Books Loved by Critics Hated By You

Neuromancer I read it not long after it came out. I finished it but wasn't impressed. Now you see the first line quoted everywhere. I have tried reading it again to try and understand. I can't even finish it again.
 
psikeyhackr said:
Neuromancer I read it not long after it came out. I finished it but wasn't impressed. Now you see the first line quoted everywhere. I have tried reading it again to try and understand. I can't even finish it again.
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I had a tough time with this the first two times through, but finally read it (and learned to appreciate it) after reading a couple of his later books. I do rate Gibson highly as a writer, but I can see why it didn't appeal to you.
 
Nerds_feather said:
I do rate Gibson highly as a writer, but I can see why it didn't appeal to you.
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I soldered together my first computer before Neuromancer was published. Gibson admitted that he didn't know anything about computers when he wrote it. It was kind of obvious. Good writers do not necessarily do science and technology well. More readers don't care these days.

The Two Faces of Tomorrow is a way better computer sci-fi story by my value system.

psik
 
hitmouse said:
Underworld Don DeLillo. I had really looked forward to this one after the delerious reviews, but found it turgid, overlong, and contrived.
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Holy cow, yes, this. My brother loves this novel, as does a buddy of mine but I do not get it. I like the opening (apparently once published independently as Pafko at the Wall) at the baseball game but it goes absolutely nowhere after that and kind of serves as my closing argument against a whole strain of meandering Frustrated White Male novels that seem unduly praised (Delillo, Updike, Irving, Franzen, Roth). I've long felt like the feminist movement produced a literati last-gasp backlash that glorified a bunch of mediocre novels that boiled down to middle aged men feeling like they weren't getting the kind of tail they felt they deserved.

I would also add Catcher in the Rye (annoying protagonist with plot that goes nowhere, a short story at best stretched into a novel) and LOTR (horrible poems/songs, bland characters, glacial plot that drags out walking for chapters then glosses over the actual action in a few paragraphs).
 
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Vince W said:
I've been reading Leviathan Wakes. So far I'm underwhelmed.
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Ditto squared. I finished it but it is one of those books where the only reason for reading it is to respond to people who think it is great.

psik
 
I just skimmed your review Nerds and I think it's probably spot on. I saw that Space 1999 image with the 'America in Space' caption and it echoes my thinking exactly. I keep thinking why is every character American?
 
Not wanting to derail the thread too much, but can I ask what people mean by "libertarian SF"? Is this "Davy Crockett good, taxation, laws, NHS bad" or does it have a more complex meaning than that?
 
Toby in a word I think, yes. The Wikipedia entry on Libertarian SF seems reasonable. But it has Neal Stephenson's The System of the World as an example, which I never got when I read the Baroque Cycle. Perhaps as a British reader I just didn't pick up on it?
 
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