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The Hugo Awards

Howtheyscoredcat_tiny by howtheyscored on

For anybody who is inclined to skim or skip this for length or disinterest, in the last paragraph I simply open things up for this to be an OPEN SCIENCE FICTION / FANTASY BOOK THREAD. So don't hold yourself to this whole "Hugo Awards" theme if you don't care.

I don't know that anybody noticed, or that many care, but the winners for this year's Hugo Awards were just recently announced.

For those who don't know, the Hugo is a literary award given out annually in a variety of categories (Best Novel, Novella, Novelette, and Short Story, as well as a few individual awards) to award outstanding writing within the genres of Science Fiction and Fantasy. I used to be a big SF fan, and am currently still a big fan of Fantasy. SF fell out of my favor years ago not because I don't enjoy the genre, but rather because I was finding it harder and harder to enjoy the product, or rather harder and harder to find SF products, in print, that I do enjoy.

Which is why I was looking forward to this year's Hugos. I miss reading SF, and I want back in. So starting with the cream of the crop must be a good spot to jump back in. This is perhaps a prelude to where I am eventually going with this FanPost, but for the time being I'd like to get back on topic and discuss the awards themselves.

The nominees for each category have been announced for some time, and excepting the novels, each has been freely available for consumption online in anticipation of the awards (and still are, as of last night). The list of nominees for each of the significant awards was:

Best Novel

  • The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon
  • Brasyl by Ian McDonald
  • Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer
  • The Last Colony by John Scalzi
  • Halting State by Charles Stross

Best Novella

  • “The Fountain of Age” by Nancy Kress
  • “Recovering Apollo 8″ by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
  • “Stars Seen Through Stone” by Lucius Shepard
  • “All Seated on the Ground” by Connie Willis
  • “Memorare” by Gene Wolfe

Best Novelette

  • “The Cambist and Lord Iron: a Fairytale of Economics” by Daniel Abraham
  • “The Merchant and the Alchemist”s Gate” by Ted Chiang
  • “Dark Integers” by Greg Egan
  • “Glory” by Greg Egan
  • “Finisterra” by David Moles

Best Short Story

  • “Last Contact” by Stephen Baxter
  • “Tideline” by Elizabeth Bear
  • “Who’s Afraid of Wolf 359?” by Ken MacLeod
  • “Distant Replay” by Mike Resnick
  • “A Small Room in Koboldtown” by Michael Swanwick

The only thing on this list that I had read previously was Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union (currently being adapted for the screen by the Coen brothers), and that is a curious nominee for an award which claims its focus to be SFF. Though I suppose an alternate history can be termed "Fantasy" if you view the genre with a wider lens than most people who view genres liberally even might be inclined to do.

The winners, as announced the other day, were:

  • Best Novel: The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon
  • Best Novella: “All Seated on the Ground” by Connie Willis
  • Best Novelette: “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” by Ted Chiang 
  • Best Short Story: “Tideline” by Elizabeth Bear

And Michael Chabon won! Which disappointed me some at first. It's a very good book, yes, but it's also deeply uneven and stretches to even be considered for the award... my first instinct was to credit reputation for earning him the award. I found it hard to believe that over the entire year, there wasn't a better, more appropriate candidate. I've since reconsidered that stance and don't feel conspiratorial anymore, though I still think it's a weird choice altogether.

The other winners I quickly found online, pasted into a Word file, and saved for eventual consumption. I've read Connie Willis before and enjoyed her quite a bit (To Say Nothing of the Dog and Doomsday Book are both at least as good as advertised), so I'm really looking forward to reading her 23,000 word Novella about Aliens and Christmas. It's the longest of the non-novel winners, though, and I haven't put the time in yet. I did read "Timeline," however (more or less straight SF), and found it remarkably and actively unenjoyable, cliched, sentimental, and cheesy. And today I put the time in to read "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" (more or less straight Fantasy) which I enjoyed quite a bit (and would highly recommend for sure), though I wished it might have been a bit more open ended.

