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freebooter
Jul 7, 2009

Yeah, I meant "surely he's joking/arguing" in the sense that aside from whatever their merits may be, the 60s/70s aren't "recent."

MockingQuantum posted:

It's possible I would have liked them more if I had read them as a teenager, honestly. I think if I had less reading experience in the genre to compare them to, I'd have looked at them a little more favorably. But honestly reading Foundation felt a bit like reading tweets or thinkpieces from the sort of techbro who insists loudly that Elon Musk and bitcoin will save the world. I know that's not a fair comparison to make but it's just a feeling I had at times, like they read as being sort of unrealistically pro-Rational Genius Hero and are overly idealistic in a way that feels more naive than anything. I agree a lot with what Take the Plunge said, that once you strip away the bad writing all you're left with are pretty outdated (and oddly backwards, in 2021) ideas.

I think that's a perfectly apt comaprison. I've read Foundation and another Asimov book I forget and they were both dire - really, truly, loving bad on almost every conceivable level, whether it's plot or character or dialogue or prose style.

Clarke is better - still stiff and wooden, still doesn't really grasp how actual people talk to each other, but I read stuff like Childhood's End and Rendezvous with Rama as a teenager and thought they were okay.

Heinlein is both the worst offender in terms of being a pompous old sexist who writes straw men for his Mary Sues to lecture, but also the actual best "writer" in a sort of Stephen Kingian sense - not about to win the Pulitzer but has a knack for storytelling. That applies to his juveniles, anyway; his only adult books I've read are long, tedious, self-indulgent crap.

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Yngwie Mangosteen
Aug 23, 2007
Heinlein is trash and I've never been able to get into a single one of his novels except Starship Troopers, even as a dumb teenager, and only then because I liked the movie.

I have no idea why or how he's popular, and I hated Stranger in a Strange Land so much that I put it down halfway through his Psychiatrist Mary Sue (with 3 girlfriends) first lecture and never picked it up again.

I've read plenty of Asimov and Clarke, though.

Mr. Nemo
Feb 4, 2016

I wish I had a sister like my big strong Daddy :(
I'm 28 and I have to disagree about Asimov and Clarke feeling dated or whatever. Their work is as amazing today as it was back in the day. It's not like sci fi writers today are throwing amazing character studies our way.

Foundation, Childhood's end, Asimov's short stories are still extremely solid and should be read by anyone with a passing interest in the genre.

HopperUK
Apr 29, 2007

Why would an ambulance be leaving the hospital?

Mr. Nemo posted:

I'm 28 and I have to disagree about Asimov and Clarke feeling dated or whatever. Their work is as amazing today as it was back in the day. It's not like sci fi writers today are throwing amazing character studies our way.

Foundation, Childhood's end, Asimov's short stories are still extremely solid and should be read by anyone with a passing interest in the genre.

Counterpoint: Asimov's misogyny comes through loud and clear whenever he attempts to include a woman in his writing.

Silver2195
Apr 4, 2012

HopperUK posted:

Counterpoint: Asimov's misogyny comes through loud and clear whenever he attempts to include a woman in his writing.

Even in I, Robot?

Pennsylvanian
May 23, 2010

Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky Independent Presidential Regiment
Western Liberal Democracy or Death!

Coquito Ergo Sum posted:

Yeah, this always bugged me a little. A character will be stranded with their horse, but for some reason the character would rather starve than eat whatever the horse is eating that makes it somehow survive the journey. I really like how in Between Two Fires, it mentions that the characters are willing to just eat weeds and grass in an effort to stay alive between more substantial meals.

One of the other things that always bugged me is when industry and labor tend to be absent from a world. I love Brandon Sanderson, but it seems like he'll spend ten chapters on his magic system but surprises himself when it comes to things like basic economy and just decides that houses are built with magic. I think the same goes for a lot of Fantasy writers that never really held a labor job irl or have never read any kind of deep-dive history/culture books. In lots of fantasy, all blacksmiths are specially trained to make single Great Blades, even in wartime. You rarely see these blacksmiths worked half to death from making horseshoes, tools, studs, nails, basic equipment, etc. For whatever it does well or poorly (I'm new and I'm kind of trying to tune into SA's frequency on GRRM's works), Ice and Fire is the only fantasy work I've ever really read (so far) that has addressed really well what the life for the average Joe Lunchpail is like and how it relates back the world and the main characters.

Really want to read The Tough Guide to Fantasy Land, now.

