/lit/ - Literature

>>5216932
All science fiction is genre fiction, thus all of it is also shitty.

Harold Bloom likes Left Hand of Darkness

Start with Issac Asimov, move on to Phillip K Dick

If you don't mind weird awkward sex scenes the ringworld series by Larry Niven is pretty good too

>>5216937

>>5216942
which asimov? what is worth reading about his work in particular?

>>5216932
>literary merit

As if this would be worth more than shit, read what the fuck you want and get the fuck out of /lit/.

>>5216966
I'd like to read sci fi that is as thought provoking as any "classic" work of literature, which is what I enjoy. I don't want to read run of the mill genre fiction because I don't get anything of substance out of it, which is not what I enjoy reading.

Phillip K. Dick.

Im a big fan of Valis.

>>5216977

Why didn't you just asked for a GOOD sci-fi book instead then ?

>>5216932
Neuromancer.
Childhood end.

>>5216992
Because GOOD is much vaguer; someone's good can, and when it comes to sci fi probably does, mean an entirely different thing to what I mean.

LITERARY MERIT is also vague but gives a better idea of what I am particularly looking for

>you must defend liking things other people like

>>5216977
lit approved SF authors:

Gene Wolfe
Philip K Dick
Ursula LeGuin
Jules Verne and H.G. Wells (know your roots)

Also, you can use the Nebula Award collections as guides to good SF writing, since they are awards for good writing by writers.

I don't think Asimov or Heinlein have aged well, avoid.

>>5217006
>Heinlein
>no good

Thats heresy.

>>5216958
Start with Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
It's his most entry level and casual work but it represents him well.

He does "big questions" well and is a master of "science fiction as sociology"

>>5217000
>LITERARY MERIT is also vague but gives a better idea of what I am particularly looking for

You are looking for a new book to enhance your pretentious level.

>>5217010
seriously, I wouldn't read Heinlein or Asimov for the writing. They were idea men not wordsmiths.

>>5217018
Thank you for ignoring what I said when first replying to you, I really appreciate repeating myself.

>>5216938
this is the last book i read
very solid. cat's cradle is also quasi-sf and quite good
from time to time i am on the same quest as you, op. have read neuromancer (ok) and ubik (meh)

>>5216932
>literary merit

Stanisław Lem

>>5216932
A contemporary sci-fi writer with literary merit would be Ken Liu. He's fucking tight. Read "The Man Who Ended History: A documentary." So good. And you can find it online easy at http://kenliu.name/binary/liu_the_man_who_ended_history.pdf.. And like you OP I read more canon lit than sci-fi (Pynchon being God--although he IS sic-fi, but sic-fi resisted this categorization of him for some reason)

>>5217023
well yeah, but the major part of sci-fi is about ideas, i think that op will be a little dissapointed.

At least the only "interesting" writing that i remember is neuromancer.

Oh and how could we forget JG Ballard!

But seriously, to anyone reading this thread who wants to find a new and already-acclaimed sic-fi author with big ideas and good prose, check out Ken Liu and read http://kenliu.name/binary/liu_the_man_who_ended_history.pdf tonight.

>>5217076
>>5217089
>>5217093
it that some kind of spam, dude?

>>5217093
>>5217076
Ken pls go

>>5217097
lmao sorry to push it so hard but everyone already fucking knows PKD, Gibson, Ballard, Asimov, etc. So why not try something new? I guarantee you'll like it.

Pynchon is the best post-WWII sci-fi. This is empirically true. (Actually he's the best post-WWII writer altogether. Prove me wrong.)

>>5217132
>Prove me wrong

Impossible

>>5217150
Because it's true?

>>5217150
jk but it just amazes me the amount of stuff that Pynchon gets to in his novels. History, science, math, philosophy, music, literature, fashion, technology, politics, linguistics...there's literally not a single thing that he doesn't know (being facetious, but I think it might actually be true still)

>>5217006
what about william f nolan?

>>5217015
That's no Isaac Asimov you fuckwit.
>>5216958
Read the foundation series, skip the preludes.

>>5217160
Is there anything he can't do?

Seriously though, while reading V. I was amazed at the sheer amount of knowledge he crammed into it at 26. It felt like he had lived in all those places for like 5 years. I'm looking forward to reading GR, even though it'll probably go over my head

Read M. John Harrison you fucking pleblords.

what's the verdict on Neal Stephenson?

>>5217514
Good stuff. More math smart than lit smart. Very bloated.

>>5217160

Seriously, I was in second year of a linguistics degree when I read GR, and there are passages in there that just casually drop about 5x my linguistic knowledge (at the time). Jaw-dropping.

>>5217727
>more math smart
>lit smart

"Math smart" is what "math smart" people call "intelligence."

I assume "lit smart" is shorthand for "unskilled pretentious faggotry."

>>5217908
>there's only one kind of intelligence

I guess you're as bad at math as you are at everything that isn't math.

China Mieville and Charles Yu are both great contemporary SF writers.

