What are you reading? - Page 307

Just starting it.

Edit; an easy read, took a few hours. Good, but not as thorough as Big Short. Some of his conclusions are a bit wide of the mark.
Edited by Infrasonic - 5/1/12 at 10:12am

Last year I asked for recommendations on sci-fi novels. I had never read one, so I finally started one and I'm halfway through Ender's Game right now. The quality of writing seems really low, but I'm nonetheless following along with mild interest. This genre probably just isn't for me if this is the best it's got.

I'm pretty unfamiliar with the sci-fi genre, but people I know (including my girlfriend) really like Octavia Butler's stuff.

It's pretty fun/interesting. Give it a shot.

It isn't (the best writing in Science Fiction, I mean). Far from it. It's popularity is not due to the sophistication of the writing style, the complexity of the plot or the depth of character development. It's just a really fun story, that puts a nerdy kid in the Savior of the Universe hat, meaning other nerdy kids (and grown-ups) love it.

Some of the best "literary" science fiction:

Finished The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison a while back. It was okay. Then I read John Dewey's The Public and It's Problem. Incredibly memorable. Then Camus's Myth of Sisyphus, amazingly deep. Liked it better than his fiction...maybe Exile and the Kingdom was a tad bit better. Right now I'm almost done with One-Dimensional Man by Herbert Marcuse, very philosophical in it's message about how consumerism is hurting the people. All in all, good times. Started reading Hundred Years of Solitude, and must say it's first pages feels better written than Chronicle of a Death Foretold.

Smut, Alan Bennett. Very funny.

Yeah....I mean Ender's Game was assigned reading in like...7th or 8th grade english class for me.

I remember thoroughly enjoying it...but I was also a 13 year old. I was not bothered by the writing quality.

Finally finished 1Q84. Took me forever and I think I need to read it again to piece this whole thing back together (or at least try to)

I picked up some horror book, don't remember the exact title or the author, it came out recently though in paperback. It wasn't particularly good or interesting TBH but I kept reading and bought it.

Now that's a rousing endorsement.

Another SF writer with literary pretensions worth mentioning is Samuel Delany. He's of the school of post-modern experimental narrative, using science fiction and sword and sorcery tropes, not unlike Borges and Cortazar, and just as readable as those two. Exploration of gender roles is a major theme in his work (and his own life).

Dan Simmons' Flashback. It's pretty interesting. Right-wing, very well-written sci-fi. I've read most of Simmons' books, this is the first where he's really exhibited a strong bent like this. Pretty rare, in my experience.

It's an interesting book, that's for sure. Read the rebuttals afterwards.

I really enjoyed it. It sat on my shelf for a while too before I cracked it open. A great read.

This and Heart of Darkness are my all-time favorites. Such an amazing book.

Damn I love this thread. Both my parents own bookstores and I don't own a tv, so I've always been a fanatical reader.

Yeah, I support the premise, but holy shit this was a boring book.

Good look with Paradise. I thought I had great patience (I've read Dante, the Iliad, Weber, etc....), but I couldn't finish it.

Pretty thought provoking, eh?