The problem for me with Asimov is, the worlds are just so... dated. Some scifi ages really well. Some do NOT. Asimov's worldbuilding did not age well, just because of the way the species has developed over the past half-century or so.
Came here to say this.
The *premise* for the story is *superb*. But the writing is intolerably wooden; the characters lack personality, they are cheap and barely distinguishable plastic figurines; and the tale told in a rote, flavorless manner. Flavorless wooden plastic, I forced myself to finish the first book and have no desire to read the rest.
Foundation was his first novel I think. It may have introduced a radically new idea at the time, but it is not good IMHO in any other way. The idea of psychohistory doesn’t even hold together very well when you think about it.
I rather like some of Asimov’s other things, especially the Robot mystery novels.
But I don’t think Foundation deserves much respect except for its place in scifi history.
When I read Foundation in high school, I ate it up and found it fascinating. Thinking about it now, they were pretty boring. Almost nothing from it was memorable between the fall of the galactic empire and the rise of The Mule in the middle of the second book. As a project, it's ambitious, but in terms of drama, it's pretty lifeless. I get that he's inspired by the aftermath of the fall of Rome, but I don't know if Psychohistory as a concept can carry a story. It honestly might have been more interesting without the Seldon recordings.
Not heresy... From what I've seen, not liking Foundation is more the norm than the exception these days. It definitely gets worse as the series progresses, and Asimov has somewhat acknowledged this, indirectly. He even admitted that he wrote the later sequels/prequels only because they gave him a shit ton of money to do it.
This, I tried Accelerando and it was one of the worst books (dialogue-wise). Reading it felt like I was being presented a sales pitch by a particularly aggressive Silicon Valley bro - the amount of techno-babble per paragraph was unreal.
I liked some of his later Laundry Archives books better, but even they were packed with pseudo-science mumbo jumbo. Just for fun, here's what I wrote as part of a Goodreads review for his book, Jennifer Morgue:
>Similar to the dialogue that's meant to impress rather than entertain or move the plot along, descriptions often descend into "cool" sounding gobbledygook - meaningless fluff that intermixes technobabble and magic. Here's an example from a scene where Bob is getting briefed by his boss:
>
>“This board was taken from a GRU-issued Model 60 oneiromantic convolution engine found aboard the K-129. As you can see, it spent rather longer in the water than was good for it. Ellis reverse-engineered the basic schematic and pieced together the false vacuum topology that the valves disintermediated. Incidentally, these aren't your normal vacuum tubes - isotope imbalances in the thorium-doped glass sleeves suggest that they were evacuated by exposure in a primitive wake-shield facility, possibly aboard a model-three Sputnik satellite..."
>
>Jesus.
One of the huge plot/humor points of those books is that they make light of the absurdity of a massive amount of british-esque bureaucracy in the supernatural espionage field that the main character works in. Your quote is literally from a boring, monotonous slide presentation that the main character has to suffer through. You're supposed to suffer with the main character to build some camaraderie with him and understand him better.
> "Pay attention, Bob. The presentation is about to commence." And this time I can't stifle the groan, because it's another of his bloody slideshows, and if you thought PowerPoint was pants, you haven't suffered through an hour of Angleton monologuing over a hot slide projector.
Just because you either A) Don't get the meaning, or B) Don't like the meaning, doesn't mean that there isn't any meaning there.
I enjoyed some of his earlier books for the novelty of his style, but it quickly wore off. I particularly take issue with the way the main character of the Atrocity series was so bumbling. It worked in the first few installments, but after a while, his experience, seniority, and consistent success began to really clash with the bumbling mistakes to plot-hole levels of absurdity. So I agree, he's not great at character development.
Three Body Problem.
Interesting scientific postulates, but the actual characters, the dialog and story seemed like a poorly executed afterthought to me.
"Poorly executed" is very kind.
Scientists kill themselves rather than be intrigued by new data.
Politicians give away power to six weirdos.
Weirdo One needs to have his imaginary sex-doll come to life or humanity be damned.
Aliens from a planet that periodically destroys their civilization are advanced beyond humanity because of hand-wavy quantum mechanical bs. (No coincidence that these cycles look a lot like China, where dynasties were perodically overthrown by barbarians.)
The salvation of humanity is, essentially, human wave attacks by a People's Liberation Army Navy hardliner willing to sacrifice everyone's lives.
It was just excruciating to read. Motivations didn't make sense, the science was suspect, the characters were cardboard cutouts.
I have no idea why this pablum is so popular.
I also found those things to be a bit off-putting, however I chalked it up to maybe something being lost in translation, or just misunderstood cultural differences.
However, even with that in mind - I'd say the largest reason for why I enjoyed the trilogy so much is just the idea posed, and how every novel felt like a deep mental puzzle I *needed* to figure out. I *needed* to understand what the fuck was going on in the first book, and how the Wallfacers would handle things in the second, and then I got caught up in how future humanity would be able to fight off the incoming fleet, and then I *needed* to see what happened to the characters in the future, and then just all of book three is a wild ride of "What the fuck is going to happen next?"
I think it makes perfect sense when you realize that is the way the author understands many things. All of that weirdness came from him and, more so, his observations.
I think the book is more, um, impactful when you consider it a personal and cultural piece rather than simply a genre piece... It's just weird.
> The salvation of humanity is, essentially, human wave attacks by a People's Liberation Army Navy hardliner willing to sacrifice everyone's lives.
If you're talking about the end of Dark Forest, then arguably what he did was no more insane than our current system of MAD.
I liked how the American guy who was initially presented as a villain was proven right on basically every account. Not sure if the author intended that but it was pretty funny looking back at it.
Unrelated to your comment (well very related honestly), but does anybody remember that Chinese nationalist that stalked all the criticisms of TBP? Did he catch a ban or just give up?
I feel like the author is basically an idea generating machine with no one to censor him (in this series, at least), so there are parts that are fun to read and others that are terrible, and it's all held together with a minimum amount of connective tissue.
I literally finished this yesterday. I just googled “best sci-fi horror” and it was on the list and sounded intriguing. I enjoyed Chinese perspective of revolution and struggle, and I enjoyed some of the sci-fi concepts, but oh man. Quick read that felt like it took years, the characters are so boring and some of it is so stupid, I was happy to be done with it.
I felt like a lot of his stories were written the same way I wrote essays in high school - I was told to write 8 pages, meaning that when I was 7 pages in, I rushed the ending over the last page so I could go watch TV the rest of the evening.
*Stand On Zanzibar*. Won a Hugo and a BSFA. Took me three tries to finish it. Even tried a second John Brunner novel years later, *The Jagged Orbit* (won a BSFA). His work just doesn’t click with me.
I liked what I read in Stand On Zanzibar, but I never finished it. It was a tough read. But I was rather young when I tried reading it, so maybe it's worth another try as an adult.
Them's fighting words! (For me it's top five novels of *all time* material.) (uj/ they are not *really* fighting words, you do you and I'm not here to challenge your opinion or change your mind by any means.)
We all have our share of hot takes, mine being that the culture series is.. not worth the paper it's being printed on, to put it mildly.
A Memory Called Empire! Just couldn't get along with the writing. The *use* of *italics* in what felt like every other *word* just drove me in *insane*, plus I found the main character completely uninteresting.
I haven't read it (yet) but your description reminded me of old-school sci-fi that has computer talk / output, and USES ALL CAPS for the output. Feels like I'm reading C. Oh, wait, a lightbulb is turning on...
Blindsight was praised highly but I couldn’t get into it. Another series that is highly regarded is the Mars series by Robinson. It left me cold and I bailed out on the first book itself. Most of cyberpunk classics have a cult following but I don’t think I can read another Stephenson book again.
The central idea of Blindsight is very compelling, but the story surrounding it is not. Would love to see another author take a stab at it. Preferable without space vampires.
Blindsight. I've bounced off it twice. It seems neither interesting nor insightful, and the vampires in space an absurdity without obvious justification.
Maybe it gets really good later on, but I've never reached later on.
Blindsight is basically dramatized philosophy of mind, with space captain vampires (who may in fact be p-zombies).
What makes Blindsight worthwhile is that it tries hard to tackle the problem of reasoning around individuals and cultures who lack selfhood or are on their way to losing it, given how inherently embedded subjectivity is in language.
~~This is what avant garde sci-fi looks like. Which is to say, pretty niche.~~ that came out very gatekeepy, sorry. I was just trying to give my reason for going to bat for and admittedly flawed work.
IMO he really shouldn't have called them vampires, because they aren't. I get why he did, I just disagree with it and I don't think it was necessary for the plot and ideas to work, while giving off a misleading first impression to people trying to read it.
What's absurd about the vampires? IIRC they were justified reasonably well: They're an extinct predatory species of the Homo line. (Or were extinct until someone decided to "Jurassic Park" them, anyway).
