Science Fiction
Discussion
Halmyre said:
Nimby said:
mko9 said:
...The Moon is a Harsh Mistress ..
Yes one of the best. But Heinlein also wrote some dreadful rubbish too - I nominated "Number of the Beast" in the "worst book you ever read" thread.Also, vaguely similar to Starship Troopers and I have not seen mentioned - Armor by John Steakley. His other good book is Vampires, which is completely different but uses the same main character names.
Currently just started the third of Alex Lamb's Roboteer series.
http://alexlamb.com
Pretty good really.
In many ways, the polar opposite of "Seveneves";
techy, but not too much, enough stretching of physics to make the story work, but with elements of far-future;
entertaining, without going on for hours;
characters with a bit of depth, but plenty of them
Basically little believability, but doesn't care, doesn't take it massively seriously. Think Star Trek / Star Wars type thing.
http://alexlamb.com
Pretty good really.
In many ways, the polar opposite of "Seveneves";
techy, but not too much, enough stretching of physics to make the story work, but with elements of far-future;
entertaining, without going on for hours;
characters with a bit of depth, but plenty of them
Basically little believability, but doesn't care, doesn't take it massively seriously. Think Star Trek / Star Wars type thing.
ClockworkCupcake said:
I'm really glad to hear this, because until Starship Troopers the only book by Heinlein I had read was Number of the Beast and I thought it was absolutely pants and never finished it. I got that it was making loads of shout outs to other books, and in-jokes, so I let that pass, it was just the writing style that annoyed me and put me off Heinlein.
I have a copy of Friday sat on the shelf that I have never read. Worth trying?
I read Friday a couple of years ago and enjoyed it, concluding it was a good read but not a great one and unlikely to be read again, but probably worth one go.I have a copy of Friday sat on the shelf that I have never read. Worth trying?
Edited by ClockworkCupcake on Wednesday 9th August 18:18
Edited by TheChampers on Thursday 10th August 19:56
ClockworkCupcake said:
I'm really glad to hear this, because until Starship Troopers the only book by Heinlein I had read was Number of the Beast and I thought it was absolutely pants and never finished it. I got that it was making loads of shout outs to other books, and in-jokes, so I let that pass, it was just the writing style that annoyed me and put me off Heinlein.
I have a copy of Friday sat on the shelf that I have never read. Worth trying?
The problem with Heinlein is that he writes good stories but completely ruins it by pretending Libertarianism works. Verhoeven had to change it to be more of a despotism in the film to make it somewhat realistic to audiences.I have a copy of Friday sat on the shelf that I have never read. Worth trying?
Edited by ClockworkCupcake on Wednesday 9th August 18:18
Honestly I liked The Moon is a Harsh Mistress more than Starship Troopers, but I'm not rushing out to buy another Heinlein novel.
Guvernator said:
havoc said:
Well as I like Joe Haldeman, I've just ordered S-T - avoided it for years off the back of watching the (rather mediocre) film.
HEATHEN! 
That being said, if you like military science fiction I highly recommend John Scalzi's Old Mans War series and Jamie Sawyer's Lazarus series.
Edited by captain_cynic on Saturday 12th August 07:26
captain_cynic said:
The problem with Heinlein is that he writes good stories but completely ruins it by pretending Libertarianism works. Verhoeven had to change it to be more of a despotism in the film to make it somewhat realistic to audiences.
There is absolutely nothing Libertarian about the society depicted in Starship Troopers.ClockworkCupcake said:
TheChampers said:
I read Friday a couple of years ago and enjoyed it, concluding it was a good read but not a great one and unlikely to be read again, but probably worth one go.
Cheers. I'll give it a go when I've finished Starship Troopers. 
Heinlein does seem to have the enthusiasm of a schoolboy, or an eager puppy, in his writing style. At least from the books of his that I have read so far. Almost as if he is falling over himself in his excitement to tell you what happens next. It's not without its charm, but also a little irritating in places.
I also found that in the closing chapters of Friday everything dovetailed all too conveniently with too many amazing coincidences leading to a rather happy ending. Not that I think that Miss Friday didn't deserve some happiness, but it was all rather too neat.
Still, not a bad read and kept me reading well into the early hours of Saturday morning which is something I haven't done in a while so it must have done something right.
Edit: Wikipedia says:
Jo Walton wrote of Friday in 2009 as “The worst book I love”: “It’s a book about passing, about what makes you human. […] What’s good about it now? The whole “passing” bit. The cloning, the attitudes to cloning, the worry about jobs. The economy. It has an interesting future world […] and as always with Heinlein it’s immersive. […] And it’s a fun read, even if it’s ultimately unsatisfying. What’s wrong with it is that it doesn’t have a plot. […] Heinlein’s ability to write a sentence that makes you want to read the next sentence remains unparalleled. But the book as a whole is almost like Dhalgren. Every sentence and every paragraph and page and chapter lead on to the next, but it’s just one thing after another, there’s no real connection going on. It has no plot, it’s a set of incidents that look as if they’re going somewhere and don’t ever resolve, just stop. […] It sets things up that it never invokes, most notably Olympia and the connections back to the novella 'Gulf.'”
I'd agree with that. It was very good at keeping me reading, but ultimately fairly unfulfilling.
Edited by ClockworkCupcake on Monday 21st August 12:49
Brian Aldiss died the other day. I read his Helliconia trilogy many many years ago and think he was a very much underrated writer.
Good interview here.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/bria...
Good interview here.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/bria...
havoc said:
Helliconia trilogy was very clever but also quite difficult to keep going at times...you needed to have patience with the book. I'd put Aldiss as a precursor to Peter F Hamilton and Alastair Reynolds (albeit PFH is easier to read, even if he is too verbose).
