but what is what?
I think I've mentioned this before, I taught myself to read at kindergarten which threw the teachers at my infant school somewhat! That aside, i've been a voracious reader ever since, childrens fiction was quite a small genre back then, the likes of Enid Blyton's adventure tales, derring do from Biggles and school tales a la Bunter were hungrily devoured, the town library was visited most weeks! For my grandfather it was pulp war and American cowboy stories, my daughter tends more to my own tastes. By the time I left school it was SF and the growing Fantasy genre that took my attention, my personal library grew, series like Dune, comedic SF, dragons - you name it, i read it.
Since then you'd be as likely to find me reading a treatise on some sort of archaeology, biographies, a romcom or detective tale. I still enjoy a good SF tale but the pure genius of Verne, Heinlein et al seems to be missing, the tales formulaic without any real innovation. It's difficult to find a new take, don't i know it, Time for a Change was an attempt to combine science fiction, fantasy and an alternate history. I only realised today, as a prepared chapter 4 for you, that its written in a slightly naieve style that was favoured by many SF writers in the third quarter of the 20thC. Nothing wrong with that but to be truthful, I can't remember intending to do that!
I'm still a little taken aback by the reception it's received here at BC, thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read and comment. Oh, nearly forgot, here is Part 4.
I've been struggling with motivation this week, the weather, relationships etc, etc - even yesterdays ride, a make road twiddle all within an hour of Bev Central, seemed like a bit of a chore. On the plus side, my target defecit is reducing quite rapidly, its under 400km now but I need to keep up the effort if i'm to reach the 10,000 miles by December 31st! I've also been working on some modelling prototypes for the 3D project, the more i'm prepared, the quicker things will go once i have the hardware.
That just about wraps up todays missive, back again on Sunday,
Madeline Anafrid
Comments
I never really got into the Fantasy side
of Science Fiction. I agree with you Maddy on the lack of originality in many modern SF tales. I struggled with works like 'Out of the silent planet' when I was a child. I think there is still a hangover in that I don't get some of the 'universes' used here that involve all sorts of mythical beasts yet... I enjoyed Harry Potter.
I got so fed up with monster-sized (in terms of pages) books that spent 100 pages going nowhere that I pretty much stopped buying SF in any shape or form. IMHO, you can blame Larry Niven for that. The Mote in Gods Eye could easily be editied down a 100 pages. The same goes for Dune. The author tried to describe the world but lacked the magic that a Verne could do to something like Journey to the Centre of the Earth (before Hollywood ruined it. nowt new there then)
I did enjoy the Ringworld series but I never got Terry Pratchett.
Now, I read mostly Crime stories (Ed McBain and the like). nothing too pretentious in them.
Samantha
PS, I'll try to read Time for a Change this weekend. It is too noisy here at the moment. I have the builders in.
artistic bent?
I don't think some SF/Fantasy authors do themselves any favours
in producing 1000 page tomes, they are too intimidating for many readers. Oh i get that they look impressive on the shelves but i'd prefer several shorter books. Of course that would mean that they'd have to cut some of the waffle and i agree, there are some authors who specialise in waffle.
I was put off Tolkien for a long time because of their sheer size - i've read them all now but they can be a bit 'difficult'! Dune is another case in point, the third volume is of fewer pages but is, in my opinion, a much easier read. The film adaptions don't really ring true for me, they lack the grandeur that the story requires, they need to be Metropolis in the desert!
Pratchett is a bit Marmite i guess, you either get the whole thing or not. I've read most of his books several times, my copies are quite dog eared but even as i enjoy them its easy to see that there is a point where churning out a new book was more important than the actual content. There are characters and plots which are left hanging, there was so much potential and yet so many missed opportunities to make the whole thing even better. Have you tried Harry Harrison, Stainless Steel Rat and Bill The Galactic Hero are both light hearted SF but with serious underlying sub texts.
My current reading has been dominated by Elly Griffiths and Kate Ellis, crime writers who both use the twist of archaeology to drive the stories. They aren't literary giants, Ellis in particular has a tendency to hook onto a phrase that gets repeated, different in each book, its not a plot device just lazy editing. Much like HH in SF writing, Janet Evanovich does a similar job with her Stephanie Plum crime busting series.
Madeline Anafrid Bell
Harry Harrison
is one of my favourite writers. As for the Stephanie Plum series... the scenes at 'The Viewings' are a veritable goldmine. I have some friends who live in N.J. and she captures their life so well.
