mbassoc2003 wrote:Reading this thread takes me back to the days when I had spare time.  

Reading this thread means you have spare time!

jasonw1239 wrote:I truly pity the people that only know Starship Troopers through the movie(s) and not the book.
That Avalon Hill Starship Troopers board game was interesting, but it has been over 20 years since I played it.

Oh my god I completely forgot about Starship Troopers.  While the movie was entertaining, if you had read the book prior, you would amost feel it was spit upon by the folks responsible for the film.

In no way should they be compared.  The book, while not a masterpiece, is compelling.  The movie is nothing more than bubblegum entertainment.

I've been partial to Christopher Priest on the sci-fi front ever since I was introduced to him via Inverted World.  That book is just insane brilliance, especially since the very last word in the book delivers a brilliant revelation about the fate of the main character which blows your socks off if you notice it.

Douglas Adams too, for obvious reasons.  Especially the Dirk Gently books, which are still so brain-twisting to my noggin that I can read them again and again and still be surprised by what happens at the end.

Sadly I find myself unable to abide most fantasy novels, especially the forest-destroying "epic" series that make me pray for e-books to take over the industry sooner rather than later just so that we can all keep breathing.  Martin, Jordan, Goodkind: all blowhards who need(ed) a darn good rap on the knuckles from an editor who isn't afraid to say, "If you need more than 3 books, 5 years, or 1,800 pages to tell your story, then you need to cut all the extraneous crap out and just tell your story."[/i]

JasonZavoda wrote:That is a big matter of opinion. Starship Troopers the book by Heinlein is very much a masterpiece, much better than his Stranger in a Strange Land (and his seeming descent into madness where each of his books became crazier and unfortunately, less interesting, afterwards).

In a very short novel Heinlein manages to entertain and express his views on politics and social responsibility. Some of his ideas are extremely interesting.

For once you and I agree completely on something scifi related . Heinlein's early stuff (even his "juveniles") is far superior to the extended adventure into sexual self-revelation that his later career became. While I'm not especially sanguine about his political views, while disagreeing with the underlying assumptions expressed in Troopers or Puppet Masters I can still enjoy the story, while books like I Will Fear No Evil or Time Enough for Love (IMO) were just self-indulgent incest orgy immortality fantasies.

And of course The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is a work of genius.

MetamorphosisSigma wrote:
For once you and I agree completely on something scifi related . Heinlein's early stuff (even his "juveniles") is far superior to the extended adventure into sexual self-revelation that his later career became. While I'm not especially sanguine about his political views, while disagreeing with the underlying assumptions expressed in Troopers or Puppet Masters I can still enjoy the story, while books like I Will Fear No Evil or Time Enough for Love (IMO) were just self-indulgent incest orgy immortality fantasies.

And of course The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is a work of genius.

Just reading The Moon is a Harsh Mistress again and I will be going through a bunch of Heinlein this fall since it is a long while since I read him. His early works are great, many are some of the best sci-fi written, though I think Puppet Masters shows something of his fall into madness (paranoid-schizo tendencies maybe?).

bump

Has anyone read much James Blish? I read a few of his Star Trek "novelizations" a while back, and they were okay. I've just started the "Cities in Flight" tetralogy, and I'm having a hard time getting into it--seems a bit dry. He strikes me as a cross between a sober (i.e., boring) Alfie Bester, and a less intensely ideological (i.e., boring) RAH. I'm only about 15 pages in, though. I assume I need to give him a few more pages to hook me, but usually if I'm going to like something I do by then. Any thoughts?

Ooh, sounds interesting. I like Chambers. I might have to look that one up even if I toss the flying cities book. Was it in an anthology of some sort?

Badmike wrote:I believe the Chaosium collection "The Hastur Cycle" has both Blish's and Wagner's story within.

Mike B.

Search around for The Hastur Cycle.  The asking price varies widely...from a little to a whole lot.

If you get The Hastur Cycle, don't miss reading River of Night's Dreaming by Karl Edward Wagner.

It is a product of Wagner's late senility as a writer...with a touch of the pornographic so common to senile fantasy writers...but it is easily the best King in Yellow story and it stands out as one of Wagner's best short stories overall.