/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.6733106]

Ok, I've looked at the recommendations and it wasn't all that much help. I'm looking for decent scifi to read. Stuff I've already enjoyed:

The Martian
Wool
All you need is Kill
Diaspora (and pretty much everything else Greg Egan wrote)
The Dresden Files
Ender's Game

Anyone know of anything as enjoyable as those? Also no Philip K. Dick please, for some reason I find him tiring.

[Anonymous No.6733130]

Have you tried not being 15?

[Anonymous No.6733139]

>>6733106
just finished Blindsight and it was good

[Anonymous No.6733142]

Look up Philip K. Dick

[Anonymous No.6733155]

>>6733106

try gene wolfe, and from there make the jump to worthwhile literature.

[Anonymous No.6733159]

>>6733130

have you tried not being an autistic cunt?

[Anonymous No.6733165]

>>6733155

the shorts or long fiction?

[Anonymous No.6733166]

>>6733130
Not everything has to be Kafka, bro. It's ok just to read for fun.

[Anonymous No.6733169]

>>6733165

try 5th head of Cerebus

after that read something like Dahlgren by Delaney

and then maybe go towards Dubliners by Joyce

[Anonymous No.6733175]

>>6733169

thanks anon

[Anonymous No.6733180]

I love this thread.

I hate you poncey fags who enjoy "challenging" reading. Some people read for enjoyment and to relax. Get over it.

Harry Potter is good.

[Anonymous No.6733188]

>>6733106
>Enjoying Greg Egan's novels

You're beyond help, I'm sorry. May I recommend a physics textbook, which will provide reading exactly as riveting and intellectual but with the additional factor of being educational?

[Anonymous No.6733197]

>>6733188

You forgot to tip your fedorah.

[Anonymous No.6733207]

>>6733188
Yes, he goes off on physics lectures at random intervals. All you have to do is skip them, they don't really add all that much to the story.

I love his stuff. With most scifi the weirdness at least stays outside your skin. Oh, not with Greg Egan. There's nowhere to hide in his stories.

[Anonymous No.6733217]

>>6733207
I'll be honest, I think Egan's *ideas* are absolutely fascinating and unparalleled in the inventiveness and the dedication and rigor with which he expands upon them.

I just think he does them a grave disservice by trying to write characters and plots into them, which he is desperately bad at. I think his work would be far better if written as a kind of fictional documentary of sorts, fiction masquerading as an alternate world's nonfiction. The ideas behind, say, Orthogonal were wonderful - but they were set in a mileu of Scientists talking to other Scientists about Science, none of whose characters or struggles really mattered except as an excuse to introduce more Science. Since what he really wanted to do - and what, if you're reading Egan, you're frankly there for - is reading about the science and its implications, and he does such a terribly poor job at characters or dialog, I don't know why he insists on trying to insert them.

[Anonymous No.6733222]

dune lol

[Anonymous No.6733228]

>>6733217
Egan, in other words, is the Hardest science-fiction writer. The hardness of his hard SF surpasses diamond or possibly even Dragonforce. Egan writes Hard Science Fiction, not only capitalized but with each opening capital three font sizes up. And with all the good (fascinating look at alternate worlds) and bad (feeling terribly sterile and tour-guidey) things that imply.

[Anonymous No.6733231]

>>6733166
No it's not stop spreading these lies

[Anonymous No.6733243]

>>6733217
I was never bothered by his characters. I was too busy tried to wrap my brain around all the mindfuck...

[Anonymous No.6733254]

>>6733139
>Blindsight

So I googled this...

"In the year 2082, thousands of micro-satellites, dubbed "Fireflies", alert humanity to an alien presence. The ship Theseus, crewed by an artificial intelligence and five transhumans commanded by a vampire (an extinct apex predator offshoot of humanity), is sent to explore a trans-Neptunian object."

Sold. I mean if you're gonna start with this, I have to find out wth happens next.

[Anonymous No.6733272]

Stanislaw Lem
Stanislaw Lem
Stanislaw Lem

Start with Solaris as an introduction to his biggest themes (the impossibility of communication). His Master's Voice for a more depressing take on Contact. Read the Cyberiad and the Robot Fables if you want to laugh.

I've recently read The Three-Body Problem by some Chinese dude, relatively interesting ideas, some major problem, you might like it.

Dragon's Egg for real hard SF.

The Quantum Thief for relatively recent, good, mindfucky SF (haven't read the follow-ups yet).

Read Scalzi's Old Man's War series for more "mindless" fun war SF, reminded me of Ender's Game a bit.

[Anonymous No.6733280]

Alastair Reynolds's Revelation Space and Poseidon's Children

[Anonymous No.6733337]

>>6733169
>>6733272
>>6733280

Noted. Thanks guys.

[Anonymous No.6734053]

>>6733272
By the way, the English translation of the Cyberiad is one of the most masterful pieces of translated wordplay I've ever seen. It takes genius to transplant stories from a language with a whole different style of wordplay than English and still keep the wit and feel of the original text.

[Anonymous No.6734056]

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[Anonymous No.6734068]

>>6733337
Also, it's much further to the "soft" end than some of the other things you mentioned, but I really would sincerely recommend Dune.

Yes, I know it's kind of a meme on /lit/, but it's actually very good.

For hard SF, if you enjoyed Egan, you might appreciate some of Hal Clement's work. Instead of strange alternate physical laws, Clement prefers to work with exceedingly strange planets that are nonetheless physically accurate (backed up with reams of slide-rule calculations he thankfully does not show.) Mission of Gravity is probably his most classic work, taking place on the bizarre planet of Mesklin, which I cannot adequately describe but is probably the strangest planet anyone's come up with while still following the laws of physics. Also, his characters - while not great- are significantly less wooden than Egan's.

[Anonymous No.6734080]

>>6733166
>Kafka
>not fun
It's not like he's Heidegger or something.

[Anonymous No.6734425]

>>6734068
okie, added to my list

[Anonymous No.6735934]

>>6733155
what's worthwhile literature?

[Anonymous No.6736008]

>>6733106

Hey illiterate cunts, have you considered the notion that pieces of shit are not fun to read for people who actually read good literature? The Martian is not fun, it's horrendous garbage.