Author Topic: Choose a classic  (Read 7082 times)

Jompier

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on: December 19, 2013, 04:11:02 PM
Simple. You name a classic sci/fi book or collection and say why it's a must read. I'm hoping we'll see a big list grow here - partly for selfish reasons.

I'll start with Arthur C. Clarke's "Rendezvous with Rama"

In short, people discover a cylindrical alien vessel that they set about to explore. The find no inhabitants other than "biots." The mission is to attempt to discover what the vessel is and what its purpose might be.

I love that the book doesn't give up on the excitement of scientific exploration at the expense of using a conventional action/suspense plot to drive the narrative forward. It's not that the book is without a plot, but the plot is the unraveling of a mystery, and in the process Clarke writes through the characters an authentic feeling of awe at what they have encountered. Reading it, I felt like a kid again, exploring the woods behind my grandmother's house and finding old and discarded (railroad) technology, strange (to me) animal habitats.

What's your pick and why?



Listener

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Reply #1 on: December 19, 2013, 06:52:50 PM
I love Robert A Heinlein's classics, but the one that I tend to turn to most is Friday. While it's not the best Heinlein book there is, I think it's one of the most accessible. It starts out with action; it's far enough in the future to still be relevant without being super-duper-far-flung-future-y; it explores nontraditional relationships; it reads quickly; it shows an alternate US which still seems somewhat plausible today.

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Varda

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Reply #2 on: December 19, 2013, 07:27:31 PM
Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny. It's the story of a space colony where the original settlers have employed body-jumping technology to set up a whole system of reincarnation and karma with themselves at the top. After many generations, one of the original colonists reintroduces Buddhism to bring the whole system down. It was one of the earliest classics I read, and has always stayed with me.

Also, a screenplay of Lord of Light was repurposed for the real-life rescue mission of 6 people in Iran featured in the movie Argo. So that's pretty cool. SF saves the day!

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lowky

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Reply #3 on: December 20, 2013, 12:46:40 AM
I would say anything by HP Lovecraft.  He usually winds up in horror but many of his themes deal with aliens, beings from space, etc.  There are many scientific themes as well (though usually science is on the losing end) such as in the Colour out of Space.  Beyond the Wall of Sleep has an intern who uses equipment to telepathically link to an insane murder, and learns that men are beings of light and in the dream world can travel planes and universes.  H.P. Lovecraft's influence in speculative fiction is still felt.  Many people who are now considered masters and the like cut their teeth on emulation and pastiche, such as Stephen King, Ramsey Campbell, Brian Lumley, Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, John Carpenter, Geiger, and others.  He also corresponded and influenced contemporaries, such as Robert E Howard, Fritz Leiber, Clark Ashton Smith, and August Derleth.


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Reply #4 on: December 20, 2013, 01:05:20 AM
Happy I got here early in this thread so I could nab this book:

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

Pretty much The Canterbury Tales with a space-ship. This was the book that made me realize that sci-fi could be more than space marines and pulpy space operas (not that those aren't fun in their own special way.) I don't want to say too much about the different stories told in Hyperion, to avoid being a dirty spoiler, but I will say that I cried so many times, I actually made it a habit to read this with a bucket of ice cream and a box of tissues right next to me.


jrderego

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Reply #5 on: December 20, 2013, 01:25:25 AM
The Man in the High Castle - P. K. Dick

An alternate history, sort of, where the Axis won WW2 and have split the US in half. What's amazing is that with that as a central element of the story it doesn't spend much time on world building, rather than with characters who as survivors of this war who have adapted to the new reality of Axis led USA. When the old guard of the Nazi empire begin turning on one another after the death of Martin Bormann the repercussions of the power shift may impact the lives of our main protagonists; an Americana antiques dealer, a Nazi assassin pretending to be an Italian partisan pretending to be a truck driver from New York City, a man hiding his Jewish heritage and starting out his own business as a jewelry maker, and his estranged wife who fled to what's left of the United States.