Finish your book. You do all of these things so well. I smelled your battle scenes while reading them.

Ccs
Feb 25, 2011


Pennsylvanian posted:

Finish your book. You do all of these things so well. I smelled your battle scenes while reading them.

Hey yeah I wanna read that book. If you’re looking for beta readers for a latest draft hit me up.

Coquito Ergo Sum
Feb 9, 2021

Pennsylvanian posted:

Finish your book. You do all of these things so well. I smelled your battle scenes while reading them.

Don't blame my Google Doc for your gross bedroom, dork.

Right now the whole book looks like a Star Destroyer lego set, an erector set, and a disassembled AR had a three-way and collapsed on the floor. I'm aiming for the end of August with my next draft.

Darkrenown
Jul 18, 2012
please give me anything to talk about besides the fact that democrats are allowing millions of americans to be evicted from their homes

Silver2195 posted:

I, a Millennial, read the Foundation trilogy as a teenager and liked them, for whatever that's worth.

I enjoyed them as a teen, which was shortly before mobile phones became common. I tried to reread them more recently (but still a while ago) and the weirdness of a future without phones was really disconcerting. There's a bit where someone gets stuck outside Trantor and they have no way to contact anyone, nor does anyone find it strange they are out of contact and go looking for them.

fez_machine
Nov 27, 2004

Silver2195 posted:

The early posts on the blog were mostly New Wave-y stuff, not Asimov or Heinlein. The first three entries from 2017 were works by Roger Zelazny, Ursula LeGuin, and Joanna Russ, for example. Which I guess means that Nicholl was ignoring Adam-Troy Castro's actual point to some extent.


Mr. Nemo posted:

I'm 28 and I have to disagree about Asimov and Clarke feeling dated or whatever. Their work is as amazing today as it was back in the day. It's not like sci fi writers today are throwing amazing character studies our way.

Foundation, Childhood's end, Asimov's short stories are still extremely solid and should be read by anyone with a passing interest in the genre.


Silver2195 posted:

I, a Millennial, read the Foundation trilogy as a teenager and liked them, for whatever that's worth.

Yeah, it seems like the project avoided all the typical Sci-Fi onboarding stories of Asimov, Clarke, Bradbury and Heinlein for stories by far more obscure authors. "Kids don't love these stories which have no reputation for kids loving them".

Asimov and Bradbury especially were my entry point into science fiction as a teenager.

It's like when die-hard comics people say that Alan Moore, his 80s work, and especially Watchmen have passed their use-by date for making new people love comics when all the evidence points to the exact opposite.

DACK FAYDEN
Feb 25, 2013

Bear Witness

MockingQuantum posted:

I just think that Clarke, Asimov, and Heinlein all have reputations that badly outpace the actual quality of their books, when viewed through a modern lens. Heinlein especially
you left one out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0rgZf35KxU

MockingQuantum
Jan 20, 2012




I'm aware of his work.

(Unless you meant Bester, in which case I will say I loving love The Stars My Destination)

High Warlord Zog
Dec 12, 2012

MockingQuantum posted:

Childhood's End was the one that bothered me the least, out of it, Rama, and the Foundation books. It felt silly as hell at times, but in a way that was entertaining. It just felt pretty dated and quaint in a way that didn't really inhibit my enjoyment of it, but would probably stop me from recommending it to someone who wasn't actively looking for a sort of "period piece" of 60s sci-fi.

Childhood's End still works really well because the conceit (a SFnal version of Revelations) is fantastic and largely hasn't been pillaged and reworked endlessly by other authors

packetmantis
Feb 26, 2013
That is a nonsensical reading of the story and also it's Revelation.

quantumfoam
Dec 25, 2003

Lots of interesting things happened in SFL Archives Vol 20b.

Stuff like Allen Steele writing his short story HUNTING WABBIT in response to mean SFF criticism, and how to annoy Allen Steele at SFF conventions. The fact that I ASIMOV revealed how Isaac Asimov & Robert Heinlein personally loathed each other, but kept it professional at SFF events. Fredric Brown allegedly writing most of his stories on a Linotype machine versus a typewriter. Why Russian SFF in the 1990s was mostly reprints of samizdat era SFF stories. Mil-scifi author David Feintuch writing what he knew and making his main character absolutely miserable and insane because Feintuch was also absolutely miserable and insane during the period he originally wrote his SEAFORT SAGA stories. Gene Wolfe's FREE LIVE FREE having a utterly unpredictable and WTF ending. The Godzilla vs Gamera throwdown cage-match at the Osaka 1971 Expo. Iain Banks explaining that CONSIDER PHLEBAS is "...in a sense, the whole book is just a yarn about a shipwrecked sailor who falls in with a gang of pirates and goes in search of buried treasure, so the quote-cum-title seemed to fit, and the idea was to hint at a tragic stature to Horza and at a kind of futility."