I met Craig Johnson at a bookshop in Denver in 2014. I have a signed copy of "The Cold Dish', one of the Longmire novels. The TV series didn't do the books justice.
Samantha
An absence of new ideas.
Real life being awful and mundane, reading kept me. I read mostly Sci Fi but Horatio Horn Blower an later formulaic books by Elizabeth Cartland were interesting. I just finished reading My Human Pet by Olympia Black and I am hoping for more. I have no idea if she is a man that is writing as a woman.
Poor quality publishing
Blame the publishers for the formulaic out put. How many times has Horacio Hornblower been copied? DePalma’s and Weber’s space opera heroines amongst them. Even Drake has used C S Forrester plot arcs.
BAK 0.25tspgirl
Publishers
You got it in one.
Almost all books published today have to be 'safe' for a publisher to even consider looking at them. By 'safe' I mean both 'predictable' and 'not controversial'. I consider Robert Heinlein to be an example of the latter. He wrote stories that managed to piss off pretty much everyone at one point in time or another. Stranger in a Strange Land pissed off all the conservatives, then Starship Troopers pissed off all the liberals. It doesn't matter anymore that books like that sold like hotcakes. Publishers aren't willing to alienate half their potential buyers anymore. As for the former, publishing anything that doesn't fit an established formula is a risk. Their stockholders won't let them take a chance on something new, because it's considered too big a risk that it'll flop and lose money. (and going against your stockholders and losing money is a quick way to send yourself to jail) Result? Boring and predictable stories that don't rock the boat. Sure, there are exceptions... but that's what they are... exceptions.
"Cemetery Boys", Aiden Thomas
(Young Adult)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA52TJvLu3w
There is SF or fantasy for every taste
You just need to clarify for yourself what you like and what you don't, and there will be plenty of good reading for you.
If you like Verne and Heinlein, I'd suggest trying John Varley's Gaia cycle, or Bruce Sterling's The Difference Engine. Should you like the first, try Jack Chalker. The second? Go for William Gibson and Neal Stephenson. Or you prefer something more cerebral? Seek for Stanislaw Lem stories. Social sci-fi with a hint of feminism? Try the Hainish cycle by Ursula K. Le Guin (among other things). Something lighter? What about the Majipoor cycle by R. Silverberg? Alternate history? Try Harry Turtledove. Dark and deep stuff? Read Philip K. Dick. Powerful fantasy? Again Le Guin - the Earthsea cycle. Funny and light one with Chinese taste? Barry Hughart, The Chronicles of Master Li... Tell me more about what you like to read, and I will suggest something for you.
Your suggestions made me smile
Phil Dick, JG Ballard, Stanslaw Lem (GOLEM! ), Harlan Ellison, Thomas Disch, Varley, Silverberg and Robert Anton Wilson's madly prescient whackamole conspiracy novels (all writers who it seems like inspired William Gibson) are some of my all time favorites from science fiction's "new age", when the staid conventions of the genre were being stood on their heads and it was all such crazy good fun...
But I've always thought what could really be good for a TG fanfic is the Cornelius Chronicles by Michael Moorcock. That series's hero was always kind of genderfluid so it wouldn't be some yuge departure if Jerry Cornelius got turned into a girl somehow and it wouldn't phase this character much. But I'm too intimidated to try it; Anymore than I'd try to do a fanfic of Pynchon, who bent my literary proclivities horribly + taught me all I know about writing stuff that meanders off into such obscure sidereal places ("What the fuck does this part have to do with anything?!") nobody wants to read it. And of course + always, good ol' Uncle Kurt! God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut!!
~Hi ho... Veronica
.
FYI: Did you know that HARRY TURTLEDOVE's name can be anagrammed into EARTHY TURDLOVER? He was still alive when I discovered this but I never wrote to tell him, it seemed best if he didn't know...
What borders on pure insanity?
Canada and Mexico.
.
As Far As I Know
Harry Turtledove is still alive.
We can all nominate our favourite authors but I think it is fatuous to suggest that there is any kind of censorship being applied to publications of SF and/or Fantasy (or any other genre).
What we read or watch is a matter of individual taste, but if anyone wants to cite fiction that may offend then I suggest we start with A Song Of Ice And Fire, aka A Game Of Thrones, which has it all, incest, gay sex, torture, sadism, treachery and good old-fashioned politics (I may have missed some).