>>5217914
I've never understood the lib-arts attitude that you can be intelligent without being good at math. Math is incredibly simple: here are several definitions, now can you derive significant conclusions from them by reasoning from a set of logical principles? If you can't reason deductively, how can you be considered intelligent? What ISN'T deductive reasoning?

>>5217924
>What ISN'T deductive reasoning?
lit smart people reason from Reducto ad Hipsterdom

Who needs math or science when you have intelligence derived from association with cool?

Anything Asimov or contemporary. Any faggot that says that he isn't good is just an anime fan or just mentally challenged or a social reject.

>>5217924
Go away STEM.

>>5216937

>>5216932
Wrong place. Most of /lit/ doesn't know what it's talking about when it comes to this.

This guy does: http://greatsfandf.com/

I don't always agree with him, but it's a good starting point.

>>5217996

I trust this man's literary opinion because he's obivously not tech saavy. That website looks like something Geocities shat out of the 90's

>>5217996
>http://greatsfandf.com/
>109 best science-fiction and fantasy authors
>no Heinlein
>no Niven
>no Vinge
>no Gibson
>no Stephenson
>no Stross
>no Asimov
>no PKD

confirmed "lit smart" faggotry

I just like when an author makes characters appear jaded to the future.

In the start of The Foundation the narrator offhandedly describes how casual and boring space travel is.

>>5218006
>Heinlein
pls dude

>>5218024
it's also said that hyperjumps or whatever they were called (read it a long time ago and in a different language) made people queasy... and that's if you don't pilot your ship into a star.

>>5217006

Scifi: pulp with a smattering of literary authors mixed in
Fantasy: pulp and Tolkien

Why the disparity?

>>5216942
ringworld is great from a sci fi perspective, but pretty shit from a literary one

In the prefaction of the Do Androids dream of electric sheeps? copy that i bought recently the guy quoted and talked a bit about Slaughterhouse 5, and it sounds kinda interesting, does it count as good sci-fi?

Ayn Rand's Anthem.. even Atlas Shrugged has a sci-fi quality. Of course /lit/ pretends to not like Rand's prose because they are slavish bootlicking progressives that hate humanity and the notion of freedom itself.

>>5217018
hilarious! The ending of Neon Genesis Evangelion ripped off this cover wholesale.

>>5217174
looks like more of a pulp author

>>5218496
Because both sf and fantasy are escapist genres, with audiences that don't care about quality. Same reason there are few literary giants in the Romance novel genre.

>>5217035
>>5217917
yes! good choices

>>5216932
>Literary Merit.
Who gives a fuck about Merit? So you're saying you only care about what other people think of a book? Good god you are a faggot.


>>5220976
Hideki Anno has pulled some Shila Labouf tier ripoffs.

>>5218006
>Feyd Rautha Reaction image.

This nigga gets it.

Anyone who likes sci-fi must read Dune.

I want another great Dune thread on /lit/. That one a few days ago was great.

>>5221077
>Who gives a fuck about Merit? So you're saying you only care about what other people think of a book? Good god you are a faggot.

If only there were more people like you on /lit/.
99% of the kids here hate EVERYTHING related to their adolescence, destroy their minds on philosophy and enjoy shitting on everything more popular than Dostoevsky.

Sad times.

>>5221127
Indeed . I think that the most important thing about reading is figuring out what you like and what you don't like. If you only read what other people tell you to you'll have a terrible time, and stunt your own progress. I really fucking like the book Dune, but not because it's a critically acclaimed book, but because I personally found it appealing. i don't care if the "best authors" in the world hated it, I like it and that's all that matters

Books have been ruined by wealthy authors and publishers who advertise, and tell kids what they should and shouldn't like. The most critical thing to reading literature is forming your own opinion ON literature, and we are ruining that.

>>5221077
dune is fantasy, not sci-fi

>>5221179
>i don't care if the "best authors" in the world hated it, I like it and that's all that matters

An intelligent human being here in /lit/, i give me hope anon.

>Books have been ruined by wealthy authors and publishers who advertise.

And lets not forget academics, they really devastated everything.

>>5221182
>Lasguns.
>Thropters.
>Atomic Bombs.
>Aliens.
>FTL Spacetravel.
>Superevolved humans.
>Robots.

And then it's got prophecies and religious themes. I'd say it's a good mix of both.

>>5221194
I hear that book is pooh. Also literature is dead, for now.

>>5217924
I've never understood the STEM attitude that you can be intelligent without being capable of comporting yourself in a social situation. Social situations are incredibly simple: here are several rules of socially competent behavior, now can you apply those rules while interact with others so that you don't stray outside of the boundaries set by those principles? If you can't recognize and apply rules, how can you be considered intelligent? What ISN'T the recognition and application of information?

>>5221209

It's not side-splitting like many literates likes to describe, but it's fun and tell the truth about academical critique.

>>5217996
>http://greatsfandf.com/
From that site: "Cordwainer Smith and M. John Harrison have written better science fiction than Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov, this site should be of real interest to you; if not, you are in the wrong place. No one disparages authors who lack greatness if they possess competence. But, while a cold spritzer is often welcome refreshment, when we go into a restaurant of quality and ask for the wine card, we do not expect to see Gallo Chablis or Annie Greensprings among the listings. This site seeks to be a wine card of science-fiction and fantasy literature."

