should i even bother with sci fi

[merritt]

For a fun read

Try: The Aluminum Man by G.C. Edmunson

a good used book source is abebooks.com

 

[BigBadBob141]

What SF you like is simply individual taste.
Why not try out a few collections of short stories (old as well as new if possible) to see if any authors stand out.
Novels & short stories are two different things, but if you enjoy the style of one you may enjoy the style of the other.
You may not enjoy some of the over hyped block busters out there but there are a lot of good authors how barely get a mention.
It's just a case of hunting them down.
Good Hunting, Good Reading & Good Luck!

 

[tylenol4000]

I know this is an old thread, but I'd like to comment anyways because I can somewhat relate to it.

I'm big into SF. At the same time, there is a LOT of SF novels that I don't enjoy or can't get into. My favorite is Philip K. Dick. He is the absolutely best IMHO. I'm also a fan on Van Vogt and John Brunner.

I'm starting to realize that maybe SF isn't totally my thing either. What I'v read of Clarke didn't interest me, although many concepts in Childhood's End seem perfect for me ;p Neuromancer i find incredibly overrated. I think what it is is that I'm not too interested in heavy technology related SF, and techobabble. I prefer novels that are Surreal and philosophical in nature. But there is not genre for that. I'v read 3 Iain M. Banks Culture novels, but i can't say i was crazy about any of them. Each one had sections i was really into that were very introspective with the characters and interactions with unique characters and world, ideas etc. But each novel also had sections of action and tech talk that bored me a lot.

Dune I found very interesting for the first half, after that it lost me with too much politics and action. But Philip K. Dick never disappoints me. None of his works are that tech based. Bradbury interests me also. So i now don't say i love SF, but i can't honestly say i dislike it. Eh.

 

[steve12553]

I would probably be a discussion killer here. Everybody's tastes are different. I would never ask for a recommendation for any reading because half of the fun of reading is finding the different books and type of books for yourself and deciding for yourself what you like. A few years ago I dramatically reduced my Science Fiction input for old Mysteries. There are tons of old mysteries out there and I really enjoyed finding out who I liked and who I didn't. If you're being trained to do something, recommendations make sense. If you're developing your own tastes, asking for recommendations to this degree probably means you think it's "cool" to read Science Fiction. I always knew it pushed me off in a corner by myself but I liked it anyway. I suspect there are a lot of "corners" represented in this group.

 

[Extollager]

I was lucky in Uppsala despite the fourth biggest city in sweden has the smallest SFF shelfs i have seen. Its only Tolkien,Rowling,Asimov,ACC thats it...

I have to order books from other library around sweden and every book cost 10 kr or like 1 £.

Was this just a branch library?

 

[Extollager]

I like to have a literary classic going pretty much all the time, and to read sf now and again. Too much sf at a time would probably quickly dull my enjoyment thereof.

Just in case I should point this out -- "literary classic" is an enormous group, including everything from Beowulf to Pride and Prejudice, from The Faerie Queene to A House for Mr. Biswas.

And of course "sf" is a big group too.

 

[BAYLOR]

Because through the agency of Science fiction and your vivid imagination, you can visit strange and amazing places that don't exist on Earth.

 

[psikeyhackr]

The problem is that finding good Science Fiction is like panning for gold in a manure pile. There is good stuff out there, but you have to sift through a lot of dross first.

The trouble is one person's gold is another person's excrement, so reviews are often worthless.

I thought Ready Player One would be crap because it was about a video gamer.

The reviews don't cover much about why I like it.

psik

 

[Zendexor]

Ok so here it goes. I have read Asimovs robot series an really liked them, thought ringworld engineers was a top read. Yet it goes downhill from here. Dune i found to be a bit boring, Ive got number 2 but cant really be bothered reading it. Peter F Hamiltons's Pandora's star is boring (half way through). Heinleins Starship troopers was nothing special an his time enough for love just isnt cutting it for me. Im keen on the Post-Apocolyptic sub genre. Ive read The Road, good read then ordered Grey Beard of E-Bay an just could not get into it.

