Some classic SF recommendations?

Connavar,i have tried to read Dune but I couldn't get past the 'language' used. Just couldn't read it,maybe I'll try again. I'll agree with you on A Fall of Moondust,great little novel but I'm surprised people rate it.
 
What language? You mean the way he wrote Dune? The arabic?

How many pages did you give it ?

I was hooked from the start but i think its worth reading until where you see what its about. When you see the world,the players in the story etc
 
iansales said:
Which Frank Herbert novels did you try? Dune? Or one of its sequels? You might have been better off trying something like Whipping Star or Direct Descent, or even The Dragon In the Sea.
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Dragon in the Sea is a great read. When I read it years ago, I thought it would have made a very good film. He wrote this one before he did Dune.

Jim
 
Conn,what i meant was the way it was written,but you know thinking on I may not have read Dune at all,it may have been that Dosadi book that put me off,i am't remember,it was so long ago and i was a different person then.
 
Clovis h have a Lensman book on my shelf and i know its part of a long series but I should read it anyway,see how things were done before the golden age. Just how many Lensman books were written?
 
AE35Unit said:
Clovis h have a Lensman book on my shelf and i know its part of a long series but I should read it anyway,see how things were done before the golden age. Just how many Lensman books were written?
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Four, I believe.

Jim
 
Here's the Wiki article on the Lensman series:

Lensman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And here's another site's take on the series:

Science Fiction Timeline Site . . . Gharlane's Lensman FAQ . . .

The Lensman series would certainly be a "must" if you're interested in reading sf from that era; but once again I'd like to throw out some other suggestions:

Science Fiction by Gaslight: A History and Anthology of Science Fiction in the Popular Magazines, 1891-1911, and Under the Moons of Mars: A History and Anthology of "The Scientific Romance" in the Munsey Magazines, 1912-1920, both edited by Sam Moskowitz (one of the earliest and best historians of the genre); and Before the Golden Age, edited by Isaac Asimov (a huge tome -- over 900 pages -- of stories from the 1930s sf pulps that influenced Asimov himself in one way or another). None of these are particularly expensive (in fact, I've got my hands on them recently quite cheaply), and they are a delightful tour of the era....
 
In the Uk, it was published as a seven-book series, although Masters of the Vortex is not properly a Lensman novel. There are also three sequels written by David Kyle - Dragon Lensman, Lensman from Rigel and Z-Lensman. I've not read them, though. In fact, I've not reread the Lensman books for *cough* *cough* about twenty years. And last year when I reread Smith's Masters of Space, a book I'd loved as a kid, I found it absolutely terrible.
 
AE35Unit said:
Only 4 Lensman books,i thought there were loads of em Clovis!
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I wasn't counting the re-writes & later editions. Also wasn't including the Skylark series. But, hey, you can count them any way you like! :D

Jim
 
Oh i knew there were other series and spin offs by other authors but I just thought the Lensman series was a lot bigger. Oh well with the second book on my shelf and 2 others on moochwatch it makes it easier for me to collect them all ;)
 
Clovis,I've heard of that Ralph 124C41+,if I'm not mistaken it first appeared in an electronics magazine,Practical Wireless or similar(my dad used to get those mags,was a bit of an electronics whizz,as is my brother)
 
The Skylark books are unrelated to the Lensman books. There are 6 core Lensman books, but Masters of the Vortex was then added to the series (same universe, different characters and plot), as was New Lensman by William Ellern. David Kyle also wrote an additional three.

Smith also wrote the aforementioned Skylark books (4), Family d'Alembert (10), Subspace (2), Lord Tedric (4), and several standalones.
 
iansales said:
Smith also wrote the ..... Family d'Alembert (10),....
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I rather think they were written by Stephen Goldin, based on an EES novella called Imperial Stars that appeared in If Magazine. (May, 1964). Goldin enlarged that into a novel, and then followed it with nine sequels.
 
Well, yes. But the covers do say by EE 'Doc' Smith, "with Stephen Goldin" :)
 
Agreed, but the link is tenuous at best, Ian.....

I had just a few things to work with. There was, of course, the original novella. There was a letter that Smith had written to his friend, Lloyd Arthur Eshbach, in which he made a few general remarks, primarily about the lead characters. And there was a chronology of the Stanley Dynasty from its founding up to the time "Imperial Stars" opens. (This chronology, with just a couple of significant changes, appears as an appendix to the final volume.) That was all I had to start with. There were no other notes, no outlines or story ideas, no descriptions of other characters. Fortunately, each chapter in the novella began with an encyclopedia entry, so there was some background on the general universe for me to work with.


People often asked me how much of the series was mine and how much was Smith's. The answer is very simple. If it wasn't in the first book or the chronology/appendix, it was entirely mine. Smith invented the universe and gave it its direction; I took that framework and built everything else: all further characters, all further situations, all further plots (including the superplot that threads through all ten books). In fact, a lot of the first book was mine, too, because in novelizing the story I nearly tripled its original length.
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From Stephen Goldin's website at Stephen Goldin: The Family D'Alembert Series

Personally I think the publishers are being more than a bit cheeky with the covers....:rolleyes:
 
Goldin may have written the series, but it was marketed and sold as by Smith. I don't think you can call the link "tenuous" if Smith's name appears prominently on the cover - even if he was dead when the books were written :)

It's not the first time publishers have played tricks like that. There was the furore over the Alistair Maclean novel a few years ago - written by someone else, but marketed as if written by Maclean. It went to court; the publishers lost the case. And even Elron was accused of being dead when he wrote his Mission Earth drekology...
 
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