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

Hmmm, intelligent sci-fi - The Chronicles of an Age of Darkness by Hugh Cook. Possibly not hard, arguably not even sci-fi (but arguably it is), but realistic (as much as the setting allows), dark, gritty and showing the absurdaties and fragility of life. Until later....
BCNU - Crescent

Still trying to work out why American Gods won the Hugo when it was up against the far superior Perdido Street Station.AG is ok but as my old man said it just seemed like he had read it before somewhere in the dim and distant past.It just didn't seem as special as PSS which to my mind is a groundbreaking book rather like Dune.

Been reading some old Asimovs and Moorcocks that I bought for £6 in the local Oxfam.I'm not into Asimov's Foundation series but I did like his Robot series and I think he is quite good at the one off stand alone novels.However he is better than Doc Smith at writing characters.Moorcock is a wonderful writer that I have come to like recently and I'm wondering why I didn't read more of his work sooner.Perhaps I was put off by the one film I remember that was based on his work.It was terrible.

Incog.

Film? Didn't hear about that one... I like Moorcook, but I've discovered that the End of Time series is a lot more entertaining than Elric of Melnibone. Elric's a very two-dimensional character. He's rarely allowed to make any moral decisions - the sword makes them for him. I've read other stuff that he's written, but it's a little too florid for me. I'm having a hard time finding the End of Time novels though - I've only read a couple, and I think they're out of print.

Cannot read Elric with a straight face after Cerebus the Aardvark As for intelligent sci-fi I will throw John Brunner in again, as mentioned in post 7 and never again (I just finished The Sheep Look Up ) Not classically sci-fi, but taking present trends and following them to their logical conclusion (if nothing changes). So Stand on Zanzibar is population growth, The Sheep Look Up is pollution and Jagged Orbit is gun culture. Disturbing, thought provoking, what more do you want from a book? Until later....
BCNU - Crescent

The Moorcock film was 'The Final programme', a truly dreadful version of the first of the Jerry Cornelius books, which are about as unfilmable as any book ever written.
Of course Elric doesn't make moral decisions-he is trapped as much as the sword, which I always assumed that to be the point of the books...

And to say that gaiman's American Gods seems like something you read a long time ago is about the highest compliment you could pay Neil Gaiman, because that was exactly what he was aiming for, a modern legend, with a hero in the specific style of the Native American Culture.

Mind you, I've not read Perdido Street Station (and nor am I likely to, frankly), and I thought Dune was a pile of twaddle. If I had a penny for every author who's written a groundbreaking piece of SF in the last thirty years, I'd be rich. Gaiman created something that spoke to the universal need in all of us for heroes and myths. That's much more difficult, imo.

As a matter of fact you have misunderstood me.I meant read before as in read as a book written sometime in my husband's lifetime-in another word unoriginal.

Incog.

Gaiman may be the most joyous raider and re-formatter of myth and legend known to man, but a plagairist he is not. His worst problem is that is style is virtually transparent and like most really good writers, you don't notice his authorial voice at all. There are those who consider that a problem. Personally, I think a writer who can write books as wildly different as AG, Coraline and the Sandman series probably deserves all the priase he gets and a lot more.

I'd suggest he won the Hugo because he's popular guy. People like him, he's modest, funny and he wrote a book with Pratchett and one about DNA.

Wait and see what wins the Nebula's next year, if it hasn't already been decided. *I* wouldn't want to bet against Gaiman doing the double.

But then again, having just had a quifk shufty at the 2002 winners, I find myself completely bewildered. It appears that my love affair with SF is well and truly over.

If you sit down, think, and write a short story it is almost certain that there will be something written previously that bears "striking similarities" to what you have written.

I once came up with a sci-fi idea I was very pleased with, then noticed it bore "striking similarities" to Planet of the Apes, which I hadn't considered in the slightest while coming up with it. It's an easy thing to do.

Worth remembering next time a writer is accused of plagarism.