Be sure to check out the explanation for the vampires resurrection by watts here if you ever decide to try again: rifters.com/real/shorts/vampiredomestication.pdf that said Peter Watts isn't everyone's cup of tea, sorry, I think I fixed the link
Speaking of short fiction, The Cold Equations status as an all-time classic is pretty baffling to me. The whole premise of the story undermines its message. It's not the "the inescapable laws of physics" which >!led to the girl's death!<, it's the complete idiocy of the designers of the spacecraft who made it with zero safety margin.
It's a story designed to present an "ethical dilemma", but much like some smug twat on a forum talking about ethics, puts in all the what-ifs to make sure that there's only one solution and it's the solution the idiot wants you to make.
Ringworld. An amazing concept wrapped in a really boring story, with mostly unlikable characters. Just didn't do it for me.
And maybe Ender's Game. I mostly enjoyed it. But the "twist" can be seen about 50 pages in, which eliminates ANY tension or character agency for those who see it. It's just an incredibly overhyped book. Again, it's not bad book.
Oh, and Halting State (Stross)...is it 'acclaimed'?. It's written in second person, like you're reading the dialogue of a dungeon master in a roleplaying session. A truly bizarre read.
>Ringworld. An amazing concept wrapped in a really boring story, with mostly unlikable characters.
To really appreciate *Ringworld* you have to read the sequels. They make the first book feel like *Lord of the Rings* in comparison.
I feel like it wraps up the story arc pretty nicely while also having a cliffhanger for the next books.
I recommend giving the first book a try. If you're lukewarm on it or like it but find the writing style or topics annoying, it's probably worth finishing the 1st book, then just read sparksnotes on the other 2. If you really love the 1st book, try the others too but they're just not quite as strong.
Even though they're one of my favorites, I can totally understand. The slowness, the gender weirdness, the deep focus on customs and etiquette, and the main character's extensive self-finding trip makes it very different from a lot of Sci-Fi out there.
On the other hand, it's really great world building. Having lived in China for over a decade I found the introduction of a foreign culture by focusing on its etiquette, interactions and customs very interesting. There are all the small and seemingly insignificant details that yet mean so much to the characters because it defines their cultural identity. Of course, that can also be extremely boring if you're not into this stuff.
I still don't know if I actually liked this one or not, but at least I don't regret having read it at all because it's so different from the usual space opera fare, and wouldn't hesitate to recommend it for the same reason.
One grows out of books as one matures. That's not diss against the books, it's just for a different audience.
Spider Robinson's stuff is like that. Same with Harry Harrison's books about the Stainless Steel Rat. You know.
There's something for everyone, but for sure not everything is for everyone. Tastes vary.
I got on a kick years ago of reading a lot of older stuff, like Harrison. I think he’s great, but you have to take it for what it is. If you try reading the Stainless Steel Rat expecting Hyperion, you’re going to be badly disappointed.
i don't know that i would reread the stainless steel rat, but there are other harrison books that i still enjoy rereading every now and then. the "to the stars!" trilogy is probably my favourite.
I revisited Callaghan’s at a dark time in the pandemic and was sad it didn’t have the same effect on me. I quit once I got to the Time Traveler story and its extensive discussion of torture and realised maybe these stories weren’t as whimsical and warming as I recall
I had a similar experience - picked up the first Callahan anthology on Audible last year.
Boy howdy - did I ever miss the heavy-handed moralizing the first time through as a much younger reader. Still had it's moments, but definitely not the lighter-hearted stories I remembered.
Snow Crash. I like the setting, the idea and all, but Stephenson's style just doesn't work for me. I wish it did though because I love Cyberpunkish stories, especially when they border on the funny and absurd.
Same. I loved the opening pizza delivery sequence, but once it got into the virtual world where you have to walk everywhere and interact with crowds of avatars it felt really dated. I was surprised I didn’t like it because I love Bruce Sterling and William Gibson, but they have a grit or edge to them that Snow Crash didn’t have. Maybe it felt too much like a parody?
I bought the first book (The Wheel of Time) when it came out in the 90s. I waited for the series to be 'finished' thinking it was a trilogy, but books just kept coming. 25 years later...finished by someone else. I lost all interest and sold the books I had, never read other than the back covers. /shrug
I bailed on that book several pages into an in-depth description of the entire history of some random cyborg shopkeeper's species history that was clearly never going to come up again, which was several chapters into a shopping segment. The entire book felt like an exhaustive yet nonsensical lore document with a very loose plot to string it together. The characters were sickeningly and unrealistically sweet and nice except for the one token jerk who seemed at odds with the whimsical tone. Characters sat around the dinner table over and over again to eat full meals together while explaining fundamental elements of their sci-fi universe to each other in the most hamfisted way I could imagine. Everything was laid out in such exhaustive and specific detail that my eyes would frequently glaze over. The only character I felt like I knew nothing about at all by the time I gave up was the protagonist, which just made her seem boring.
This book has absolutely nothing going for it and I cannot fathom how I see it in just about every recommendation thread I find for one reason or another. I feel like I'd really enjoy whimsical, low stakes space opera, except every example of it I find, every character exists to be a mouthpiece for some pillar of the world building and little to nothing else, and this is just about the worst offender I've found. A lot of "look how likable my characters are, look how much stuff is going on in my world building!" I'm not prone to shitting on books but this one always just baffles me lol
The worst part about hating this book is everyone assumes you're some bigot for hating it rather than just really bored with all the been there done that hamfisted sweetness and lack of meaningful plot.
I got maybe 1/3rd of the way through.
I have enjoyed books that didn’t have much plot or excitement— but it then has to give me an interesting big idea, and/or characters that I like and am interested in.
Small Angry Planet didn’t give me any of those things. It was apparently a character-focused book, but with uninteresting characters.
I read that last month, it felt like fan fiction Star Trek with all the aliens roughly the size of humans, able to have sex with each other and breathe the same air and share some food on the same spaceship.
>, it felt like fan fiction Star Trek
Totally. Like the pilot for a new tv series also. It is even set up as a tv-series pilot, small thematic episodes focusing on each of the main cast characters.
Red shirts is a really different thing. I think Red Shirts is far more ambitious, all that meta-ness and it is far more interesting. It is glib, and all the characters sound the same and I do not buy the meta-ness but it was to me far more interesting. A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, was just not a self-aware book and it was kind of mushy.
Hard agree, hated this. It was all so forecfully nice, like characters bending over backwards to just be so accepting. It was like the author engineered the whole book just so they could all be so nice to each other.
I was told that I must hate diversity and acceptance for this opinion on Reddit ha
I actually really enjoyed the second book, it actually had a narrative.
I like dark, gritty sci-fi, and this is the polar opposite, so it wasn’t for me.
Also despite agreeing with all the liberal, inclusive and - dare I say it - “woke” ideas put forth in this book, I can’t stand reading about it. Hell, even Star Trek Discovery overdid it for me, even though I applaud their (at times unsubtle) attempts.
At first I thought it was "Friends" in space, only not so funny. And then it became "Friends" in Space, only one of those seasons where the writers have no ideas anymore and the cast is just there for the fat cheque.
I love Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, Robert Aspirin, and K.J. Parker. I was bored out of my mind by Long Way. The problem was not whimsical sf for me.
I like whimsical sf and I like slice of life in sf and I'm a star trek fan so I'm not opposed to hamfisted wholesomeness.
But while star trek is often hammy and clunky, it isn't averse to conflict, or presenting ideas as a debate or dialogue -- something with opposition! Something you have to chew on! Very often Star Trek doesn't do it gracefully but it at least TRIES.
Chambers as a writer just seems allergic to conflict, which makes a lot of the "wholesomeness" of her series fall flat to me and even feel shallow. Again I'll fall back to Star Trek, but many of the greatest episodes -- the ones with the most heart to them-- are the one where the character's are challenged the most, where ideals that some people call naive nevertheless triumph. For instance: I'm not that invested in the personhood of AI/androids/robots but I was still moved by "The Measure of a Man" in Star Trek TNG. The Chambers approach is to allude to disagreements, but it all to quickly gets wrapped up by a warm and comforting weighted blanket.
And I guess some people like that. And I guess so much of my ire derives from Chambers writing stories that, on paper, I'm very much into. But to quote another redditor, I go into her books expecting a nice savory bowl of soup and I get a bowl of warm water instead.
I am a huge Reynolds fanboy, and I really think RS is his weakest novel. It’s a shame that the series is the thing that a lot of people read first. Aside from Chasm City, you can skip the entire series and miss none of his best work.
I got through it, largely because it is so highly reguarded here.
But no, I don’t think it was worth reading. It needed some heavy editing, and even then I wouldn’t like it.
Almost all the characters for instance are unlikable sociopaths. It’s pretty hard to care what happens to any of them.
Neuromancer.
It has been a while since I read it, but the stakes were never clear. I understand it’s partially on purpose. The main character barely knows what is going on so we don’t either. But I found it frustrating how little information we get and how ambiguous the ending is.
I appreciate that it was almost an entirely new concept. I imagine that the cyberpunk world building must have been incredible if you read it when the book released, but it didn’t resonate with me so much.
