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nonathlon posted:Anyway back to books. I was recently asked to recommend some classic science fiction and it got difficult. Many of the classics are a little dated and have pedestrian writing (Asimov). I suspect others would re-read terribly: like the later Ringworld books by Niven (having sex with aliens for diplomacy is standard operating procedure), the many Niven-Pournelle collaborations (the awful one with a VR D&D adventure, the worse one where science fiction fans save the world), and I don't think you can read Heinlein straightfaced anymore recently read a clarke book and it was pretty decent except for the part where a guy of australian aboriginal descent tells a white guy that it was probably good the europeans came since his peoples way of life was a dead end
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Sep 2, 2021 20:56
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nonathlon posted:Anyway back to books. I was recently asked to recommend some classic science fiction and it got difficult... At the risk of learning that he was secretly a terrible person, even if he didn't write terrible books, how about John Wyndham? The Day of the Triffids for a full-length novel -- and The Seeds of Time would be my pick for readily-available anthologies (there's a bit of everything in that one, from cosmic irony to social satire to pure survival horror).
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Sep 2, 2021 21:51
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nonathlon posted:Anyway back to books. I was recently asked to recommend some classic science fiction and it got difficult. Many of the classics are a little dated and have pedestrian writing (Asimov). I suspect others would re-read terribly: like the later Ringworld books by Niven (having sex with aliens for diplomacy is standard operating procedure), the many Niven-Pournelle collaborations (the awful one with a VR D&D adventure, the worse one where science fiction fans save the world), and I don't think you can read Heinlein straightfaced anymore Alfred Bester. C L Moore. Henry Kuttner. Vonda McIntyre. Pohl & Kornbluth (together and separately). Leigh Brackett. Edmond Hamilton. Theodore Sturgeon. R A Lafferty. Margaret St Clair. Jack Vance. I'm reading Murray Leinster ATM, and while he does have some occasional remarkable jawdrops in the sexual politics area he's got some really fun stories too. Ed: yeah, Wyndham's a good call too, though I prefer The Kraken Wakes - make sure to actually read that, though, not the Out of the Deeps version, which has a PTSD subplot removed and a US-pleasing ending where the USA Saves The World. Ed2: William Tenn. Runcible Cat has a new favorite as of 22:56 on Sep 2, 2021 |
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Sep 2, 2021 21:53
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Runcible Cat posted:Ed: yeah, Wyndham's a good call too, though I prefer The Kraken Wakes - make sure to actually read that, though, not the Out of the Deeps version, which has a PTSD subplot removed and a US-pleasing ending where the USA Saves The World. I liked the bit where global sea levels start rising, causing humankind to bumble and dither and fret about the stock market
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Sep 3, 2021 00:41
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Runcible Cat posted:Alfred Bester. C L Moore. Henry Kuttner. Vonda McIntyre. Pohl & Kornbluth (together and separately). Leigh Brackett. Edmond Hamilton. Theodore Sturgeon. R A Lafferty. Margaret St Clair. Jack Vance. No Stanislaw Lem in your list? For shame.
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Sep 3, 2021 01:01
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Carnival of Shrews posted:At the risk of learning that he was secretly a terrible person, even if he didn't write terrible books, how about John Wyndham? The Day of the Triffids for a full-length novel -- and The Seeds of Time would be my pick for readily-available anthologies (there's a bit of everything in that one, from cosmic irony to social satire to pure survival horror). Oh, The Chrysalids is a favourite of mine. I think my dad gave it to me to read when I was ten?
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Sep 3, 2021 01:19
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Stexils posted:recently read a clarke book and it was pretty decent except for the part where a guy of australian aboriginal descent tells a white guy that it was probably good the europeans came since his peoples way of life was a dead end i literally started this thread about clarke(sorta) books
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Sep 3, 2021 02:14
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Brawnfire posted:I'm really tired of the "cut out all the scenes that make later scenes make sense, then stick them in a comic book" school of film Or tweet. Or Fortnite event. When you think your audience is stupid and impatient so you cut out anything you think will 'confuse' them, including all the context that makes the movie less confusing.
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Sep 3, 2021 07:20
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Runcible Cat posted:Alfred Bester. C L Moore. Henry Kuttner. Vonda McIntyre. Pohl & Kornbluth (together and separately). Leigh Brackett. Edmond Hamilton. Theodore Sturgeon. R A Lafferty. Margaret St Clair. Jack Vance. Sturgeon is a good call. I picked up a collection of his short stories a few years ago and the guy was writing levels beyond most of his contemporaries. And I'd forgetten completely about Fred Pohl. I'm not worried about recommending things that are old-fashioned or dated, more those authors that got away with bad books because it's SF where standards are low and ideas or world building is often allowed to paper over thin characters, awful plots and dodgy politics. Did Clarke have terrible books? I can only think of the late life "collaborations" with people like Lee Gentry.
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Sep 3, 2021 08:07
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I remember really liking Frederick Pohl last time I gave his stuff a try. The LGBT stuff in Gateway I’m sure would come across as a bit dated today, but would have been super progressive for the time.
