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The first chapter of Starship Troopers is one of the better action sequences ever. And the claims about suspending the characters personality for political statements aren't actually true. Unlike, to pick an example not quite at random, anything by Rand the bits about politics are put in the voices of people for whom they make sense and in a reasonably sensible setting. EG: a high school class about politics or an instructor at the officer's academy.
So much truth. It puts awesome movies like Aliens to shame. I just wish more of the book was fighting instead of commentary on the military. It wasn't a bad book, I just found the pacing so bizarre and so different from what I was expecting.
Its shocking that you could take a battle scene from a sci-fi book written in 1959, put it on a screen today, and it wouldn't show its age at all. There are few sci-fi books that "last" so long, Heinlien was particularly good at that. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is my favorite book of his because its like a textbook on how a revolution of a colony on the moon could go. If there ever are people living on the moon in 50 or 100 years, they'll still be reading Heinlein.
My thoughts on the top 20:
Ender's Game as the best sci-fi book ever written is insulting, although I've seen this on other lists as well. Its a great book for sure and probably belongs in the top 10 but I think it is lacking a great deal to even break the top 5.
The Left Hand of Darkness and The Player of Games should be on here for sure. Hitch Hiker's Guide shouldn't be on here; its cheeky and funny, but not a masterpiece of the genre by any means. Same with 2001. Its only here because of the movie, the book was hardly exceptional, being far inferior to Rendezvous with Rama. I haven't read the last two books in the top 20 so I'm not sure how they stand up, but Wells should be here for classic's sake.
Dune I think makes a pretty good argument for being at the top of this list.
1 1 Orson Scott Card Ender's Game [S1] 1985 3
2 2 Frank Herbert Dune [S1] 1965 3
3 3 Isaac Asimov Foundation [S1-3] 1951
4 4 Douglas Adams Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy [S1] 1979 3
5 5 George Orwell 1984 1949 3
6 6 Robert A Heinlein Stranger in a Strange Land 1961 1
7 7 Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451 1954
8 8 Arthur C Clarke 2001: A Space Odyssey 1968
9 9 Isaac Asimov [C] I, Robot 1950
12 10 Robert A Heinlein Starship Troopers 1959 2
10 11 William Gibson Neuromancer 1984 3
11 12 Philip K Dick Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? 1968
13 13 Larry Niven Ringworld 1970
14 14 Arthur C Clarke Rendezvous With Rama 1973 2
16 15 Dan Simmons Hyperion [S1] 1989 2
15 16 Aldous Huxley Brave New World 1932 2
17 17 H G Wells The Time Machine 1895 2
18 18 Arthur C Clarke Childhood's End 1954
19 19 H G Wells The War of the Worlds 1898 2
20 20 Robert A Heinlein The Moon is a Harsh Mistress 1966
[Tycho?] on
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Mr_Rose83 Blue Ridge Protects the HolyRegistered Userregular
I've never really understood why I'm supposed to automagically despise a work because it's a barely disguised political screed. All I care about in a book is if the characters are believable (I've met both impressionable city-bred rich-kids and self-righteous demagogues enough to know that neither Rico nor Dubois, nor the way they interact with each other, are particularly outrageous) and the plot is self-consistent.
In that regard, SST is a masterpiece compared to some of the dreck that people have wasted trees for lately. Or electrons in my TV set.
Really? Just that the characters are believeable and the plot is self-consistent? That's it? You don't, for instance, use criteria such as interesting, involving, inventive? You're happy that the self-righteous demagogue tells the impressionable city-bred rich kid how to think and that's it, there's no conflict, no back and forth, no character development for all, just a steady flow of information from the dictatorial author surrogate to the wet sponge of a reader surrogate?
If the characters are not developed, they can't possibly be believable, so I have no idea what you are yakking about there. As for plots being self-consistent; please note that I was talking about automatically despising books. Why would you assume that the sentences in a paragraph aren't related like that? I said nothing about being happy with dull books, just that automatically hating something because it has a certain kind of content seems kind of pathetic to me.
If the characters are not developed, they can't possibly be believable.
That's not really true, though. A believable character - like a person you might recognize from life - can be painted in just a few words. "Chain-smoking teenaged checkout girl." "Chubby, overly-solicitous male nurse at a retirement home." "Malnourished-looking skater kid."