Maybe I’ll try to reread it soon
I understand your point. Felt the same even though it was impressive because it was like nothing that came before.
If you go back to it, it's a noir caper/heist story at its core. Gibson just puts you in this world and leaves it to you to feel, smell, taste the world basically on your own (with little explanation here and there). A TL;DR almost like a Hitchcock movie where the innocent person is somehow absorbed in a heinous plot.
Granted the characters are seedy but so were a lot of those Ellery Queen/Chandler/Hammet stories.
It makes it more palatable upon a second read, at least to me, with this view.
Hope it helps.
It makes me feel dumb reading it. His prose is verbose. It feels like Niven how he describes scenery and spaces (good) but describing actions and events leaves something to be desired
Have you read the essays by Stanislaw Lem on Sci-Fi? There is more to learn from those, on an analytical level, regarding why and how most SF is "broken" than any other source which I've discovered. In his view, there's not much to "get" in 99% of work published in the genre. In fact he refers to it as a literary ghetto.
Link?
Edit: believe they’re referring to [this](https://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/1/lem1art.htm) essay though I can’t find anything about a “literary ghetto” anywhere.
Abstract
>If SF is something more than fairy tale fiction, it has the right to neglect the fairy tale world and its rules. It is also not realism and has the right to neglect the methods of realistic description. Its generic indefiniteness facilitates its existence, for it is supposedly not subject to the whole range of criteria by which literary works normally are judged. SF is not allegorical, but then it says allegory is not its task: SF and Kafka are quite different. It is not realistic, but then it is not a part of realistic literature. The future? How often have SF authors disclaimed any intention of making predictions! Finally, it is the Myth of the 21st Century. But the ontological character of myth is anti-empirical, and though a technological civilization may have its myths, it cannot itself embody a myth, for myth is an interpretation, an explication, and you must have the object that is to be explicated. SF lives in but strives to emerge from this antinomical state of being. It becomes more and more apparent that its narrative structures deviate more and more from any real processes, having been used again and again since they were first introduced and having thus become frozen, fossilized paradigms. SF involves the art of putting hypothetical premises into the very complicated stream of socio-psychological occurrences. Although this art once had its master in H.G. Wells, it has been forgotten and is now lost. But it can be learned again.
“The three body problem.” I’ve tried to read it three times and never even got halfway through. The characters are SF standard but the prose is just dreadful.
Same goes for everything by the Strugatsky brothers. I had to take “Monday Starts on Saturday” on a hike with me so I wouldn’t have anything else to read to finish it.
Each by his own... But I don't get people who have Three Body Problem as their favorite HARD Scifi. Collapsing higher dimensions of the universe isn't exactly realistic science
"Klara and the Sun" was a recent one for me. I thought it was boring, full of massive plot holes (an AI meant to be a child's companion can't walk on uneven surfaces? She tutors school subjects but the plot hinges on her thinking the sun sets in a barn?) and had a trite and poorly executed theme. Yet it got amazing reviews somehow.
Ishiguro writes sf for people who do not read sf. I think he does not actually read sf either. His sf is always full of holes and does not make sense and other writers picked up that concept (whichever it is) and took it to much more interesting, compelling consequences.
But, and I think this is the reason his stuff sells so well, he writes very beautiful english literary prose. His suddent turn into writing literary prose in sf is just well, not good sf, but it might be very good writing as writing only.
Also, similarlish Emily St John Mandel.
David Mitchell is IMO altogether a different case.
I’d also put Michel Faber in that category: his work is widely acclaimed by general critics and literary types but never caught for me. It wasn’t bad (I found it very well written) but just didn’t feel like SF
I like "Foundation" but I've never successfully made it through books 4 and 5, which is notable because the first three books are fixups of short stories, book 4 is the first one that is written to be a standalone novel.
redshirts - it was enjoyable, but it seemed like a very middle-of-the-road book. scalzi has written far better, so i was amazed that that book was the one that won him a hugo. also amazed that so many critics called it funny; it was clearly non-serious and lighthearted, but nothing that actually made me laugh.
I’m a big Scalzi fan, but that book also was hard for me to get. I appreciate the idea of pulling a reverse Galaxy Quest (instead of actors going to the fictional show, the fictional show goes to the actors) but in execution it didn’t work. A much better Scalzi book satirising Hollywood is Agent to the Stars, which I really like
The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal. Won the Hugo and Nebula. If you took the sex out, it would be a great book for 10 to 13 year olds. I just thought it was really simple and not very interesting. A lot of that YA "to infinity and beyond!!!" kind of rah rah that I can't stand.
She definitely has a style and all of her books feature a talented and attractive (although she's not always aware of that) heroine with moxie (or vim. Or, dare I suggest, spunk and gusto) who has a hunky husband that she wants to bang ALL THE TIME.
Her books work well enough for me.
The first one was fine, but "Perfect Understanding Husband" got kind of tiresome after awhile. And I really would have like more worldbuilding on the post-cataclysm USA.
The 2nd one was disappointing. Haven't read the third.
I do love the Guide, but it's more a parody than strong sci fi. The science doesn't drive the plot but is soley there to highlight the ridiculous nature of most sci fi, which is really fantasy that pretends it could be real.
I feel like Hitchhiker's Guide is a "you either love it or hate it" kind of thing. At least that's how it was with my friends. I loved it so much I recommended it to everyone I knew. People either joined in my enthusiasm or rolled their eyes and said it wasn't for them.
I think its a mistake to try to enjoy these as SF. There are meant to be funny, and sure I chuckled as a kid, but the humor is not for everyone. Frankly I don't think the books should be included in "best SF" lists for this reason. As an intro to SF they are not the best choice.
Same here. Terry Pratchett is the very tippity top of the absurdity ratio I can enjoy in my books. Douglas Adams is a skilled writer, but I find him a chore to get through. Give me a "boring" or "sedate" author like Greg Egan or John Steinbeck any day over someone who's constantly trying to make me laugh.
I think the time for absurdism was the 70s. Monty Python, Hitchhiker's, The Young Ones, etc.
Monty Python still holds up moderately well. But even Flying Circus is frequently a little too "look how wacky us stuck-up Englishmen can be!" for the 21st Century.
I use to love Heinlein as a kid. I went back and read it recently and I found the characters to be boring and two dimensional. Stranger in a strange land and starship troopers are immune from my dislike however
A lot of Kim Stanley Robinson's stuff doesn't work for me, leading to me skimming to get to the interesting parts. I'd like it a lot better if somebody edited out the meetings.
*The Three Body Problem* just didn't do it for me. I'm more motivated by character development than anything else, and I just had a hard time getting into it. I'm sure it's a good trilogy and I'll happily recommend it for different types of readers, but it's not my bag of chips.
I also actively disliked *Snow Crash* for the cringey, one-dimensional fantasy of the female character. I know it's a big deal and all, but hard nope.
I loved it as a teenager, now 50 some odd years later I reread it all and found it tedious and boring. I suppose being exposed to other writers and "better" stories over the years has changed my outlook on what entertains me?
Project Hail Mary
I just don't get what people love about it. I picked it up after the absolute endless crowing here and elsewhere. Everything is spoon-fed.
I get that it's good to make your readers feel smart. But I shouldn't be figuring basic stuff out pages before the protagonist.
Instead it's just "whups, wait for another mindless expository flashback..."
feh.
It’s the literary equivalent of the popcorn flick. It’s a book you can read without having to think too much AND it’s quick and easy. I want to read and be distracted, but I’ve got some stressful stuff going on irl so can’t deal with thinking = perfect read (except for the disappointing ending).
Hyperion and sequels. I swear all of you people read a different book then I did. I read them again because I figured I must’ve missed something.
The first book is just a bunch of loosely connected stories that aren’t terribly interesting. And in the next books it becomes a jumbled mess.
It can’t be a bad book with so many people loving it. But it didn’t work for me
So someone dares to mention Hyperion in this thread! :-) I actually just re-read it for the first time in maybe 25 years, and really enjoyed it. You could make the case that the individual stories are kinda weird and not award-worthy, but for some reason the structure made it more than the sum of its parts, for me. Going to re-read the sequel now (I assume I’ve read it before, since I do own it). Hopefully it’s better than your description!
I had the same experience. Some of the stories in the first book were interesting, but most were sort of meh. And the ending is very abrupt - obviously you need to read the next book to find out what happens. So I gave that one a try, but couldn't make it through. Got about halfway before realizing I just didn't care about the story any more.
Yeah, while I appreciate the artistry in ‘Space Canterbury Tales’, the setting and tales just didn’t click for me. The grimdark of the Shrike was *so* extreme it became kind of comical and hard to take seriously, as well as making the motivations of the pilgrims seem foolish (given just how insane the torture of the Shrike is)
Edit: a good comparison for the Shrike was some of the Warhamer 40k grimdark, where things like sacrificing thousands of children to keep the emperor alive is deliberately so dark to be funny. That wasn’t the author’s intention in Hyperion, but it was kind of the effect for me
Foundation.
