Thoughts about this book and it's series. I recently started foundation and I like it so far.

Thoughts about this book and it's series. I recently started foundation and I like it so far. Also what are some other good sci-fi recommendations?

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  1. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Dune is probably the best sci fi I’ve ever read. Neuromancer is ass. I would also recommend Childhoods End.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      I physically hurt reading this.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        why? its not that controversial. i can easily see why one wouldnt like neuromancer

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Dude Neuromancer has the worst prose of any scifi I have ever read. Cool concepts but that’s it and even then others have done what he did far better

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >bad prose
          A ton of books have this problem and it's fricking brutal
          >Cool concepts
          The reason shit is worth reading if the prose isn't any good

          >but that’s it and even then others have done what he did far better
          Because they're standing on the shoulders of giants. Plus, they're adding in their own shit; the value of reading the original stuff is so you can see it without all the extra shit added in.
          Which, to your broader point, means if you're just reading it for entertainment you're probably not going to enjoy it much (if it has bad prose).

          I'm reading through Iain M. Banks scifi books and his prose really varies, and his stories are hit or miss, but his ideas are cool.
          Wish he'd knock it off with the "Sentient spaceships hate the human insect pets that ride them like intestinal parasites" shit.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            I agree in general but Neuromancer was almost unreadable. I read it because of its foundational influence but it hasn’t aged well at all.

  2. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Became his cash cow. He cannot write dialogue, and looking at the post trilogy shit it's as if the frick had a stroke. This sounds bad, but it's much worse. If you read at all beyond the Foundation Trilogy, stick to the Robots material. You'd probably enjoy the EXPANSE series (same one adapted by Amazon) and GREG BEAR (Eon).

    • 1 year ago
      Sage

      This guy knows. I do realize now that you mention it that he is terrible at dialogue. Really great world builder and story presenter. I wonder if he was a pkd fan.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Stanislaw Lem, duh.

      This anon is wholly and entirely correct.

      This guy knows. I do realize now that you mention it that he is terrible at dialogue. Really great world builder and story presenter. I wonder if he was a pkd fan.

      >I wonder if he was a pkd fan.
      They definitely read each other's work at least a bit and were vaguely acquainted in person from the cons, but nothing beyond that. Asimov wrote a foreword for one of the editions of PKD's novel once, I think.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Entry level. When you have ascended, you'll read his short stories. Short stories are the soul of pulp scifi.

      This guy knows. I do realize now that you mention it that he is terrible at dialogue. Really great world builder and story presenter. I wonder if he was a pkd fan.

      Asimov writes such dialogue because in every Asimov there is only really one character, of which all other characters serve to contrast:Asimov

  3. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    My Volcano
    Philip K Dick
    Samuel R. Delaney
    Ursula K. LeGuin
    Neuromancer
    The Slynx

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Is earthsea any good? I never read Fantasy

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Earthsea is a set of children's books which grow progressively darker as the child ages with them.

        You want to read Adult Ursula K. LeGuin: Left Hand of Darkness / The Dispossessed / "Hain" novels. Or you want to read her Daoist fantasy novels for adults.

        Personally I think her Daoism is surrender not wu wei. And if I ever meet her again I will again punch her and break her teeth and whisper gently in her ear "the way that says that it is the way is not the way."

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Real Daoist fantasy novels involve cultivators getting super strong so they can kick Buddha' teeth in

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            THE SPIRIT OF MONKEY WAS IRREPRESSABLE

            JOURNEY TO THE WEST PROVES THAT WE CAN BASH THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF YOU DEMON FRICKS

            LOOK HOW HOT MY CANON REVERSE TRAP IS

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Real Daoist fantasy novels involve cultivators getting super strong so they can kick Buddha' teeth in

          >LeGuin daoism fantasy novel
          >find peace and make harmony with daoism
          >Chinese daoism fantasy novel
          >this guy glanced at my jade skinned childhood beauty, so I performed lingchi on his whole family and made him eat their remains

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Suckit monkeyboi. You'll only achieve total annihilation of the self

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        The author has gone a bit woke. But yeah, it’s alright.

  4. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Foundation is great, at least read the second one too

    It's such a fun quick read, I wish I had a teenage kid to give this book too

  5. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >good sci-fi recommendations
    Short stories and novellas by Philip Dick. I've read almost all of them, you could pick any "Best of" collection. Few random recs to get you started:
    >Colony
    >The Defenders
    >The Hanging Stranger
    >Precious Artifact
    >Second Variety
    "Colony" radio play https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgmQI4zqN2s
    "Defenders" radio play https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyJSTocE7dE

