SciFi Nerd
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Slaughterhouse Five is the only thing of his I've read, didn't make it all the way through I don't think (extremely rare for me), it just didn't grab me enough and I think I was too busy in life at the time. I'm sure it's one you've got to read the whole thing for it to make sense though.
Finished reading Left Behind by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B Jenkins.
The writing. Ugh!
Worthy of a reasonably good high school creative writing student. I am sorry to say I was unable to discover a character whose development or fate mattered much to me. The plot was predictable and pretty much brought to mind the image of browsing a tritely written religious tract one might discover in the water closet at a train station and pick up for curosity whilst finishing one's business...
C. S. Lewis' Last Battle, while covering the same Biblical territory, is much more eloquent, elegant, delicious.
Anyway, I decided to get back to the source material, was happy to learn that my library offers The Bible on CD, and started listening to The Revelation to John.
Ahhh...that's more like it.
The writing. Ugh!
Worthy of a reasonably good high school creative writing student. I am sorry to say I was unable to discover a character whose development or fate mattered much to me. The plot was predictable and pretty much brought to mind the image of browsing a tritely written religious tract one might discover in the water closet at a train station and pick up for curosity whilst finishing one's business...
C. S. Lewis' Last Battle, while covering the same Biblical territory, is much more eloquent, elegant, delicious.
Anyway, I decided to get back to the source material, was happy to learn that my library offers The Bible on CD, and started listening to The Revelation to John.
Ahhh...that's more like it.
I love C.S. Lewis, though Tolkien was definitely right that Lewis really doesn't know what being subtle is when it comes to biblical meanings! He pretty much beats you over the head with it the whole time, but what a fun beating!
I'm planning on getting a tattoo of Tash (sorry if that's incorrect, must be a decade since I read the series) from The Last Battle covering my whole back, should look pretty killer.
I'm planning on getting a tattoo of Tash (sorry if that's incorrect, must be a decade since I read the series) from The Last Battle covering my whole back, should look pretty killer.
Lewis sure seems to have been into Shamanic Journeywork. Through a wardrobe to visit with talking animals, indeed!
He seemed to me to basically just take whatever "fairy tale" or "folk tale" style material he could and mash it on top of a plot that would convey what he was trying to get across biblically. The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe is the story of Jesus, The Last Battle is Revelations, not sure about the rest, I'd have to re-read them and try to figure it all out. Some of it might have been less biblical since Tolkien gave him a hard time about it!
You know, I never even noticed any biblical whatnot other than Aslan the lion... guess next read, I'll have to think about it and see what I pick out.
I didn't set out to be a sci-fi nerd. I'm just a voracious reader whose father's sci-fi collection got in my way.
Piers Anthony (WHY is "Bio of a Space Tyrant" out of print??)
Asimov (Norby Chronicles to Foundation's Edge)
David Weber (Honor Harrington)
Meyer (Vampires. Do. Not. TWINKLE, Ms. Meyer...)
Rowling (The British version made a lot more sense. I KNOW what a Philosopher's Stone is, so get on with it...)
Adams (I frequently fall toward the ground, but have yet to miss...)
Gaimon (Neverwhere, Sandman)
McCaffrey (Not a fan of Pern. The Shell people, on the other hand, I quite liked. City Who Fought was probably my favorite of them.)
Robinson (Callahan's. The author named himself for my father in law. We modeled our bar, in part, after Callahan's.)
Heinlein (Dad used to simplify the adult themes and geek out on the sciency bits as retellings of these tales during long car rides.)
Neal Stephenson (The Diamond Age and Snow Crash made my brains a happy little bit of whirring machinery for a while...)
Herbert (Dune both the movie with Sting and the book... For different reasons.)
There's probably stuff I'm forgetting, and I've barely touched my "children's section sci-fi/fantasy" collection...
That's right... I fit right in here... Or at least I will when I can start drinking my own mead...
Piers Anthony (WHY is "Bio of a Space Tyrant" out of print??)
Asimov (Norby Chronicles to Foundation's Edge)
David Weber (Honor Harrington)
Meyer (Vampires. Do. Not. TWINKLE, Ms. Meyer...)
Rowling (The British version made a lot more sense. I KNOW what a Philosopher's Stone is, so get on with it...)