I began to read a couple of the other nominees last night, including "Dark Integers" and "Memorare," but I was too tired to keep up with Gene Wolfe's prose (though I'm looking VERY forward to introducing myself to it at long last), and couldn't read "Dark Integers" beyond an early hackneyed joke about an iWatch and some unintelligible techno-babble. Which is not to say that the story is bad on the whole, but rather simply to say that it didn't have the first page stuff to make me want to find out.

Has anybody read any of these? I'd be extremely interested to hear what you all have to say, or just to hear your impressions about the awards in general.

Failing that, simply assume this to be an Open SFF Thread, and go to town. As you may have surmised from above, I'm not simply looking to discuss the awards, but also to learn of any books in the genre that others have enjoyed and that I might be able to get into.

And I'll make a poll as well.

Poll
Michael Chabon won a Hugo for a book about Jews living in a non-magical, non-futuristic (though entirely fictional) bit of Alaska?
And he deserved to, too.
3 votes
That's stupid. How does that book even qualify?
14 votes
More like Michael Ch-boring. Ha! Amirite?!
5 votes
He could win my Hugo, if you know what I mean.
8 votes

30 votes | Poll has closed

This FanPost is reader-generated, and it does not necessarily reflect the views of McCovey Chronicles. If the author uses filler to achieve the minimum word requirement, a moderator may edit the FanPost for his or her own amusement.

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There must be more to that book, right?

If a fictional Jewish settlement in Alaska qualifies as Science Fiction or Fantasy, then any fiction set in modern times qualifies. How is that more SFF than, for instance, a Harlequin Romance. Both are equally science fictional and/or fantastic.

VAE PVTO DEVS FIO

by Bhaakon on Aug 10, 2008 11:20 PM PDT   0 recs

There’s a little bit of selective cow-breeding and some ambiguously “mystical” stuff that has to do with the Jewish faith… but outside of that, I can’t really think of anything that would even REMOTELY fit the bill.

My Dave Righetti is better than your Dave Righetti.

by howtheyscored on Aug 10, 2008 11:23 PM PDT to parent up   0 recs

Well the writing is better than a Harlequin Romance. That probably goes a long way.

Where the relative merits of Joe Paterson and Daniel Otero are hashed out over knife fights and tea.

by RougeGorrila on Aug 10, 2008 11:34 PM PDT to parent up   0 recs

Not really

To a vegan, meat is meat. They don’t care whether it’s hamburger steak or filet mignon

VAE PVTO DEVS FIO

by Bhaakon on Aug 10, 2008 11:47 PM PDT to parent up   0 recs

I’m not disagreeing with you. Like I said below, the SF community has been branching out of the hard SciFi and into Genre-crossing novels for decades now. But if we’re talking about why Chabon got nominated and not some Harlequin paperback, it’’s probably due to the prose.

Where the relative merits of Joe Paterson and Daniel Otero are hashed out over knife fights and tea.

by RougeGorrila on Aug 11, 2008 12:18 AM PDT to parent up   0 recs

It does sound a bit shady that such a book would win an award in this genre. I would have liked to have seen some time traveling selectively bred cows or something.

"While conservatives tell you 'leave things alone and no one will lose,' and liberals tell you 'interfere a lot and no one will lose,' baseball says 'someone will lose.' Not only says it - but insists upon it! ... Democracy is lovely, but baseball's more mature." BVCE supports SF Dugout and Manny Burriss.

by BaronVonCurrentEvents on Aug 11, 2008 6:56 AM PDT to parent up   0 recs

Nah. There’s a long history of alternate history as a sub-genre of science fiction. Prominent examples include Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle, set in contemporary, Japanese-ruled California after the Axis powers have won WWII, and Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Years of Rice and Salt, which covers centuries of alternate history after the entirety of Europe has been wiped out by bubonic plague. Neither are especially futuristic.

There are lots of other examples, too, but those are the ones I’ve read.

by jcb9 on Aug 11, 2008 8:31 AM PDT to parent up   0 recs

The Man in the High Castle is just one notch below a masterpiece. And not only is it alternate-history, but it contains an alternate alternate-history story within it.

For a thorough A-H overdose, one word… Harry Turtledove. OK, two.