All events and characters are circling a book detailing an alternate America where the Allies won WW2 written by a man who lives in the only sliver of the US left intact, a narrow buffer between the Nazi east and Japanese west barely the width of Colorado.

It's literate, strange, surprisingly contemporary, and very very good. It is also the only book where a belief system is also a sentient character, if that makes any sense at all.

I really enjoyed this.
« Last Edit: December 21, 2013, 07:20:26 AM by jrderego »

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Reply #6 on: December 20, 2013, 01:14:43 PM
I'll go ahead and throw in Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. When you've got a story featuring Hiro Protagonist as an on-the-edge pizza delivery boy for the local mafia franchise and then "Last of the freelance hackers and Greatest swordfighter in the world" you're in for some seriously gonzo deconstructionist cyberpunk shit. However, unlike Pynchon, this is accessible and fun.

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Jompier

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Reply #7 on: December 20, 2013, 01:34:10 PM
Happy I got here early in this thread so I could nab this book:

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

Pretty much The Canterbury Tales with a space-ship. This was the book that made me realize that sci-fi could be more than space marines and pulpy space operas (not that those aren't fun in their own special way.) I don't want to say too much about the different stories told in Hyperion, to avoid being a dirty spoiler, but I will say that I cried so many times, I actually made it a habit to read this with a bucket of ice cream and a box of tissues right next to me.

Great recommendation. I loved this book. The connection to Canterbury Tales never struck me at the time, but I see it now quite clearly.



Jompier

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Reply #8 on: December 20, 2013, 01:40:46 PM
I'll go ahead and throw in Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. When you've got a story featuring Hiro Protagonist as an on-the-edge pizza delivery boy for the local mafia franchise and then "Last of the freelance hackers and Greatest swordfighter in the world" you're in for some seriously gonzo deconstructionist cyberpunk shit. However, unlike Pynchon, this is accessible and fun.

I read this, also, and liked it quite well. After this book, I tried to read Cryptonomicon and found it to be a real slog. I didn't finish it, but plan to, one of these days.



Varda

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Reply #9 on: December 20, 2013, 02:22:44 PM
I'll go ahead and throw in Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. When you've got a story featuring Hiro Protagonist as an on-the-edge pizza delivery boy for the local mafia franchise and then "Last of the freelance hackers and Greatest swordfighter in the world" you're in for some seriously gonzo deconstructionist cyberpunk shit. However, unlike Pynchon, this is accessible and fun.

I read this, also, and liked it quite well. After this book, I tried to read Cryptonomicon and found it to be a real slog. I didn't finish it, but plan to, one of these days.

If you liked Snow Crash, you should also try The Diamond Age. I think I liked it even more than Snow Crash, although that might be sacrilege to say so.

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jrderego

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Reply #10 on: December 21, 2013, 02:00:15 AM
I'll go ahead and throw in Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. When you've got a story featuring Hiro Protagonist as an on-the-edge pizza delivery boy for the local mafia franchise and then "Last of the freelance hackers and Greatest swordfighter in the world" you're in for some seriously gonzo deconstructionist cyberpunk shit. However, unlike Pynchon, this is accessible and fun.

I'd argue that it's not a classic.

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eytanz

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Reply #11 on: December 21, 2013, 04:18:55 AM
I'll go ahead and throw in Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. When you've got a story featuring Hiro Protagonist as an on-the-edge pizza delivery boy for the local mafia franchise and then "Last of the freelance hackers and Greatest swordfighter in the world" you're in for some seriously gonzo deconstructionist cyberpunk shit. However, unlike Pynchon, this is accessible and fun.

I'd argue that it's not a classic.

Why not? That's not a challenge, but genuine curiosity - I'm wondering how people decide what is or is not a classic.