A developed character is one who traverses an arc, someone who starts out at one point and finishes somewhere else. What PaPa is saying is that the characters in the novel might not trip your bullshit detector - they might talk and act just like how you'd expect them to - but they aren't developed in the sense of they either don't change and grow, or the arc they follow is forced or implausible feeling.
It's worth noting that SST was originally conceived of as a children's book that the publishers then decided to put out as a mainstream novella. Given that context I think its lecturing tone can be somewhat excused.
I've never really understood why I'm supposed to automagically despise a work because it's a barely disguised political screed. All I care about in a book is if the characters are believable (I've met both impressionable city-bred rich-kids and self-righteous demagogues enough to know that neither Rico nor Dubois, nor the way they interact with each other, are particularly outrageous) and the plot is self-consistent.
In that regard, SST is a masterpiece compared to some of the dreck that people have wasted trees for lately. Or electrons in my TV set.
Really? Just that the characters are believeable and the plot is self-consistent? That's it? You don't, for instance, use criteria such as interesting, involving, inventive? You're happy that the self-righteous demagogue tells the impressionable city-bred rich kid how to think and that's it, there's no conflict, no back and forth, no character development for all, just a steady flow of information from the dictatorial author surrogate to the wet sponge of a reader surrogate?
If the characters are not developed, they can't possibly be believable, so I have no idea what you are yakking about there. As for plots being self-consistent; please note that I was talking about automatically despising books. Why would you assume that the sentences in a paragraph aren't related like that? I said nothing about being happy with dull books, just that automatically hating something because it has a certain kind of content seems kind of pathetic to me.
Yes, I know what you meant. I think what I said makes perfect sense with regards to that. I dislike books that are uninteresting. Don't you? Seondly, it's about the content it lacks, not the content it has. I think I made that clear in the second paragraph that you for some reason didn't include in your quote.
I'm not sure why you keep using the word "automatically" or what you're trying to suggest with it. How do I qualify to be allowed to dislike a book without doing so "automatically", under your rules?
If the characters are not developed, they can't possibly be believable.
That's not really true, though. A believable character - like a person you might recognize from life - can be painted in just a few words. "Chain-smoking teenaged checkout girl." "Chubby, overly-solicitous male nurse at a retirement home." "Malnourished-looking skater kid."
You're confusing character with caricature. Don't do that. Just inserting a one-line description in no way establishes character. It barely even establishes a base from which a character can grow. And without that growth, they are just cardboard cut-outs, to be summoned and destroyed at will without remorse on the part of the reader or the author, because you never really believe they exist.
Yes, I know what you meant. I think what I said makes perfect sense with regards to that. I dislike books that are uninteresting. Don't you? Seondly, it's about the content it lacks, not the content it has. I think I made that clear in the second paragraph that you for some reason didn't include in your quote.
I'm not sure why you keep using the word "automatically" or what you're trying to suggest with it. How do I qualify to be allowed to dislike a book without doing so "automatically", under your rules?
Dislike boring books? No. I put them down and stop thinking about them. I might even forget they exist. As for your second paragraph, I ignored it because you wanted to tell me that SST is not as good as Heinlein's other works, which is a thing I already know. What I don't know is why you decided that my parenthetical example was anything other than an example.
As for "automatically", it's easy; read the book and form an opinion of your own rather than dismissing books of a certain type sight unseen. The way some people have been carrying on, I get the impression I'm supposed to hate SST, and books like it, just because they are part political essay, rather than on their own merits.
You're confusing character with caricature. Don't do that. Just inserting a one-line description in no way establishes character. It barely even establishes a base from which a character can grow. And without that growth, they are just cardboard cut-outs, to be summoned and destroyed at will without remorse on the part of the reader or the author, because you never really believe they exist.
Every character anywhere begins from a single line of description or dialogue, and that line can either be authentic-feeling or it can ring false. Believability and development are two entirely different things.
I know that this is all about the 'top 100' or whatever,
but I would like to say that Mission: Earth by L. Ron. Hubbard was one of the most fun reads ever. I read it as a kid, before I knew all about what he spawned, but thinking on it, it really puts Scientology into context.
