Watcha Watchin?

[voice]

Aug 22, 2024 22:10:17 GMT marechal said:

How does the second book compare to the first?

tbf I never got though book 2 and didn't bother with the others, the first book was OK, but I've never thought it was as amazing as a lot of people say, good story, but still your basic Jesus re-boot so liked by mid 20C writers.

[marechal]

Yeah, I think the best part about it is the world building. I've read plenty SF books that were better.

[flatandy]

It's always worth reminding ourselves, too, that lots of the mid-century SF writers had slightly dodgy politics. For all the Dune fanboy stuff, Herbert was a rotten homophobe. He wasn't as rotten as Heinlein or, obviously, Hubbard, but still pretty rotten. Perhaps it was actually just mid-20th-centry SF writers whose surnames began with H.

[marechal]

Can't stand Heinlein. Everything he writes seems to be a diatribe on why his view of (pick the subject) is unassailable.

You want a fun mid-century SF book? The Stars my Destination by Alfred Bester.

[voice]

I read Heinlein as a teenage, but never got why so many thought he was a genius, he was very reactionary and it showed in his writing. Years later I read just how much of a weirdo he was and it didn't surprise me.

Authors of that era I liked much better were the likes of Pournelle and Niven, both together and separate, and Asimov and Vogt when I was teenager. Did quite like Bradbury, but not every book of his.

oh I should add, despite so many of his books and ideas becoming fodder for Hollywood, IMO P K Dicks writing was not great, though his ideas and concepts were.

[flatandy]

Yeah. I think we covered PKD before, here. Some nice ideas and conceits and better than the junk writer that many thought he was. But also not a literary genius that he then became thought of as.

Heinlein was mostly tosh. Bradbury could be decent. Asimov was a bad writer with some interesting ideas.

I seem to remember liking stuff like Poul Anderson, back in the day. And obviously I was and remain a yoooge fan of JG Ballard's writing, but that was a bit later. Probably my favourite mid-century SF book has always been A Canticle for Leibowitz.

[marechal]

Same with Asimov, as a whole his non-fiction is probably better than his fiction.
Bradbury could be quite good.
The one Poul Anderson book I read was Tau Zero, which I enjoyed.
Canticle was very good.
Pournelle/Niven: The Mote in God's Eye and Inferno were good.
Have not read anything by Ballard yet.
Clarke had good ideas and was a decent writer, of course he was also a pedo.

[flatandy]

Yeah, I was wondering whether to include Clarke with Heinlein and Hubbard and Herbert. There's a reason that Silicon Valley Broligarchs love that particular brand of SF - or, perhaps, those kinds of authors have influenced the likes of Musk and Thiel.

[marechal]

I do like what little I've read by Clarke though. Childhood's End was fantastic despite sounding a bit dated (and using a dubious plot device that the story hinges on).

[voice]

Clark was dodgy as fcuk, but I read a couple of his and they weren't bad. Of that era US SF was much better than the insipid stuff by British SF such as Wyndham or Christopher, though I read both and enjoyed em at the time, just looking back now they really were wet.

Oddly though some of the best SF over the past few decades have been British authors. Though some good stuff from different places as well.

[flatandy]

Certainly the best modern SF I've read was by China Mieville, who's British. The City And The City. Absolutely brilliant stuff.

[voice]

I've liked most of Alastair Reynolds, his first few were a bit ploddy, but I like that he never uses bollox science, FTL and so on, just hard science. And while not great literature I've enjoyed Neil Asher's books, great stories and world building. I liked Banks when he first came out, but he could never end a book well sadly.

oh and Addams was a genius, so sad he such crippling writers black and died so young.

[Repat Van]

Hamilton.

For the 3rd time. Still excellent.

[flatandy]

I don't think I know that one.

Is it a gritty, miserable urban soap opera set in the scummy Glasgow exurbs?

Or is it a lightly entertaining soap-sit-com starring some of the Levy family set on the shores of Lake Ontario?

[mids]

I think it's the biopic of an ultra-tanned 70s heart throb.

[perrykneeham]

I think it's about the struggle of a racing driver to stay in the closet until he finally retires in tax exiled disgrace.

[Repat Van]

Aug 24, 2024 19:34:31 GMT perrykneeham said:

I think it's about the struggle of a racing driver to stay in the closet until he finally retires in tax exiled disgrace.

Ob-ses-ssed….

[flatandy]

I really don't know or care about Louis Hamilleton's sexuality. Even less about his driving. But his tax exile while pretending to be one of the good guys does make him look a bit of a cunt. Not as much as most racing drivers - he doesn't have the fash links like Nelson Piquet or Maxwald Moseley, and he hasn't spent his dad's billions buying his way into a driving seat. That is one of the lowest bars you could set for anyone. Beyond "Not as much of a wife-beater as Jos Verstappen", there's not much to like about him. But whether he likes boys or girls or other or all or none is a weird thing to care about.

[perrykneeham]

Oh, I'm certainly not bothered by his race or sexuality, nor particularly by his tax exile status, except that there's an element of fraud about all of them that's deeply unattractive.

Motorsport is jam-packed with arseholes and spivs. It seems a shame that he has to hide his sexuality, especially as that could be something positive he childdo. He's also a poor example for black kids as he appears to be a deeply dodgy. Let's not pretend we're not all prepared to do a cash deal to avoid VAT, but mega-wealthy people hiding their money overseas should be a matter for public shaming. He's not often asked to do much person PR stuff, is he?

[Repat Van]

People who obsessed about the alleged “secret sexuality” of people are really very very very weird.