/lit/ - Literature

So /lit/, I keep bumping my head up against science fiction books and being disappointed. And I don't get it. I like a lot of science fiction movies, TV shows, video games; but books almost never work out for me, and it's frustrating. I wonder if anyone has any ideas what I'm doing wrong--picking the wrong books, following the wrong recommendations, or maybe I should just give up.

What I've liked: everything I've read by HG Wells: The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, The Island of Dr Moreau. Basically everything I've read by William Gibson: Burning Chrome, Neuromancer, the Bridge Trilogy, the new not-really-sci-fi books. Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451, The Illustrated Man. Everything by Thomas Pynchon, if that counts. Diana Wynne Jones, Tale of Time City.

What I've found OK: Jules Verne: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is great, but everything else sci-fi I've read of his is pretty boring. PK Dick: A Scanner Darkly. Douglas Adams: Hitchhiker's Guide, the first couple books.

What I've hated: Neal Stephenson: The Diamond Age. Ursula K. LeGuin: The Dispossessed. (Really disappointed by that one because I'm politically on the same wavelength, but I couldn't stand it.) Kurt Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse 5. Frederick Pohl: Gateway. Frank Herbert: Dune. Bruce Sterling: Islands in the Net. Douglas Adams: Hitchhiker's Guide, the last couple books.

I also read a bunch of stories in the Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction, which I can go over if helpful. I'm sure there's other things I've read too that I can't think of off the top of my head. Anyway, if anyone has any ideas, recommendations, general thoughts, I'd love to hear them.