Or read Stephen King on the embarrasment of the running man, which he freely admits *must* have been inspired by Robert Sheckley's 'The Tenth Victim', albeit it was a novel he hadn't even thought of in years before he wrote his novel.

Well it's just an opinion having read only those two books from the Huogo list.American Gods wasn't bad but it wasn't terrific.I just found Perdido Street Station very,very,very original.The nearest I have come to it is reading Dickens and Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast.It was possibly too original for most and did take some concentration to read.But it is only an opinion.Trouble is when I buy a book I tend to want my money's worth from the encounter and with AG and Revelation Space by Reynolds I was disappointed.

Incog.

I've not read the whole set of posts but here is my opinion for what it's worth.

Iain M Banks writes some very well thought out SF. The idea of The Culture is excellent.

Dan Simmonds Hyperion and Endymion books where excellent as well. based on Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (7 travellers telling their tales) with references to John Keats in the titles and characterisation.

Two other books I think deserve a mention are Murasaki - a shared world anthology edited by Martin Greenberg in which a number of award winning authors inc. Silverberg, Bear, Benford, Anderson wrote linked stories about a predefined world. Very well done and overlooked IMO. The other is The Turing Option by Harrison and Marvin Minski.

turvy

You are the only other person who admits to reading The Turing Option.I read it with difficulty due entirely to my poor grasp of science but I did enjoy the book.I have since found out more about Turing and what a fascinating person he was.I must read it again(after I've got my to read pile a little lower)if I can find it.

Incog.

Ressurected this thread to see what everyone else is reading.
I'm trying to summon up enthusiasm to read an Angela Carter.I've ordered Cherryh's Defender but as I'm short of cash I shall have to wait to but any more new books.
Have just forced myself to finish a Harry Turtledove fantasy called into the Darkness as it was a Crimbo present.It was like War and Peace only with dragons and unicorns and like W&P it has too many characters.

Incog.

I've only read Turtledove's excellent Guns of the South, so can't comment as to the rest of his output.

Just started the second Arabesque, Effendi, by Jon Courtenay Grimwood. Great stuff.

I've just started on Now Wait For Last Year by Philip K Dick and I've also not far into Job by Heinlein.

Incog: I'll stick me hand up to reading and enjoying "The Turing Option"! If you enjoyed that, and particularly if you have an interest in Turing himself, I must urge you to get hold of Greg Bear's short story "Tangents". It's in a Bear collection of the same name (recommended) and also in Rudy Rucker's "Mathenauts" (HIGHLY recommended), and probably some other anthologies.

Currently I'm ploughing through the five volume alledgedly complete collection of PKDs short stories. Which is casting something of a shadow over things, I have to say...

Bitten a chunk out of American Gods, scratched the surface of Perdido St. Station, I'm reading Snow Crash again for what seems like the tenth time but is probably only the third, and I just finished Ringworld Throne and wish I hadn't bothered. I so wish Niven hadn't got so obviously bored with Known Space, and I equally wish he didn't keep cranking stuff out set in it to pay the bills or by another Porsche or something.

Anyways...

H.

Now having got my mitts of C J Cherryh's Defender I've already devoured half of it so I've decided to put it to one side or I will have finished it before the night is up.I wish I didn't read so fast.


Incog.

Intellegent SF... there have been suggestions over what is ment by SF or Sci Fi, but no one has questioned what was ment by intellegent.

Personally I don't mind how its defined, I think it's irrelevent, who cares where the line is drawn, and what catagory books are put in. As long as I enjoy reading them I will do so.

I'm suprised no one has mentioned Paul MacAuley, Robert Silverberg, Neal Stephenson, and I have to digress into fantasy (for the most part) for a moment to mention Katherine Kerr. All of which I enjoyed, and as such recomend.

Math - Why are all the best books too short ?

I started reading Time Enough For Love by Heinlein. Just a bunch of silly anecdotes, how did that ever get considered a classic? And someone on here even claimed it changed their life.

Can anyone mention books that do a good job at describing alien civilizations?

Ringworld and Ringworld Engineers, by Larry Niven come to mind. As do the complete works of Iain M. Banks...