    Do not read The Man in High Castle. I wish I hadn't.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      MITHC was enlightened. Including the couples discussion of whether the book was scifi. You got filtered.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >filtered
        buzzwords galore. How to oust yourself as a brainlet.
        So PKD wrote a book where characters discuss the book itself. Cool self-reference, he liked doing stuff like that. In "Waterspider", for instance.
        It was incredibly boring, and all of the characters mercilessly wasted. I liked the shopkeeper arc, some ideas were interesting, but overall such a drag to get through. Read a couple more stories afterwards and they felt like a breeze of fresh air.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          It's an interesting and well researched alternate world history novel told from the perspective of individuals in it. I mean, like most PKD novels, it doesn't exactly have a climax and resolution. But like Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep he's an incredible world builder.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            it just didn't click with me, failed to trigger an emotional pathway, idk. The worldbuilding was very weak for my taste, it didn't feel totalitarian/dystopian at all. What i love Dick for is his ability to not only create original worlds, but to show how they affect the individual (and society as a whole too).
            Take "Precious Articact" for example. The man in wrecked by the conditions he's forced to exist in. His world is a lie and it takes its toll.
            Or his many "technology bad" stories like "Pay for the printer" or "The Defenders" – while not focusing on single characters, they're akin to parables, with some moral to the story that applies to the whole humanity.
            There's usually at least one of these elements present in his stories, but TMIHC has neither. Nothing happens, there's no moral lesson to learn, there's no internal conflict (like that of Deckard in Androids) that would develop the characters, and only a semblance of external one to drive the plot forward. Didn't click with me

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      are those really the PKD books you recommend? never even heard of those and i've raid a fair few.

      I dont actually think PKD is that good, VALIS was a fun but very schizo book, the rest I have read (Simulacra, Galactic Pot-Healer, and DADOES) were all kind of generic "future mars colonies and robots yay!" level books, I haven't read Ubik or The Man In The High Castle yet
      >Do not read The Man in High Castle. I wish I hadn't.
      why

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        first 4 are short stories, Second Variety is a novella. I meant that a new reader could try these first or pick a "best of" collection of stories. I could ramble about his stories all day.

        Simulacra is crap. A part of it is the story Novelty Act, which i loved. But incorporated into the novel, it somehow lost all appeal.
        I quite liked Do Androids Dream of Electric Frogs, it was anything but generic. You might've felt that way because it had inspired countless sci-fi films and books you've seen/read or heard of.

        >The Man in High Castle
        here

        it just didn't click with me, failed to trigger an emotional pathway, idk. The worldbuilding was very weak for my taste, it didn't feel totalitarian/dystopian at all. What i love Dick for is his ability to not only create original worlds, but to show how they affect the individual (and society as a whole too).
        Take "Precious Articact" for example. The man in wrecked by the conditions he's forced to exist in. His world is a lie and it takes its toll.
        Or his many "technology bad" stories like "Pay for the printer" or "The Defenders" – while not focusing on single characters, they're akin to parables, with some moral to the story that applies to the whole humanity.
        There's usually at least one of these elements present in his stories, but TMIHC has neither. Nothing happens, there's no moral lesson to learn, there's no internal conflict (like that of Deckard in Androids) that would develop the characters, and only a semblance of external one to drive the plot forward. Didn't click with me

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          are those really the PKD books you recommend? never even heard of those and i've raid a fair few.

          I dont actually think PKD is that good, VALIS was a fun but very schizo book, the rest I have read (Simulacra, Galactic Pot-Healer, and DADOES) were all kind of generic "future mars colonies and robots yay!" level books, I haven't read Ubik or The Man In The High Castle yet
          >Do not read The Man in High Castle. I wish I hadn't.
          why

          Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch>Flow My Tears>Ubik>>>Man in the High Castle>>Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep>>

          [...]

          Pot Healer Time Slip

  6. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I bought the trilogy in one book, liked foundation a lot and got bored of the 2nd book halfway through. I read a little at a time now but it's been a year since I was reading it regularly.

  7. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Asimov is the king of SF. If you are enjoying Foundation, move on to Robots. Nightfall is by and large my favorite short story of his, but they are all great. Too many people haven't read Bicentennial Man because of the movie, but the short story was brilliant. He has such a large catalog, you could be reading Asimov for the next decade at least.

    Other than Asimov; Herbert, Clarke, and Bradbury are of course the Godfathers. The Expanse was pretty good, and its more steampunk post apocalyptic, but the Silo series was alright. Another good series ruined by a shit film is the Ender series. Maybe should have ended with Xenocide, but can't be helped. The Shadow series was interesting too.

  8. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    frick overrated western shit, read some Lem and Strugatsky Bros

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >Lem
      Liked Solaris, except for the academic backstory part. Didn't like Eden – too amateurish (was his first novel I think).
      Robot tales and Cyberiad are supposed to be good?

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        "The Eighty-Minute Hour" by Brian Aldiss is one of my favourites

        Tales of Pirx the Pilot is good

  9. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I've read the first 5, still have the prequels left. It was a nice lecture although too many back and forth situations for my liking. I regret that I have not read them as a kid since the themes, characters, traits, situations etc. were mostly familiar to me due to exposure in other titles/mediums etc. I will eventually wish to start his Robots series, I've heard they are part of the big storyline but man there are again like 5 or 6 books.

  10. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I really liked The Spirit Phone, despite the fact that all the characters in it are are white...

  11. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Robot is incredibly based. "Isaac Asimov: The Complete Stories" has a lot of short stories and was a good read. I've heard "The Three Body Problem" is good but I haven't read it yet

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >The Three Body Problem
      I started it and got halfway through before the hype wore off. I couldnt believe how fricking unbearable the videogame shit was to read, and the hard scifi exposition mumbojumbo is inelegant at best. Im glad i received the box set as a gift and didnt buy it thank christ. It was such a chore honestly.

  12. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I read the first 3 novels a couple years back and while I found them enjoyable at the time I’ve almost completely forgotten the entire story. Too much skipping around to different timelines

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