Fred Lewis can stand under my umbrella.

by S.F. Giangst on Aug 11, 2008 8:54 AM PDT to parent up   0 recs

I’m not surprised Michael Chabon won. The science fiction community has a history of roping in non-genre/genre-breaking novelists in order to popularize or legitimize the genre. Margaret Atwood comes to mind. (The story goes that she spurned numerous invitations to appear for the Handmaid’s Tale because she didn’t want her work to be labeled SF. Years later, she changed her mind, wrote Oryx and Crake and made a buttload of money by being shelved in the SF section.)

I can’t say whether or not Chabon deserved the victory as I hadn’t read any of the other novels. I will say that I’ve started the Yiddish Policeman’s Union, found it interesting, but not interesting enough for me to finish it. (I am, however, very picky about my novels, since I prefer short stories, so this isn’t a criticism of Chabon. I actually quite liked Chabon when I met him. Affable fellow. Looked a little like a deer in headlights the whole time. Jittery. Kind of awkward, really.)

I think I’m with you in that I grew up with SF, but haven’t read much of the newer stuff, because they seem to specialized, if that makes any sense. For example, I loved Ender’s Game, because while it was set in the future, it really dealt with subjects that literature explore: namely Life, Universe, and Everything (I also love Douglas Adams). On the other hand, a book like Greg Bear’s Darwin’s Radio, while engrossing, was too steeped in science for me to truly enjoy it. I finished it, but I’ve little inclination to read it again.

Where the relative merits of Joe Paterson and Daniel Otero are hashed out over knife fights and tea.

by RougeGorrila on Aug 10, 2008 11:27 PM PDT   0 recs

Edited to clarify that Margaret Atwood didn’t want to appear at SciFiCons for The Handmaid’s Tale.

Also I went through a similar phase of trying to reimmerse myself in SF earlier this year, which is how I came across Darwin’s Radio. I also read Lois McMaster Bujold in that span. Both were eh for me.

Where the relative merits of Joe Paterson and Daniel Otero are hashed out over knife fights and tea.

by RougeGorrila on Aug 10, 2008 11:32 PM PDT to parent up   0 recs

Do you remember anything else you enjoyed before the “falling out”?

I remember some of my old favorites being The Connie Willis books (as I said above), Marie Doria Russel’s The Sparrow, Dan Simmons’ Hyperion, a number of the many Star Wars books (though I don’t imagine those having the same appeal for me today), I did enjoy Ender’s Game, and anticipate enjoying Ender’s Shadow, Azimov’s Foundations (though I was never impressed by the writing), and Herbert’s Dune kind of blew my in ways that aren’t even legal in some states.

My Dave Righetti is better than your Dave Righetti.

by howtheyscored on Aug 10, 2008 11:50 PM PDT to parent up   0 recs

“blew my MIND in ways that…”

My Dave Righetti is better than your Dave Righetti.

by howtheyscored on Aug 10, 2008 11:50 PM PDT to parent up   0 recs

I have the seventh Dune novel in paperback. It was written by Herbert’s kid and his sidekick Anderson from the old man’s notes. I’m almost afraid to reread it, but I really really want to know what happens after “Chapterhouse: Dune.”

No, really, I have updated my blog this year: http://skaldheim.livejournal.com/tag/baseball

by Skaldheim on Aug 11, 2008 11:26 AM PDT to parent up   0 recs

I mostly read the classics. Philip K. Dick was one of my favorites, along with Asimov and Kurt Vonnegut. If you ever get a chance to read short stories from the Golden Age, they’re well worth it. Microcosmic God by Sturgeon and The Cold Equation by Godwin are two that I still remember. Science fiction at its best imo. I also remember quite liking Larry Niven’s Ringworld, though he’s become a right-wing dingbat who co-writes a lot of crap nowadays.

I actually just reread Dune last month. I’m of two minds about it. I think it’s good in the way that Tolkein’s LOTR was good—it defined a genre and took on an epic scope that few works do. But for whatever reason, I just can’t get engrossed in it. Maybe it’s the prose. Maybe it’s because I had read it after I read a lot of other SF, so it didn’t have the impact of novelty.

The only SF series I remember really blowing my mind is Phillip Pullman’s Her Dark Materials. If there’s any justice in the world he’ll be getting JK Rowling’s billions.