Outside of the pompous yet unoriginal comparison of his sci-fi connoisseurdom to the palate of a wine taster, the examples he lists aren't very convincing. Maybe you like M. John Harrison better than Heinlein or Asimov, fine, but Cordwainer Smith is an incredibly similar writer to Asimov. They have similar writing style, use similar concepts, and in general feel nearly identical; if you slipped a Smith story into an Asimov collection chances are almost no one would bat an eye. Saying that one is worlds better than the other really just highlights the fact that this guy isn't someone to turn to for objective analysis of different genre writers.

>>5221306
Yeah, the site makes pretty absurd claims to objectivity, especially given who it does and does not include. Several mentioned in >>5218006 are glaring omissions, and the absence (as far as I can tell) of Lem throws all credibility out the window.

>>5221077
read dune, Is the rest of the series any good?

>>5221077
There's another Dune thread now, bro

>>5217093
>Dr. Kirino

>>5221077
>Who gives a fuck about Merit? So you're saying you only care about what other people think of a book? Good god you are a faggot.
thank you for reading the thread before posting

>>5221714

Now that is one doctor i would like to fuck.

>>5221738

People tried to explain to you that what are you trying to find is a social status and not good books.

>I mostly read basic /lit/ shit like Joyce and Pynchon
>ideas and style that rise them above "muh genre fiction"

People smelled your pretentiousness in the first post OP.

Jack Vance Jack Vance Jack Vance Jack Vance Jack Vance Jack Vance Jack Vance Jack Vance Jack Vance Jack Vance Jack Vance Jack Vance Jack Vance Jack Vance Jack Vance Jack Vance Jack Vance Jack Vance Jack Vance Jack Vance Jack Vance Jack Vance Jack Vance Jack Vance Jack Vance Jack Vance Jack Vance Jack Vance Jack Vance Jack Vance Jack Vance Jack Vance

>>5221814
In my opinion:

Dying Earth stuff = Very good.
Demon Princes = Subpar.

Given this, can you recommend anything to me?

>>5221336
awesome in my opinion, though the first is by far the best.

>>5221738
>I disagree with you.
>He must not have read the thead!

get fucked

>>5216932
neuromancer marked the start of my adult reading career. i read it when it was relatively new at age 12 (i'm old). definitely worth your time. i never cared for any of william gibson's other books though (although "burning chrome" has some good stuff in it).

iain m. banks' culture cycle would be my next recommendation after that.

>consider phlebus
>player of games
>matter
>surface detail
>the hydrogen sonata

in that order.

>>5221971
>consider phlebus
Not a good book.

>>5220976
>>5221077
Tribute =/= rip-off

Hyperion and the Forever War are my two favorite sci fi works, so I'd recommend those.

>>5221971
>Consider Phlebas
Only if you want to make sure you'll never read it again.
Start with either Player of Games or Use of Weapons and after them proceed to Excession.

>>5216932
Sterling
Rucker
Gibson
Egan
Chiang

>>5218006
>Stross
I liked Accelerando but some of his earlier stuff is amateur tier
>>5216932
Hey OP, the best SF writer and one of the best writers of the 20th century is HG Wells.

>>5221971

As others have said don't start with Consider Phelbas but go back and pick it up eventually.

If I started over I'd say

>Player of Games
>Excession
>Look to Windward

You could probably read Player of Games before Look to Windward but I personally like LtW a lot even though I'll agree that the pacing is pretty shitty.

>>5223533

Damn, replace Player of Games with Use of Weapons in the last sentence.

Control+F... no Rendezvous with Rama.

Fuck you /lit/. You're broken.

>>5216932
>any specialized genre fiction
>"Literary merit"
Listen, do you want to read a good science fiction book or do you want to read something that makes you feel like you are reading the 'right books'?
This junk about 'worthy literature' assumes that there is only one type of writing that is 'acceptable' or 'truly writing' or 'properly done'.
This BS is strewn about by the sorts of people who read Gravity's Rainbow and talk about how funny it was when they never smiled once as they slogged through the 3rd grade humor then refuse to read a Discworld novel because it isn't 'worthy literature'.
The existence, persistence, and popularity of various genres demonstrates clearly that there are many ways of writing engaging fiction.Attempts to make everything emulate, oh, Pynchon, would be like trying to have every genre of music sound like Arcangelo Corelli - sure, Corelli's good but Blues and House are radically different genres.
So ask for good science fiction, good westerns, good crime thrillers, etc.

>>5216932
Read Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein. It is a critique of the Korean War, has a truly multi-ethnic/racial cast (rather than token characters you get in most fiction), and is first and foremost not a book about combat or cool mechs and shit, but rather what it means to serve one's country and what that service entitles him or her to in society. People ignore parts of the book about non-military service and when servicemen can vote, and disregard Starship Troopers as a book that advocates fascism, which is most certainly does not.

>>5217032
cat's cradle blows

>>5223675
Very nice post.