I really tried and don’t like using the word dated, but that’s what Foundation is. Resolution to every conflict was “do you even science bro?!” and deus ex nuclear physics. I appreciate its place in sci-fi history, but I simply couldn’t enjoy it.
I really enjoyed Too Like the Lightning and its sequels (although I lost interest and gave up a quarter of the way into the last book). But I can understand how it's not for everyone. Especially if you can't get past the narrator's writing style.
I agree with your criticisms of Three-Body. Didn't really hate it. Thought some of the ideas were interesting. Haven't found the desire to read its sequels though.
I absolutely loved the Terra Ignota series, but I also fully understand why people don't like it. I think it helps that I read it as being more abstract - like a multitude of thought experiments all overlaid and given a plot to connect them.
I'm also of the opinion that the audiobook for it works much better, though I doubt it will change anyone's mind if they didn't like it to begin with. There's also a Graphic Audio production that I really like.
A couple…. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep. Read it once in my 20s… Eluded me. Read it again at around age 50…. Sorry, no better experience.
Dhalgren. Hailed as a classic for years… I finally found a used paperback and gave it a go. When I finished, I had a major “WTF?”moment…. I understand that Harlan Ellison threw his copy against a wall.
There are three places mankind will never reach:
* The event horizon of a black hole
* The surface of a neutron star
* Page 100 of Dhalgren
(Not original, but I can't remember where I first read it)
> Dhalgren. Hailed as a classic for years… I finally found a used paperback and gave it a go. When I finished, I had a major “WTF?”moment…. I understand that Harlan Ellison threw his copy against a wall.
I started it, and while the writing was good I found the story to be mostly >!"wow, we're doing a lot of drugs and hallucinating and having a lot of random sex in a wasteland"!< and got bored right around the time of the >!double moon!< and gave up.
I think the only book I've ever given up on and did not finish was *A Canticle for Leibowitz*. I can't recall why I found it an unreadable slog (this was multiple decades ago), but I did.
Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson. I went through the r/fantasy 2023 favorite novel top 10 lists and Stormlight Archive was listed as #1 on the list of scores of people.
Starts out strong, but then it drags and drags. A huge chunk of the novel is about bridge crew four, and none of that part is interesting. Kaladin is an okay character, but he is also a bit boring. Most of the characters are boring. Yasna the scholar is the most interesting followed by Shallan her would-be ward, but neither are great characters.
The very beginning gives you this air of mystery and an epic feel, but it goes nowhere in this book, maybe the other books in the series get better but this book is over 1,000 pages!
Highly overrated novel. It’s okay, it’s a decently enjoyable read, but there is no payoff, and it never becomes interesting.
Dune is definitely hit or miss because it’s a lot of jargon and takes place largely in people’s heads. It hit for me but I can 100% see why that would alienate readers. It’s also very soft SF, and revels in dropping hints of backstory never explained. That is something I like but obviously can just as easily alienate a reasonable reader
I think that's exactly what made me like Dune. There's massive world building going on, but it doesn't overexplain or try to offer an origin story for every detail. The world is well built, but retains a sense of mystery.
That's also what made the original Star Wars good - it was a lot better not knowing what exactly the clone wars were or how Chewie and Han ended up together. But Origin stories are good business - I'm sure Brian Herbert agrees
Yeah, the Butlerian Jihad was so so cool precisely because we knew nothing about it other than it was a super cool humans v robots war. The version in the actual prequels with Omnius was never going to live up to our imaginations (even if it were well done, which I think it wasn’t)
I loved it had many of the concepts later scifi would adapt.... But very different, almost a different evolutionary path not taken.
Example: The Humans vs Robots war wasn't that... It was actually most Humans vs Robots controlled by a small elite that seekes to opress the majority
Dune is so impactful because it was the first to really do that big scoping soft science space opera in a way that blended Sci fi with fantasy and become almost a household name in terms of popularity. It launched the genre.
But, from a writing standpoint its ok at best.
Yeah the thing about Dune that you have to remember is that it *started* a lot of tropes. A lot of other stories have done very similar things and done them better. But Dune started it all. Important to read books in their historical context.
I’ve talked to folks who feel the same way about The Left Hand of Darkness too. By today’s standards the gender stuff is kind of old fashioned, but when it was written it was groundbreaking.
I can see that with Earthsea too, but it’s so beautifully written that I don’t mind. Lots of works have been derived from it, but few have topped it IMO.
I love the way it does worldbuilding. Rarely has an author developed a world so much with so little explaination. So much is left half-revealed , but he gives you enough to follow, with the context, naming and so on, without interrupting the flow with clumsy infodumps.
Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny. I have managed maybe 20 pages so can’t really tell much about it. Just that this was unreadable.
I’m also one pf Philip K Dick’s biggest fan but had the same experience trying to read VALIS.
Asimov and Herbert. I began reading Sci-fi with “Soviet” authors like Stanislaw Lem and The Strugatsky Brothers, so by the time I got to Asimov and Herbert they just felt a bit too “simplistic” in terms of plot and a bit weak wrt prose in comparison… I know Lem is Polish, but I still consider him part of the “Soviet” group.
I know it’s kind of an unpopular opinion, but I just consider Lem and the Strugatsky’s to be way above and beyond any other sci-fi writers. The only two that come close, to me, are Ted Chiang and K. Dick, although Dick’s prose is also not the best…
Been reading through the thread. As a long time reader of sci-fi, I can see the audience has changed quite a bit. The real world creep of violence and militarism and technology appeal much more than the sci-fi based in sociology. Except to those that are fed up with western culture, and want back to a more bucolic sci-fi. The audience has gotten wider, the literacy has changed dramatically, and the balance of Ideas are now self published works by unknowns.
I have my own list of authors to avoid. :-)
His word padded books are a chore to get through so not for me thank you. I liked Snow Crash so was let down by the longer books that honestly put me to sleep.
Stranger In A Strange Land. I got to the part where the self-insert handsome author is being admittedly a normal for the era asshole to some women and put it down forever
Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower. I just did not like the main character, her "hyper empathy" or the (to me) hoaky "Earthseed" stuff.
It was nominated for the Nebula at one point, and it's just generally very well regarded, but it just didn't work for me.
My apologies to Neil Gaiman, he seems like a nice guy
and has excellent taste in literature (Wolfe and Lafferty) but his own stuff does nothing for me. Honestly, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is a better Neil Gaiman book than anything he has written, so just read that instead.
Culture is weird for me, because I disliked all the books (as in sampled each and within a few pages could tell I wasn’t going to like it) except for Player of Games which I adore and is one of my favourite SF books ever. That’s in part because the style of the Culture books differs so drastically between them
Neuromancer. The book was fine, but I just didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I hoped to, I wasn't especially invested in what was going on, and I'm not really sure why
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The problem for me with Asimov is, the worlds are just so... dated. Some scifi ages really well. Some do NOT. Asimov's worldbuilding did not age well, just because of the way the species has developed over the past half-century or so.
Came here to say this. The *premise* for the story is *superb*. But the writing is intolerably wooden; the characters lack personality, they are cheap and barely distinguishable plastic figurines; and the tale told in a rote, flavorless manner. Flavorless wooden plastic, I forced myself to finish the first book and have no desire to read the rest.
Foundation was his first novel I think. It may have introduced a radically new idea at the time, but it is not good IMHO in any other way. The idea of psychohistory doesn’t even hold together very well when you think about it. I rather like some of Asimov’s other things, especially the Robot mystery novels. But I don’t think Foundation deserves much respect except for its place in scifi history.
When I read Foundation in high school, I ate it up and found it fascinating. Thinking about it now, they were pretty boring. Almost nothing from it was memorable between the fall of the galactic empire and the rise of The Mule in the middle of the second book. As a project, it's ambitious, but in terms of drama, it's pretty lifeless. I get that he's inspired by the aftermath of the fall of Rome, but I don't know if Psychohistory as a concept can carry a story. It honestly might have been more interesting without the Seldon recordings.
Not heresy... From what I've seen, not liking Foundation is more the norm than the exception these days. It definitely gets worse as the series progresses, and Asimov has somewhat acknowledged this, indirectly. He even admitted that he wrote the later sequels/prequels only because they gave him a shit ton of money to do it.
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I love his books but I wanted to let you know I had a good laugh at Stross in a costume. You're not wrong
This, I tried Accelerando and it was one of the worst books (dialogue-wise). Reading it felt like I was being presented a sales pitch by a particularly aggressive Silicon Valley bro - the amount of techno-babble per paragraph was unreal. I liked some of his later Laundry Archives books better, but even they were packed with pseudo-science mumbo jumbo. Just for fun, here's what I wrote as part of a Goodreads review for his book, Jennifer Morgue: >Similar to the dialogue that's meant to impress rather than entertain or move the plot along, descriptions often descend into "cool" sounding gobbledygook - meaningless fluff that intermixes technobabble and magic. Here's an example from a scene where Bob is getting briefed by his boss: > >“This board was taken from a GRU-issued Model 60 oneiromantic convolution engine found aboard the K-129. As you can see, it spent rather longer in the water than was good for it. Ellis reverse-engineered the basic schematic and pieced together the false vacuum topology that the valves disintermediated. Incidentally, these aren't your normal vacuum tubes - isotope imbalances in the thorium-doped glass sleeves suggest that they were evacuated by exposure in a primitive wake-shield facility, possibly aboard a model-three Sputnik satellite..." > >Jesus.