Thanks for the reminder on Hyperion. I’ve been meaning to read it, but I never can remember to check it out of the library.

Where the relative merits of Joe Paterson and Daniel Otero are hashed out over knife fights and tea.

by RougeGorrila on Aug 11, 2008 12:14 AM PDT to parent up   0 recs

I kind of wonder what would happen if I read Dune today. I remember being completely blown away by the sheer scope and density of the prose, and it was probably one of my early experiences with actively noticing that the way the book was written was equally as painstaking as the way the story was told (which is kind of a dubious distinction), which is to say that it was probably one of the first things I read in which I noticed and paid attention to elements of craft, or rather which got me to notice elements of craft.

I’ve been meaning to re-read it for years now, but I think in the back of my heart I don’t want to be disappointed, and have put it off for that reason, among others.

My Dave Righetti is better than your Dave Righetti.

by howtheyscored on Aug 11, 2008 12:55 AM PDT to parent up   0 recs

I saw Chabon give a reading in Berkeley with his wife (also a writer). He read a fairly touching short story that had to do, subtextually, with miscarraige, and more than likely came out of his own personal experience with miscarraige. I quite enjoyed it. During the Q&A, one person who insisted on taking advantage of being given the opportunity to ask one question by asking five before she gave up the mic, actually asked him “Are you the man who wrote the novel about a Parrot?”

Stupid members of the audience aside, that experience inspired me to read “Werewolves in Their Youth,” one of his short story collections. While I didn’t enjoy that very much (mostly, not at all), I was still interested enough in the author to see how he was with the novel form. And he’s a much better novel writer than he is a short story writer in my opinion, and appears to be a very nice man. And I’m happy to keep reading most of his novels until I get sick of them.

My Dave Righetti is better than your Dave Righetti.

by howtheyscored on Aug 10, 2008 11:40 PM PDT to parent up   0 recs

I agree that he is a better novelist than a short story writer. I just finished Summerland last week and found that quite enjoyable. Summerland probably also qualifies for SF.

Where the relative merits of Joe Paterson and Daniel Otero are hashed out over knife fights and tea.

by RougeGorrila on Aug 10, 2008 11:55 PM PDT to parent up   0 recs

Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead are my two favorite novels. And I’ve read a lot of novels.

Only 857 games until the end of Zito's contract

by thehavenot on Aug 10, 2008 11:46 PM PDT to parent up   0 recs

Agree

Though, while I’ve read alot of novels, I can’t say that I’ve read alot of novels that would top many people’s favorites lists. Not literary critics’ lists, at any rate.

VAE PVTO DEVS FIO

by Bhaakon on Aug 10, 2008 11:50 PM PDT to parent up   0 recs

I know that I pay very little attention anyone who considers themselves to be a literary critic.

Only 857 games until the end of Zito's contract

by thehavenot on Aug 11, 2008 7:51 AM PDT to parent up   0 recs

Those be good books

And definitive SciFi

¿Julio is tourist in San Francisco? Harper's Bizarre!

by hairball on Aug 11, 2008 10:13 AM PDT to parent up   0 recs

Agreed

The third book in the series didn’t impress me nearly as much, so I stopped there. Has anyone read the later books? Are they any good?

No, really, I have updated my blog this year: http://skaldheim.livejournal.com/tag/baseball

by Skaldheim on Aug 11, 2008 10:37 AM PDT to parent up   0 recs

Yes, and they’re average. The Bean series is more political intrigue and geopolitical machinations, which is interesting in their own right, but none really capture the essence of Ender’s Game.

Where the relative merits of Joe Paterson and Daniel Otero are hashed out over knife fights and tea.

by RougeGorrila on Aug 11, 2008 11:03 AM PDT to parent up   0 recs

That’s what I figured. Ender’s great, but I actually preferred the Alvin Maker books more. Again, I have only read the first three of those, and that was twenty years ago; my tastes are probably quite different now.

No, really, I have updated my blog this year: http://skaldheim.livejournal.com/tag/baseball

by Skaldheim on Aug 11, 2008 11:05 AM PDT to parent up   0 recs

Xenocide and Children of the MInd aren’t as good as the first two.