Personally, I'd suggest Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks. Consider Phlebas is perhaps more widely read, being the first book written in the Culture universe, but Use of Weapons is in my opinion, the best in the series (and it works perfectly well as a stand alone). It has a complex structure that makes it hard to understand early on, but it's well worth it (and rather shattering) when you reach the end.

As a second recommendation - one that I'm not sure qualifies as a "classic" since it's not widely read, but is an amazing and challenging book - I'd offer Engine Summer by John Crowley. Crowley is perhaps best known for his Fantasy work Little, Big, but in my opinion his earlier SF novels are his best work (though I do love Little, Big as well).



jrderego

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Reply #12 on: December 21, 2013, 07:19:51 AM
I'll go ahead and throw in Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. When you've got a story featuring Hiro Protagonist as an on-the-edge pizza delivery boy for the local mafia franchise and then "Last of the freelance hackers and Greatest swordfighter in the world" you're in for some seriously gonzo deconstructionist cyberpunk shit. However, unlike Pynchon, this is accessible and fun.

I'd argue that it's not a classic.

Why not? That's not a challenge, but genuine curiosity - I'm wondering how people decide what is or is not a classic.

Personally, I'd suggest Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks. Consider Phlebas is perhaps more widely read, being the first book written in the Culture universe, but Use of Weapons is in my opinion, the best in the series (and it works perfectly well as a stand alone). It has a complex structure that makes it hard to understand early on, but it's well worth it (and rather shattering) when you reach the end.

As a second recommendation - one that I'm not sure qualifies as a "classic" since it's not widely read, but is an amazing and challenging book - I'd offer Engine Summer by John Crowley. Crowley is perhaps best known for his Fantasy work Little, Big, but in my opinion his earlier SF novels are his best work (though I do love Little, Big as well).

It's not old enough to be a classic, it didn't define a genre, or subgenre, that then spread out to be written by other authors who adopted the literary mechanics present in the book, it didn't influence a generation of writers, it didn't break any new ground in the genre at all, it didn't transcend the genre to be become a piece of truly popular lit that also happened to be science fiction.

I say all this and I really enjoyed Snowcrash.

Admittedly using this argument I could make the case that the Harry Potter books are classics as it pretty much meets all the criteria except age, and I expect that like Tolkein and Lewis, people will be reading Rowling 100 years from the first printing. But I fall back on classic cars, a classic car doesn't exist until it turns 25 years old. Snowcrash has another year to go to hit 25.

I also do not believe that Snowcrash will get a Barnes and Noble 100th anniversary printing edition (now with holograms and some of Neal Stephenson's DNA used in the digital ink) as I expect all of the Harry Potter books will... But that'll have to be verified by a time traveler.

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kibitzer

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Reply #13 on: December 21, 2013, 10:11:49 AM
Nope, sorry folks, Snow Crash is a genuine classic as it heralded the arrival of a major new talent. And if you're not going to go for that, I would argue you have to admit that Cryptonomicon IS a classic.


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Reply #14 on: December 21, 2013, 12:12:15 PM
It did spawn basically the entirety of Shadowrun and Cyberpunk 2020, or at least the decking chapters.



lowky

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Reply #15 on: December 21, 2013, 02:24:26 PM
shadowrun existed and had decking when it started in 1989 ten years before the publicaction of Cryptonomicon.  Shadowrun and Cyberpunk 2020 spawned as the unholy union of D&D and Neuromancer.  

and Neuromancer I would say is a classic, as it was the start of a new subgenre of science fiction. 


eytanz

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Reply #16 on: December 21, 2013, 03:56:30 PM
shadowrun existed and had decking when it started in 1989 ten years before the publicaction of Cryptonomicon.  Shadowrun and Cyberpunk 2020 spawned as the unholy union of D&D and Neuromancer.  

and Neuromancer I would say is a classic, as it was the start of a new subgenre of science fiction. 

Scattercat was attributing Shadowrun to Snow Crash, not Cryptonomicon, but you're right in that Shadowrun predated both novels.