I know that this is all about the 'top 100' or whatever,
but I would like to say that Mission: Earth by L. Ron. Hubbard was one of the most fun reads ever. I read it as a kid, before I knew all about what he spawned, but thinking on it, it really puts Scientology into context.
IN ADDITION
The Stainless Steel Rat.
EXCELLENT
yep
Malkor on
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DrakeEdgelord TrashBelow the ecliptic plane.Registered Userregular
edited June 2010
I'd just like to say that we've discussed far too much military Sci Fi without a mention of David Drake. Hammer's Slammers is good stuff to read and politically agnostic. It's mostly about what happens when the politics break down and the shooting starts. He bases a lot of his stuff off of ancient history, which gives a feel for authentic situations. One of my favorites is inspired by Dashiel Hammet's Red Harvest, called At The Sharp End. It's about a team sent out to survey a world for clients, and it has some really gritty stuff going on. Also on display is a rad collection of hover tanks, ground effect vehicles, futuristic artillery, personal energy weapons and the nasty side of human nature.
Starship Troopers is no. 10? I thought that book was awful. Watch the movie instead, it's brilliant.
Please tell me you're just trolling.
Sorry man, I read that book and took a nice deep breath when I finished it. It was truly a chore.
I understand not everyone likes the same books heh, while I enjoy it I don' think SST is the pinnacle of SF either, but that movie...
It's just so bad. And not in the "so bad it's good" category either. People keep telling me that it's a joke on action movies and I just don't get it I guess. IMO making a terrible action movie and then trying to pass it off as satire is ridiculous. By this logic The Human Centipede is a satire of horror movies.
1984 is a great book, but I'm not really sure I'd classify it as great science fiction. I mean sure it's set in the future (well, not any more), but sci fi? Not really.
I would agree with the list in general, if not the ordering in particular. I've read about 30 of them, and have an interest in most of the others. Personally my to-read list would be based on the list of Hugo winners if anything.
Starship Troopers was about as fascist as my left nut, which isn't to say Heinlein wasn't full of loopy ideas and goofy politics, especially in his later years. What it was, however, was highly idealized hero-worship for a lifestyle Heinlein had almost no direct experience of (he was cashiered out of the peacetime Navy in the 1930s for tuberculosis and bitterly regretted it the rest of his life). Starship Troopers has some great ideas and powerful passages but is undermined by his hectoring, lecuturing tone and uncritical attitude toward the use of force.
The idea that the Forever War is even close to as hamfisted as Starship Troopers is one I can't get behind for even a moment. Haldeman shows us his character's alienation through dialogue and incident rather than intrusive lecturing, and he understands the usefulness of ambiguity - despite being an antiwar book, the novel contains plenty of gripping battle scenes and cool hardware. It can in theory be read as a straightforward action story with a time-travel twist.
Which is exactly what I did when I was nine; that book is actually about stuff? I might have to go back and read it again.
Starship Troopers is no. 10? I thought that book was awful. Watch the movie instead, it's brilliant.
Please tell me you're just trolling.
Sorry man, I read that book and took a nice deep breath when I finished it. It was truly a chore.
I understand not everyone likes the same books heh, while I enjoy it I don' think SST is the pinnacle of SF either, but that movie...
It's just so bad. And not in the "so bad it's good" category either. People keep telling me that it's a joke on action movies and I just don't get it I guess. IMO making a terrible action movie and then trying to pass it off as satire is ridiculous. By this logic The Human Centipede is a satire of horror movies.
But see, I don't think it was trying to be passed off as satire. I think it was satire. It's a pretty low-budget flick, you're not going to see A-List (or even B-List) acting in it, but it's a million times more entertaining than the book it's loosely based on, and stupidly entertaining.
Plus it spawned "Would you like to know more?" and that's a good thing.
I'll have to reread it I guess. What was it about then?
I think, like any good book, there isn't a one word summary. But the society being depicted (in a very positive kind of way) certainly wasn't fascist.
The theme hit upon again and again throughout the book was that the way the American military was bring run at the time (remember, late 1950s here) was a shambles and a disgrace.
What are the most important things to the Mobile Infantry (ie: the "good guys") in the book?
1) There are no conscript soldiers. Everyone is a volunteer and can leave the military at any time they aren't actually in combat.
