4/ * Lucifer's Hammer - made me realize that a novel can be gripping, and have huge stakes (and in a realistic way, not in a campy "Superman must save the WHOLE WORLD!!!" way). Also made me appreciate vast, sprawling, parallel narratives, AND "procedurals".
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5/ * Hunt for Red October - cemented my appreciation for parallel threads which provide different angles onto the huge ball of events.
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6/ * Alaska, by James Michener - again tickled my "this story is so vast, it has to be told from different points of view", and ALSO made me fall in love with a camera just watching the landscape develop. I stole Michener's geologic scene for my 2nd novel.
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7/ * Exodus, by Leon Uris. Again, the multi-threaded approach...but also the sense of historic importance, and the fact that things that look inevitable in retrospect can be hugely contingent if viewed from the ground at the time.
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8/ * Lord of the Rings. Showing that huge events often pivot on the decisions of "the little people". Kings and philosophers are all well and good, but what one man does in the moment when no one is looking - that matters hugely. I love novels that show this.
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9/ * Cryptonomicon, Anathem, and several others by Neal Stephenson. I loved that N.S. did huge amounts of research, dumped huge amounts of info in his books, but never had the 1950s movie "as you know, Bob, the transmogrifying ray works on the principle of..."
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10/ Heinlein, as much as I love him, DID do the "as you know, Bob" thing...ALL THE TIME. He did it for a valid reason: he was trying to inspire kids to be rationalist engineer types and wanted to educate them. (I think Farmer in the Sky was serialized in the Scout magazine)
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11/ * various novels by Ayn Rand...in the negative. I found her over-the-top heroes and over-the-top villains laughable, and her speeches ridiculous and the antithesis of entertainment. People are complex. No villain THINKS they're evil. No hero is without some sin.
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12/ * Dune - because it needed to exist. It was after reading Dune that I first codified my thoughts about the two categories of books. No, not good (10%) and bad (90%), but rather: needing to exist (0.01%) and not needing to exist (all the rest)
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13/ If Dune did not exist, the universe would be poorer. If Xanth #31, or Harry Dresden #12 didn't exist, no one would notice. MANY MANY "don't need to exist" books are good fun. I'm happy people have them, bc fun is good!
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14/ * The Fall Revolution series by Ken MacLeod, bc it made me realize that very strange and subtle politics (not just bog standard red team / blue team / libertarianism) could be expressed in novel form. Cemented my dislike for Ayn Rand's "lecture" approach.
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15/ * Pedido Street Station by China Mieville, for similar reasons. Dude's a Marxist, but he can WRITE. Also, he - like Ken - doesn't LECTURE you about his politics. He just creates a world according to his axioms and lets you watch and learn as it plays out.
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16/ There are more: need to mention Iain Banks, Larry Niven, and others. But that's a start.
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