I read it, was very "eh." I'd re-read it if it were the only book in jail, but I didn't see what all the fuss what about.
Lukewarm, if not chilly.
Y'all see the man hanging out of the spaceship with the really big gun? Now I'm not saying you weren't easy to find. It was kinda out of our way, and he didn't want to come in the first place. Man's lookin' to kill some folk. So really it's his will y'all should worry about thwarting.
Mal ,'Safe'
Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
Strix - Mar 05, 2006 4:27:10 pm PST #109 of 28061
A dress should be tight enough to show you're a woman but loose enough to flee from zombies. — Ginger
meara - Mar 05, 2006 4:28:46 pm PST #110 of 28061
Anyone read this on scifi in the NYTimes? I was...irked.
DXMachina - Mar 05, 2006 4:51:26 pm PST #111 of 28061
You always do this. We get tipsy, and you take advantage of my love of the scientific method.
He seems absolutely clueless about what he's been reading. It's just occurring now to him that science fiction often has wooden characters in support of a plot only a geek could love? It's hard to take him at all seriously when he includes Cats Cradle among his 10 best list, and calls it:
The perfect, Platonic balance of science and fiction, one that still finds room for merciless satire and a moral that resonates to the present day: that self-destruction is mankind's one true calling.
I love that book, but it has barely a passing acquaintance with science.
Consuela - Mar 05, 2006 4:52:32 pm PST #112 of 28061
We are Buffistas. This isn't our first apocalypse. -- Pix
Yeah, everyone knows that no current science fiction writers give a damn about character or emotion. t rolls eyes forever
DebetEsse - Mar 05, 2006 4:55:11 pm PST #113 of 28061
Woe to the fucking wicked.
No, those books are called "Literary fiction" now.
meara - Mar 05, 2006 4:55:34 pm PST #114 of 28061
Yeah, everyone knows that no current science fiction writers give a damn about character or emotion.
No kidding. He seems like the perfect person to talk about scifi, since he loves it SO MUCH. Or not. Yeesh. I mean, it's one thing to be bitchy about a specific book, but to sweepingly say the whole genre sucks, in your first column (at least I"m assuming first--the front page is all "New SciFi column!")? Um. Way to piss off the people who would be reading you.
beth b - Mar 05, 2006 4:55:59 pm PST #115 of 28061
oh joy! Oh Rapture ! I have a brain!
yep, I'll go with annoying
Strega - Mar 05, 2006 5:32:46 pm PST #116 of 28061
to sweepingly say the whole genre sucks, in your first column
I don't see where he says that. Or what he does say that isn't true.
meara - Mar 05, 2006 5:41:00 pm PST #117 of 28061
OK, sorry--sweepingly say that the entire genre *currently* sucks.
"I cannot do this in good conscience because if you were to immerse yourself in most of the sci-fi being published these days, you would probably enjoy it as much as one enjoys reading a biology textbook or a stereo manual."
And while I agree there's a lot of dreck, there's a lot of dreck in EVERY genre. And it doesn't really seem to be the way to introduce a new column. Especially given that while getting people to read a scifi book they might otherwise not read is a great goal...a lot of the people reading your column are going to be people who currently enjoy scifi. So saying it almost all sucks really isn't a great foot to start off on, it seems.
§ ita § - Mar 05, 2006 5:41:41 pm PST #118 of 28061
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
This:
if you were to immerse yourself in most of the sci-fi being published these days, you would probably enjoy it as much as one enjoys reading a biology textbook or a stereo manual
Is either not true, or no more true about sci fi than about any other genre, and there seems a subtext to me that he's talking about what makes sci fi different from other genres.