The Apolyton Science Fiction Book Club: November Votes

[Bosh]

In Conquest Born
Left Hand of Darness (love it)
Lords of Light (have been meaning to read it for a while)

[Mordoch]

Originally posted by St Leo
BTW, I refuse to read Mote if it wins. Pournelle completely suckifies Niven's fiction. I've read Footfall, Beowulf's Children, and Burning City. All of them are inexcusable trash.

I've got to reject this analysis. I've read other works written by Niven such as Ringworld, and The Mote in Gods Eye is a deeply thoughful work and not trash. In this particular case, I think that you get Pournelle's characterization of the Second Empire of Man and its deep paranoia and Niven helps explore how a first contact would be handled when the individuals are not as trusting as those in a TV show such as Star Trek. This particular work is such a good book because the synthesis of the two authors works so well in this instance.

On
Lords of Light, I had the same experience with JohnT where I read it and hated the book. Its the one novel of the list for which it would bother me if it won. There are plenty of novels by Roger Zelazny that I had read and liked, this isn't one of them.

[Mordoch]

I didn't happen to check this earlier, but it appears you can't get a copy of Tits-Out Teenage Terror Totty either used or new from Amazon or Barnes & Noble. I also looked through my local libary system and didn't come up with any copies of the book there. I believe that a precondition of the book being relatively readily available is supposed to be a preliminary requirement for being nominated, but regardless the book doesn't look like a good idea to be selected as the winner. If it did win, many of us would be unable to participate since we couldn't get ahold of the book, and some of us would probably be forced to spend an excessive sum of money to get ahold of a rare out of print book.

[JohnT]

From Amazon.com:

Availability: THIS TITLE IS CURRENTLY NOT AVAILABLE. If you would like to purchase this title, we recommend that you occasionally check this page to see if it has become available.

From Barnes and Noble, new books:

Not Currently Available.
A new copy is not available from Barnes & Noble.com at this time. A used copy may be available from our network of book dealers.
Check availability

From their network of book dealers:

Sorry, we could not find any matches. Please modify your search and try again.

Perhaps I should've looked up these books as usual, instead of just copying the links.

Given that the book is unavailable here in the US, I'm probably going to have to disallow it, unless someone can point out where we can find copies. If y'all voted for it and want to change your vote, then post here and let us know what you want to change your vote to.

[JohnT]

Bump for the day folk. Do note that one of the novels listed is now ineligible due to unavailability. If you voted for Tits Out... you may change your vote by posting below.

[Drake Tungsten]

You can change my vote for Tits Out to Rendevous with Rama.

[Mordoch]

To give potential voters an idea of the sort of points made in The Mote in Gods Eye that make the book so interesting and enjoyable for me, I'm going to quote a passage from the book. Since this quote is from the one page prologue for the book, quoting it will in no way spoil the book for potential readers.

"Because of the Alderson Drive, we need never consider the space between the stars. Because we can shunt between stellar systems in zerotime, our ships and ships' drives need cover only interplanetary distances. We say that the Second Empire of Man rules three hunded worlds and all the space between, over fifteen million cubic parsecs...

Consider the true picture. Think of myriads of tiny bubbles, very sparsely scattered, rising through a vast black sea. We rule some of the bubbles. Of the waters we know nothing.

This is the kind of thinking the book displays that makes it so interesting. FTL travel of this nature between planets would mean that a space empire would not be aware of or control all of the territory that it would appear to have on a map. The planets and the immediate area around them would be the only areas where the government would really know what was going on at any given moment. Space is an enourmous area which would hide all sorts of things that society would not be able to locate unless they showed up right next to one of their planets...

[Imran Siddiqui]

Btw, this whole thing is just going to go nuts if HHGTTG wins . Can you imagine a discussion on that? We'll just be quoting our favorite parts .

[monolith94]

I voted for my book and no others because I'm hateful and full of spite.

Plus, where else can you find a book which has used copies listed as "88 used & new from $0.20"???

[Imran Siddiqui]

More 'Rama'

[Drake Tungsten]

Where's Eli to talk up "The Forever War"?

[monolith94]

I'm actually surprised that SSRWY has as many votes as it does.

[monolith94]

I would also like to nominate Interstellar Pig by William Sleator for the next month's nominations in advance.

[Mordoch]

Sigh, obviously not everyone read all of this thread before voting, because we have just had ANOTHER vote for Tits-Out Teenage Terror Totty.

Edit: Make that two votes for a book that has been disqualified from the competition.

[JohnT]

Well, don't worry about it Mordoch. The votes won't count, regardless.

And people thought Florida voters were dumb.