And oh yeah, Daniel Keys Moran popped up a few times in Vol 20b too.
As of September 1995, DKM claimed his latest novel, PLAYERS: THE AI WARS has 30 edit notes left and expects it to be published in 1996.

(2021 note: It took until 2011 for THE AI WARS part 1 to be self-published by DKM.)

Then later on when asked why EMERALD EYES, THE LONG RUN, and THE LAST DANCER haven't been reprinted by Bantam Spectra like he said they would be, DKM moved his bullshit excuse goalposts again to now claim that Bantam Spectra is waiting until they have PLAYERS: THE AI WARS manuscript in-hand before doing reprints, and that his literary agent is waiting to hear back from Bantam Spectra.

(2021 note: Half expecting it to turn out that DKM's wife was also his literary agent in addition to her previous jobs as a Bantam Spectra talent scout/Bantam Spectra contract negotiator/Bantam Spectra book editor.)

quantumfoam fucked around with this message at 07:43 on May 11, 2021

DACK FAYDEN
Feb 25, 2013

Bear Witness

MockingQuantum posted:

I'm aware of his work.

(Unless you meant Bester, in which case I will say I loving love The Stars My Destination)
no, Bester's great even if parts of his stuff hasn't aged well at all, it's Bradbury I have an axe to grind with (dude is overrated as gently caress)

packetmantis posted:

That is a nonsensical reading of the story and also it's Revelation.
thank you for this, every time I see someone says Revelations I get almost as annoyed as when I see people mess up discrete/discreet, it's like my #2 pet peeve

unattended spaghetti
May 10, 2013

DACK FAYDEN posted:

no, Bester's great even if parts of his stuff hasn't aged well at all, it's Bradbury I have an axe to grind with (dude is overrated as gently caress)

What's so wrong with him? I'm definitely not as familiar with his stuff as I could be but my vague half remembered impressions positioned him as having held up pretty okay.

Yarrington
Jun 13, 2002

While I will admit to a certain cynicism, I am a nay-sayer and hatchet man in the fight against violence. I pride myself in taking a punch and I'll gladly take another.

pradmer posted:

Nevernight by Jay Kristoff - $1.99
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017RC8CEE/

I just blew through this series and its trash but mostly enjoyable trash TOTALLY NOT YA (its YA with sex and blood) . Its pretty explicitly 'what if Arya Starks plot was the whole book, and what if she did get to murder every single person on her list, and also vengeance rules'. There's some unbelievably awkward 'man writing lesbian sex scenes' as the main character is bi and I literally guffawed when the main characters female friend refers to the size of her baps. Yes, in this grim dark fantasy world that is a recurring term.

quantumfoam
Dec 25, 2003

BurningBeard posted:

What's so wrong with him? I'm definitely not as familiar with his stuff as I could be but my vague half remembered impressions positioned him as having held up pretty okay.

Bester's novels after Demolished Man & Tiger Tiger aka The Stars My Destination was extremely terrible/racist even by the standards of when they got published.

unattended spaghetti
May 10, 2013
Oh my bad I meant Bradbury.

DACK FAYDEN
Feb 25, 2013

Bear Witness

BurningBeard posted:

Oh my bad I meant Bradbury.
Bradbury's not actively awful in his writing (although I believe he went hard on the anti-Islam at some point, or at least I have a vague recollection of that) but his writing is mostly... I don't really know the right way to put it. Aggressively folksy? It's like, small town Americana, and I understand why that gets canonized in a genre mostly defined by white men before the modern era but it's not actually good.

mdemone
Mar 14, 2001

DACK FAYDEN posted:

Bradbury's not actively awful in his writing (although I believe he went hard on the anti-Islam at some point, or at least I have a vague recollection of that) but his writing is mostly... I don't really know the right way to put it. Aggressively folksy? It's like, small town Americana, and I understand why that gets canonized in a genre mostly defined by white men before the modern era but it's not actually good.