2) Everyone actually in the military fights. Officers lead from the front and share the same risks as the general infantry. Any non-combat roles are farmed out to what we would call civilian contractors.
3) No one can ever become an officer without combat experience as a non-com. No getting into the officer academy because of political connections or famliy wealth.
4) The actual military is very small (smaller compared to the total population than any previous society). High tech weapons are used to make up for the smaller number of soldiers.
Despite what it's fans say, I think SST (the book) lost alot of it's power over time as Heinlein's "revolutionary" ideas became, to the majority of people, the status quo. This generally leaves the ideas of his that people find less savory standing on their own and ripe for criticism.
The idea of an all volunteer military isn't crazy anymore. It's ubiquitous. In fact, the idea of a NOT all volunteer military is crazy nowadays.
Starship Troopers is no. 10? I thought that book was awful. Watch the movie instead, it's brilliant.
Please tell me you're just trolling.
Sorry man, I read that book and took a nice deep breath when I finished it. It was truly a chore.
I understand not everyone likes the same books heh, while I enjoy it I don' think SST is the pinnacle of SF either, but that movie...
It's just so bad. And not in the "so bad it's good" category either. People keep telling me that it's a joke on action movies and I just don't get it I guess. IMO making a terrible action movie and then trying to pass it off as satire is ridiculous. By this logic The Human Centipede is a satire of horror movies.
But see, I don't think it was trying to be passed off as satire. I think it was satire. It's a pretty low-budget flick, you're not going to see A-List (or even B-List) acting in it, but it's a million times more entertaining than the book it's loosely based on, and stupidly entertaining.
Plus it spawned "Would you like to know more?" and that's a good thing.
It slaps you in the face with it's giant dick of satire it's so obvious about it. That's the point.
It's hilariously over the top in it's gung-ho-ness.
"Lord of Light" is one I finished just recently, and it's pretty frigging awesome. The story works extremely well as a straight ABC plot, but the presentation makes the premise so much better. It works as a religious tract that the reader understands better than the writer. Also, it's surprisingly funny at a lot of points.
I picked up this book on a lark and it really blew me away. Good stuff.
NeoToma on
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
edited June 2010
One of the things I most appreciate about LeGuin is that she has left-wing Berkeley ideals that radically revolt against the other "golden age" science fiction going on at the same time. Her father was a founding figure in anthropology, and it shows in her work--she has an educated, thoughtful approach to society and culture that completely outshines "kill the aliens" or "rah rah military authority."
MrMister on
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
One of the things I most appreciate about LeGuin is that she has left-wing Berkeley ideals that radically revolt against the other "golden age" science fiction going on at the same time. Her father was a founding figure in anthropology, and it shows in her work--she has an educated, thoughtful approach to society and culture that completely outshines "kill the aliens" or "rah rah military authority."
Quibble! Le Guin is great, yeah, but she wasn't really writing in the golden age (that's generally considered to be the pulp magazine heyday - the 20s to the early 50s, before novels in bookstores became the engine of the genre) and being liberal has never been a dangerous or trendsetting development in science fiction. A lot of its most influential figures in the early days were far-left, card carrying Socialist Jewish dudes from New York.
What Le Guin did do, aside from being a successful, openly female writer (not hiding behind a name like U.K. Le Guin) was really expand the thematic and artistic possibilities of the genre by showing how it could illustrate and speculate about the "soft sciences" just as easily as about rocketships and die-cut steam-grommets.
Jacobkosh on
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
What Le Guin did do, aside from being a successful, openly female writer (not hiding behind a name like U.K. Le Guin) was really expand the thematic and artistic possibilities of the genre by showing how it could illustrate and speculate about the "soft sciences" just as easily as about rocketships and die-cut steam-grommets.
Okay, I'll concede defeat on anything involving real historical knowledge of the genre; however, from what I understand she was writing at a time when it was both very male dominated and very technically oriented--aka, when it was a nerd playground where people wondered about pulsars, but never about what it would be like if gay people could get married and women were respected as authority figures. And then her idealistic liberal attitude towards those questions challenged those norms.
What Le Guin did do, aside from being a successful, openly female writer (not hiding behind a name like U.K. Le Guin) was really expand the thematic and artistic possibilities of the genre by showing how it could illustrate and speculate about the "soft sciences" just as easily as about rocketships and die-cut steam-grommets.