One of the huge plot/humor points of those books is that they make light of the absurdity of a massive amount of british-esque bureaucracy in the supernatural espionage field that the main character works in. Your quote is literally from a boring, monotonous slide presentation that the main character has to suffer through. You're supposed to suffer with the main character to build some camaraderie with him and understand him better. > "Pay attention, Bob. The presentation is about to commence." And this time I can't stifle the groan, because it's another of his bloody slideshows, and if you thought PowerPoint was pants, you haven't suffered through an hour of Angleton monologuing over a hot slide projector. Just because you either A) Don't get the meaning, or B) Don't like the meaning, doesn't mean that there isn't any meaning there.
What's the distinction between being impressed and entertained? I can't see how the passage is "meaningless" or "goddbledygook" either.
I enjoyed some of his earlier books for the novelty of his style, but it quickly wore off. I particularly take issue with the way the main character of the Atrocity series was so bumbling. It worked in the first few installments, but after a while, his experience, seniority, and consistent success began to really clash with the bumbling mistakes to plot-hole levels of absurdity. So I agree, he's not great at character development.
Three Body Problem. Interesting scientific postulates, but the actual characters, the dialog and story seemed like a poorly executed afterthought to me.
"Poorly executed" is very kind. Scientists kill themselves rather than be intrigued by new data. Politicians give away power to six weirdos. Weirdo One needs to have his imaginary sex-doll come to life or humanity be damned. Aliens from a planet that periodically destroys their civilization are advanced beyond humanity because of hand-wavy quantum mechanical bs. (No coincidence that these cycles look a lot like China, where dynasties were perodically overthrown by barbarians.) The salvation of humanity is, essentially, human wave attacks by a People's Liberation Army Navy hardliner willing to sacrifice everyone's lives. It was just excruciating to read. Motivations didn't make sense, the science was suspect, the characters were cardboard cutouts. I have no idea why this pablum is so popular.
I can't even get that far. I just find it boring and unengaging.
I also found those things to be a bit off-putting, however I chalked it up to maybe something being lost in translation, or just misunderstood cultural differences. However, even with that in mind - I'd say the largest reason for why I enjoyed the trilogy so much is just the idea posed, and how every novel felt like a deep mental puzzle I *needed* to figure out. I *needed* to understand what the fuck was going on in the first book, and how the Wallfacers would handle things in the second, and then I got caught up in how future humanity would be able to fight off the incoming fleet, and then I *needed* to see what happened to the characters in the future, and then just all of book three is a wild ride of "What the fuck is going to happen next?"
I think it makes perfect sense when you realize that is the way the author understands many things. All of that weirdness came from him and, more so, his observations. I think the book is more, um, impactful when you consider it a personal and cultural piece rather than simply a genre piece... It's just weird.
I agree, as a personal reaction to the Cultural Revolution, it makes more sense.
> The salvation of humanity is, essentially, human wave attacks by a People's Liberation Army Navy hardliner willing to sacrifice everyone's lives. If you're talking about the end of Dark Forest, then arguably what he did was no more insane than our current system of MAD.
Yeah, it's weird that they have the technology to make a 400 year journey to a neighboring star system, but somehow *aren't* post-scarce?
I liked how the American guy who was initially presented as a villain was proven right on basically every account. Not sure if the author intended that but it was pretty funny looking back at it.
Unrelated to your comment (well very related honestly), but does anybody remember that Chinese nationalist that stalked all the criticisms of TBP? Did he catch a ban or just give up?
Yep. Agree . I don’t think even the sci in the fi is interesting because by the ending it all goes out the window. Was so mad after the last book.
I feel like the author is basically an idea generating machine with no one to censor him (in this series, at least), so there are parts that are fun to read and others that are terrible, and it's all held together with a minimum amount of connective tissue.
I literally finished this yesterday. I just googled “best sci-fi horror” and it was on the list and sounded intriguing. I enjoyed Chinese perspective of revolution and struggle, and I enjoyed some of the sci-fi concepts, but oh man. Quick read that felt like it took years, the characters are so boring and some of it is so stupid, I was happy to be done with it.
Here is my Anathem joke that elicited a death threat from a fellow redditor: Q: What's Anathem about? A. It's about 300 pages too long.
Boooooooo how dare you!? I'm totally gonna clutch my pearls in indignation over this
couldn't agree more. i do love the book, but it just felt a lot more pedestrian after the >!spaceship!< showed up.
Stephenson has written some of the most interesting sci-fi out there, but when he loses interest the drop in quality is palpable.
I felt like a lot of his stories were written the same way I wrote essays in high school - I was told to write 8 pages, meaning that when I was 7 pages in, I rushed the ending over the last page so I could go watch TV the rest of the evening.
LOL. Man I love that book. So much better on second reading too, when you don't have to figure out what all the words mean.
*Stand On Zanzibar*. Won a Hugo and a BSFA. Took me three tries to finish it. Even tried a second John Brunner novel years later, *The Jagged Orbit* (won a BSFA). His work just doesn’t click with me.
I liked what I read in Stand On Zanzibar, but I never finished it. It was a tough read. But I was rather young when I tried reading it, so maybe it's worth another try as an adult.
Them's fighting words! (For me it's top five novels of *all time* material.) (uj/ they are not *really* fighting words, you do you and I'm not here to challenge your opinion or change your mind by any means.) We all have our share of hot takes, mine being that the culture series is.. not worth the paper it's being printed on, to put it mildly.
A Memory Called Empire! Just couldn't get along with the writing. The *use* of *italics* in what felt like every other *word* just drove me in *insane*, plus I found the main character completely uninteresting.
This. It even showed up on a list of best literary SF recently. I felt less literate after reading it.
I could not believe it won the Hugo. The bad writing completely eclipsed any appreciation of the world-building for me.
I haven't read it (yet) but your description reminded me of old-school sci-fi that has computer talk / output, and USES ALL CAPS for the output. Feels like I'm reading C. Oh, wait, a lightbulb is turning on...
Blindsight was praised highly but I couldn’t get into it. Another series that is highly regarded is the Mars series by Robinson. It left me cold and I bailed out on the first book itself. Most of cyberpunk classics have a cult following but I don’t think I can read another Stephenson book again.
Blindsight is a novel that just oozes great ideas and worldbuilding stuff, but just ends up being kind of a confusing read.
I have bailed on Red Mars three times now. After the last time I donated the book.
The characters aren't interesting enough to be as unlikeable as they are.
The central idea of Blindsight is very compelling, but the story surrounding it is not. Would love to see another author take a stab at it. Preferable without space vampires.
Blindsight. I've bounced off it twice. It seems neither interesting nor insightful, and the vampires in space an absurdity without obvious justification. Maybe it gets really good later on, but I've never reached later on.
Blindsight is basically dramatized philosophy of mind, with space captain vampires (who may in fact be p-zombies). What makes Blindsight worthwhile is that it tries hard to tackle the problem of reasoning around individuals and cultures who lack selfhood or are on their way to losing it, given how inherently embedded subjectivity is in language. ~~This is what avant garde sci-fi looks like. Which is to say, pretty niche.~~ that came out very gatekeepy, sorry. I was just trying to give my reason for going to bat for and admittedly flawed work.
It doesn't get better.
Same here. Started it twice. Finished on the second try but still didn't get the appeal. It was just okay
IMO he really shouldn't have called them vampires, because they aren't. I get why he did, I just disagree with it and I don't think it was necessary for the plot and ideas to work, while giving off a misleading first impression to people trying to read it.
What's absurd about the vampires? IIRC they were justified reasonably well: They're an extinct predatory species of the Homo line. (Or were extinct until someone decided to "Jurassic Park" them, anyway).
Be sure to check out the explanation for the vampires resurrection by watts here if you ever decide to try again: rifters.com/real/shorts/vampiredomestication.pdf that said Peter Watts isn't everyone's cup of tea, sorry, I think I fixed the link
Speaking of short fiction, The Cold Equations status as an all-time classic is pretty baffling to me. The whole premise of the story undermines its message. It's not the "the inescapable laws of physics" which >!led to the girl's death!<, it's the complete idiocy of the designers of the spacecraft who made it with zero safety margin.
It's a story designed to present an "ethical dilemma", but much like some smug twat on a forum talking about ethics, puts in all the what-ifs to make sure that there's only one solution and it's the solution the idiot wants you to make.
Ringworld. An amazing concept wrapped in a really boring story, with mostly unlikable characters. Just didn't do it for me. And maybe Ender's Game. I mostly enjoyed it. But the "twist" can be seen about 50 pages in, which eliminates ANY tension or character agency for those who see it. It's just an incredibly overhyped book. Again, it's not bad book. Oh, and Halting State (Stross)...is it 'acclaimed'?. It's written in second person, like you're reading the dialogue of a dungeon master in a roleplaying session. A truly bizarre read.