Also, the whole shadow series is a…ahem…shadow of the Ender series.

Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoyed all of them. It’s just they didn’t measure up to the first two.

I also liked the Alvin Maker series. I’m still waiting for Master Alvin. I would actually recommend most of Orson Scott Card’s books. Particularly Pastwatch and Lost Boys (which really isn’t sci-fi).

Only 857 games until the end of Zito's contract

by thehavenot on Aug 11, 2008 2:52 PM PDT to parent up   0 recs

I liked Ender’s Game, Speaker for the Dead and Ender’s Shadow and didn’t care for the rest.

And since I’ve found out what a faily guy Card is, it’s made me a bit :\ about the whole thing in general.

Matt Cain: He'll save children, but not the Dodger children.

by jponry on Aug 11, 2008 5:43 PM PDT to parent up   0 recs

Card's not faily

Only 857 games until the end of Zito's contract

by thehavenot on Aug 11, 2008 9:29 PM PDT to parent up   0 recs

Well, okay, a better way to say that is that he’s got some opinions I find to be extremely faily.

Matt Cain: He'll save children, but not the Dodger children.

by jponry on Aug 11, 2008 9:45 PM PDT to parent up   0 recs

Yes, that is a better way to put it

Only 857 games until the end of Zito's contract

by thehavenot on Aug 12, 2008 7:46 AM PDT to parent up   0 recs

Yeah, pretty much.

Matt Cain: He'll save children, but not the Dodger children.

by jponry on Aug 12, 2008 11:18 AM PDT to parent up   0 recs

I guess it wouldn't be a sci-fi discussion if it didn't eventually get here

This is not the forum for the type of discussion that would result from pursuing this but let me just say that, while I do not agree with everything Orson Scott Card says (which includes his particularly hard line against homosexual marriage), I find the essay in question much more reasoned and fair than the response that you linked to.

Only 857 games until the end of Zito's contract

by thehavenot on Aug 12, 2008 2:41 PM PDT to parent up   0 recs

Am I...

the only one who doesn’t really “get” Jon Scalzi? I have read both Old man’s War and the Ghost brigades and aside from being eminently readable, the novels don’t strike me as particularly special.

Flossing a dead horse

by kenshin1 on Aug 11, 2008 4:46 AM PDT   0 recs

The Ringworld Is Unstable

Fred Lewis can stand under my umbrella.

by S.F. Giangst on Aug 11, 2008 6:59 AM PDT   0 recs

Man, I really need to re-read those books again.

No, really, I have updated my blog this year: http://skaldheim.livejournal.com/tag/baseball

by Skaldheim on Aug 11, 2008 11:05 AM PDT to parent up   0 recs

Yeah, it’s good shit, Maynard. The whole Known Space collection is fairly wow.

Oh, and Niven and Pournelle are doing a sequel to Inferno. Escape from Hell, is set for a February 3, 2009 release. Allen Carpentier lives! Well, sort of…

Fred Lewis can stand under my umbrella.

by S.F. Giangst on Aug 12, 2008 7:26 AM PDT to parent up   0 recs

kim stanley robinson

I’ve posted before about Robert J Sawyer, who has a novel on the list. I find him real compelling at times, especially the alternative/speculative series on intelligent velociraptors, “farseer”, fossil hunter, and foreigner.

I read several categories of books, including SF. The SF writer I can’t get enough of-has won several Hugos and other awards-Kim Stanley Robinson, who resides in Davis, CA, and thus could be a SFGiants fan.

I just finished being blown away by “Years of Rice and Salt”—altern-history, focusing on how science, exploration, and everything else develop after the plague kills virtually all the white people in Europe. So most of it is set in China & Central Asia, also India and the Americas a little. 10 sections, some of them actually novellas, about specific bits of progress. Great characters and tales. He manages to hook you with the characters, then you are led to think about the abstract/philosophical conflicts as they are driven by action.

Robinson’s Red Mars, Green Mars Blue Mars are well known, and fascinated me also. Sci Fi emphasizing geology, climate change, and the clash between science, economics, politics. And there’s a trilogy that I think may be aimed at teenagers. I only read the first, its hero is one—that’s the Wild Shore, Gold Coast, Pacific Edge.

