to wash my hands.

In addition to Hominids, mentioned above, being a poorly written book with alarming political undertones, it uses the phrase "bra and panties" at least three times.