I think it's really good for younger readers. I have very fond memories of Bradbury, at least -- and I haven't really been able to enjoy him as an adult. Hmmm.

uber_stoat
Jan 21, 2001



Pillbug
i met Bradbury once as a child at a talk he gave and he signed my copy of Dandelion Wine. of course, being a feckless child i ended up misplacing the book pretty quick.

unattended spaghetti
May 10, 2013

DACK FAYDEN posted:

Bradbury's not actively awful in his writing (although I believe he went hard on the anti-Islam at some point, or at least I have a vague recollection of that) but his writing is mostly... I don't really know the right way to put it. Aggressively folksy? It's like, small town Americana, and I understand why that gets canonized in a genre mostly defined by white men before the modern era but it's not actually good.

Oh I get it. That style doesn't really bother me so much but I understand why it could put someone off. I'm just super used to finding out that authors are trash for one reason or another and I never remembered him getting nailed for anything egregious.

DurianGray
Dec 23, 2010

King of Fruits
I recently picked up an old used copy of The Illustrated Man because I have fond memories of passing a copy around between my group of friends in early college (I managed to get the same edition as the one we read). I don't remember there being anything really awful in it off hand, but 'folksy' definitely jives with my impression from reading it 12+ years ago.

I'm also about 3/4s through I, Robot (have been for a while, I need to just finish it already) and was honestly expecting the sexism to be much worse from what I've heard about Asimov. Granted, it's still pretty bad! But it's more patronizing type sexism than anything. It's also a good thing that it's all short stories, because I really don't think I could sustain my interest in that writing style if it were something longer.

wizzardstaff
Apr 6, 2018

Zorch! Splat! Pow!

DACK FAYDEN posted:

Bradbury's not actively awful in his writing (although I believe he went hard on the anti-Islam at some point, or at least I have a vague recollection of that) but his writing is mostly... I don't really know the right way to put it. Aggressively folksy? It's like, small town Americana, and I understand why that gets canonized in a genre mostly defined by white men before the modern era but it's not actually good.

Bradbury is great to read if you want a story about a sandy-haired man in rural Indiana tinkering on a rocket in his back yard while the breeze carries the scent of fresh-cut grass and lemonade, musing about his lost love and the natural state of Man.

MockingQuantum
Jan 20, 2012



quantumfoam posted:

Bester's novels after Demolished Man & Tiger Tiger aka The Stars My Destination was extremely terrible/racist even by the standards of when they got published.

Huh I don't remember that at all, but I read The Stars My Destination years ago, so I'm inclined to believe you. Plus it's just safer to assume that the beloved books of my youth are, in fact, terrible and cringe-worthy. That way I'm pleasantly surprised when it's not the case.

wizzardstaff posted:

Bradbury is great to read if you want a story about a sandy-haired man in rural Indiana tinkering on a rocket in his back yard while the breeze carries the scent of fresh-cut grass and lemonade, musing about his lost love and the natural state of Man.

This is... distressingly accurate. I remember liking his short stories a lot as a kid, but there's a lot I can't get through today. I'll still go to bat for Fahrenheit 451, and I'd argue that the small-town folksiness of his writing is what really makes Something Wicked This Way Comes work, but it's hard for me to recommend much else to people who don't already know they like Bradbury. I barely remember The Martian Chronicles other than the fact that it bored me pretty much throughout.

edit: oh and I still love October Country and From the Dust Returned, but mostly because they're so very weird. I don't think I could recommend them to someone on the basis of quality, especially the latter, though.

MockingQuantum fucked around with this message at 20:10 on May 11, 2021

Runcible Cat
May 28, 2007

Ignoring this post

quantumfoam posted:

Bester's novels after Demolished Man & Tiger Tiger aka The Stars My Destination was extremely terrible/racist even by the standards of when they got published.

He wrote some awesome short stories too, but yeah, it's definitely best to believe he only ever wrote 2 novels.

MockingQuantum
Jan 20, 2012



Gats Akimbo posted:

He wrote some awesome short stories too, but yeah, it's definitely best to believe he only ever wrote 2 novels.

oh I see, his novels after those two are terrible, I misunderstood. I was really scratching my head to remember what in TSMD would have been very objectionable.

Runcible Cat
May 28, 2007

Ignoring this post

MockingQuantum posted:

oh I see, his novels after those two are terrible, I misunderstood. I was really scratching my head to remember what in TSMD would have been very objectionable.

The rape scene's pretty awful, but I excuse him that for the awesomeness of the rest.

