h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I haven't read that. I sort of lost interest in him after the third Dune book. Sort of went downhill after the first one.

The second one is okay on its own terms but doesn't really add much. The quality drop-off from thereon in is a bit vertiginous.

The second one is okay on its own terms but doesn't really add much. The quality drop-off from thereon in is a bit vertiginous.

Has anyone tried Mary Doria Russell?

She has written two books so far, 'The Sparrow' and its sequal, 'Children of God'.

I've read the first one and it's excellent and I'm now just waiting till I can get round to tracking down the sequel.

Just a quick note to say about A E van Vogt, who has been mentioned here in this forum passed on, 26 Jan 2000 in case people hadn't heard.

Seen on http://www.mmedia.is/vanvogt/ (refered to from slashdot)

Phil

Thank you for that information. I will most definitely drink to his memory...

TM.

wyndham is imho one of the best - his tight writing not only means you don't have to wade through pages of pulp put in to please publishers and marketing depts, but gives the whole story a sense of tension you can feel in your shoulder muscles. i find it interesting to look at the female characters he portrays, and how they differ in different books - often the "wife" character is the smart one pointing out the obvious next step to the narrator, but sometimes the women are little more than bimbos. methinks he had some issues, and if he wasn't dead i'd love to ask him about his relationship with his mother

his short stories were great to, particularly in the book Consider Her Way and Others.

btw The Moon is a Harsh Mistress has to be one of my all time favs and on the subject of Peter Hamilton, I've only read his book of short stories (plus novella )Second Chance at Eden and was most impressed - although it is hard scifi his writing makes it a pleasure to read.

as someone who works in a bookstore it is often hard to know where to put stuff, especially the dodgy tv tie-ins. i despair whenever i find a scifi book in the mainstream section, unless it's borderline (eg Clive barker, who swings both ways) and i nearly tear my hair out when i find that some idiot has put crappy romance novels in my nice scifi-fantasy section. unfortunately working for a big chain means my hands are tied in a lot of cases, so, on behalf of the rest of the scifi-fantasy readers working in bookstores, i apologize for bad shelving

span

The need for easy categorisation (which sf definitely defies; ever found two definitions of it that jibe?) and marketing to dull minds is part of the reason for the mixing of fantasy and sf. (Star Wars and its ilk simply fall into the "idiotic" category; fun and empty).

I'm always astounded - although I probably shouldn't be by now - the number of rational, intelligent people I find arguing for utter crap-sf because they don't want to work their minds a bit. Television is notorious for producing wretched sf and demanding audiences go along with it....which too many of them do.

Probably the most telling illustration of this idea is the fact that we now live in an era that was sf about fifty years ago (if not sooner), and look at how many people are having trouble with computers (okay, most computer stuff is presented about as well as legal-proceedings); I know a number of people that don't want to think when they're being entertained, and that rules out 90% of good sf.....and that's where television sf comes in to fill the void: Even the better sf televison shows still have to hit that mass-market for revenue, and thus explain EVERYTHING as they go....even RED DWARF does this and it's not necessary. (Mind you, expecting an audience to pay attention, follow a story and see answers come in CONTEXT is asking a bit much after 40 years of conditioning from dull programming...end of rant.)

Continuing the parallel: those that have agile minds and read sf are as confusing to the majority as those that understand/work with computers are to the majority....and the reaction is that the majority are running away at high-speed. I'm wondering when they'll run the other way.

My worry is more practical: how much longer can sf write about "the future" when change happens so fast these days that anything speculated might well come to pass much sooner/later/not at all than in the past?

This probably reads a little poorly because I was writing off the top of my head instead of thinking a reply out; you get the gist of it, though.

Fruitbat

And I did !

BTW : doesn't anyone have more writers than mentioned so far or has everyone lost interest in SF all of a sudden ?

Murray Leinster
Keith Laumer
R.A. Lafferty
Cordwainer Smith
Eric Frank Russell
Hugo Gernsbach(remember the Hugo's ?)
Poul Anderson

etc, etc....

TM.

Sorry, let me just change the title...

Good to see that you keep to your word then

What would you recomend as a good introduction to his work and his style? I'm interested as I've not read any stuff of his at all.

Changed it back did you..?

If you read 'The Voyage of the Spacebeagle' you will know what inspired The great bird of the Galaxy to dream up StarTrek. And as much as I am a Trekkie(I have about 60 StarTrek-vids atm) this is a bit better... As a matter of fact, as it is largely a collection of related short stories I actually recognized some StarTrek-ideas. Of course this book was written in the fifties...

The classic Van Vogts is withouth any doubt the Null-A trilogy but 'Empire of the Atom' is also recommended reading(if you liked the I Claudius series...).

One of the reasons I like him is because he didn't write many bad books. So the list can be extended...

TM.

No I haven't changed the title.

Thanks for those recommendations. I'll now have to keep a look out when I next feel the urge to go and spend some money on books (as opposed to beer).
Do you know if these are readily avaliable second hand? (sorry, pre-owned )

Nope, sorry... of course amazon.com is not that expensive...

Arrggghhh, not the evil capitolist scumbags (oops sorry I'll calm down a bit, breathe in, breathe out, that's better).
I do prefer to get stuff from a real bookshop rather than amazon. It's just that thing of wandering round, holding books, touching the pages etc. You don't get that in the online ordering world.
Also in buying second hand, or new from small specialist shops, you're contributing to the wellbeing of the local ecconomy as well as keeping those small shops open in the face of the onslaught of the likes of amazon (online) and books etc (in the high st) and their ilk.

Luckily living in London there are quite a few 2nd hand and new bookshops with very good SF/Fantasy sections to choose from before hitting the big name stores.

Yes well...I am NOT from London....sadly my homestead is somewhat smaller....;-(
So picture me(I read english books in english BTW), searching for SF in the local book shop...? Amazon.thingy ? I ain;t complaining...
I go there when I need to get my series complete...

TM.

Yes well, ok then. I must also say I'm NOT from London either, I just live and work here.
In your situation amazon is probably a good thing. If I lived where my sister does (a small village about 10 miles from the nearest large town) then I'd probably also use amazon, but I don't need to and I'd rather help keep small shops open than feed a corporate monster.
I guess I'm lucky in having that choice, especially as a number of the bookshops that deal in SF/Fantasy get in US printings of books that are unavailiable over here.

Some good places to look if you ever find yourself in London are Forbidden Planet (New Oxford St), downstairs has a vast range of SF/Fantasy and a shop called Murder One (Charring Cross Rd) which again has a good SF/Fantasy range downstairs (as well as a large thriller section where it takes it's name from).

The big problem I have with Herbert is that he tells a compelling yarn with cardboard characters: I don't care about any of them. When he wrote with Bill Ransom (The Jesus Incident) he was terrifc and clearly a co-author added the characterisation that Herbert missed. The big draw of Dune was the ecology factor (in the early sixties, this hadn't been done before) on a planetary scale, and the religious tie-ins, along with the court-intruige of who was going to do whom next.

I'm still waiting for Universal to release the 4 hour version of Dune, although Shaddam IV will likely be in power before that happens.

Fruitbat