gammonbanter wrote:I just read that and I'm still not blown away. Like the first one of his I read, Ubik, it's absolutely an incredible idea for a story, but it's never as engaging as you think it should be. More meandering, disjointed and mad, which sounds like the author too I suppose. |
Anyone else finding it hard to get into old(ish) sci-fi? • Page 3
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ModoX 3,480 posts
Seen 4 months ago
Registered 11 years agomunki83 wrote:
Yeah I can see why you'd say that about Ringworld. I enjoyed it but I'm not sure it really deserves its place in lists of top sci fi.
@ModoX Ahhh thats the problem its on page 405 that shit kicks offThe books do take me an age to read and I remember taking a month or so off when I got half way through the second book
As for Ringworld, I just found it dull and kinda offensive. Its old school sexist. I know it comes with the territory of reading old sci-fi but I found it off putting.
I'd recommend The City and the Stars by Arthur C Clark, reminds me I must read more of his works...also the first three Dune books before they start getting too crazy.
Oh the Demolished man by Alfred Bester, unfortunately its not anything to do with Demolition Man.
All your other recommendations are great. Stars my destination too. -
ZuluHero 9,708 posts
Seen 5 hours ago
Registered 14 years agomunki83 wrote:
Yeah that makes sense, old(ish) sci fi is rarely a hard read, but some of the terminology and language used can be fairly eye-rolling when you read it nowadays. Still the are some really good premises and stories if you can look past it. Like someone said earlier, it's easy to forget that this was groundbreaking stuff when it was first published.
As for Ringworld, I just found it dull and kinda offensive. Its old school sexist. I know it comes with the territory of reading old sci-fi but I found it off putting. -
JoeBlade 5,720 posts
Seen 3 minutes ago
Registered 18 years agoFireFlow wrote:
I've read it multiple times even, still one of my favourite sci-fi novels to date.
I got Neuromancer from the library the other day. It's not that old perhaps. Anyone read it?
I'm not sure whether it has aged well; the stories are still fresh IMO but Gibson tends to write mostly about fairly realistic (or at least plausible) topics and time has caught up with a number of the ones presented in Neuromancer, e.g. virtual reality and cybercrime. -
@FireFlow I tried it a month or so ago. Couldn't get on with it all myself. -
RunningMan 3,037 posts
Seen 37 minutes ago
Registered 15 years agoStarmaker by Olaf Stapledon is a old but excellent sci fi book. Written in 1937, & not even classed as scifi for ages. The scope of this novel is staggering. It is slightly hard going, but the sheer weight of ideas is amazing. -
robo-ludwig 23 posts
Seen 5 years ago
Registered 5 years agoI haven't actually read contemporary sci fi, even regarding the older I only read three: 1984 by Orwell, Brave New World by Huxley, and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by K Dick. I didn't find them particularly difficult, but I wouldn't consider them must-reads either. I'd like to read Foundation (trilogy) by Asimov, We by Zamyatin and Dune by Herbert. -
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Daryoon 5,912 posts
Seen 2 days ago
Registered 19 years agoI really struggle with it. And fantasy too, for the most part, and for similar reasons, I think. I simply cannot get into anything that sidelines characters for the sake of plot.
I tried reading the Lensman and Foundation books earlier in the year. I gave up on both less than halfway through. They're just reams of exposition and events without the slightest pause to consider who the people involved are, and how the world is influencing them. -
Foundation trilogy was good. -
Scimarad 9,930 posts
Seen 6 hours ago
Registered 18 years agoI've been looking forward to reading The Stars My Destination for absolutely ages considering all the praise it gets but I ended up really hating it. The protagonist is so completely loathsome I just couldn't stick with it. Maybe I'll give it another go one of these days, forewarned is forearmed and all that -
BeebleB 1,336 posts
Seen 15 minutes ago
Registered 12 years agoThe first dune is really really good. I think the first few are good but then it kind of loses its way and u end up with a bunch of characters you don't really know that we'll as people's relatives become the protagonists.