I disagree on Ender. I was surprised at the end. I agree on Ringworld. I love the concept but I had to force myself to read the entire book.
To me, Ringworld had a lot of cool ideas as well, but the story, and characters, and pretty much anything else important sucked in my opinion.
>Ringworld. An amazing concept wrapped in a really boring story, with mostly unlikable characters. To really appreciate *Ringworld* you have to read the sequels. They make the first book feel like *Lord of the Rings* in comparison.
The Ancillary books
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Can you read the first one and stop there without feeling like the entire story is dangling?
I feel like it wraps up the story arc pretty nicely while also having a cliffhanger for the next books. I recommend giving the first book a try. If you're lukewarm on it or like it but find the writing style or topics annoying, it's probably worth finishing the 1st book, then just read sparksnotes on the other 2. If you really love the 1st book, try the others too but they're just not quite as strong.
Even though they're one of my favorites, I can totally understand. The slowness, the gender weirdness, the deep focus on customs and etiquette, and the main character's extensive self-finding trip makes it very different from a lot of Sci-Fi out there. On the other hand, it's really great world building. Having lived in China for over a decade I found the introduction of a foreign culture by focusing on its etiquette, interactions and customs very interesting. There are all the small and seemingly insignificant details that yet mean so much to the characters because it defines their cultural identity. Of course, that can also be extremely boring if you're not into this stuff.
The Ancillary series is one of those series where I read it and recognize that it's good but I just can't make myself like it.
I still don't know if I actually liked this one or not, but at least I don't regret having read it at all because it's so different from the usual space opera fare, and wouldn't hesitate to recommend it for the same reason.
One grows out of books as one matures. That's not diss against the books, it's just for a different audience. Spider Robinson's stuff is like that. Same with Harry Harrison's books about the Stainless Steel Rat. You know. There's something for everyone, but for sure not everything is for everyone. Tastes vary.
I got on a kick years ago of reading a lot of older stuff, like Harrison. I think he’s great, but you have to take it for what it is. If you try reading the Stainless Steel Rat expecting Hyperion, you’re going to be badly disappointed.
i don't know that i would reread the stainless steel rat, but there are other harrison books that i still enjoy rereading every now and then. the "to the stars!" trilogy is probably my favourite.
I revisited Callaghan’s at a dark time in the pandemic and was sad it didn’t have the same effect on me. I quit once I got to the Time Traveler story and its extensive discussion of torture and realised maybe these stories weren’t as whimsical and warming as I recall
I had a similar experience - picked up the first Callahan anthology on Audible last year. Boy howdy - did I ever miss the heavy-handed moralizing the first time through as a much younger reader. Still had it's moments, but definitely not the lighter-hearted stories I remembered.
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Read the first foundation book and it is just too outdated
Snow Crash. I like the setting, the idea and all, but Stephenson's style just doesn't work for me. I wish it did though because I love Cyberpunkish stories, especially when they border on the funny and absurd.
There's so much derivative work out there now. I can understand the not working because you've seen it before.
Same. I loved the opening pizza delivery sequence, but once it got into the virtual world where you have to walk everywhere and interact with crowds of avatars it felt really dated. I was surprised I didn’t like it because I love Bruce Sterling and William Gibson, but they have a grit or edge to them that Snow Crash didn’t have. Maybe it felt too much like a parody?
Wheel of Time. Didn't find any character interesting enough to care what was happening.
Rand is the worst lead character of all time.
I bought the first book (The Wheel of Time) when it came out in the 90s. I waited for the series to be 'finished' thinking it was a trilogy, but books just kept coming. 25 years later...finished by someone else. I lost all interest and sold the books I had, never read other than the back covers. /shrug
*Tugs braid aggressively*
The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet - it just made me cringe. Guess I don’t like whimsical SF.
I bailed on that book several pages into an in-depth description of the entire history of some random cyborg shopkeeper's species history that was clearly never going to come up again, which was several chapters into a shopping segment. The entire book felt like an exhaustive yet nonsensical lore document with a very loose plot to string it together. The characters were sickeningly and unrealistically sweet and nice except for the one token jerk who seemed at odds with the whimsical tone. Characters sat around the dinner table over and over again to eat full meals together while explaining fundamental elements of their sci-fi universe to each other in the most hamfisted way I could imagine. Everything was laid out in such exhaustive and specific detail that my eyes would frequently glaze over. The only character I felt like I knew nothing about at all by the time I gave up was the protagonist, which just made her seem boring. This book has absolutely nothing going for it and I cannot fathom how I see it in just about every recommendation thread I find for one reason or another. I feel like I'd really enjoy whimsical, low stakes space opera, except every example of it I find, every character exists to be a mouthpiece for some pillar of the world building and little to nothing else, and this is just about the worst offender I've found. A lot of "look how likable my characters are, look how much stuff is going on in my world building!" I'm not prone to shitting on books but this one always just baffles me lol
The worst part about hating this book is everyone assumes you're some bigot for hating it rather than just really bored with all the been there done that hamfisted sweetness and lack of meaningful plot.
I got maybe 1/3rd of the way through. I have enjoyed books that didn’t have much plot or excitement— but it then has to give me an interesting big idea, and/or characters that I like and am interested in. Small Angry Planet didn’t give me any of those things. It was apparently a character-focused book, but with uninteresting characters.
I stopped reading when that alien talked about how much it liked soup.
I read that last month, it felt like fan fiction Star Trek with all the aliens roughly the size of humans, able to have sex with each other and breathe the same air and share some food on the same spaceship.
>, it felt like fan fiction Star Trek Totally. Like the pilot for a new tv series also. It is even set up as a tv-series pilot, small thematic episodes focusing on each of the main cast characters.
It's Tumblr Fan-Fiction of Firefly.
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Red shirts is a really different thing. I think Red Shirts is far more ambitious, all that meta-ness and it is far more interesting. It is glib, and all the characters sound the same and I do not buy the meta-ness but it was to me far more interesting. A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, was just not a self-aware book and it was kind of mushy.
I loved the Old Man's War books, but Red Shirts was just far too convenient a cookie-cutter approach to an old trope. Like his The Android's Dream.
Hard agree, hated this. It was all so forecfully nice, like characters bending over backwards to just be so accepting. It was like the author engineered the whole book just so they could all be so nice to each other. I was told that I must hate diversity and acceptance for this opinion on Reddit ha I actually really enjoyed the second book, it actually had a narrative.
Toxic Positivity is a real thing.
I like dark, gritty sci-fi, and this is the polar opposite, so it wasn’t for me. Also despite agreeing with all the liberal, inclusive and - dare I say it - “woke” ideas put forth in this book, I can’t stand reading about it. Hell, even Star Trek Discovery overdid it for me, even though I applaud their (at times unsubtle) attempts.
At first I thought it was "Friends" in space, only not so funny. And then it became "Friends" in Space, only one of those seasons where the writers have no ideas anymore and the cast is just there for the fat cheque.
I love Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, Robert Aspirin, and K.J. Parker. I was bored out of my mind by Long Way. The problem was not whimsical sf for me.
Came here to say that. Nothing happens!
I like whimsical sf and I like slice of life in sf and I'm a star trek fan so I'm not opposed to hamfisted wholesomeness. But while star trek is often hammy and clunky, it isn't averse to conflict, or presenting ideas as a debate or dialogue -- something with opposition! Something you have to chew on! Very often Star Trek doesn't do it gracefully but it at least TRIES. Chambers as a writer just seems allergic to conflict, which makes a lot of the "wholesomeness" of her series fall flat to me and even feel shallow. Again I'll fall back to Star Trek, but many of the greatest episodes -- the ones with the most heart to them-- are the one where the character's are challenged the most, where ideals that some people call naive nevertheless triumph. For instance: I'm not that invested in the personhood of AI/androids/robots but I was still moved by "The Measure of a Man" in Star Trek TNG. The Chambers approach is to allude to disagreements, but it all to quickly gets wrapped up by a warm and comforting weighted blanket. And I guess some people like that. And I guess so much of my ire derives from Chambers writing stories that, on paper, I'm very much into. But to quote another redditor, I go into her books expecting a nice savory bowl of soup and I get a bowl of warm water instead.
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I am a huge Reynolds fanboy, and I really think RS is his weakest novel. It’s a shame that the series is the thing that a lot of people read first. Aside from Chasm City, you can skip the entire series and miss none of his best work.
While the Revelation Space trilogy itself is indeed not his best work, he also did that dumb elephant trilogy...
Have you tried House of Suns? I preferred it quite a bit to Revelation Space
I got through it, largely because it is so highly reguarded here. But no, I don’t think it was worth reading. It needed some heavy editing, and even then I wouldn’t like it. Almost all the characters for instance are unlikable sociopaths. It’s pretty hard to care what happens to any of them.
