SF books

[Adso]

Straight out question: Are SF books worth reading?

To be honest, the only SF book i remember to have read was from the STAR TREK series.

The reason i'm posing the above question is that i for one don't believe that sf literature has enough substance (usually i look for a more phylosophicall meaning of the book... i don't read for fun alone, i like to learn something as well you know?).

Anyway, please post your opinions. If you're a SF fan perhaps you can reccomend some interesting books in this field?...

[Dick Diver]

Frank K Dick and William Gibson.....

[crisaor]

Originally posted by Adso
Straight out question: Are SF books worth reading?
Of course they are.
If you're looking for a "SF" book with phylosophical meaning you should read Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley.

[IWilKikU]

SciFi is a harder genre to find good lit in than other forms of fiction, but it is out there. Check out some Asimov. He wrote alot about science as well as science fiction. I havn't read any of his novels, but the shorts of his that I have read have all been really good. Douglas Adams' Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy is full of humor, philosophy, and it's a great story. Other than that my SciFi is a little rusty. Stanislaw seems to know alot about it though. I'm sure he could point you in the direction of some quality scifi.

[subterranean]

Indeed, I think SF is something that can make you see the world with its daily lifes in a different view. Edgar Allan Poe is one of the classics writers which I think wrote many stories that can be considered as proto-SF, and he's my all time fav writer. Poe had wrote about space travel, long before space ship was invented.
Ray Bradbury is also one of my fav Scific authors!

[Munro]

Originally posted by subterranean
Indeed, I think SF is something that can make you see the world with its daily lifes in a different view. Edgar Allan Poe is one of the classics writers which I think wrote many stories that can be considered as proto-SF, and he's my all time fav writer. Poe had wrote about space travel, long before space ship was invented.
Ray Bradbury is also one of my fav Scific authors!

Some of Poe's short stories also laid down the conventions for Crime fiction as well - he's even more influential than I thought now you just mentioned his influence on Science Fiction. Did you like 'The Murders In the Rue Morgue'?

If I had more time I would read sci-fi all night, there's a lot to be found in the genre, and unlike Fantasy fiction it has many many quality writers, some who were mentioned before. I really didn't like Bradbury much though.

[poeboy]

E. A. Poe is one of the first to write what could be called science fiction. The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar strikes me as a proto-sci-fi story. Although I like science fiction, my favorite authors being Asimov, Bradbury, Heinlein and H. G. Wells as well as Jules Verne, it is Poe's story "The Oval Portrait" that is my all-time favorite.

[IWilKikU]

Originally posted by Munro
If I had more time I would read sci-fi all night, there's a lot to be found in the genre, and unlike Fantasy fiction it has many many quality writers,

Whoa whoa whoa! Hold up! Fantasy fic doesnt have many good writers?!? What about Jordan, Goodkind, Brooks, McCaffrey, Weis & Hickman, and that guy who wrote those really good books that are generally considered some of the best fiction EVER, oh whats his name... oh yeah TOLKIEN!!! I admit that there's alot of crap fantasy out there, but like any ohter genre, if you look hard enough your sure to find some good stuff.

[subterranean]

You're right Iwikiku, there sure are many great Scific author. I have special interest in Poe cause, like I mentioned before, I think Poe was the first among them who wrote about Scific. He's greater than Verne I think.

Munro: Yes, beside Scific, Poe also wrote great detectives stories. I read "Murders in the Rue Morgue", other similiar story which I like is "The Mystery of Mary Rogget", which kind of strange for me to see that the story is not in the list of Poe's short stories in this site

[Robert E Lee]

Originally posted by Dick Diver
Frank K Dick and William Gibson.....

I think you mean Philip K Dick. Yeah, that guy's pretty good. Sure, his books are trashy and filled with laughably bad dialogue; but they have some interesting ideas. He's the only good modern SF writer I know.

[Adso]

Looks like i've started a pretty interesting thread here :D

Thanks for all the input guys!

[subterranean]

anyone ever visit the www.sff.com? I see that there are many SF stories there, but I haven't got the time to check them out to find out whether they're any good or not

[IWilKikU]

E. Lee, if you want to know of other good modern scifi writers, ask Stanislaw. Scifi is his area of expertise.

[Admin]

I prefer Fantasy to Sci-Fi (even though they're usually grouped together they are very different).

Fantasy books usually contain the same archetypes you find in mythology. There is real good, real evil, and epic storylines. Those are the type of stories I prefer.

[Dick Diver]

Originally posted by Robert E Lee
I think you mean Philip K Dick. Yes Frank Dick is an athletics coach - just confusing the mind-expanding drugs with the muscle-building ones.....

[IWilKikU]

Thats alot of Dicks!!!

[Helga]

I've been reading sf for years, mostly STAR TREK series, I'm a big fan, but I also enjoy short stories.H.G Wells is very good and the classic Time machine was one of the first sf I read. My all time favourite sf is the Kobyashi Maru from the STAR TREK series.

[JediFonger]

SF is the genre of all genres in any medium. book, radio, tv, movie, etc. you name it and SF is the ultimate. why? simple. you can have SF horror, SF drama, SF fantasy, SF comedy, SF mystery, etc. you can NEVER have drama SF cause that falls under SF and drama doesn't have SF subgenre. you can't have Fantasy SF, Comedy SF, Mystery SF, etc. it just falls under SF! and this is not the only reason.

all of the other genre may use symbolism or allegory to one degree or another but in SF those tools are minimum requirements. it is the artifice of the looking glass reflecting our reality in the sinews of unreality. this is another reason why SF is the genre of all genre. the reasons go on. you need to burn through more neurons to read SF... whereas you need less of them reading the other genres.

as for reading/experiencing them, in these day and age, absolutely. unless you plan on becoming a luddite connoisseur then you must have touched technology one way or another. stories about science and technology and the unknown teach us about how to cope living with it. an easy example would be star trek's technologies. who knew that 30 years since that work we would be using mobile devices, storage devices, displays that were already in the show. furthermore it would sometimes deal with issues about the technology gone wild, such as when we rely too much on computers the power grid can go out in half the US. or if we rely too much on technology accidental nuclear missles can be set off. these issues were long written out and strung out for discussion in SF medium long before those same technologies/concepts were available. SF is truly the most important genre in modern mankind.