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Sep 3, 2021 08:54
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I will always stan for Ursula K. Le Guin when it comes to sci fi, as examples of some of the first feminist sci fi. Some of it has aged a bit awkwardly, but she didn't stay entrenched in her ideas on sex and gender, and you can see the change in them over time through her writing.
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Sep 3, 2021 09:09
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Ringworld has aged horribly at least the first book. Why? The entire plot is literally predestined fate for a young woman to get married to a Conan copy. The entire point of the plot is that she has absolutely no agency and inevitably WILL do this.
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Sep 3, 2021 09:20
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I enjoyed it when I first read it but yeah re-reading it more critically all kinds of poo poo jumps out. It has basically one thing going for it, the cool megastructure, and that’s about it. edit: I also have a soft spot for some of Heinlein’s earlier stuff where the focus was on the adventure, and he mostly kept his horrible politics out of it. Bargearse has a new favorite as of 09:33 on Sep 3, 2021 |
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Sep 3, 2021 09:25
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Arivia posted:Ringworld has aged horribly at least the first book. Why? The entire plot is literally predestined fate for a young woman to get married to a Conan copy. The entire point of the plot is that she has absolutely no agency and inevitably WILL do this. I mean that's a weird interpretation? The plot is a vehicle for a bunch of nobody's to go romping around this cool scifi *thing* the author imagined. The "lucky" lady is maybe the 3rd most prominent of the cast and my takeaway from it was she got to go on a cool space adventure then ditched the crew since the new place was nicer than Earth and she liked it there. Her character is very passive but that's kinda the point? She's lazy and things get handed to her on a silver platter. 'Luck' as a tangible concept was visited by several authors/books and the argument of fate/predestination can be leveraged against all of them, Ringworld wasn't anything special in that regard.
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Sep 3, 2021 10:09
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Bargearse posted:I enjoyed it when I first read it but yeah re-reading it more critically all kinds of poo poo jumps out. It has basically one thing going for it, the cool megastructure, and that’s about it. The early Heinlein (40s-50s?) is not great but also pretty forgiveable. It's YA adventures written in a time and place and is pretty inoffensive. Even Starship Troopers I'm willing to cut a bit of slack to as a bit of a thought experiment and world building. The later stuff that got self-referential and had lots of dudes lecturing other characters got more and more so as it went along. You could read one book and not find it objectionable. Read several and you feel like you're being lectured at by someone who can't help mentioning his profiles on Fetlife and Archive Of Our Own.
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Sep 3, 2021 11:21
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AngryRobotsInc posted:I will always stan for Ursula K. Le Guin when it comes to sci fi, as examples of some of the first feminist sci fi. Some of it has aged a bit awkwardly, but she didn't stay entrenched in her ideas on sex and gender, and you can see the change in them over time through her writing. Always Coming Home is my favourite book right now. Astonishing. James Tiptree Jr also wrote some impressive stuff though I've never fallen in love with one of her stories exactly. I liked Clarke when I was a kid and just learning about science fiction, particularly his short stories. He's lumped in with Asimov for me in 'short stories good, long stories dull' and 'turned out to be a sexmonster'.
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Sep 3, 2021 11:28
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Serephina posted:I mean that's a weird interpretation? The plot is a vehicle for a bunch of nobody's to go romping around this cool scifi *thing* the author imagined. The "lucky" lady is maybe the 3rd most prominent of the cast and my takeaway from it was she got to go on a cool space adventure then ditched the crew since the new place was nicer than Earth and she liked it there. Her character is very passive but that's kinda the point? She's lazy and things get handed to her on a silver platter. But the book dwells on it endlessly: the entire reason for bringing her along is that she is lucky, and that she is lucky enough to not be harmed. If she went to Ringworld her destiny must reside there, and her destiny is specifically demarcated as being getting married to not-Conan when they meet. Like I read it literally in 2019 for a feminist/queer speculative fiction bookclub and we were all amazed about how explicitly clear it was in the text that her marginalization and disempowerment was an essential part of the plot. It's not an uncommon idea in books, sure, but Ringworld was particularly unique for setting it up in such a misogynist way, and repeatedly uttering it as a universal truth of the core plotline. It's not a subplot, it literally is the plot. Everyone read the novel for the cool megastructure, sure, but the actual plot of the novel is "this lady's destiny is to get married to a big strong barbarian and things happen to facilitate that." I'd quote chapter and verse but it was bad enough I got rid of my copy after the book club meeting.
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Sep 3, 2021 11:36
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To be fair the sequels do go into it with much more nuance but I can’t blame you for not wanting to go there.
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Sep 3, 2021 12:00
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ToxicFrog posted:No Stanislaw Lem in your list? For shame. Shame admitted. Also must flagellate self for forgetting Ursula Le Guin.
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Sep 3, 2021 15:51
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Bargearse posted:I enjoyed it when I first read it but yeah re-reading it more critically all kinds of poo poo jumps out. It has basically one thing going for it, the cool megastructure, and that’s about it. Heinlein's writing and politics got noticeably worse after the major stroke he had in the '70s, too.
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Sep 3, 2021 16:00
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HopperUK posted:Always Coming Home is my favourite book right now. Astonishing.