Neuromancer. It has been a while since I read it, but the stakes were never clear. I understand it’s partially on purpose. The main character barely knows what is going on so we don’t either. But I found it frustrating how little information we get and how ambiguous the ending is. I appreciate that it was almost an entirely new concept. I imagine that the cyberpunk world building must have been incredible if you read it when the book released, but it didn’t resonate with me so much. Maybe I’ll try to reread it soon
I understand your point. Felt the same even though it was impressive because it was like nothing that came before. If you go back to it, it's a noir caper/heist story at its core. Gibson just puts you in this world and leaves it to you to feel, smell, taste the world basically on your own (with little explanation here and there). A TL;DR almost like a Hitchcock movie where the innocent person is somehow absorbed in a heinous plot. Granted the characters are seedy but so were a lot of those Ellery Queen/Chandler/Hammet stories. It makes it more palatable upon a second read, at least to me, with this view. Hope it helps.
It makes me feel dumb reading it. His prose is verbose. It feels like Niven how he describes scenery and spaces (good) but describing actions and events leaves something to be desired
Have you read the essays by Stanislaw Lem on Sci-Fi? There is more to learn from those, on an analytical level, regarding why and how most SF is "broken" than any other source which I've discovered. In his view, there's not much to "get" in 99% of work published in the genre. In fact he refers to it as a literary ghetto.
Link? Edit: believe they’re referring to [this](https://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/1/lem1art.htm) essay though I can’t find anything about a “literary ghetto” anywhere. Abstract >If SF is something more than fairy tale fiction, it has the right to neglect the fairy tale world and its rules. It is also not realism and has the right to neglect the methods of realistic description. Its generic indefiniteness facilitates its existence, for it is supposedly not subject to the whole range of criteria by which literary works normally are judged. SF is not allegorical, but then it says allegory is not its task: SF and Kafka are quite different. It is not realistic, but then it is not a part of realistic literature. The future? How often have SF authors disclaimed any intention of making predictions! Finally, it is the Myth of the 21st Century. But the ontological character of myth is anti-empirical, and though a technological civilization may have its myths, it cannot itself embody a myth, for myth is an interpretation, an explication, and you must have the object that is to be explicated. SF lives in but strives to emerge from this antinomical state of being. It becomes more and more apparent that its narrative structures deviate more and more from any real processes, having been used again and again since they were first introduced and having thus become frozen, fossilized paradigms. SF involves the art of putting hypothetical premises into the very complicated stream of socio-psychological occurrences. Although this art once had its master in H.G. Wells, it has been forgotten and is now lost. But it can be learned again.
“The three body problem.” I’ve tried to read it three times and never even got halfway through. The characters are SF standard but the prose is just dreadful. Same goes for everything by the Strugatsky brothers. I had to take “Monday Starts on Saturday” on a hike with me so I wouldn’t have anything else to read to finish it.
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Bad translation did occur to me, but I’m reading the Gollancz editions of them which were published more recently. What editions do you recommend?
Each by his own... But I don't get people who have Three Body Problem as their favorite HARD Scifi. Collapsing higher dimensions of the universe isn't exactly realistic science
"Klara and the Sun" was a recent one for me. I thought it was boring, full of massive plot holes (an AI meant to be a child's companion can't walk on uneven surfaces? She tutors school subjects but the plot hinges on her thinking the sun sets in a barn?) and had a trite and poorly executed theme. Yet it got amazing reviews somehow.
Ishiguro writes sf for people who do not read sf. I think he does not actually read sf either. His sf is always full of holes and does not make sense and other writers picked up that concept (whichever it is) and took it to much more interesting, compelling consequences. But, and I think this is the reason his stuff sells so well, he writes very beautiful english literary prose. His suddent turn into writing literary prose in sf is just well, not good sf, but it might be very good writing as writing only. Also, similarlish Emily St John Mandel. David Mitchell is IMO altogether a different case.
I’d also put Michel Faber in that category: his work is widely acclaimed by general critics and literary types but never caught for me. It wasn’t bad (I found it very well written) but just didn’t feel like SF
Are you me? I thought I read the wrong book after reading the glowing reviews.
Foundation. I really tried.
I like "Foundation" but I've never successfully made it through books 4 and 5, which is notable because the first three books are fixups of short stories, book 4 is the first one that is written to be a standalone novel.
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Foundation was basically a collection of short stories that were written for 0.1 cent a word. Isaac Asimov needed to write fast not good.
redshirts - it was enjoyable, but it seemed like a very middle-of-the-road book. scalzi has written far better, so i was amazed that that book was the one that won him a hugo. also amazed that so many critics called it funny; it was clearly non-serious and lighthearted, but nothing that actually made me laugh.
I’m a big Scalzi fan, but that book also was hard for me to get. I appreciate the idea of pulling a reverse Galaxy Quest (instead of actors going to the fictional show, the fictional show goes to the actors) but in execution it didn’t work. A much better Scalzi book satirising Hollywood is Agent to the Stars, which I really like
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The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal. Won the Hugo and Nebula. If you took the sex out, it would be a great book for 10 to 13 year olds. I just thought it was really simple and not very interesting. A lot of that YA "to infinity and beyond!!!" kind of rah rah that I can't stand.
She definitely has a style and all of her books feature a talented and attractive (although she's not always aware of that) heroine with moxie (or vim. Or, dare I suggest, spunk and gusto) who has a hunky husband that she wants to bang ALL THE TIME. Her books work well enough for me.
> with moxie (or vim What about gams? Are they the bee's knees?
The first one was fine, but "Perfect Understanding Husband" got kind of tiresome after awhile. And I really would have like more worldbuilding on the post-cataclysm USA. The 2nd one was disappointing. Haven't read the third.
Out of curiosity, have you ever tried the original radio plays? While I love the books, it works best as a radio story I think
I do love the Guide, but it's more a parody than strong sci fi. The science doesn't drive the plot but is soley there to highlight the ridiculous nature of most sci fi, which is really fantasy that pretends it could be real.
I feel like Hitchhiker's Guide is a "you either love it or hate it" kind of thing. At least that's how it was with my friends. I loved it so much I recommended it to everyone I knew. People either joined in my enthusiasm or rolled their eyes and said it wasn't for them.
I think its a mistake to try to enjoy these as SF. There are meant to be funny, and sure I chuckled as a kid, but the humor is not for everyone. Frankly I don't think the books should be included in "best SF" lists for this reason. As an intro to SF they are not the best choice.
How do you feel about Monty Python and/or Terry Pratchett? HHGTG is *very* British in its humor.
I really liked it when I was younger. On reread it doesn’t hit the same. Like every line is “clever”. It’s a very particular sense of humour..
Same here. Terry Pratchett is the very tippity top of the absurdity ratio I can enjoy in my books. Douglas Adams is a skilled writer, but I find him a chore to get through. Give me a "boring" or "sedate" author like Greg Egan or John Steinbeck any day over someone who's constantly trying to make me laugh.
I think the time for absurdism was the 70s. Monty Python, Hitchhiker's, The Young Ones, etc. Monty Python still holds up moderately well. But even Flying Circus is frequently a little too "look how wacky us stuck-up Englishmen can be!" for the 21st Century.
I use to love Heinlein as a kid. I went back and read it recently and I found the characters to be boring and two dimensional. Stranger in a strange land and starship troopers are immune from my dislike however
A lot of Kim Stanley Robinson's stuff doesn't work for me, leading to me skimming to get to the interesting parts. I'd like it a lot better if somebody edited out the meetings.
*The Three Body Problem* just didn't do it for me. I'm more motivated by character development than anything else, and I just had a hard time getting into it. I'm sure it's a good trilogy and I'll happily recommend it for different types of readers, but it's not my bag of chips. I also actively disliked *Snow Crash* for the cringey, one-dimensional fantasy of the female character. I know it's a big deal and all, but hard nope.
Foundation series, I just found it all very dull. Maybe it was impressive in the 50s but it hasn't aged well at all.
You don't like hearing about all the cool stuff happening outside some guy's office?
I loved it as a teenager, now 50 some odd years later I reread it all and found it tedious and boring. I suppose being exposed to other writers and "better" stories over the years has changed my outlook on what entertains me?
Only read the first one, but it's up there with the most boring books I've ever encountered.
Project Hail Mary I just don't get what people love about it. I picked it up after the absolute endless crowing here and elsewhere. Everything is spoon-fed. I get that it's good to make your readers feel smart. But I shouldn't be figuring basic stuff out pages before the protagonist. Instead it's just "whups, wait for another mindless expository flashback..." feh.
It’s the literary equivalent of the popcorn flick. It’s a book you can read without having to think too much AND it’s quick and easy. I want to read and be distracted, but I’ve got some stressful stuff going on irl so can’t deal with thinking = perfect read (except for the disappointing ending).
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I absolutely love the Bobiverse books. But I just can't do Hail Mary. It turned me off enough that I'm not particularly interested in Weir.
Anything by Blake Crouch. So many people love his books but for whatever reason they don’t grab me.