I'll give you that. I was younger with more time on my hands back then, now if it's more than 140 characters long I struggle to concentrate. So, after "Friday" I read "Stranger in a Strange Land".
I think I'm beginning to grok Heinlein now, so there was the usual checklist of things to tick off. Polyamory being the most obvious.
Once I'd finished that, the Kindle app suggested that I might like Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I read the sample chapter and then bought it for a very reasonable £1.89
It's an uplift novel (like the David Brin series) and deals with terraforming, AI, alien culture clash, planet colonisation, and somewhat like SevenEves takes place over a very long time.
So far I'm really enjoying it.
I think I'm beginning to grok Heinlein now, so there was the usual checklist of things to tick off. Polyamory being the most obvious.
Once I'd finished that, the Kindle app suggested that I might like Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I read the sample chapter and then bought it for a very reasonable £1.89
It's an uplift novel (like the David Brin series) and deals with terraforming, AI, alien culture clash, planet colonisation, and somewhat like SevenEves takes place over a very long time.
So far I'm really enjoying it.
Edited by ClockworkCupcake on Tuesday 19th September 13:35
I wasn't sure whether to post this in "worst books ever read" or here. As its a trilogy and not quite as repugnant as a Dan Brown series, I decided to put it here.
Recently I have been mostly reading Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson's Machine Crusade Trilogy (Butlerian Jihad, Battle of Corrin etc.). I picked up the first in the series years ago and began reading it before leaving it on a plane in Brussels. It had niggled at me to finish it (despite reservations) for ages. Recently I had the opportunity to pick them up for nothing and frankly they were still overpriced.
On the positive side; they are reasonably entertaining from a fast moving - action oriented point of view, compelling enough to make me finish them. Of course you know the inevitable outcome from reading the Dune masterpieces but there is enough uncertainty to keep you reading.
On the negative side; woeful characterization, paper thin and cliche'd descriptions, utterly unfeasible situations (let's just say, space is a big place and the chances of coincidental meetings during travel is vanishingly small). In a few places the books came perilously close to defenestration with their clumsiness and stupidity. I think my favourite stupidity of the series are the "Ivory Tower Cogitors" (yes that really is what the authors called them, I have a feeling that was a working title that they forgot to change), these entities are disembodied brains living in a glass canisters and I could never shake off the images of the talking heads in Futurama or Steve Martins "The Man with Two Brains". These brains spend all their time "thinking" about highly esoteric stuff (apparently) but appear to be stupendously dense. Just terrible! Another ludicrous character is the robot Erasmus who spends a thousand years "experimenting" (read torturing) on his human slaves to try to find out what motivates mankind but does not appear to have read any science paper on psychology or indeed seem to even understand the scientific method.
Suffice to say, don't go there unless you really need a fix of Dune, and even then, reconsider your position.
Recently I have been mostly reading Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson's Machine Crusade Trilogy (Butlerian Jihad, Battle of Corrin etc.). I picked up the first in the series years ago and began reading it before leaving it on a plane in Brussels. It had niggled at me to finish it (despite reservations) for ages. Recently I had the opportunity to pick them up for nothing and frankly they were still overpriced.
On the positive side; they are reasonably entertaining from a fast moving - action oriented point of view, compelling enough to make me finish them. Of course you know the inevitable outcome from reading the Dune masterpieces but there is enough uncertainty to keep you reading.
On the negative side; woeful characterization, paper thin and cliche'd descriptions, utterly unfeasible situations (let's just say, space is a big place and the chances of coincidental meetings during travel is vanishingly small). In a few places the books came perilously close to defenestration with their clumsiness and stupidity. I think my favourite stupidity of the series are the "Ivory Tower Cogitors" (yes that really is what the authors called them, I have a feeling that was a working title that they forgot to change), these entities are disembodied brains living in a glass canisters and I could never shake off the images of the talking heads in Futurama or Steve Martins "The Man with Two Brains". These brains spend all their time "thinking" about highly esoteric stuff (apparently) but appear to be stupendously dense. Just terrible! Another ludicrous character is the robot Erasmus who spends a thousand years "experimenting" (read torturing) on his human slaves to try to find out what motivates mankind but does not appear to have read any science paper on psychology or indeed seem to even understand the scientific method.
Suffice to say, don't go there unless you really need a fix of Dune, and even then, reconsider your position.
ClockworkCupcake said:
So, after "Friday" I read "Stranger in a Strange Land".
I think I'm beginning to grok Heinlein now, so there was the usual checklist of things to tick off. Polyamory being the most obvious.
The only Sci-Fi novel ever to spark the creation of a new religion. I think I'm beginning to grok Heinlein now, so there was the usual checklist of things to tick off. Polyamory being the most obvious.
Edited by ClockworkCupcake on Tuesday 19th September 13:35
plasticpig said:
The only Sci-Fi novel ever to spark the creation of a new religion.
I thought Scientology was also sparked off by a novel or am I getting my hokey religions crossed?Guvernator said:
plasticpig said:
The only Sci-Fi novel ever to spark the creation of a new religion.
I thought Scientology was also sparked off by a novel or am I getting my hokey religions crossed?XM5ER said:
Suffice to say, don't go there unless you really need a fix of Dune, and even then, reconsider your position.
Tried a book Then the final ones that are supposed to be after Chapter House, aparantly scribbled up from notes left by frank Herbert?Bad. Very bad, I wanted to see where it went, persevered but by god it was hard going. They just do not have it in them to follow Frank Herbert in his style and vision. No more from them ever.
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