Adams (I frequently fall toward the ground, but have yet to miss...)
Gaimon (Neverwhere, Sandman)
McCaffrey (Not a fan of Pern. The Shell people, on the other hand, I quite liked. City Who Fought was probably my favorite of them.)
Robinson (Callahan's. The author named himself for my father in law. We modeled our bar, in part, after Callahan's.)
Heinlein (Dad used to simplify the adult themes and geek out on the sciency bits as retellings of these tales during long car rides.)
Neal Stephenson (The Diamond Age and Snow Crash made my brains a happy little bit of whirring machinery for a while...)
Herbert (Dune both the movie with Sting and the book... For different reasons.)
There's probably stuff I'm forgetting, and I've barely touched my "children's section sci-fi/fantasy" collection...
That's right... I fit right in here... Or at least I will when I can start drinking my own mead...
Clifford D. Simak
Gene Wolfe
Robert E. Howard
China Mieville
R. Scott Bakker
Charles Yu
Cordwainer Smith
Richard Kadrey
William Gibson
The list could go on and on. Such great stuff.
Gene Wolfe
Robert E. Howard
China Mieville
R. Scott Bakker
Charles Yu
Cordwainer Smith
Richard Kadrey
William Gibson
The list could go on and on. Such great stuff.
Ok, So I second, pretty much everything already in this thread. I won't list them to save some space, hehe.
I'd like to especially second the Brent Weeks mention, And add Karen Miller and Amanda Downum (both geared toward fantasy, tho Karen Miller wrote some Star Wars Books)
Also I think more than the others I am a Doctor Who fan, been watching that for as long as I can remember!
SpamDog
I'd like to especially second the Brent Weeks mention, And add Karen Miller and Amanda Downum (both geared toward fantasy, tho Karen Miller wrote some Star Wars Books)
Also I think more than the others I am a Doctor Who fan, been watching that for as long as I can remember!
SpamDog
Just started getting into Mieville, really really awesome - nothing quite like weird to the max!
And speaking of weird to the max, you're only the second person I've ever found that's also read Cordwainer Smith - love love love his stuff. ;D
You can add a third to your list.
So, you like psychological mind games in your short stories, do you? Have you dug into the "real person" behind the pseudonym? He was quite an expert in both the Far East and in the psych warfare research that western military organizations were pursuing in the early part of the Cold War.
You can add a third to your list.
You just turn out to be more and more cool my friend!
Yes I did quite a bit of research on him actually, apparently some of his stories every single whacky character represends a middle eastern politician, so forth and so on, really cool.
The most interesting thing I thought was the the name was seriously because he wanted to be anonymous, he had this weird thing where once fans talked to him about his work he could never write in that genre again - it happened to him earlier apparently with a different genre. And when Scanners Live In Vain was first published everyone knew it was too good for a newb, and to all the authors and publishers it was a big mystery as to who Smith really was - it sounds like it was quite the fun time actually!
I'm pretty involved in the academic side of SF. Uber nerd right here. ;D
I like a bunch of his work, but Scanners Live in Vain is probably one of the very very best pieces using the cyborg motif ever written I think.
We agree! (At least from what I can remember - I read it back when I was in High School and I've got to re-read that one and others to see for myself how well they've stood up to the test of time.)
But, not bad for his first foray into the genre, eh?
;D
Ha, if by "not bad" you mean freaking unbelievable then yes! That kind of thing happens a lot though, Dune was the second novel Frank Herbert ever wrote for example, there are quite a few authors that just seem to have "it". Hopefully one day when I've experienced more my writing will be even half of what some of the greats can/could accomplish - right now I feel like I have some deep insights, but not enough to really carry my writing... there's no substitute for just living more I think.
During Childhood - All Jules Verne's books - Star Trek OS - Lost in Space
Later: Soylent Green - The Time Machine - Close Encounters of the Third Kind - Star Wars - 1984 - Starman (movie)
Now: Star Trek (all franchise) - Star Gate (movie) - Every documental about physics, specially Stephen Hawking's ones, these documentals are the best Sci Fi ever.
Saludos
Toss in Wells and Doyle plus all th SG franchises and I'll second that, science these days is almost as good as fiction!