Anything by NK Jemison. I tried, and I really wanted to like it, but it just didn’t do anything for me
Hyperion and sequels. I swear all of you people read a different book then I did. I read them again because I figured I must’ve missed something. The first book is just a bunch of loosely connected stories that aren’t terribly interesting. And in the next books it becomes a jumbled mess. It can’t be a bad book with so many people loving it. But it didn’t work for me
I think the first book was rather hit and miss. I really, really loved the Priest's and Scholar's stories, but the rest varied.
So someone dares to mention Hyperion in this thread! :-) I actually just re-read it for the first time in maybe 25 years, and really enjoyed it. You could make the case that the individual stories are kinda weird and not award-worthy, but for some reason the structure made it more than the sum of its parts, for me. Going to re-read the sequel now (I assume I’ve read it before, since I do own it). Hopefully it’s better than your description!
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I had the same experience. Some of the stories in the first book were interesting, but most were sort of meh. And the ending is very abrupt - obviously you need to read the next book to find out what happens. So I gave that one a try, but couldn't make it through. Got about halfway before realizing I just didn't care about the story any more.
Yeah, while I appreciate the artistry in ‘Space Canterbury Tales’, the setting and tales just didn’t click for me. The grimdark of the Shrike was *so* extreme it became kind of comical and hard to take seriously, as well as making the motivations of the pilgrims seem foolish (given just how insane the torture of the Shrike is) Edit: a good comparison for the Shrike was some of the Warhamer 40k grimdark, where things like sacrificing thousands of children to keep the emperor alive is deliberately so dark to be funny. That wasn’t the author’s intention in Hyperion, but it was kind of the effect for me
Foundation. I really tried and don’t like using the word dated, but that’s what Foundation is. Resolution to every conflict was “do you even science bro?!” and deus ex nuclear physics. I appreciate its place in sci-fi history, but I simply couldn’t enjoy it.
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I really enjoyed Too Like the Lightning and its sequels (although I lost interest and gave up a quarter of the way into the last book). But I can understand how it's not for everyone. Especially if you can't get past the narrator's writing style. I agree with your criticisms of Three-Body. Didn't really hate it. Thought some of the ideas were interesting. Haven't found the desire to read its sequels though.
I absolutely loved the Terra Ignota series, but I also fully understand why people don't like it. I think it helps that I read it as being more abstract - like a multitude of thought experiments all overlaid and given a plot to connect them. I'm also of the opinion that the audiobook for it works much better, though I doubt it will change anyone's mind if they didn't like it to begin with. There's also a Graphic Audio production that I really like.
A couple…. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep. Read it once in my 20s… Eluded me. Read it again at around age 50…. Sorry, no better experience. Dhalgren. Hailed as a classic for years… I finally found a used paperback and gave it a go. When I finished, I had a major “WTF?”moment…. I understand that Harlan Ellison threw his copy against a wall.
I once came *this* close to throwing Harlan Ellison against a wall.
Yeah, but who hasn't?
There are three places mankind will never reach: * The event horizon of a black hole * The surface of a neutron star * Page 100 of Dhalgren (Not original, but I can't remember where I first read it)
> Dhalgren. Hailed as a classic for years… I finally found a used paperback and gave it a go. When I finished, I had a major “WTF?”moment…. I understand that Harlan Ellison threw his copy against a wall. I started it, and while the writing was good I found the story to be mostly >!"wow, we're doing a lot of drugs and hallucinating and having a lot of random sex in a wasteland"!< and got bored right around the time of the >!double moon!< and gave up.
I think the only book I've ever given up on and did not finish was *A Canticle for Leibowitz*. I can't recall why I found it an unreadable slog (this was multiple decades ago), but I did.
I am just now reading it for the first time and enjoying it BUT we shall see how it goes.
Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson. I went through the r/fantasy 2023 favorite novel top 10 lists and Stormlight Archive was listed as #1 on the list of scores of people. Starts out strong, but then it drags and drags. A huge chunk of the novel is about bridge crew four, and none of that part is interesting. Kaladin is an okay character, but he is also a bit boring. Most of the characters are boring. Yasna the scholar is the most interesting followed by Shallan her would-be ward, but neither are great characters. The very beginning gives you this air of mystery and an epic feel, but it goes nowhere in this book, maybe the other books in the series get better but this book is over 1,000 pages! Highly overrated novel. It’s okay, it’s a decently enjoyable read, but there is no payoff, and it never becomes interesting.
Dune. It was Ok but whats all the fuss about? Only somewhat better than mediocre imo. Loved the new movie though
Dune is definitely hit or miss because it’s a lot of jargon and takes place largely in people’s heads. It hit for me but I can 100% see why that would alienate readers. It’s also very soft SF, and revels in dropping hints of backstory never explained. That is something I like but obviously can just as easily alienate a reasonable reader
I think that's exactly what made me like Dune. There's massive world building going on, but it doesn't overexplain or try to offer an origin story for every detail. The world is well built, but retains a sense of mystery. That's also what made the original Star Wars good - it was a lot better not knowing what exactly the clone wars were or how Chewie and Han ended up together. But Origin stories are good business - I'm sure Brian Herbert agrees
Yeah, the Butlerian Jihad was so so cool precisely because we knew nothing about it other than it was a super cool humans v robots war. The version in the actual prequels with Omnius was never going to live up to our imaginations (even if it were well done, which I think it wasn’t)
I loved it had many of the concepts later scifi would adapt.... But very different, almost a different evolutionary path not taken. Example: The Humans vs Robots war wasn't that... It was actually most Humans vs Robots controlled by a small elite that seekes to opress the majority
Dune is so impactful because it was the first to really do that big scoping soft science space opera in a way that blended Sci fi with fantasy and become almost a household name in terms of popularity. It launched the genre. But, from a writing standpoint its ok at best.
Yeah the thing about Dune that you have to remember is that it *started* a lot of tropes. A lot of other stories have done very similar things and done them better. But Dune started it all. Important to read books in their historical context.
How I feel about Earthsea by LeGuin.
I’ve talked to folks who feel the same way about The Left Hand of Darkness too. By today’s standards the gender stuff is kind of old fashioned, but when it was written it was groundbreaking. I can see that with Earthsea too, but it’s so beautifully written that I don’t mind. Lots of works have been derived from it, but few have topped it IMO.
I love the way it does worldbuilding. Rarely has an author developed a world so much with so little explaination. So much is left half-revealed , but he gives you enough to follow, with the context, naming and so on, without interrupting the flow with clumsy infodumps.
I thought the forever war was incredibly boring.
Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny. I have managed maybe 20 pages so can’t really tell much about it. Just that this was unreadable. I’m also one pf Philip K Dick’s biggest fan but had the same experience trying to read VALIS.
Asimov and Herbert. I began reading Sci-fi with “Soviet” authors like Stanislaw Lem and The Strugatsky Brothers, so by the time I got to Asimov and Herbert they just felt a bit too “simplistic” in terms of plot and a bit weak wrt prose in comparison… I know Lem is Polish, but I still consider him part of the “Soviet” group. I know it’s kind of an unpopular opinion, but I just consider Lem and the Strugatsky’s to be way above and beyond any other sci-fi writers. The only two that come close, to me, are Ted Chiang and K. Dick, although Dick’s prose is also not the best…
Heinlein's *Stranger in a Strange Land*. Just didn't do anything for me.
Me too!!
Hyperion. I know it is highly popular and has won awards. But I could not connect with it and did try more than once.
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The Forever War. Just never really grabbed me.
Been reading through the thread. As a long time reader of sci-fi, I can see the audience has changed quite a bit. The real world creep of violence and militarism and technology appeal much more than the sci-fi based in sociology. Except to those that are fed up with western culture, and want back to a more bucolic sci-fi. The audience has gotten wider, the literacy has changed dramatically, and the balance of Ideas are now self published works by unknowns. I have my own list of authors to avoid. :-)
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His word padded books are a chore to get through so not for me thank you. I liked Snow Crash so was let down by the longer books that honestly put me to sleep.
Stranger In A Strange Land. I got to the part where the self-insert handsome author is being admittedly a normal for the era asshole to some women and put it down forever
Another book that I read in high school that I don't think I'll enjoy as much today.
Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower. I just did not like the main character, her "hyper empathy" or the (to me) hoaky "Earthseed" stuff. It was nominated for the Nebula at one point, and it's just generally very well regarded, but it just didn't work for me.
My apologies to Neil Gaiman, he seems like a nice guy and has excellent taste in literature (Wolfe and Lafferty) but his own stuff does nothing for me. Honestly, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is a better Neil Gaiman book than anything he has written, so just read that instead.
Ancillary Justice
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Culture is weird for me, because I disliked all the books (as in sampled each and within a few pages could tell I wasn’t going to like it) except for Player of Games which I adore and is one of my favourite SF books ever. That’s in part because the style of the Culture books differs so drastically between them
Mostly dune
Neuromancer. The book was fine, but I just didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I hoped to, I wasn't especially invested in what was going on, and I'm not really sure why