And Robinson has a recent climate change trilogy I will be reading the next few months. Basically I think I better force myself to read something else just so my mind doesnt merge with his or something.

adopter/sponsor of "Go, Antoan" Richardson

by foothillsfan on Aug 11, 2008 8:09 AM PDT   0 recs

One Mars Two Mars Red Mars Blue Mars?

Sorry, just had to. :)

"While conservatives tell you 'leave things alone and no one will lose,' and liberals tell you 'interfere a lot and no one will lose,' baseball says 'someone will lose.' Not only says it - but insists upon it! ... Democracy is lovely, but baseball's more mature." BVCE supports SF Dugout and Manny Burriss.

by BaronVonCurrentEvents on Aug 11, 2008 8:10 AM PDT to parent up   0 recs

So glad...

...I wasn’t drinking coffee when I read that. Bad Baron!

No, really, I have updated my blog this year: http://skaldheim.livejournal.com/tag/baseball

by Skaldheim on Aug 11, 2008 8:14 AM PDT to parent up   0 recs

The Mars trilogy is on my “to read” list.

Only 857 games until the end of Zito's contract

by thehavenot on Aug 11, 2008 2:53 PM PDT to parent up   0 recs

I read Red Mars earlier this year and definitely enjoyed it. I have the other two on my shelves, but haven’t gotten around to it. There’s also a short story collection set in the same world called The Martians – I haven’t picked that up, though.

I must say, though, I liked The Years of Rice and Salt (described elsewhere in this fanpost) a lot more. It was amazingly engrossing and really just kind of staggering.

Of course, if you’re one of these people offended by the notion that alternate history is science fiction…

by jcb9 on Aug 11, 2008 3:03 PM PDT to parent up   0 recs

I’ve read the first two volumes of the climate change trilogy, and they reminded me why I quit reading science fiction. The science/tech/research crowds out the characters/plot/ideas; the writing is often clumsy; and, most of all, the books are insanely repetitive and sluggish. This last, I suppose, is generally the fault of the publishing industry (aided and abetted by readers), which demands that every decent idea be fluffed up into a trilogy (or worse!).

That said, they’re pretty great and mind-blowing books. I’m looking forward to reading the third and moving on to Years of Rice and Salt.

by Evan on Aug 11, 2008 4:09 PM PDT to parent up   0 recs

You Know...

Discussions of Rush and science fiction awards? This FanPost isn’t going to help McC’s repuation as the nerdiest baseball site on the Internet. Not that that’s a bad thing.

I grew up on Asimov, del Rey, Farmer, Heinlein, Clarke, et al. Sadly, that type of SF is all but dead, and I’ve long since falled out of the habit of reading it. I think I’m still bummed that space travel hasn’t progressed nearly as quickly as those old masters had portrayed in their works.

No, really, I have updated my blog this year: http://skaldheim.livejournal.com/tag/baseball

by Skaldheim on Aug 11, 2008 8:28 AM PDT   0 recs

Where's my f'ing jet pack

we were promised jet packs

Billy Hayes: His job is better than yours.

by delorean on Aug 11, 2008 8:38 AM PDT to parent up   0 recs

Actually, I saw a report recently that someone’s about to announce a practical personal jetpack.

by jcb9 on Aug 11, 2008 8:40 AM PDT to parent up   0 recs

Sweet

"While conservatives tell you 'leave things alone and no one will lose,' and liberals tell you 'interfere a lot and no one will lose,' baseball says 'someone will lose.' Not only says it - but insists upon it! ... Democracy is lovely, but baseball's more mature." BVCE supports SF Dugout and Manny Burriss.

by BaronVonCurrentEvents on Aug 11, 2008 8:49 AM PDT to parent up   0 recs

Don't you mean

+1 ? I mean, that is how us nerds express, “Sweet”, right? (checks handbook)

¿Julio is tourist in San Francisco? Harper's Bizarre!

by hairball on Aug 11, 2008 10:14 AM PDT to parent up   0 recs

Mine must be out of date. It still says use “chillax” for all occasions.

