211–220 of 599 posts
Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card. The movie didn't even come close to doing it justice, the book presents so many cool problems and solutions that it just failed to convey. The book is phenomenal for sparking out of the box thinking.
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Player of Games is amazing.
Serious question, what is so amazing about it? Based on recommendations (I'm a scifi fan) I bought it and read it. It was an OK read, not boring or anything, but also hardly extraordinary. For me easily forgettable. I don't have the feeling I missed some important part since it wasn't really very complex. So I'm curious why people think it's so good.
It's interesting seeing how many of my touchstone books turn up in other people's lists. Here are some I didn't see yet: Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness. My favorite Le Guin (the Dispossessed is pretty good too). Shockingly original when it was published in 1969; the portrait of the society and culture on Gethen still feels unique. A slow burn at the beginning, but builds to a dramatic conclusion. Patric…
How would you describe your experience with the Baroque cycle?
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Dune was my favorite series until TBP. Dune degrades quickly after the first book while I thought each TBP was better than the last.
Dune holds up way better if you pretend it's just one book (the first one). It stands alone very well and IMO is completely worthy of its status in the classic sci-fi pantheon. On the other hand, I finished TBP, but I disliked it enough that I didn't go back to the other two volumes. What makes them better than the first, in your opinion? (purely for my own curiosity re: whether I should go back and read them)
The author described how he approached the series as wanting to write about the “the worst possible universe”.
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Agreed. I don't put it on-par with Dune, but there are definitely concepts in the TBP trilogy that are simultaneously difficult and mind-opening. Some of them are quite haunting, actually. Most of the deeper exploration of these ideas takes place in the third book.
Dune was my favorite series until TBP. Dune degrades quickly after the first book while I thought each TBP was better than the last.
I did read 5 and got about a third of the way through 6 before stopping and I still don’t know why either book exists. The previous story was over, and the new stuff’s muddled and not compelling.
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I find his works a mixed bag. I thought “A Scanner Darkly” was quite good. I really liked the crazy, out-there nature of “Ubik”. But then I found “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep”, and some short story collection I read, to be pretty ordinary.
His ideas were good, but his writing style did not really click with me.
"East of Eden." Steinbeck draws beautiful vignettes of human life and emotion, and I think the book's main idea about human motivation is largely correct and explains a wide variety of behavior. It helped me see both myself and others with more clarity.