Paddyo
Aug 3, 2007
Has anybody else read Andy Weir's new book, "Project Hail Mary" yet? I'm interested to see what other people thought.

AARD VARKMAN
May 17, 1993

Paddyo posted:

Has anybody else read Andy Weir's new book, "Project Hail Mary" yet? I'm interested to see what other people thought.

I'm like 2 chapters in but I'll let you know :haibrower:

so far seems fun even if it's basically just The Martian again

DACK FAYDEN
Feb 25, 2013

Bear Witness

Gats Akimbo posted:

The rape scene's pretty awful, but I excuse him that for the awesomeness of the rest.
The rape scene is indeed pretty awful. Real blot on that otherwise great book.

Rand Brittain
Mar 25, 2013

"Go on until you're stopped."
I mostly recall Bradbury just completely losing his mind over the concept of e-books.

Tars Tarkas
Apr 13, 2003

Rock the Mok



A nasty woman, I think you should try is, Jess.


DurianGray posted:

I'm also about 3/4s through I, Robot (have been for a while, I need to just finish it already) and was honestly expecting the sexism to be much worse from what I've heard about Asimov. Granted, it's still pretty bad! But it's more patronizing type sexism than anything. It's also a good thing that it's all short stories, because I really don't think I could sustain my interest in that writing style if it were something longer.

My high school had a Science Fiction class and I, Robot was one of the books. We also had to memorize the three laws of robotics and write them exactly on quizes, to the point where every weekly quiz/test had that as a question and it was free points once you remembered where all the commas went. We also read Caves of Steel, so it was pretty Asimov heavy. (other books were Slan, A Princess of Mars, Rendezvous with Rama, some short stories I don't remember beyond that Jack London story where they germ warfare china, and probably more books but I can't remember any others)

Ccs
Feb 25, 2011


Tars Tarkas posted:

My high school had a Science Fiction class and I, Robot was one of the books. We also had to memorize the three laws of robotics and write them exactly on quizes, to the point where every weekly quiz/test had that as a question and it was free points once you remembered where all the commas went. We also read Caves of Steel, so it was pretty Asimov heavy. (other books were Slan, A Princess of Mars, Rendezvous with Rama, some short stories I don't remember beyond that Jack London story where they germ warfare china, and probably more books but I can't remember any others)

That sounds a lot like a class I got to take in sophmore year of highschool. The first semester was "Great Books" (stuff like The Prince, Dante's Infenro, some other stuff I've forgotten) and half "Contemporary Literature" with Pattern Recognition by Gibson, Watchmen, and more stuff I can't remember. We kind of skipped by all the 1950-1970 sci-fi stuff though cause it wasn't contemporary enough. Really fun class, it was elective so people were actually excited to be there and discuss books. Right after that class I had my normal sophomore english class where the teacher couldn't get a bunch of STEM kids to give a poo poo about All Quiet on the Western Front or Catch-22.

xiw
Sep 25, 2011

i wake up at night
night action madness nightmares
maybe i am scum

Cpig Haiku contest 2020 winner

Gats Akimbo posted:

He wrote some awesome short stories too, but yeah, it's definitely best to believe he only ever wrote 2 novels.

Yeah Dark Side of the Earth is one of my fave collections - it's just manic creativity.

rmdx
Sep 22, 2013

Bujold is a machine. The newest Penric & Desdemona book is out, titled The Assassins of Thasalon and at 244pp it's double the length of the previous ones. :3:

unattended spaghetti
May 10, 2013
Are those novellas cool to read if you’ve not finished Paladin of Souls and Hallowed Hunt?

I fell off Paladin for some weird reason. Was really digging it but at this point I’d have to start over.

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mdemone
Mar 14, 2001

Ccs posted:

That sounds a lot like a class I got to take in sophmore year of highschool. The first semester was "Great Books" (stuff like The Prince, Dante's Infenro, some other stuff I've forgotten) and half "Contemporary Literature" with Pattern Recognition by Gibson, Watchmen, and more stuff I can't remember. We kind of skipped by all the 1950-1970 sci-fi stuff though cause it wasn't contemporary enough. Really fun class, it was elective so people were actually excited to be there and discuss books. Right after that class I had my normal sophomore english class where the teacher couldn't get a bunch of STEM kids to give a poo poo about All Quiet on the Western Front or Catch-22.

Hell, that's better than 99% of the English classes I've ever seen in HS curricula.

Also if anyone doesn't like Catch-22, that's on them.

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