Where the relative merits of Joe Paterson and Daniel Otero are hashed out over knife fights and tea.

by RougeGorrila on Aug 11, 2008 10:30 AM PDT to parent up   0 recs

You're out of date?

I still default to “hella bitchin’!”

No, really, I have updated my blog this year: http://skaldheim.livejournal.com/tag/baseball

by Skaldheim on Aug 11, 2008 10:58 AM PDT to parent up   0 recs

Flying car, too. Popular Mechanics said I’d have one and I want it.

Fred Lewis can stand under my umbrella.

by S.F. Giangst on Aug 11, 2008 8:55 AM PDT to parent up   0 recs

We had to take away the jet packs because people wouldn’t use them responsibly.

by Johnny Disaster on Aug 11, 2008 8:59 AM PDT to parent up   0 recs

wtf is the point of having a jet pack if you’re going to use it responsibly??!?

Billy Hayes: His job is better than yours.

by delorean on Aug 11, 2008 9:00 AM PDT to parent up   1 recs

One of my favorite books is called “The Hugo Award Winners”. It was the first compilation of SF short stories. Each story was prefaced with an amusing story about the author by Asimov.

by Lars The Wanderer on Aug 11, 2008 9:41 AM PDT to parent up   0 recs

My SF/Fantasy pedigree

Such as it is.

I was a voracious consumer of fantasy as a kid: Tolkien, Terry Brooks, Robert Adams, Anne McCaffrey, all that shit. I was totally into D&D, and then added drugs to the mix, which really helped me appreciate Michael Moorcock. I’m pretty sure that in my teens I read everything he had ever written. Loved all that goofy shit.

Became an English major somewhere in there, which left little time for pleasure reading. Sorta got my feet wet again with WIlliam Gibson (early, good; recent, not so much) and Snowcrash (one of the greatest books I have ever read). Everything by Stephenson other than Snowcrash, though, has been ghastly (IMHO). I’d love to find something as awesome as Snowcrash or the Sprawl Trilogy stuff, if anyone has recco’s.

Billy Hayes: His job is better than yours.

by delorean on Aug 11, 2008 8:56 AM PDT   0 recs

A friend loaned me Snowcrash. He said if I enjoyed the films Dark City and the Matrix, I would enjoy Snowcrash.

Well, I did not. SF just isn’t a genre I can get into, I suppose.

"While conservatives tell you 'leave things alone and no one will lose,' and liberals tell you 'interfere a lot and no one will lose,' baseball says 'someone will lose.' Not only says it - but insists upon it! ... Democracy is lovely, but baseball's more mature." BVCE supports SF Dugout and Manny Burriss.

by BaronVonCurrentEvents on Aug 11, 2008 9:01 AM PDT to parent up   0 recs

Cyberpunk != SF

Well, it’s a very niche subgenre of SF, and one I’ve never really enjoyed. It felt like a triumph of style over substance. Worse, it feels rather dated now, at least to me.

No, really, I have updated my blog this year: http://skaldheim.livejournal.com/tag/baseball

by Skaldheim on Aug 11, 2008 10:48 AM PDT to parent up   0 recs

Yeah, I get that cyberpunk isn’t sci-fi and sci-fi isn’t cyberpunk. I just don’t care for sci-fi to begin with and the friend thought well hey try this then you might find it palatable. Me not liking sci-fi was one of the major reasons why I didn’t get on board with Firefly until a few years ago.

"While conservatives tell you 'leave things alone and no one will lose,' and liberals tell you 'interfere a lot and no one will lose,' baseball says 'someone will lose.' Not only says it - but insists upon it! ... Democracy is lovely, but baseball's more mature." BVCE supports SF Dugout and Manny Burriss.

by BaronVonCurrentEvents on Aug 11, 2008 10:58 AM PDT to parent up   0 recs

Makes sense

I like SF, but I’ve never really cottoned to Firefly. I suppose it’s because I don’t worship Whedon like some folks do, but it’s all good. I don’t have to like what all my friends do, and vice versa.

No, really, I have updated my blog this year: http://skaldheim.livejournal.com/tag/baseball

by Skaldheim on Aug 11, 2008 11:02 AM PDT to parent up