What are you reading?

[Impenitent]

Now I have to read it again to assess - it's been too long - and I was too young - for me to properly judge from my recollection.

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[Inanna]

How young?

[Impenitent]

I think it was late high school? Not an ankle-biter!
But up to my early 20s, the flavour of the story could pull me in, and if I had successfully suspended disbelief, awkward dialogue and othe infelicities didn't register.
I've become more discriminating so I wonder if those things would disturb me now.

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[Alatar]

Likewise. I'm half afraid to reread it in case it ruins it. The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant did not fare well in adulthood.

[Impenitent]

I had problems with it at first read.
Couldn't get past rape as a plot point.

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[Maria]

I literally didn't get past the rape scene. I put the book down and mentally made a note to never read anything by that author ever again. I think I was in my 20s at the time.

[Inanna]

Thanks, women. Am not going to try.

[elengil]

Wait... what book are y'all talking about?

[Maria]

"The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant"

[elengil]

Ah. Never read it. Or them? Either way... definitely not interested now.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I think we are actually talking about Dune. Al just made a comparison to "The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant".

[yovargas]

I think in general a lot of the older classic scifi/fantasy writers were not very good with language, and often fairly mediocre at best. (Though I contend the writing in Dune is particularly bad.) It does seem like fans of the genre cared a lot more about interesting ideas than quality writing back then. (I think the average writing quality in genre books has gone up a lot over the years.) Which is fair, though I think it's a big part of why they were rarely taken very seriously amongst more literary minded people. I also think it's why Tolkien still stands so many heads and shoulders above just about everyone in the genre - that man could write some damn fine beautiful language.

[Maria]

An awful lot of early science fiction can be classified as hard science fiction- where the author is mainly concerned with getting every technical detail they can imagine set out as logically and precisely as they can, usually to the detriment of character development. I'm not calling Frank Herbert's work hard science fiction because there's a lot in there that is fairly magical, but he does kind of let character development fall to the wayside a bit while concentrating on world building.

Some hard sci fi books I love for the sheer weirdness of the the world that is built. But the books I come back to over and over again are more character driven, with minimal time spent sketching out the mechanisms.

Here's a list of notable hard sci fi books from Wikipedia: I've read quite a few.

Novels
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (1932)[27]
Robert A. Heinlein, The Rolling Stones (1952)
Hal Clement, Mission of Gravity (1953)[20]
Harry Martinson, Aniara (1953)
Fred Hoyle, The Black Cloud (1957)[25]
James Blish, A Case of Conscience (1958)[26]
Jack Vance, The Languages of Pao (1958)[26]
John Wyndham, The Outward Urge (1959)
Stanisław Lem, Solaris (1961)
Arthur C. Clarke, A Fall of Moondust (1961),[1] 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Rendezvous with Rama (1972)
John Brunner, Stand on Zanzibar (1968),[26] The Jagged Orbit (1969),[26] The Sheep Look Up (1972),[26] The Shockwave Rider (1975)[26]
Michael Crichton, The Andromeda Strain (1969)[27]
Larry Niven, Ringworld (1970) [28]
Poul Anderson, Tau Zero (1970)[25]
James Gunn, The Listeners (1972)[25]
Isaac Asimov, The Gods Themselves (1972)
Bob Shaw, Orbitsville (1975)[26]
James P. Hogan, The Two Faces of Tomorrow (1979)[1]
Robert L. Forward, Dragon's Egg (1980)[29]
Steven Barnes and Larry Niven, The Descent of Anansi (1982)[27]
Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park (1990)
Robert Silverberg (editor), Murasaki (1992)
Kim Stanley Robinson, The Mars trilogy (Red Mars (1992), Green Mars (1993), Blue Mars (1996)),[30][31] Aurora (2015)
Ben Bova, Grand Tour series (1992–2020)
Nancy Kress, Beggars in Spain (1993)[21]
Linda Nagata, The Nanotech Succession (1995–1998)
Stephen Baxter, Ring (1996)
Greg Egan, Schild's Ladder (2002)[32]
Alastair Reynolds, Pushing Ice (2005)
Paul J. McAuley, The Quiet War (2008)
Cixin Liu, The Three-Body Problem (2008)[33]
Andy Weir, The Martian (2011)
Clyde Desouza, Memories with Maya (2013)[34]
Neal Stephenson, Seveneves (2015)

[Inanna]

Seveneves is brilliant (Although like all of Neal Stephenson’s books, the ending is a bit meh).

As is Cixin Liu’s trilogy starting with the three-body problem. Absolutely brilliant.

Martian too, of course.

No opinion on the others...

[Impenitent]

Huxley's Brave New World is devastating.
Wyndham's work is also worth reading.

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[Inanna]

Noted.

[Frelga]

Ursula Le Guin wrote at about the same time as Herbert, and her use of language is exquisite.

[Maria]

Of the list above, it turns out I've only read these:
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (1932)[27]
Robert A. Heinlein, The Rolling Stones (1952)
Hal Clement, Mission of Gravity (1953)[20]
Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Rendezvous with Rama (1972)
Michael Crichton, The Andromeda Strain (1969)[27]
Larry Niven, Ringworld (1970) [28]
Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park (1990)
Kim Stanley Robinson, The Mars trilogy (Red Mars (1992), Green Mars (1993), Blue Mars (1996)),[30][31] Aurora (2015)
Alastair Reynolds, Pushing Ice (2005)

The only one I've gone back to again is Heinlein's "The Rolling Stones" which I don't think should be in this list, really. It has good characterizations and a fun story.

I hated "Brave New World" and liked the others for the complex, imaginative world building.

Ringworld is an amazing concept and the story is entertaining... but I can't even remember the main character's name. Well, it seems I can't remember any of the main character's names of those I just listed. Except "The Rolling Stones". A result of poor character development, I guess.

Vernor Vinge oughta be on the hard science fiction book author list. Jaw dropping, amazing premises, and protagonists I can't remember a thing about!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Ursula Le Guin wrote at about the same time as Herbert, and her use of language is exquisite.

Coincidentally, shortly after I read this comment, I saw this post from John Garth on Facebook:

A tribute embedded in A Wizard of Earthsea? What happens if you want to translate the name of Ursula Le Guin’s world, Earthsea, into the Old Speech, the language of creation and magic there? Let’s see…
Well, A Wizard of Earthsea helps. The word for “sea” is easy. ‘“We call the foam on waves sukien: that word is made from two words of the Old Speech, suk, feather, and inien, the sea. Feather of the sea is foam.”’
"Earth" is a little trickier: ‘“This is a rock; tolk in the True Speech,” he said, looking mildly up at Ged now. “A bit of the stone of which Roke Isle is made, a little bit of the dry land on which men live.”’
So the stuff of the earth is called tolk and the sea is called inien. Put them together. Elide the middle syllable (as is done to produce sukien). What do you get?
Tolkien!
This is just a guess, a hypothesis – unprovable but pleasing. Le Guin was a huge admirer of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. “I have no idea how many times I have read it myself. I reread a great deal, but have lost count only with Dickens, Tolstoy, and Tolkien.”

[Inanna]

LeGuin is due a re-read.