Okay, I'll concede defeat on anything involving real historical knowledge of the genre; however, from what I understand she was writing at a time when it was both very male dominated and very technically oriented--aka, when it was a nerd playground where people wondered about pulsars, but never about what it would be like if gay people could get married and women were respected as authority figures. And then her idealistic liberal attitude towards those questions challenged those norms.
Which I guess is more or less what you said?
On this note, I've been reading Dreamsongs by GRRM lately (it's a collection of his short fiction) and the area on Science Fiction talks about this somewhat. He says he got some flak for his stories being about the characters and not the technology.
shryke on
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
What Le Guin did do, aside from being a successful, openly female writer (not hiding behind a name like U.K. Le Guin) was really expand the thematic and artistic possibilities of the genre by showing how it could illustrate and speculate about the "soft sciences" just as easily as about rocketships and die-cut steam-grommets.
Okay, I'll concede defeat on anything involving real historical knowledge of the genre; however, from what I understand she was writing at a time when it was both very male dominated and very technically oriented--aka, where it was a nerd playground where people wondered about pulsars, but never about what it would be like if gay people could get married and women were respected as authority figures.
Which I guess is more or less what you said?
There were people doing some of that stuff a few years earlier - the story that really broke open the genre to discussions of sexuality is generally considered to be Philip Jose Farmer's "The Lovers" from 1953, and there were several writers who made humans their study rather than hardware and physical science - but it was a few writers and not really a movement or anything. What Le Guin brought in were fresh perspectives: an authoritative professional's-eye view of anthropology and social science as well as the politics of an outspokenly feminine writer.
The main thing is, I think it's just important not to fall into the trap of casting the genre, even in its olden days, as some sort of bastion of traditional white male privilege and attitudes. It's a genre that was founded and dominated by outsiders, people with weird politics and peculiar obsessions. Even someone like Robert Heinlein, who was very right-wing in the sense of being fervently anti-Communist and a libertarian, was also outspokenly atheist and a big advocate for alternate marriage arrangements and group sex.
Jacobkosh on
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
The main thing is, I think it's just important not to fall into the trap of casting the genre, even in its olden days, as some sort of bastion of traditional white male privilege and attitudes. It's a genre that was founded and dominated by outsiders, people with weird politics and peculiar obsessions. Even someone like Robert Heinlein, who was very right-wing in the sense of being fervently anti-Communist and a libertarian, was also outspokenly athiest and a big advocate for alternate marriage arrangements and group sex.
Yeah, okay, I was totally in the trap, so I accede to you.
But I still think that it's incredible to read LeGuin's actually credible discussions of other forms of social organization.
MrMister on
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
edited June 2010
Oh, no question. She is a massively talented writer who has made her mark several times over.
Another minor quibble, but I think Le Guin was very much New Wave SF and not Golden Age, it'd be fairer to compare her to Frank Herbert, Philip K. Dick, et. al.
On this note, I've been reading Dreamsongs by GRRM lately (it's a collection of his short fiction) and the area on Science Fiction talks about this somewhat. He says he got some flak for his stories being about the characters and not the technology.
I've only ever read one of GRRM's Science Fiction shorts. Can't remember the name of the short story, but it was basically the journal entries of a guy out past Pluto maintaining a massive wormhole-ish jump-gate for a number of years by himself and going insane from the isolation. It was really good. I think it was written in the 70's or 80's, but because it focused on the character more so than the technology, it didn't feel dated at all.
Posts
Yeah, I know. I was sort of being lazy and letting wikipedia do the talking for me.
So much truth. It puts awesome movies like Aliens to shame. I just wish more of the book was fighting instead of commentary on the military. It wasn't a bad book, I just found the pacing so bizarre and so different from what I was expecting.
Its shocking that you could take a battle scene from a sci-fi book written in 1959, put it on a screen today, and it wouldn't show its age at all. There are few sci-fi books that "last" so long, Heinlien was particularly good at that. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is my favorite book of his because its like a textbook on how a revolution of a colony on the moon could go. If there ever are people living on the moon in 50 or 100 years, they'll still be reading Heinlein.
