All the Myriad Ways

[calzephyr]

I was surprised to find that we had this volume of short stories by Larry Niven on our bookshelf; I believe zandperl had recommended either it or Larry Niven to me. About half the stories appealed to me. I really enjoy short science fiction stories because it's too easy for science fiction to be overly padded and a genius idea is usually lost. I just didn't care for Niven's style half of the time, and the most of the time I was wondering if the technological and scientific concepts he wrote about were still applicable. This was probably my first time reading hard science fiction as well.

Comments

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Another "beginner" SF novel I'd recommend is "Nightfall" by Asimov and Silverberg. I'll think a bit more and see if I can't come up with some "epic fantasy" equivalents in SF for you too.

[calzephyr77.livejournal.com]

I think the last "epic fantasy" SF series I tried to read was by Margaret Weiss. Ugh...it was like a SF Twilight for me - where she heavily referenced Star Wars, Daleks and the Magnificent Seven. I think it was the most badly written thing I'd ever read at the time (1998) but after reading the first book I had to follow through. Man, 12 years later and I'm still crabby about it!

The radio version of Nightfall frequently comes up on the X-Minus one queue, but no matter how carefully I listen to it, there's one point near the end where I just can't understand what's going on - when the fanatics are destroying everything. I really do need to read it!

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Oh duh, I think I mixed up your fantasy tastes with those of ayashi. You read more YA and less epic, right? The "Uglies" series might be good, though it's light on the SF.

[calzephyr77.livejournal.com]

Yup, that's me! YA all the way, woah, yeah!! It's so intense.