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

Just curious if anyone's read this... "A Dark and Hungry God Arises", by Stephen R Donaldon.

I haven't, but it catches my eye every time I pass by the sf section, mainly because, due to an unfortunate choice of font for the front cover, the title appears to read "A Dark and Hungry 600 Arses".

Just thought I'd mention it...

H.

I haven't read that one, but I was quite fond of "Mirror of Her dreams" and it's second book.

Also, his "Chronicles of Thomas Covenent the Unbeliever" is what made his name. It came out in the 70's and his big epic work.

"Miss Smilla..." isn't an S.F. novel (the ending is a bit S.F.ish but to be honest, the ending isn't the best bit!). I just had a sort of feeling that S.F. readers might enjoy it, as it's thought-provoking and a bit different - just what we look for in S.F.

Stretchy.

Seems like a good choice I made.

So does anyone know any good rules of thumb when it comes to sci-fi? How to find the good stuff and stear clear of space opera?

Hmm!I think there is Space Opera and there is space opera. Space Opera is just the description of the genre and as in any genre there are good,bad and dire examples. So there are some very good examples out there. Two of my favorites are the Hope series and The Reality Dysfunction series.
The trouble with SF in general is there seems to be three kinds of readers/followers. Those who find suspension of belief difficult when it comes to the science in the fiction and those that don't care about the overuse of McGuffins(transporters and shields in Star Trek) in the plot. The third are those who like me read for exciting scenarios and for realistically interesting characters but expect the science to make some sense. The people not the hardware is my motto. The best SF is the sort where I can't wait to turn the page and see what happens next and before I know it it's 4 in the morning and I'm in love with the hero/heroine.

Incog

Well, what I am looking for is not stories filled with scientific accuracy. The science should only be used as a starting point. But I don't want to read something like Star Wars, where it is just a fairy tale with laser guns.

One way that I find the best scifi authors is to look for award winners.

The Hugo awards are popular awards given by the fans to their favorite book each year.
The Nebula awards are given by other scifi writers. The works tend to be more intellectual.

Often a book will win both the Hugo and the Nebula. Such books are almost sure to be good.

Some past award winners include:
Frank Herbert for Dune, William Gibson for Neuromancer, and even J.K. Rowling for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Here are some links. (Lets see if this works)

Past Nebula award winners
http://www.sfwa.org/awards/archive/pastwin.htm
Past Hugo and Nebula award winners
http://www.scifan.com/awards/hugonebula.asp

See, J K Rowling. And I also seem to remember L Ron Hubbard got one of them. So it doesn't seem to me it says much about the books.

Regarding Hoovooloo's question, post 181 I think:

Dark & Hungry God is part of Donaldsons "The Gap"-series, there are 5 or so books, I think they start with The Real Story. I read them a few years back & liked them. The last book is "This Day All Gods Die", lovely title on that one as well

Don't be so high and mighty! Why don't you read a book before you disrespect it?

These aren't picks of the centuries best.
They are the best each year. Some years had more good stories to chose from.

And I so adore some of these stories: Ender's Game, Dreamsnake, The Snow Queen, The Left Hand of Darkness. Let's be a little less critical and give these books a chance, OK?

It's just sometimes you see some books that are qualified as being some of the worst of the genre, and they have one of those awards. So it doesn't give them much credence.

I actually thought Harry Potter was sort of funny.

Obviously the author is very good at world building. My only dig is that the fourth story and the first story are too much alike. Also, the villian is too scary for my young children.

Have you actually read any of the Harry Potter books? Or are you against them on general principles.

I haven't read them or seen the movie. The books just seem to me to be a mix of all the cliches from childrens books about magic I've read.

But alright, I'll try out some of the award winning ones.

How can you judge a book by it's cover?Or the hype?Read a Harry Potter for goodness sake and do read it with an open mind.Read with a child as they are the target audience.Just what are you afraid of?That you might actually be wrong?That maybe for once the hype is right?I can tell you that there are much worse and badly written childrens books out there than Harry Potter.
Now can we get off the subject of FANTASY and get back to SCIENCE FICTION please.

Incog.Stepping down off her soapbox.

intelligent sci-fi = chocolate teapot

I WILL NOT GET EXCITED!Breathe,dammit,breathe.Calm,calm.All is calm.

Incog.Grrr!

Read 'A Scanner Darkly' (Philip K Dick) and then say it is chocolate teapot....
BCNU - Crescent

Just to balance the equation on the Donaldson "Gap" series: I thought it was awful. I _was_ compelled to find out what happened, but it went all over the place and on and on, so I was very frustrated.

I agree with manolan, the Gap series wasn't good, far to bleak and depressing, far too repetitive, far too repetitive (sorry couldn't resist) but yes I did read it all.

Here's a question - why do public libraries NEVER have the entire series in one location, for the Gap series I had to trek 1/2 way across the county and for The Night's Dawn series (Teh P Hamilto one) I had to order one book from the local prison! Just a conspiracy to get us to order books and pay money!

CH

I did not enjoy the Gap series either-in fact I gave up half way through the second book.Shame as I enjoyed the Covenant series very much.
As to the library business.I've suffered from that too.However the library is very good at finding hard to find out of print books for a small renumeration.They were very good at finding the entire Dorsai trilogy last year.Plus I found so many H.G.Wells books last year using this method I was in clover.Try finding the father of modern SF in any modern bookshop and you will be very disappointed.

Incog.