Science fiction

Deckard, Paul Atreides. But I think there is a good point here, if you look at any of those "best sci-fi books of all-time" lists, I bet the characters aren't the first thing that comes to mind (I just googled for a couple of said lists and couldn't remember the names of any characters in, say, The Man in the High Castle).

Even Frankenstien's Monster.

"I bet the characters aren't the first thing that comes to mind"

Except for Stars, Demolished Man, Fury!, etc.

Or Neuromancer, Book of the New Sun.

I don't know...even in Ringworld, as hard-science as it is, I think of Louis Wu as quickly as I think of "a terraformed ring around a star".

Even Frankenstien's Monster

Looking at the Pringle list I definitely think mostly about the characters on the books I've read (although in A Case of Conscience the character is some dinosaur thing.0

Really need to read the Ophiuchi Hotline, it's been in my to read stack for like a year now.

buffy the vampire is some classic science fiction, obvs

nevermind that the premise of the show has nothing to do with science or technology, and even a small child could tell you that it's horror... that's just fanboy nitpicking.

If the state—the American state particularly—could be said to have an imagination, he said, it lay in the plans and projects of all the middle-level technocrats and engineers and scientists not only of NASA but of the RAND Corporation and DARPA and the science institutes, whose speculations would become plans that the state might enact. And what writers, he asked, shaped their imaginations? What had they read as boys (almost all of them were men)? Why, science fiction: a kind of writing that, to a degree greater than any other, posits worlds different from our own that we believe are possible and think we might bring about.

lolz I have totally thought this very same thing for years and always kinda figured that if you really wanted to play a visionary/"change the world" function the best way to do that would be to work in the genre of science fiction

my friend Megan Prelinger is working on a book that chronicles the history of air & space industries' advertisements in science fiction pulp magazines, 1940-1970. the way the advertisements responded to and included references to major works of sci-fi as the canon developed. it's incredible the book hasn't been written yet.

Okay folks, as Ned once requested, I need good escapist novels. No fascistic dystopias or massive stress-inducing downer tomes. I have enough problems with anxiety right now to add to any of them. I'd read 'Glory Road'(either Heinlein's or Alan Dean Foster's) again, but I think I sold/gave away my copies years ago.

Also, after seeing Coraline last week, I could do with some more good urban fantasy.

Funny is preferred.

As far as urban fantasy goes, how about something like Charles De Lint - Dreams Underfoot. Not particularly funny, but I like it.

Robert Sheckley

A.E. Van Vogt

Mission of Gravity

felix gilman thunderer

huh I've never read any Sheckley, must investigate

Not even the much anthologized sluglord approved "Zirn Left Unguarded, The Jenghik Palace in Flames, Jon Westerley Dead"?

I don't think so...? I can count the number of anthologies I've read in the last ten years on one hand

anyone here fuck with any alastair reynolds? new one seems cool

yeah he's been enthused about on the ilb threads. superb combo of hard skiffy and space opera, although i get a bit bored when it's all planet based, no huge spaceships or vast distances and timescales (chasm city i'm lookin at you). also his characters are overly keen on holding very long very pointless grudges. am only two novels in to the revelation space series tho, never mind the new stuff.

haha that's why i didnt bother to read chasm city

anyway the new one - terminal world - has a cool premise, it's like these layered cities that have progressively higher technology as you move up the chain - "horsetown" then "steamtown" then "neontown" then "circuittown" etc

i mean cool if you're a nerd

It's been okay to be a nerd for a long time now.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Ry6tm2J1T4Y/SYPnc04FsiI/AAAAAAAAAiE/-LcpGnHt7Hw/s400/Victory+Movie+Review.jpg

fo' reals? someone needed to let me know.

I'd say the nerd was out of the bag since X-Files and Buffy, which coincided with the internet giving them/us a place to play.

Reynolds is a mid ranker for me. Some cool ideas and good action, but nothing to really set him apart from the herd. He's better than Neal Asher at least.

Does anyone rate Peter F. Hamilton? The guy can't write for shit and almost certainly has some fairly dodgy politics (ethnically streamed space colonies proving to be an amazing thing for the human race? Hmmm...), but no-one does outer space bombast like him. His universe-building is kind of impeccable too. I haven't read anything he's written in the last decade or so though.

Also I see there's a new Culture novel out...

I tried a +1000 page Hamilton on holiday once. Gave up when I realised there was not a shred of a consideration or understanding of solid science behind any of his flights of fancy. I mean I don't want everyone to be a phd-toting Greg Egan-alike but when it became clear that the book was about the SOULS OF THE DEAD COMING BACK AND TAKING OVER LIVING HUMAN BODIES...

Really not looking forward to the new Culture, apparently it's going to be full of unpleasant descriptions of torture. And doubtless the baddie will get an ultra-violent comeuppance at the end.

SOULS OF THE DEAD COMING BACK AND TAKING OVER LIVING HUMAN BODIES

that sounds awesome :(

ya I'm not hearing great things :(

bought it though

apparently it's going to be full of unpleasant descriptions of torture

Given how the Culture books have operated as overarching metaphor for now I can't say I'm surprised...

I liked the undead conceit of the Night's Dawn trilogy! It was something different. And I couldn't really give a fig how solid the physics is, he dazzled me with a lot of long psuedo-scientific words, and that's always good enough for me.

Pity if the new Culture turns out to be shit. Matter built up splendidly, I thought, but the final third was disgustingly lazy.

Yeah if supernatural creeps into my skiffy, that's when I get off the bus. Science fiction! The clue's in the name!

The end of Matter was rushed but I don't think I'd write off the whole final third. Was a pretty great rollercoaster ride for however long it lasted anyway.

Just finished the new Culture novel last night and.......I have to admit to skimming a lot of the backstory about the political maneuvering between different factions of aliens etc etc blah blah WHEN IS SOMETHING GOING TO HAPPEN. Kind of feel like it could have been condensed some amount without rly losing anything -- is he too famous for an editor, now?

Kind of fell flat for me.

Also it's freaking huge so good luck balancing it in one hand on the bus/train while hanging onto a support bar with the other. I think I have RSI now.

Pity if the new Culture turns out to be shit. Matter built up splendidly, I thought, but the final third was disgustingly lazy.

― A brownish area with points (chap), Friday, November 19, 2010 11:33 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

otm

Also it's freaking huge so good luck balancing it in one hand on the bus/train while hanging onto a support bar with the other. I think I have RSI now.

― I've got ten bucks. SURPRISE ME. (Laurel), Friday, November 19, 2010 11:40 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

LOL it was the first book i bought for my kindle

Oh, this is that fun Passantino thread. Good times.

I like Banks' potted histories when there are dry little fillips, like if a one-sentence summing up of how the historic character met his extremely ironic end is hidden in the lesson, and they buoy you up from one to another. But a good bit of this one just seemed like "You'll need to know this later for the plot to make sense."

i really really want to write a sci-fi novel, i hope i can find the time in my life sometime in the next couple years.

I'm so old-school pedant that I hate the term sci-fi. IT'S "SF" DAMMIT! #tiresomepeopleintheirforties

SORRY I WANT TO WRITE A SF NOVS

actually its SyFy now

aaagghhh

lol