Alastair wrote:Did he write "The Kraken Awakes"? |
Anyone else finding it hard to get into old(ish) sci-fi? • Page 4
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McEwan 884 posts
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robo-ludwig 23 posts
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Registered 6 years ago@FireFlow Blade Runner was based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, but even the events both share, which are few and far between, develop in a different way. I don't think 1984 is steampunk, why do you consider it so? -
robo-ludwig 23 posts
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Registered 6 years ago@FireFlow are you considering the years in which the book was written? If you are, point taken. -
Alastair 24,828 posts
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Registered 20 years agoMcEwan wrote:
Yes, although I'll admit that I've only read that once and wasn't so keen on it.
Alastair wrote:
Did he write "The Kraken Awakes"?
Has anyone mentioned John Wyndham? Love his work and surely it counts as old school sci-fi.
Chocky, The Chrysalids, Midwich Cuckoos and Day of the Triffids are my favourites. -
Scimarad 9,964 posts
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Registered 18 years ago@McEwan
I kind of get that but I can't get past how unpleasant he is early on. I'm pretty sure I've read stuff with worse individuals than him and not been bothered by it so I'm not sure why this is different. -
opalw00t 12,836 posts
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Registered 17 years agoWyndham is excellent - Chrysalids is my personal favourite.
If youre looking for some really old sci-fi, Flatland is a classic from 1884 about a 2D world where status is defined by number of sides (quare is better than a triangle and so on). Women are lines... -
bighairybear65 345 posts
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Registered 8 years agoGreg Bear The Forge of God and it's sequel Anvil of Stars... Incredible books, cold and quite terrifying themes of War, revenge and planet killers.. Just brilliant! -
MrFlay 4,670 posts
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Registered 13 years agoAsimov, Bester, Clarke, Dick.
Also Bradbury, Le Guin, Aldiss, Ballard, Heinlein, Keyes, Priest, Haldeman, Miller Jnr. Wolfe, Vance.
Harlan Ellison's Dangerous Visions is a good collection sci-fi short stories from the seventies. Some the stories are pretty much unreadable though. -
munki83 1,853 posts
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Registered 15 years agoDoes hyperion count as old sci-fi cos I've been reading that and the sequel and think it's superb -
robo-ludwig 23 posts
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Registered 6 years ago@FireFlow with that I mean how the world in general was in the years Orwell wrote the novel; how were the ideas back then, what were the hopes and fears, the general characteristics of both literature and sci fi stories, what did they think would happen in the future. -
anephric 5,274 posts
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Registered 14 years agoOrwell didn't particularly care about predicting anything in 1984 - it was written as a direct criticism of Stalinist Russia and the rise of fascism in Europe. It doesn't particularly try to be speculative. It was an indictment of the time in which it was written. -
Alastair 24,828 posts
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Registered 20 years agoFireFlow wrote:
Yeah, I'm slightly surprised to see it mentioned here. I'd never have considered it sci-fi...
Maybe 1984 is more political fiction than science fiction? -
anephric 5,274 posts
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Registered 14 years agoIt's still speculative fiction, just more of a direct polemic against the contemporaneous world in which it was written. -
FireFlow wrote:
It's sci-fi in the sense that it was set in the future at the time of writing. I'd be inclined to call it political fiction as well though.
Maybe 1984 is more political fiction than science fiction? -
frightlever 1,524 posts
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Registered 9 years agoMrFlay wrote:
I recently found my copy of "Again, Dangerous Visions", one of the sequels. Of course, the third collection was never published.
Harlan Ellison's Dangerous Visions is a good collection sci-fi short stories from the seventies. Some the stories are pretty much unreadable though.
It's funny thinking of the two published books as "old", considering they were emblematic of the "New Wave" of Science Fiction at the time.
There are stories from those two collections that I read once over thirty years ago but that still stay with me, whereas I would probably struggle to tell you the plot of half the novels I read this year. Dementia could be a factor.
I'm reading Jack Vance's Demon Princes pentalogy for the first time. They were written in the 60s, and it actually requires much more of a suspension of disbelief to read old SF than to read his old Fantasy stuff, like the Dying Earth.
The invention of the mobile phone and the internet rendered 90% of SF plots ridiculous.
I can still read them and enjoy them though, just like watching old TV shows. A story's still a story. -
frightlever 1,524 posts
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Registered 9 years agoOh, if you like 1984, or Brave New World, seek out TJ Bass' "Half Past Human" or its sequel "The Godwhale". The sequel is the better book and you don't really need to be familiar with the first one to enjoy it.
He only wrote two fiction books, and the first one was actually several short stories cobbled together. Hardly ever hear him mentioned but he's up there for dystopian futures. -
Saul_Iscariot 4,399 posts
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anephric 5,274 posts
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Registered 14 years agoPhilip José Farmer's 'Riders of the Purple Wage' from the first Dangerous Visions is one the best things I've ever read. It alludes to practically everything, ever. -
YenRug 4,553 posts
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Registered 14 years agoWhilst I've long enjoyed HG Wells' work, I hadn't known this about him!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/the-scandalous-sex-life-of-hg-wells/ -
anephric 5,274 posts
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Registered 14 years agoRobert Heinlein was the same. Free love, baby! -
McEwan 884 posts
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Registered 8 years agoGot "Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said" by PKD to read tonight... Interesting! -
Forbidden Planet still holds up pretty well to this day, even if its pretty damn sexiest (by today's standards).
The only other 'old' films I guess I would still watch are Invasion of The Body Snatchers, The Day the Earth Stood Still and War of the Worlds.
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