Robert heinein is quite good, I've read a few of his and he normally has quite good stories but yea, old Sci fi tends to be really hit and miss, as to where science and technology are going so you have to enjoy them for what they are. -
Vonnegut is literally the only sci fi author I got on with -
anephric 4,792 posts
Seen 4 hours ago
Registered 14 years agoDon't read past Children of Dune unless you want to disappear up Frank Herbert's didactic arse. God Emperor of Dune is literally a dude talking to a big worm for hundreds of pages. -
neilka 23,744 posts
Seen 2 hours ago
Registered 15 years agoSounds like the Wii U thread. -
JoeBlade 5,720 posts
Seen 3 minutes ago
Registered 18 years agoanephric wrote:
I didn't like the sequels much either except for, bizarrely, the very last one.
Don't read past Children of Dune unless you want to disappear up Frank Herbert's didactic arse. God Emperor of Dune is literally a dude talking to a big worm for hundreds of pages.
And don't touch the ones by his son with a 10 mile pole.
First one's ace however, although it's barely worth calling sci-fi. -
anephric 4,792 posts
Seen 4 hours ago
Registered 14 years agoDune is SF in that it's concerned with manipulating a planetary ecology, which was a theme that was stronger in Herbert's early drafts of the novel. -
Tonka 31,573 posts
Seen 1 hour ago
Registered 17 years agoI recently read Dune for the first time. Loved the first two thirds, hated the last. Won't read any of the other. -
Tricky 5,079 posts
Seen 2 hours ago
Registered 19 years agoJoeBlade wrote:
Take the fact that time has caught up and passed it aside though and it remains my absolute number 1 all time favourite book, matched only by Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive.
FireFlow wrote:
I've read it multiple times even, still one of my favourite sci-fi novels to date.
I got Neuromancer from the library the other day. It's not that old perhaps. Anyone read it?
I'm not sure whether it has aged well; the stories are still fresh IMO but Gibson tends to write mostly about fairly realistic (or at least plausible) topics and time has caught up with a number of the ones presented in Neuromancer, e.g. virtual reality and cybercrime.
The first two, as standalone novels are superb, but the way he wraps it all together in Mona Lisa Overdrive is just genius as far as I'm concerned.
Tried to convince my mate at work to read it, but because it isn't 1000 pages long and full of hard science fiction he point blank refused. Madness. -
Mike1980 531 posts
Seen 4 minutes ago
Registered 14 years agoI got up to the space Jamaicans. -
Tricky 5,079 posts
Seen 2 hours ago
Registered 19 years agoHeh, Maelcum's a rude boy. -
Tonka 31,573 posts
Seen 1 hour ago
Registered 17 years agoI remember how far out Neuromancer was when i first read it. The whole
AI gone rouge thing
was a completely new concept to me. Last time I re-read it I was amazed how straight forward it has become by other popculture catching up.
I think the Sprawl trilogy is up for a re-read actually. Haven't read the other two in aaaaaages. I don't really rate his lates (Blue Ant is it?) stuff except The Peripheral that I felt was a much needed return from pretentiousness. -
McEwan 884 posts
Seen 2 days ago
Registered 8 years agoScimarad wrote:
That's the point of it - it's the character arc that takes him from being a stain on humanity to something else altogether.
I've been looking forward to reading The Stars My Destination for absolutely ages considering all the praise it gets but I ended up really hating it. The protagonist is so completely loathsome I just couldn't stick with it. Maybe I'll give it another go one of these days, forewarned is forearmed and all that -
Nemesis 19,883 posts
Seen 4 hours ago
Registered 19 years agoNeuromancer is superb; however my imagination called it time trying to picture the Spire. I think I've got it now.
I found 2001 onwards a bit dry, and gave up with them. Rama, however, was fantastic. The journey of discovery is the best part, so it falls away somewhat on re-reads.
If The City and the Stars is of a similar quality, I'll be more than happy to pick it up.
Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes I read a few years after the film. There's something about carousels that'll forever be creepy to me now. I much preferred Fahrenheit 451 to Orwell's 1984.
I'd say check out the SF Masterworks as others have said. It seems a safe place to start. -
Alastair 24,488 posts
Seen 9 minutes ago
Registered 19 years agoHas anyone mentioned John Wyndham? Love his work and surely it counts as old school sci-fi. -
@FireFlow Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is wholly different from Blade Runner. The three books I read are all dystopian sci-fi, but despite sharing a very specific subgenre they couldn't be more varied in form and story - if you didn't like 1984, you may still enjoy the others.
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