10-29-2009, 10:47 PM | #16 |
Outside of a dog
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10-30-2009, 12:16 AM | #17 |
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I've never heard that Frank Herbert's books were revised.
Or are you talking about Brian Herbert's books revising the Dune universe? |
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10-30-2009, 05:08 AM | #18 |
Evangelist
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Brian Herbert Dune series is total rubbish.
C. J. Cherryh - the most boring sci-fi books ever Dan Simmons - confusion at snail's pace Robert Asprin - Phule series tries to be funny but fails miserably Lois McMaster Bujold - Vorkosigan "saga" is child's fiction its cheesy and contrived (everybody is totally dumb, except Miles - well, he is dumb too, but succeeds anyway) |
10-30-2009, 08:07 AM | #19 | |
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Cherryh's stuff is methodically boring, as opposed to oppressively boring - which makes a world of difference. Don |
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10-30-2009, 06:54 PM | #20 |
The me that I am
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By all means, avoid later Heinlein works such as Number of the Beast, which is literally nonsensical.
On the other hand, early Heinlein, such as Starship Troopers, remains both readable and classic, |
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10-30-2009, 11:21 PM | #21 |
Wizard
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I tried a couple of books by Heinlein and despised them, despite the fact that I'm fairly tolerant of bad writing. The only reason I finished 'Stranger in a Strange Land' was because I was still in the phase where I felt obliged to finish books and read the whole think before judging them. But many years on I can still remember how much it made me want to vomit in disgust at its infantile attempts to shock.
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10-31-2009, 04:05 AM | #22 |
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Anything written by Arthur C Clarke after 2061 - but especially...
Anything written by Clarke and Gentry Lee - Cradle is one of the worst things I've ever ready by an SF grand master.. Michael |
10-31-2009, 04:47 AM | #23 | |
Wizard
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Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat stuff leaves me cold. |
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10-31-2009, 05:10 AM | #24 | |
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Regards, Alex |
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10-31-2009, 01:53 PM | #25 | |
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L. Sprague De Camp was a contemporary of Hubbard's, along with Robert A. Heinlein and Isaac Asimov, and knew Hubbard both as a fellow writer and fellow naval officer during WWII, when RAH, Asimov, and De Camp were all at the Philadelphia Navy Yard for a period and Hubbard came through in a visit. He once described attending Nycon 3, the 25th World SF Convention in NYC in 1967. The Worldcon that year was sharing its hotel with a Scientology gathering. A couple of the Scientologists tried to proselytize Sprague in the lobby. He drew himself up to his full better than 6' height, looked down his acquiline nose at the speaker, and declaimed in ringing stentorian tones "Young man, I knew Ron Hubbard when he was only a small time crook!" before stalking off. ______ Dennis |
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10-31-2009, 02:07 PM | #26 | |
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I generally advise folks to read _Dune_, _Dune Messiah_, and _Children of Dune_ as one long novel, since that's how Herbert conceived them. If you like them, consider the others. Joanna Russ once reviewed Dune and called it "carefully worked up third rate". I think I understand why, though my judgment isn't quite as harsh. Part of Herbert's problem is something you wouldn't expect from a newspaperman. He had decent to good ideas, but clunky to downright bad prose. (My horrible Example is _Whipping Star_.) I can pick nits with Dune, starting with disbelief that a galactic empire based on Arabic feudalism could evolve in the first place, let alone last as long as Dune's had. I also wondered while reading about various things, like "There's an anti-technology bias, but somebody builds the mile-long heighliners the Spacing Guiild uses for interstellar transport. Who? Where?" And Dune was very much a product of it's time, so it will be curious to see how well it stands up over the years. ______ Dennis |
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10-31-2009, 02:09 PM | #27 |
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10-31-2009, 02:16 PM | #28 | |
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Shucks, I like most of the Rat books. But then again, I write Red stories (occasionally). You can tell where my taste is... |
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10-31-2009, 02:17 PM | #29 | |
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That, from the author of The Female Man? |
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10-31-2009, 02:18 PM | #30 | |
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I nearly fell off my chair laughing when I realized RAH had taken it to logical extremes, and tied together not only everything he had ever written, but everything anyone else had ever written as well. If you think of it as an extended homage to stuff RAH grew up loving, and as a literary joke, it's a lot more palatable. ______ Dennis |
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