hamarplazt
100% No Soul Guaranteed
Argh, I didn't know this. My favorite author dies, and I only hear about it a week later.polystyle desu said:
Sci-Fi novels
- Thread starter satanmcnugget
- Start date
hamarplazt said:
What else of Lem's is good? I've only read Solaris and another one which escapes me... something about a man alone on spaceship (was a long time ago!).
I've just finished Brunne's "Stand on Zanzibar" which I thought was fantastic. What else of his is worth reading? His last few novels or the stuff leading up to "Stand.."?
EDIT: Ok I just re-read the thread and "Shockwave Rider" seems to be the recommendation.
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hamarplazt
100% No Soul Guaranteed
Yeah, Lem is never really bad, but sometimes he's not all that good either. I'm not much for the Pirx books, a bit too ordinary hard sf for my taste. Fiasco and His Masters Voice are much better in that they seem like hard sf, but actually have a lot of the same mindtwisting content as Solaris.Eric said:
Solaris, of course, is the masterpiece. It's said, though, that the english translation is really bad, so maybe that will turn of some readers. But still, it's in a league of its own, I know no other book that is simultaniously so clinically (pseudo)scientific and so deeply moving, so cold rational and so mystic.
Other favorites:
Cyberiad and Star Diaries/Memories of a Space Traveller: They're silly in a Douglas Adams way, but they also have a dark, strange and unsetteling edge that is all Lem.
The Futurological Congress: PKD-like world-falling-apart, but from a very different angle, all central european absurdism and high brow satire.
Memories Found in a Bathtub: Kafka on speed. It's like one long string of the most surreal and absurd moments in Kafka (or maybe even Schulz, given the dream-like quality), but exaggerated even further.
A Perfect Vacuum and Imaginary Magnitude: Reviews of non-existing books. Plus, in Imaginary Magnitude, the segment "Golem XIV"; philosophical lectures by a super intelligent military computer refusing to follow its program.
Eventually, the ideal introduction to Lem is probably the collection Mortal Engines. One part silly/twisted robot fables a la Cyberiad, one very funny Ijon Tichy-story (Tichy is the "hero" of Star Diaries, Memories of a Space Traveller and Futurological Congress), one Pirx story, and a long, dark, tragic story called The Mask, which is one of Lems best.
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I've started reading the Iain M. Banks Culture novels after all the recommendations here and elsewhere. I really enjoyed the first two, Consider Phlebas and The Player of Games, but I finished Use of Weapons today and I've got to admit I wasn't as impressed: he writes beautifully but I just felt that the plot/story was a bit too convoluted and tricksy. The ending was somewhat grotesque and confusing too.
Mind you, I did read it off and on (been really busy) so I may have missed or forgotten a few things along the way.
Looking around on thew web though, I see most people rate it as one of their all time favourites etc.
Any of you read it and have an opinion? Have I missed something?
Ripley, I've read "Perdido Street Station": it has some really nice moments but it could have done with some more revision and editing: it felt a bit like a gothic potboiler. I might check out "The Scar" someday...
Mind you, I did read it off and on (been really busy) so I may have missed or forgotten a few things along the way.
Looking around on thew web though, I see most people rate it as one of their all time favourites etc.
Any of you read it and have an opinion? Have I missed something?
Ripley, I've read "Perdido Street Station": it has some really nice moments but it could have done with some more revision and editing: it felt a bit like a gothic potboiler. I might check out "The Scar" someday...
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
I read The Player Of Games a few years ago and, well, it was OK, but I enjoyed the couple of Iain-without-the-M-Banks novels I've read a lot more. I think the aliens in TPoG just weren't anything like alien enough for me - they seemed almost like the 'aliens' one encounters in Star Trek: DS9 
- and were all too transparently an allegory for a brutal, dysfunctional human society (in contast to the rather smugly right-on Culture). Having said that, I did like the concept of the master game-player's potentially life-destroying dark secret that he once cheated when playing against an amateur, and I think there may have been a rather cool psychotic computer in it too.
- and were all too transparently an allegory for a brutal, dysfunctional human society (in contast to the rather smugly right-on Culture). Having said that, I did like the concept of the master game-player's potentially life-destroying dark secret that he once cheated when playing against an amateur, and I think there may have been a rather cool psychotic computer in it too.
subvert47
I don't fight, I run away
others:
Joan Slonczewski - especially A Door Into Ocean, though all her books are worth reading
Doris Lessing - the Canopus in Argos series is awesome
Suzette Haden Elgin - especially her Native Tongue trilogy
I quite like Tricia Sullivan as well - Double Vision is probably her best
yes, Marge Piercy - Woman on the Edge of Time - very fine
and James Tiptree Jr (Alice Sheldon) - there's a nice anthology of her stories: Her Smoke Rose Up Forever
try The Start of the End of it All and other stories
subvert47
I don't fight, I run away
I agree about Use of Weapons - it's cleverly constructed but that's pretty much all that can be said for it. The chairmaker idea is totally lame.
Perdido Street Station I thought was wonderful - but, as you say, it's not really science fiction; it's more of a gothic fantasy in the same sort of area as Lanark or Gormenghast
yeah I did eventually try Mieville again. I enjoyed Perdido St. station and I also agree with your characterization, pretty much.
On that note I'm struggling through the fantasy novel Little, Big which has some similar resonances (although far far less explicitly horror-laced).
I really really liked Iron Council, though. Almost made up for King Rat.
another English sci-fi author I've been enjoying is Tricia Sullivan. I think I posted about her in another thread. really weird, aggressive, wigged-out stuff.
I also loved The Yiddish Policeman's Union, which won a prize for sci-fi, although it's only that in that it is an alternate history/Jewish noir, not a lot of sciency stuff. great book though.
subvert47
I don't fight, I run away
and I mentioned her in my first post above
woops, missed that! yes, I think Double Vision is my favorite
she doesn't have distribution in the US, i think, all her paperbacks are super expensive, more's the pity.
Also, I think Lois McMaster Bujold and C.J. Cherryh, more in the space-opera vein, can be pretty entertaining
Nalo Hopkinson had an entertaining first novel _Brown Girl In The Ring_ set in future Toronto. It reads a bit like a young adult novel, but does some interesting stuff. I hope for more from her..
subvert47
I don't fight, I run away
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
'Cyclonopedia' - it's now in three threads: one in Thought and one in this forum, both dedicated to the book, and it's been mention in the 'Dissensus book club' thread, where it was unanimously decided that it would be the next book to be read.
Cool, I just realised 'unanimously' must mean 'as one soul'. Far out, maaaan...
'Cyclonopedia' - it's now in three threads: one in Thought and one in this forum, both dedicated to the book, and it's been mention in the 'Dissensus book club' thread, where it was unanimously decided that it would be the next book to be read.
Cool, I just realised 'unanimously' must mean 'as one soul'. Far out, maaaan...
thanks m8!