Author Topic: Science Fiction Novel Poll - Group G  (Read 12865 times)

Ocicat

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on: November 18, 2009, 07:09:02 PM
Quite a week last week!  No clear leader emerged, instead we had a tie for first place most the week.  First place was tied with four books, then five, six... Then with just a few days to go Starship Troopers, which got a late start, pulled ahead by one vote.  There were 21 votes in, which is what we usually get.  I thought it was a done deal.  But looking at the poll this morning, two last minute votes came in, both voting for The Handmaid's Tale.  So looks like Handmaid's wins the group, and Troopers comes in second.  Loosing out by a nose are The Diamond Age, Speaker for the Dead, Childhood's End, and A Scanner Darkly.

This week is the second to last group poll.  We have the original time travel story by Wells, another classic dystopia, a boy's war novel, historical fictionpunk, another Heinlein classic, a slapstick space opera, and PK Dick messing with your mind in a story that's almost but not entirely unlike the movie based on it.  And more...
« Last Edit: November 18, 2009, 07:25:07 PM by Ocicat »



Talia

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Reply #1 on: November 18, 2009, 07:50:19 PM
Ooh, one I actually have an opinion on this time! hehe.

Love me some Richard K. Morgan. The Takahashi Kovacs novels are splendid.



DKT

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Reply #2 on: November 18, 2009, 08:01:43 PM
Ooh, one I actually have an opinion on this time! hehe.

Love me some Richard K. Morgan. The Takahashi Kovacs novels are splendid.

Ditto!

(Although there's others like in this batch, too.)


stePH

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Reply #3 on: November 18, 2009, 09:38:30 PM
I expect I'll be the sole vote for Cyteen, unless hautdesert comes in here... maybe.

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Reply #4 on: November 18, 2009, 10:29:46 PM
Went old school, with The Time Machine.  VERY close to voting for Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? but that book actually left a scar.  It's great, I just don't ever need to go near it again.



Bdoomed

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Reply #5 on: November 19, 2009, 12:59:33 AM
Sirens of Titan is one of my all time favorite books ever!  everyone should vote for it.

loved Ender's Game, loved Brave New World, liked The Time Machine, but Sirens took my vote here

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


lowky

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Reply #6 on: November 19, 2009, 02:04:42 AM
I will sheepishly admit I never read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.  Loved Ender's game as well as The Time Machine and I enjoyed Brave New World.  Started reading Cryptonomicon, but never finished it.  I liked some of it, but had too much on my plate, and it was borrowed.  Have always meant to try Cyteen, but i figured it for YA sci-fi which I am less interested in.  I think I would fare slightly better on read books in a Horror poll.  I enjoy much of the sci-fi I read, but I tend to get easily distracted from it by horror and fantasy titles.


kibitzer

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Reply #7 on: November 19, 2009, 06:32:53 AM
Cryptonomicon -- my favourite sci-fi book ever, and one of my top 10 reads ever. I cannot praise this one enough; it's an awesome distillation of computing, cryptography, geek-hacker and social commentary. Love it. Love it.

If you want a well thought out and brilliantly funny piece about why computing geeks rule, go read "In The Beginning Was The Command Line." --> http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html
« Last Edit: November 20, 2009, 07:48:22 AM by kibitzer »



kibitzer

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Reply #8 on: November 19, 2009, 06:34:40 AM
Every time-travel story owes something to The Time Machine. I hope to god you didn't see the Guy Pierce version. He's a great actor but there was nothing he could do with such an appalling movie.


stePH

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Reply #9 on: November 19, 2009, 03:22:21 PM
Have always meant to try Cyteen, but i figured it for YA sci-fi which I am less interested in. 

Ah, don't let the "teen" in the title fool you.  "Cyteen" is the name of the planet on which the story is set.  No deeper meanings.  It's not about cybernetic adolescents.  And it's definitely not YA.

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Reply #10 on: November 20, 2009, 04:32:57 PM
I have always been a big fan of Ender's Game. So full of social and political commentary!

Plus, it is the only short story I know of that has successfully made the transition to full-length novel and was actually improved by the process.



Ocicat

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Reply #11 on: November 22, 2009, 07:48:30 PM
I'm shocked and dismayed that Brave New World isn't getting more votes.  It's miles better than 1984, coming at the whole dystopia concept from a whole different angle - and one that I think more closely resembles our modern world.  It's world is more realistic to my mind as well, where for me 1984 only really works as allegory. 



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Reply #12 on: November 22, 2009, 08:30:56 PM
I'm shocked and dismayed that Brave New World isn't getting more votes.  It's miles better than 1984, coming at the whole dystopia concept from a whole different angle - and one that I think more closely resembles our modern world.  It's world is more realistic to my mind as well, where for me 1984 only really works as allegory. 