My thoughts on the top 20:
Ender's Game as the best sci-fi book ever written is insulting, although I've seen this on other lists as well. Its a great book for sure and probably belongs in the top 10 but I think it is lacking a great deal to even break the top 5.
The Left Hand of Darkness and The Player of Games should be on here for sure. Hitch Hiker's Guide shouldn't be on here; its cheeky and funny, but not a masterpiece of the genre by any means. Same with 2001. Its only here because of the movie, the book was hardly exceptional, being far inferior to Rendezvous with Rama. I haven't read the last two books in the top 20 so I'm not sure how they stand up, but Wells should be here for classic's sake.
Dune I think makes a pretty good argument for being at the top of this list.
2 2 Frank Herbert Dune [S1] 1965 3
3 3 Isaac Asimov Foundation [S1-3] 1951
4 4 Douglas Adams Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy [S1] 1979 3
5 5 George Orwell 1984 1949 3
6 6 Robert A Heinlein Stranger in a Strange Land 1961 1
7 7 Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451 1954
8 8 Arthur C Clarke 2001: A Space Odyssey 1968
9 9 Isaac Asimov [C] I, Robot 1950
12 10 Robert A Heinlein Starship Troopers 1959 2
10 11 William Gibson Neuromancer 1984 3
11 12 Philip K Dick Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? 1968
13 13 Larry Niven Ringworld 1970
14 14 Arthur C Clarke Rendezvous With Rama 1973 2
16 15 Dan Simmons Hyperion [S1] 1989 2
15 16 Aldous Huxley Brave New World 1932 2
17 17 H G Wells The Time Machine 1895 2
18 18 Arthur C Clarke Childhood's End 1954
19 19 H G Wells The War of the Worlds 1898 2
20 20 Robert A Heinlein The Moon is a Harsh Mistress 1966
If the characters are not developed, they can't possibly be believable, so I have no idea what you are yakking about there. As for plots being self-consistent; please note that I was talking about automatically despising books. Why would you assume that the sentences in a paragraph aren't related like that? I said nothing about being happy with dull books, just that automatically hating something because it has a certain kind of content seems kind of pathetic to me.
Nintendo Network ID: AzraelRose
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That's not really true, though. A believable character - like a person you might recognize from life - can be painted in just a few words. "Chain-smoking teenaged checkout girl." "Chubby, overly-solicitous male nurse at a retirement home." "Malnourished-looking skater kid."
A developed character is one who traverses an arc, someone who starts out at one point and finishes somewhere else. What PaPa is saying is that the characters in the novel might not trip your bullshit detector - they might talk and act just like how you'd expect them to - but they aren't developed in the sense of they either don't change and grow, or the arc they follow is forced or implausible feeling.
I'm not sure why you keep using the word "automatically" or what you're trying to suggest with it. How do I qualify to be allowed to dislike a book without doing so "automatically", under your rules?
So awesome.
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Dislike boring books? No. I put them down and stop thinking about them. I might even forget they exist. As for your second paragraph, I ignored it because you wanted to tell me that SST is not as good as Heinlein's other works, which is a thing I already know. What I don't know is why you decided that my parenthetical example was anything other than an example.
As for "automatically", it's easy; read the book and form an opinion of your own rather than dismissing books of a certain type sight unseen. The way some people have been carrying on, I get the impression I'm supposed to hate SST, and books like it, just because they are part political essay, rather than on their own merits.
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Every character anywhere begins from a single line of description or dialogue, and that line can either be authentic-feeling or it can ring false. Believability and development are two entirely different things.
but I would like to say that Mission: Earth by L. Ron. Hubbard was one of the most fun reads ever. I read it as a kid, before I knew all about what he spawned, but thinking on it, it really puts Scientology into context.
IN ADDITION
The Stainless Steel Rat.
EXCELLENT
I'm going to go ahead and say this... here we go... I liked it a lot better then Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Also, I had no idea that there was a TV show until five years later.
Please tell me you're just trolling.
SST the book is more of a...sci-fi lite and political heavy type.
Sorry man, I read that book and took a nice deep breath when I finished it. It was truly a chore.
yep
EDIT: Oh, and Slaughterhouse-Five.