The thing is alot of forum members have recommended books such as Dune, Greybeard, Starship troopers an Time enough For Love. Thats why ive chose these books when Ebay-ing. I guess its kind of dissapointing. I want to enjoy Sci-Fi, but the apparent winners are loosers for me.

I am going to purchase World War Z an Necroscope. Even though Necroscope isnt Sci-fi, but its recommended on here.

So i guess my question is what direction should i be steering in If im not keen on (So far anyway)

Heinlein
Peter F Hamilton
Dune
Greybeard

Keep in mind people im relatively new to reading Sci-Fi...

 

[Zendexor]

Ok so here it goes. I have read Asimovs robot series an really liked them, thought ringworld engineers was a top read. Yet it goes downhill from here. Dune i found to be a bit boring, Ive got number 2 but cant really be bothered reading it. Peter F Hamiltons's Pandora's star is boring (half way through). Heinleins Starship troopers was nothing special an his time enough for love just isnt cutting it for me. Im keen on the Post-Apocolyptic sub genre. Ive read The Road, good read then ordered Grey Beard of E-Bay an just could not get into it.

The thing is alot of forum members have recommended books such as Dune, Greybeard, Starship troopers an Time enough For Love. Thats why ive chose these books when Ebay-ing. I guess its kind of dissapointing. I want to enjoy Sci-Fi, but the apparent winners are loosers for me.

I am going to purchase World War Z an Necroscope. Even though Necroscope isnt Sci-fi, but its recommended on here.

So i guess my question is what direction should i be steering in If im not keen on (So far anyway)

Heinlein
Peter F Hamilton
Dune
Greybeard

Keep in mind people im relatively new to reading Sci-Fi...

Having read the replies to your thread I notice some huge omissions. If (as I suspect) you are more to the hard-sf end of the spectrum, but also want good writing, you can't go wrong with Poul Anderson classics, or still more, Jack Vance - just about anything Vance wrote is superb, whereas Anderson was less consistent - though also superb at his best, as in Brain Wave, Three Worlds to Conquer, Satan's World. Both of the writers I've mentioned were good at doing series - another point in their favour, in my opinion.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Having read the replies to your thread I notice some huge omissions. If (as I suspect) you are more to the hard-sf end of the spectrum, but also want good writing, you can't go wrong with Poul Anderson classics, or still more, Jack Vance - just about anything Vance wrote is superb, whereas Anderson was less consistent - though also superb at his best, as in Brain Wave, Three Worlds to Conquer, Satan's World. Both of the writers I've mentioned were good at doing series - another point in their favour, in my opinion.

Nice suggestions, but I think the OP is long gone. The thread is about seven years old. Still, I've picked up some nice recs from it.

 

[Lew Rockwell Fan]

The problem is that finding good Science Fiction is like panning for gold in a manure pile. There is good stuff out there, but you have to sift through a lot of dross first.

Now where have I heard that before? Some guy named Ted, maybe? Actually panning gold out of manure would be a piece of cake, much easier than finding needles in haystacks or panning gold out of sand.

 

[psikeyhackr]

Arthur C. Clarke said that politicians should read science fiction. I am not sure when he said that.

I would suggest A Fall of Moondust (1961)by Clarke. Childhood's End and The City and the Stars have already been suggested. All three would make an interesting comparison for the different type of stories from one author. But Moondust is a truly Hard SF story. It is my reference for the category. No aliens, no FTL. A Moon colony story written before the Moon landing. In 1961 we probably did not have infra-red remote controls but Clarke says a lot about infra-red, it is key to the story. Now we hear about infra-red in relation to global warming all the time.

We should now have a category called STEM Fiction.

Considering the title of the thread, "Should you even bother with Fantasy?" makes more sense.

psik

PS - Yeah, you gotta do Brainwave by Poul Anderson.