To my great shame, I have never read beyond the first couple of chapters, despite owning a copy since being of single-digit age. :-[

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Reply #13 on: November 22, 2009, 10:04:31 PM
I'm shocked and dismayed that Brave New World isn't getting more votes.  It's miles better than 1984, coming at the whole dystopia concept from a whole different angle - and one that I think more closely resembles our modern world.  It's world is more realistic to my mind as well, where for me 1984 only really works as allegory. 

I agree wholeheartedly  - 1984 is a great book, and is perhaps the more compelling of the two from a pure storytelling POV, but Brave New World has far more to say, and where 1984 goes for monolithic value judgements ("Everyone is screwed. There is no hope"), Brave New World presents a far more complex, and therefore realistic, view of good and evil in society.



Bdoomed

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Reply #14 on: November 22, 2009, 10:41:57 PM
I would have voted for Brave New World among others if Sirens wasnt in there :)  Twas a great book

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


Heradel

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Reply #15 on: November 22, 2009, 10:46:15 PM
I would have voted for Brave New World among others if Sirens wasnt in there :)  Twas a great book

Bdoomed, you can vote for more than one book.

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Bdoomed

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Reply #16 on: November 22, 2009, 11:00:35 PM
I would have voted for Brave New World among others if Sirens wasnt in there :)  Twas a great book

Bdoomed, you can vote for more than one book.
oh I know but my vote counted way more by only voting for Sirens.
sadness it isn't doing well.

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


kibitzer

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Reply #17 on: November 22, 2009, 11:05:58 PM
Brave New World is a scarier book than 1984. In the latter, people are -- to some extent -- aware that they're being manipulated and aware that their world is manufactured and carefully controlled. Therefore, any thinking person can become a dissident and try to escape the system -- even if the try is just illusion.

In Brave New World, people aren't even aware of their manufactured world or their lot in life -- they're born that way and they accept it.

I used to think that'd be a good way to be -- knowing how and where you fit into the world, no questions asked, no angst, uncertainty or pain.


kibitzer

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Reply #18 on: November 22, 2009, 11:07:59 PM
I'm curious -- have you folks read Cryptonomicon? I know a lot of people begin and then discard it because it's too long or something. I almost gave up on reading it myself. It takes a while to get going but when it does -- BOOM!


Heradel

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Reply #19 on: November 22, 2009, 11:34:43 PM
I'm curious -- have you folks read Cryptonomicon? I know a lot of people begin and then discard it because it's too long or something. I almost gave up on reading it myself. It takes a while to get going but when it does -- BOOM!

That is basically Stephenson in a nutshell — Long, sometimes ponderous, exposition leading up frenetic action of worldly proportions.

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kibitzer

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Reply #20 on: November 23, 2009, 12:22:41 AM
That is basically Stephenson in a nutshell — Long, sometimes ponderous, exposition leading up frenetic action of worldly proportions.

His longer stuff, sure. Not so much with Snow Crash, Zodiac or The Diamond Age.


Heradel

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Reply #21 on: November 23, 2009, 12:42:33 AM
That is basically Stephenson in a nutshell — Long, sometimes ponderous, exposition leading up frenetic action of worldly proportions.

His longer stuff, sure. Not so much with Snow Crash, Zodiac or The Diamond Age.

Snow Crash and Diamond Age don't really show it as much (Zodiac I've never gotten to). That said, I've always wondered if those were that relatively short because of the efforts of a particularly strong editor.

Don't get me wrong, I loved Anathem, and I really enjoyed five of the six books of the Baroque cycle. I'm not sure if I would have started reading them if I hadn't read Diamond Age first and knew there was likely to be a good payoff, but length in his case is not really a vice.

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Ocicat

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Reply #22 on: November 23, 2009, 06:33:09 AM
To my great shame, I have never read beyond the first couple of chapters, despite owning a copy since being of single-digit age. :-[

It has a slow and confusing start - there is a lot of clumsy exposition.  The actual *story* gets started a few chapters in.  Try sticking it out!



DKT

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Reply #23 on: November 23, 2009, 09:04:23 PM
I'm curious -- have you folks read Cryptonomicon? I know a lot of people begin and then discard it because it's too long or something. I almost gave up on reading it myself. It takes a while to get going but when it does -- BOOM!

No. Honestly, I've heard good things about it, but right now that size of a book is hard to fit into my reading life. And some of the stuff I have read by him I haven't been in love with as much as everyone else seems to be...


wakela

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Reply #24 on: November 24, 2009, 02:03:13 AM
I'm curious -- have you folks read Cryptonomicon? I know a lot of people begin and then discard it because it's too long or something. I almost gave up on reading it myself. It takes a while to get going but when it does -- BOOM!

No. Honestly, I've heard good things about it, but right now that size of a book is hard to fit into my reading life. And some of the stuff I have read by him I haven't been in love with as much as everyone else seems to be...

Agreed.  I could read three or four books in the time it would take to read Crypto, ans with a job, wife, toddler, baby, I have little reading time.  Also, I read Snow Crash, and wasn't actually all that impressed.