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I love Stephenson. His sci-fi stuff is crazy, and at least somewhat grounded in science, if not always totally coherently. The best one I've read though is Cryptonomicon, which isn't really sci-fi at all. It's an awesome take on code-breaking over the last 60 years, with a cool parallel story about the ultra secret/Bletchley Park in WWII. What is the other one you've read?
 
NCCUknow said:
Has Anybody read the Elena Ferrante series? Worth my time?
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I've read the first book, and so far, yes. Very readable, extremely good characterization, etc.
 
rome, bringing the Cormac McCarthy conversation here. Blood Meridian was the first book of his that I read, which was probably 15 years ago. Your description of it as "biblical" is interesting to me, because I felt it was more "Faulkneresque" than anything else. I really enjoyed it, and promptly read everything else he had written up to that point until, frankly, i got sick of him. Nothing really gripped me like Blood Meridian until The Road. I read The Road in one sitting. I could not put it down. Just fascinating and poignant.

I know I have asked you this before, but do you read Phillip K Dick or Larry Niven?
 
I've read several Dick books. His ideas are great, but his prose and characters are just so flat and wooden. I think this is why so many of his books have made good shows or movies. They are great templates, but executed by a guy who was not really a skilled writer and worked too fast.

Never read any Niven, though I hear I should.
 
My grade of various McCarthy books:

Blood Meridian - A+ (most iconic imagery, theme, and characters; best prose)
Child of God - B- (didn't really get this one; a guy just kills a bunch of people for no reason; there are better versions of the same book)
The Crossing - A (most relatable story and character)
The Road - B (prose not as interesting as the others)
Sutree - A- (outstanding prose; cool setting; flat characterizaton)

Those are the only books I've read enough of to form an opinion on. I am about half done with Outer Dark and have No Country somewhere. As you can tell by my grades and the number of books I've read by him, I do like him overall.
 
If you are going to read Niven, Ringworld is great, as is Integral Trees. He does an interesting take on Dante's Inferno as well, called Inferno.

I've read 15 or 20 of his books and short stories, some of which are, shall I say, not great. But the sci fi behind some of the not great stories is just mind bending.
 
Oops. It's spelled "Suttree." For some reason I feel obliged to correct myself, even though it doesn't matter.

Since I hang out in Knoxville a lot, Suttree took on a cool other layer. I was able to recognize many of the places he was talking about, but got to visualize them as they would have been in the '50s.
 
rome8180 said:
My grade of various McCarthy books:

Blood Meridian - A+ (most iconic imagery, theme, and characters; best prose)
Child of God - B- (didn't really get this one; a guy just kills a bunch of people for no reason; there are better versions of the same book)
The Crossing - A (most relatable story and character)
The Road - B (prose not as interesting as the others)
Sutree - A- (outstanding prose; cool setting; flat characterizaton)

Those are the only books I've read enough of to form an opinion on. I am about half done with Outer Dark and have No Country somewhere. As you can tell by my grades and the number of books I've read by him, I do like him overall.
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My Grades:

Blood Meridian- One of my 5 favorite books of all time
Border Trilogy- A+
No Country and the Road and Suttree- A
Outer Dark and Orchard Keeper- B+ (would be considered great works if not for surpassing genius of his other works)

Child of God- D. Hard Pass

Basically, Cormac Hit his groove with Sutree and never turned back. One of my 3 favorite authors.
 
rome8180 said:
I've read several Dick books. His ideas are great, but his prose and characters are just so flat and wooden. I think this is why so many of his books have made good shows or movies. They are great templates, but executed by a guy who was not really a skilled writer and worked too fast.

Never read any Niven, though I hear I should.
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Niven is really good, IMO. His 'worlds' are relatively vast compared to much SF, but hang together well. 'A Mote in God's Eye' and 'Lucifer's Hammer' are really good in addition to Ringworld, Mote in particular is a pretty wild concept. As an aside, Ringworld has one of the biggest brainfarts of any SF novel w/r/t the ability of a ring to 'orbit' and what effect angular momentum would have. Still great.

Your comment on Dick is so spot on. The books are interesting, but the movies far better. I wish they'd take a hack at 'Ubik'. Have you watched the 'Man in the High Castle' series? It has gotten pretty solid reviews.

Just watched 'A Scanner Darkly' a few months ago, and thought it was a fantastic handling of bizarre material. 'Black Swan' is one of the all-time great closing songs.
 
deeyoukayeee said:
rome8180 said:
I've read several Dick books. His ideas are great, but his prose and characters are just so flat and wooden. I think this is why so many of his books have made good shows or movies. They are great templates, but executed by a guy who was not really a skilled writer and worked too fast.

Never read any Niven, though I hear I should.
Click to expand...

Niven is really good, IMO. His 'worlds' are relatively vast compared to much SF, but hang together well. 'A Mote in God's Eye' and 'Lucifer's Hammer' are really good in addition to Ringworld, Mote in particular is a pretty wild concept. As an aside, Ringworld has one of the biggest brainfarts of any SF novel w/r/t the ability of a ring to 'orbit' and what effect angular momentum would have. Still great.

Your comment on Dick is so spot on. The books are interesting, but the movies far better. I wish they'd take a hack at 'Ubik'. Have you watched the 'Man in the High Castle' series? It has gotten pretty solid reviews.

Just watched 'A Scanner Darkly' a few months ago, and thought it was a fantastic handling of bizarre material. 'Black Swan' is one of the all-time great closing songs.
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I loved Mote and Lucifer's hammer as well, but I think they are collaborations so i didn't list them as pure Larry Niven novels. I still randomly think of the phrase "the gripping hand" when I'm picking things up or watching someone else grab something.
 
Mote was so cool, I wish the sequel was more highly regarded. I've always meant to start on the Man-Kzin War series, just because the character dynamic in Ringworld was so damn funny, but there are like 15 of them and I can't make that commitment.
 
Snow Crash is crazy. Loved the partitioning of cultures and the Sumerian backstory. And Raven is one of the bigger badasses ever conceived, but it was a little too outrageous for my taste. How does it compare in this respect to Anathem and Seveneves?
 
I'll probably give Anathem a go soon. Try 'Diamond Age'. It has a sloppy ending, but for sheer volume of crazy ideas, it even beats Snow Crash. Lots on nanotech, 3d printing and remote gaming/entertainment that was a fair bit ahead of its time conceptually.
 
My child's book report:

First, Hugo went to a forbidden room to get his dog on the Hindenburg.

Second, Hugo gives him to his sick sister.

Third, he goes to eat breakfast.

Fourth, the Hindenburg crashes.
 
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