Yessss! Some science fiction --64K being the most recent example I’ve read–is narratively complex and intentionally dense, worth reading with your full attention.
Becky Chambers is not. She’s breezy and fun and awesome, and I would hire the hell out of her to write the next Star Trek movie.
I read To Say Nothing of the Dog awhile back, and it just seemed to me like a meander with no clear point to it. I enjoy humor in SF (e.g. the Hitchhiker series) and fantasy (e.g. Another Fine Myth and its sequels), but I clearly missed the joke. Just seemed that one thing would happen, then another, then another, with only loose connections along the way. I’ve been to parties like that, but not too many books.
Just out of curiosity, what was the turn off with Stranger in A Strange Land?
In any case find a copy of Time Enough for Love and at least read the story The Tale of the Adopted Daughter. This is possibly the best science fiction (and Western) story I have ever read. The semi biographic The Man Who Was Too Lazy to Fail is another one from the same volume
If you like"hard"science fiction try James P Hogan.
Good luck with your resding
David Gerrold put a great deal of thought into The War Against The Chtorr, both concerning the invasion and the nifty near-future world in which it takes place.
National Lampoon’s Doon, of course. After ~500 pages of Terrible Purpose, it’s time for you to relax and kick back, and enjoy a book that pokes fun at the whole thing.
It’s pretty good. Not as brilliant a satire as Bored of the Rings was of Tolkien’s classic, but it’s enjoyable enough that I’ve re-read it several times - more times than I’ve read Dune itself.
I initially preferred ‘Bored of the Rings’, but I think ‘Doon’ has more “legs”. It lasts better, especially with re-reads.
Now that I’ve said that, “Bring us more kittens. Then have sent to my chambers two young boys, a pumpkin and a schnauzer. After this meeting, I shall wish to be depraved."
I have to disagree. “Doon” has its moments, but they’re too few and far between. Bored of the Rings is like a Zucker-Zucker-Abrahams movie, constantly throwing jokes and od references at you. And too much of “Doon” is just straining too much to make its comedic point.
That said, I’m sorry it’s so hard to get hold of. I think the book only had one printing. Bored of the Rings, though, was incredibly well-distributed with its first edition, and has been reprinted multiple times since.
Yes! With the Mon T’Vani, a bland tasteless dessert, riding giant pretzels, rank out contests! Awesome.
Spies within spies within spies. And those spies spied on by other spies!
I haven’t seen a rec here for one of my favorite short story specialists, James Tiptree, Jr. Most of her works are out of print, but a good used bookstore (or an Internet) should have them.
I would also highly recommend Pamela Sargent’s anthology Women of Wonder: The Classic Years. Some damn good SF there, all of it published by women authors between 1940 & 1970.
Tiptree wrote some great short stories, but I wouldn’t recommend her long fiction. The only novel I read by her was just icky.
Just as a minor update, I finished (and enjoyed) Ancillary Justice, and am now about 16% (Kindle estimate) into The Forever Wars.
I hope other folks are getting as much out of these recommendations as I am. At this rate, I should never be lacking for something to read.
Excellent! It’s the first in a trilogy, of course; the others are pretty good, too, although I think the second may be a little weaker than the others.
I’m currently reading the sequel to Ninefox Gambit, which was nominated for a Hugo. It’s space opera, but whether it’s hard sf or not is really gonna depend on how you feel about truly bizarre science. The first page introduces a weapon that causes all doorways in a region to radiate lethal energy, and if I understood it correctly, the eye sockets of its victims corpses quickly turned into radiating doorways themselves. The book explains it all via an entirely different scientific paradigm; it’s weird and horrifying and wonderful, and reminded me a bit of Ancillary Justice.
I enjoyed the next two Ancillary tales too. But I don’t think anyone has mentioned Steve Brust, one of my all-time favorites. His Vlad tales (of which there are around 15) and the Khaavren romances. Highly recommended.
It may not be sci-fi, but I recommend just about anything by Terry Pratchett. And Roger Zelazny’s tales of Amber and most other Zelazny too. I also recommend Jack Vance’s Demon Prince series. Cordwainer Smith beats to a different drummer. Maybe Scanner’s Live in Vain was not well developed but he got much better fast.
Minor updates on the off chance that anyone cares:
[ul]
[li]I thought that The Forever War was well-written, but I didn’t find that I enjoyed it at all. In an abundance of caution, I’ll include spoilers, though what I say here would barely qualify.[/li]
The description of future earth was quite captivating, but I found myself really wanting to get through every other part of the book. I was mostly interested in seeing what each new stage of the future would look like, but I wasn’t very engaged in the military battles or the main character.
The version I was reading on the Kindle also included the first several pages (first chapter, perhaps?) of the sequel, and I had ZERO interest.
[li]I just finished The Left Hand of Darkness a couple of days ago. Gave it five stars. I was engrossed in it from start to finish. I essentially loved everything about it, and got annoyed when I had to put it down. Very glad to have that one under my belt, now.[/li][li]In the interest of reading the recommended Startide Rising, I’ve been struggling my way through Sundiver (I know that folks said the individual books work fine as standalones, but I know I’d be unable to shake the feeling that I’d missed something if I didn’t start at the beginning). Hard to put my finger on it, but it feels a bit like a light adventure story that just happens to be set in space with a bunch of aliens, and it wasn’t really holding my attention. I was having so much of a slog that I put it down for a few days to read The Left Hand of Darkness. Now that I’ve turned my attention back to Sundiver, the pace seems to have picked up a bit, and I think I’m now 56% of the way through. Still not in love with it, but at least more interested in it than I was through the first 40%.[/li][/ul]
So that’s it for now. I’m likely to move to A Deepness in the Sky next, but I see that that’s also Book 2 in a series, so we know what that means…
Going through the Dune anthology is like seeing one’s meal turn from prime rib roast to white meat.
Le Guin really was the best.
Partly inspired by this thread, I tried to read Startide Rising, but after about 100 pages, I put it aside, and I may or may not pick it up again at some point. The writing didn’t really engage me, but I don’t know whether that’s Brin’s fault or mine.
I found the jump from Sundiver to Startide Rising quite big - the former reads like some anthologised Golden Age pulpy adventure, the latter much more modern, even if there’s only 3 years difference between them.
Sundiver is relevant to the series mostly in that it introduces the setting, but there’s not all that much to explain about it, and the other books do as well. The actual events don’t become relevant until the very end of the series.