That said, I think that while Neuromancer definitely holds credit for starting the genre of cyberpunk, Snow Crash is a better book. And that's occasionally more important from a historical perspective. Pride and Prejudice didn't invent the Romantic Period Comedy-of-Manners novel, but its cultural significance persists for two centuries after many other novels that preceded it have long fallen into obscurity.

The truth is that it's somewhat hard to pinpoint what makes something a classic - to me, the main criteria is persistence - if it still has a place in the general culture (not just in the minds of specialists) long after it's been written, it's a classic. The reasons that a particular work of literature persists may vary from piece to piece. Because of that, I agree with jrderego that it's hard to assess whether something is truly a classic when it's relatively new (though the 25-year cut-off seems rather arbitrary to me). Though when asked to "name a classic", I don't interpret this question as "name something you think my grandchildren will still be reading", but "name something you think I should read", which is somewhat of a different question (to give another concrete example - my grandchildren and those of everyone in this thread will still be aware of Lord of the Rings, but I think that unless you are interested in the history of fantasy, there's no reason to pick it up).



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Reply #17 on: December 21, 2013, 04:06:07 PM
shadowrun existed and had decking when it started in 1989 ten years before the publicaction of Cryptonomicon.  Shadowrun and Cyberpunk 2020 spawned as the unholy union of D&D and Neuromancer.  

and Neuromancer I would say is a classic, as it was the start of a new subgenre of science fiction. 

It's a shame that CP2020 was such a terrible game. Yet it lives on in a LCG (Android Netrunner) that has been well received and has a growing fan base. And the Shadowrun tabletop experience just recently saw a brand new edition that makes the tech seem like the dark future of today rather than the dark future of the 80's. The subgenre is still surviving.

I would counter that Snow Crash gives a superior experience. If we're only allowed to crown one book for a subgenre, Stephenson took cyberpunk from Gibson and showed people what could be done with it. Neuromancer clearly influenced Snow Crash, and it is a good book. But Neuromancer is all sizzle and no steak. If we want to compare depth, Neuromancer is a merely a good heist story. Snow Crash has a lit more layers that dig at capitalism, crime, and information and how that impacts the culture. 

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Fenrix

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Reply #18 on: December 21, 2013, 04:12:01 PM

The truth is that it's somewhat hard to pinpoint what makes something a classic - to me, the main criteria is persistence - if it still has a place in the general culture (not just in the minds of specialists) long after it's been written, it's a classic. The reasons that a particular work of literature persists may vary from piece to piece. Because of that, I agree with jrderego that it's hard to assess whether something is truly a classic when it's relatively new (though the 25-year cut-off seems rather arbitrary to me). Though when asked to "name a classic", I don't interpret this question as "name something you think my grandchildren will still be reading", but "name something you think I should read", which is somewhat of a different question (to give another concrete example - my grandchildren and those of everyone in this thread will still be aware of Lord of the Rings, but I think that unless you are interested in the history of fantasy, there's no reason to pick it up).


This is a great point. My nerd book club is going through the evolution of the cyberpunk genre (influencers -> cyberpunk -> evolution/response). As we were debating which books to include, Snow Crash (obviously) came up. This was the first book (in two plus years of this thing) that every member of the entire group had read. And when we debated adding a different Stephenson book, replacement was almost unanimously rejected; we all wanted to read it again.

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jrderego

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Reply #19 on: December 21, 2013, 05:08:57 PM
Let's agree to disagree.  ::)

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Jompier

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Reply #20 on: December 22, 2013, 10:32:41 PM
In case anyone else was thinking of contributing to this list, I hadn't intended that you choose books that hew to a strict standard of what constitutes a classic. I was just looking for a list of older, well-received books.



kibitzer

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Reply #21 on: December 23, 2013, 12:56:30 AM
Let's agree to disagree.  ::)

But, but... I LIKE arguing! (err... I mean "discussing")  ;)