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Sep 3, 2021 23:15
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Asimov, yes. Never heard anything like that about Clarke, who was a closeted gay man with a steady partner. Wikipedia says that a tabloid falsely accused him of soliciting minors in Sri Lanka; his name was cleared by the police there.
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Sep 3, 2021 23:45
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Who would you say Peter Troyer is describing in this essay?
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Sep 3, 2021 23:53
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Yeah, for years there were vague unpleasant rumours about Clarke (SF fans would say "everyone knows" without saying what it was they knew). In retrospect, some of it might have been just old-fashioned homophobia. Anyway while Clarke's partner was young when they met, they were together for decades. Theres nothing to see here.
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Sep 3, 2021 23:54
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Rascar Capac posted:Who would you say Peter Troyer is describing in this essay?
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Sep 3, 2021 23:55
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Rascar Capac posted:Who would you say Peter Troyer is describing in this essay? Holy poo poo
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Sep 4, 2021 06:01
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Well that’s disappointing. At least I’m not giving him any money when I buy his books.Tunicate posted:Heinlein's writing and politics got noticeably worse after the major stroke he had in the '70s, too. I don’t recall if The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress was pre- or post-stroke, but it was an entertaining read if you can look past the libertarian horseshit. Bargearse has a new favorite as of 06:20 on Sep 4, 2021 |
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Sep 4, 2021 06:18
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okay well that escalated quickly, i just thought the guy had some very awkward early 60s ideas of how to insert ethnic groups into a "march of progress" narrative and within a page it turns out he's a pedophile rapist. truly science fiction is a land of contrasts
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Sep 4, 2021 07:29
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nonathlon posted:Anyway back to books. I was recently asked to recommend some classic science fiction and it got difficult. Many of the classics are a little dated and have pedestrian writing (Asimov). I suspect others would re-read terribly: like the later Ringworld books by Niven (having sex with aliens for diplomacy is standard operating procedure), the many Niven-Pournelle collaborations (the awful one with a VR D&D adventure, the worse one where science fiction fans save the world), and I don't think you can read Heinlein straightfaced anymore Philip K. Dick.
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Sep 4, 2021 16:14
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I'm the kind of rear end in a top hat who'd suggest Lucian of Samosata's True History as 'classic science fiction. It's classical...
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Sep 4, 2021 20:31
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Hellequin posted:Philip K. Dick. Harlan Ellison, too. Even if the man himself was a piece of work, his stories are excellent and often very progressive.
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Sep 4, 2021 20:36
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Djeser posted:I'm the kind of rear end in a top hat who'd suggest Lucian of Samosata's True History as 'classic science fiction. It's classical... I really wanna see an animator tackle his account of a battle in space. Wanna see the people riding on insects and vultures and all the ground troops fighting on webs spun between stars by giant spiders.
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Sep 4, 2021 20:36
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Ugly In The Morning posted:Harlan Ellison, too. Even if the man himself was a piece of work, his stories are excellent and often very progressive.
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Sep 4, 2021 20:58
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The Vosgian Beast posted:I really wanna see an animator tackle his account of a battle in space. Wanna see the people riding on insects and vultures and all the ground troops fighting on webs spun between stars by giant spiders. Holy cow I never read this before. It's quite something. Lucian posted:There are a kind of men among them called Dendritans, which are begotten in this manner: they cut out the right stone out of a man's cod, and set it in their ground, from which springeth up a great tree of flesh, with branches and leaves, bearing a kind of fruit much like to an acorn, but of a cubit in length, which they gather when they are ripe, and cut men out of them: their privy members are to be set on and taken off as they have occasion: rich men have them made of ivory, poor men of wood, wherewith they perform the act of generation and accompany their spouses. Their spouses here are also men. No girls in space. Except the giant spiders I suppose.
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Sep 4, 2021 21:07
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They talk about which great philosophers and heroes are hooking up with who while they're in the land of the dead. The True History rules.
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Sep 4, 2021 23:16
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Djeser posted:I'm the kind of rear end in a top hat who'd suggest Lucian of Samosata's True History as 'classic science fiction. It's classical... You're not an rear end in a top hat for this.
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Sep 5, 2021 00:32
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Dudes carved out of acorns from giant flesh trees with modular ivory dicks? *checks deviantart* Well, here's something interesting. Very Fletcher Hanks' prose style.
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Sep 6, 2021 01:58
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Carnival of Shrews posted:Perhaps I've read too much bad smut, but it was the Sproggle Pin passage that got me laughing like a loon near the end of a tough week. "Sproggle pin" occurs nowhere on the internet...except within the pages of The Suppliant, as excerpted on this very thread. It's a phrase worthy of the great Lionel Fanthorpe. Just like 'the tiger in space'.
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Sep 6, 2021 09:11
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Hellequin posted:Philip K. Dick. I think it's really weird how Blade Runner is so poetic while Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is so plain.
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Sep 6, 2021 17:52
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Alhazred posted:I think it's really weird how Blade Runner is so poetic while Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is so plain.
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Sep 6, 2021 19:05
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