Science Fiction for Snoopy

[TG]

I will have to have a look at my collection although a lot of my books are still at my parents.

Dyou include just serious SF or are things like the Stainless Steel Rat included?

Even leaving aside the 'Rat' books Harrison has produced some great stuff besides them. Is he still alive?

He was 83 last week.

How about Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle?

Good choice. From the home based alien invasion epic of 'Footfall' to the mind stretching space opera of 'The mote in gods eye'. 

[tel]

I tried to be 'serious' for Snoopy. I don't think he would take to the Stainless Steel Rat.  

He might enjoy the Jasper Fforde 'Thursday Next' novels being that they are full of literary jokes.

Or possibly the 'Riverworld' series by Philip Jose Farmer where the likes of Mark Twain are actually characters.

God, that takes me back. Seeing as I'm probably going to have a bit of time on my hands, I think I will have to start checking the stuff at my parents.

[tel]

I will have to have a look at my collection although a lot of my books are still at my parents.

Dyou include just serious SF or are things like the Stainless Steel Rat included?

Even leaving aside the 'Rat' books Harrison has produced some great stuff besides them. Is he still alive?

He was 83 last week.

How about Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle?

Jerry Pournelle writes in Byte doesn't he?  

Certainly used to, haven't read it for ages.

[Barman]

I will have to have a look at my collection although a lot of my books are still at my parents.

Dyou include just serious SF or are things like the Stainless Steel Rat included?

Even leaving aside the 'Rat' books Harrison has produced some great stuff besides them. Is he still alive?

He was 83 last week.

How about Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle?

Jerry Pournelle writes in Byte doesn't he?  

Certainly used to, haven't read it for ages.

Nor me... years in fact... I'd have thought he's have been dead by now too... 

[tel]

I will have to have a look at my collection although a lot of my books are still at my parents.

Dyou include just serious SF or are things like the Stainless Steel Rat included?

Even leaving aside the 'Rat' books Harrison has produced some great stuff besides them. Is he still alive?

He was 83 last week.

How about Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle?

Good choice. From the home based alien invasion epic of 'Footfall' to the mind stretching space opera of 'The mote in gods eye'. 

Wasn't Footfall the one with the classic bit where the aliens watch Deep Throat.

[Marley's Ghost (Imbiber of Spirits)]

I'll agree with Dune (and any other of his books) by Frank Herbert.

Also, and I've never met anyone else who's read it, 8 Keys to Eden by Mark Clifton. Cracking read - helped me to make sense of Einstein.

[TG]

I will have to have a look at my collection although a lot of my books are still at my parents.

Dyou include just serious SF or are things like the Stainless Steel Rat included?

Even leaving aside the 'Rat' books Harrison has produced some great stuff besides them. Is he still alive?

He was 83 last week.

How about Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle?

Good choice. From the home based alien invasion epic of 'Footfall' to the mind stretching space opera of 'The mote in gods eye'. 

Wasn't Footfall the one with the classic bit where the aliens watch Deep Throat.

Think so. Or am I getting confused with 'Mission' by Patrick Tilley where Jesus watches Deep Throat?  

[Snoopy]

I have, of course read Clockwork Orange, 1984 and a couple of the others you mention but apart from 1984 I did not enjoy the experience. 1984 falls, I feel, into a different category and anyway it had to be read at school.
Just discussing this with the missus. She is heavy into historical novels, I prefer biographies & out and out history (non fiction all of it) Turns out that I read very little fiction these days so maybe that is the problem.
I am not saying it is your problem and am happy to accept that it is a fault of mine but I just cannot get into Science Fiction and life is too short to persist with something I dislike in favour of something I know I will enjoy.
As a kid I took the "Eagle" comic for a while ('cos it was a craze at my school at the time) but I can honestly say I never bothered to read the Dan Dare stuff after the first two or three issues. I much preferred "The Wizard" or "The Hotspur" until I made the joyous discovery of MAD ~ then I dropped comics and slowly graduated from Mad to Private Eye and the Daily Telegraph which is where I now sit.

[Uncle Mort]

Each to his own I guess but you can see the enthusiasm for SF in some of the replies.

Biographies on my shelf: Neil Armstrong, Arthur C. Clark, Chuck Yeager, Spike Milligan and oddly, William Morris.

I cannot abide the crime genre and the 'whodunit' type of novel. Although I made an exception for Lindsay Davis' Falco series of novels set in ancient Rome as I do like historical fiction.

Can't ever recollect reading a 'modern' novel (Booker Prize type stuff)

[Snoopy]

I do read some modern novels but they have to be (i) in paperback because I am too mean to pay £20+ for something I might not like and (ii) "recommended" by someone I know who in turn knows my tastes .... not foolproof but it saves me buying a lot of crap. Other non-fiction is read simply because I am at an age when people have no idea what to give me for Birthdays or Christmas so settle for a book or two.
I am still trying to work out why my SiL feels that I would want to read the book of the TV series "Coast" other than that she gave it to me only after it had been "remaindered" and was thus cheap whilst looking expensive.

[Grumpmeister]

Dyou include just serious SF or are things like the Stainless Steel Rat included?

Slippery Jim DiGriz, gawd I remember first reading the Stainless Steel Rat stories in 2000AD as a kid

I'm trying to think of other writers but other than William Gobson and Orson Scott Card I've gone completely blank.

[TG]

Hey Unc!

The Forever War - Joe Haldeman.

A real classic. Thought provoking, riveting stuff. It is finally going to be filmed and I think they have the right man to make it. I am REALLY looking forward to this one and I hope it gets made.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/movies/a132501/ridley-scott-to-helm-forever-war.html

"He starts out as a foot soldier in man's thousand-year war against the Taurans and ends as a reluctant major. Spanning the stars at faster than light speeds, Mandella and his comrades age only months as the centuries zip by on an earth that becomes increasingly foreign. But few soldiers will return to the altered home planet; in battles fought with powered suits and other stranger weapons, the odds for survival approach zero. This war is the opposite of the one Heinlein glorified in Starship Troopers (1959) - bloody, cruel and meaningless. This is a splendid, thoughtful adventure."

[Uncle Mort]

Excellent book - I remember reading it as a serial in Analog in the early 70s (tempus fugit!)

And Ridley Scott as the director 


Here's a good site to keep up with SF news:    io9

[TG]

 

[Uncle Mort]

Young Kirk and Spock - intriguing.