The Apolyton Science Fiction Book Club: April votes

[Zero]

Ender's game =

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Not to butt in, but the only one on the list I've read is Ringworld, and I found it excruciatingly boring and pretty unrewarding to read.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Lonestar
Ender's Game, Red Mars, and Ringworld


So.....Can I suggest we put The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein on the list?

Blurg. Heinlein is way over the top...

For my choices, MacLeod is a very decent writer.

Read The Cassini division and...I think it was called The Stone Canal? Good political SF writing.

The Red Mars trilogy is sorta boring. Way too much soap operaesque crap with a lot of internal monologue. Blurg.

OSC is pretty good, but he's got Ender on the brain. He shoulda let it drop after the first one.

Have you guys done "The Forever War" or "The Forever Peace" by Joe Haldeman yet? There's two versions of The Forever War out there, with a different middle section (the part that deals with their first return to Earth). One version is really good, the other is really bad.

[Clear Skies]

I wish we had a fantasy book club...the Earthsea books and Ian Irvine's View From the Mirror quartet would be up there before you could blink...
And yes, I would organise one, but I really don't have time...college, and writing, and everything else...

[jdd2007]

Originally posted by Frogger

OSC is pretty good, but he's got Ender on the brain. He shoulda let it drop after the first one.

a man gotta eat. ender sells...

[Eli]

Ender's Game, Red Mars and The Dispossessed.

[Panag]

hi ,

Enders game

have a nice day

[H Tower]

ooh, i've got to remember to participate in this in the future. I have a copy of foundation, but it's at home right now guess I'll have to visit the parents and grab it soon.

I've heard of Red Planet, and none of the others, I guess I'll just watch and not vote so I get something new to read

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by St Leo
Anyways, I reiterate my support for 'The Dispossessed'- a healthy change from all those tedious militaristic right wing space operas (yes, Niven and Pournelle, I'm talking about you).

I hate Pournelle, but what's your beef with Niven? His works are hardly militaristic.

Have you read 'The Mote in God's Eye"?

O.k., I realize it is a joint Niven/Pournelle production, but shades of 'Starship Troopers' or what...

His earlier works are less evidently right-wing, but as he enters senescence his tendencies are becoming more obvious, 'Man-Kzin Wars', for instance.

From the pen of Tassadar:

'This is sooooooooooo geeky.'

Why?

Because you have a perceived notion of what science fiction or science fiction readers are like?

My degree was in English literature and language- and frankly a science fiction writer like Samuel R. Delany (as a theorist and an author) fits right in. It's funny how the moment a 'mainstream' author such as Martin Amis writes something like 'Time's Arrow', literary critics wet their pants, while those of us familiar with Philip K. **** try to stifle yawns.

If you don't read science fiction at all, you're missing out on works by H.G. Wells, Zoe Fairbairns, Edgar Allan Poe, H.E. Bates, L.P. Hartley, Yevgeny Zamyatin, Cyrano de Bergerac, Antony Burgess and a host of other 'mainstream' writers who have written science fiction works. Really, I'd rather read Octavia Butler or Greg Egan than Bret Easton Ellis or Jay McInerney.

[ajbera]

Ahhh...The Mote in God's Eye was wonderful. I finally read it last year and found it sooo rewarding. Marvelous book, highly recommended.

While Ringworld happens to be one of the next books on my "to read" list, the only one on the Aployton list that I've read is The Stars my Destination, and it is absolutely great (as is The Demolished Man, also by Bester). So, that gets my vote. Really, really, really good stuff.

Anybody read any Ted Sturgeon?

[Darsnan]

Ringworld gets my vote: really visionary work for the time that it came out, and set up everything so well for T.R.E., which still remains one of my all time fav's!

D

[Wraith]

Hmm. Ender's Game is squarely in the lead, followed by Ringworld and The Dispossessed.

Which puzzles me a bit. I figured everyone at all interested in the genre has read the first two of those by now. Ah well.

--"Aristoi, by Walter Jon Williams. I have not read this book, but it sounds as it would appeal to the CIV player in all of us as it deals with a human who creates and controls entire worlds. "

A number of humans doing so, no less. Yeah, it does fit the Space Opera mold in a few ways. One of the few "far future" settings in the list, too.

Can't say The Dispossessed is Space Opera at all, but if it's new to you then it'll still be a good choice.

--"I wish we had a fantasy book club..."

That's an idea. Perhaps I'll do something about it this weekend. Be hard to decide which book to recommend for the list, though. There are a lot of good recent authors. George R. R. Martin and Janny Wurts spring to mind.

Or perhaps I'll try an anime/manga club in addition to the Anime Apolyton threads...

--"I've heard of Red Planet, and none of the others, I guess I'll just watch and not vote so I get something new to read"

Why not vote for things you haven't read?
If nothing else, if something you have read is tied with something you haven't, you could be the spoiler.

--"Anybody read any Ted Sturgeon?"

He's one of my favorites. I almost nominated one of his instead of Aristoi, but his best stuff is in the short stories.

Wraith
"Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories."
-- Arthur C. Clarke

[St Leo]

Have you read 'The Mote in God's Eye"?

O.k., I realize it is a joint Niven/Pournelle production, but shades of 'Starship Troopers' or what...

No, after reading Footfall and Beowulf's Children I've given up on all fiction tainted by Pournelle's name on the cover. Niven is a wonderful writer, but he seems to let Pournelle crapify all of their collaborations into unreadable messes.

His earlier works are less evidently right-wing, but as he enters senescence his tendencies are becoming more obvious, 'Man-Kzin Wars', for instance.

Uh, those are collections of stories written by other writers that happen to be set in Known Space. I don't know what you mean by right-wing. Pournelle's the right-wing nutcase or, as he puts it, "a 13th century liberal".

I am a lefty by most standards and the only thing that annoys me in Niven books is an unusually high focus on pregnancy.

I recommend Niven's Rainbow Mars, Ringworld, and Integral Trees. Smoke Ring, Ringworld Engineers, and Ringworld Throne are pretty good sequels.

World of Ptavvs is only available in the Three Books of Known Space volume that contains some excellent stories (Safe at Any Speed is brilliant) and A Gift From Earth, Niven's worst solo book.

I haven't yet been able to locateProtector, but I have found Crashlander and Flatlander to be thoroughly enjoyable as well. A World Out of Time is interesting though far too similar to Ringworld plot-wise.

I wonder what happenned with Ringworld Child, the sequel he planned to release in 2002.

Some Larry Niven Freebies. I especially recommend the Down in Flames novel outline and the Last Necronomicon.

[Jon Miller]

The Mote in God's Eye is the best thing either of the authors have ever written

Jon Miller

[redbaron]

Originally posted by ajbera

Anybody read any Ted Sturgeon?

I'm currently working my way through the Complete Works that are being published. So far I'm up to Volume 7. Fascinating to see how he developed (and how many of the themes of his later work show up fairly early on).