Those two take up slots 1-10 quite easily, thought I'm not sure which is really ahead of which. :P
I understand not everyone likes the same books heh, while I enjoy it I don' think SST is the pinnacle of SF either, but that movie...
It's just so bad. And not in the "so bad it's good" category either. People keep telling me that it's a joke on action movies and I just don't get it I guess. IMO making a terrible action movie and then trying to pass it off as satire is ridiculous. By this logic The Human Centipede is a satire of horror movies.
This person is wrong. And on the internet, at that!
I would agree with the list in general, if not the ordering in particular. I've read about 30 of them, and have an interest in most of the others. Personally my to-read list would be based on the list of Hugo winners if anything.
Which is exactly what I did when I was nine; that book is actually about stuff? I might have to go back and read it again.
But see, I don't think it was trying to be passed off as satire. I think it was satire. It's a pretty low-budget flick, you're not going to see A-List (or even B-List) acting in it, but it's a million times more entertaining than the book it's loosely based on, and stupidly entertaining.
Plus it spawned "Would you like to know more?" and that's a good thing.
Despite what it's fans say, I think SST (the book) lost alot of it's power over time as Heinlein's "revolutionary" ideas became, to the majority of people, the status quo. This generally leaves the ideas of his that people find less savory standing on their own and ripe for criticism.
The idea of an all volunteer military isn't crazy anymore. It's ubiquitous. In fact, the idea of a NOT all volunteer military is crazy nowadays.
It slaps you in the face with it's giant dick of satire it's so obvious about it. That's the point.
It's hilariously over the top in it's gung-ho-ness.
I picked up this book on a lark and it really blew me away. Good stuff.
Quibble! Le Guin is great, yeah, but she wasn't really writing in the golden age (that's generally considered to be the pulp magazine heyday - the 20s to the early 50s, before novels in bookstores became the engine of the genre) and being liberal has never been a dangerous or trendsetting development in science fiction. A lot of its most influential figures in the early days were far-left, card carrying Socialist Jewish dudes from New York.
What Le Guin did do, aside from being a successful, openly female writer (not hiding behind a name like U.K. Le Guin) was really expand the thematic and artistic possibilities of the genre by showing how it could illustrate and speculate about the "soft sciences" just as easily as about rocketships and die-cut steam-grommets.
Okay, I'll concede defeat on anything involving real historical knowledge of the genre; however, from what I understand she was writing at a time when it was both very male dominated and very technically oriented--aka, when it was a nerd playground where people wondered about pulsars, but never about what it would be like if gay people could get married and women were respected as authority figures. And then her idealistic liberal attitude towards those questions challenged those norms.
Which I guess is more or less what you said?
On this note, I've been reading Dreamsongs by GRRM lately (it's a collection of his short fiction) and the area on Science Fiction talks about this somewhat. He says he got some flak for his stories being about the characters and not the technology.
There were people doing some of that stuff a few years earlier - the story that really broke open the genre to discussions of sexuality is generally considered to be Philip Jose Farmer's "The Lovers" from 1953, and there were several writers who made humans their study rather than hardware and physical science - but it was a few writers and not really a movement or anything. What Le Guin brought in were fresh perspectives: an authoritative professional's-eye view of anthropology and social science as well as the politics of an outspokenly feminine writer.
The main thing is, I think it's just important not to fall into the trap of casting the genre, even in its olden days, as some sort of bastion of traditional white male privilege and attitudes. It's a genre that was founded and dominated by outsiders, people with weird politics and peculiar obsessions. Even someone like Robert Heinlein, who was very right-wing in the sense of being fervently anti-Communist and a libertarian, was also outspokenly atheist and a big advocate for alternate marriage arrangements and group sex.
Yeah, okay, I was totally in the trap, so I accede to you.
But I still think that it's incredible to read LeGuin's actually credible discussions of other forms of social organization.
Also it had a planet with coal-fired robots that people tossed coal at to power which was an amazing image.
Man now I want to read that again.
I've only ever read one of GRRM's Science Fiction shorts. Can't remember the name of the short story, but it was basically the journal entries of a guy out past Pluto maintaining a massive wormhole-ish jump-gate for a number of years by himself and going insane from the isolation. It was really good. I think it was written in the 70's or 80's, but because it focused on the character more so than the technology, it didn't feel dated at all.