Tag: #sfmasterworks
The Lathe of Heaven — Ursula K. Le Guin
Star Maker — Olaf Stapledon
I managed to get 31% into this and then just had to give up trying. I really couldn’t manage any more of it.
Imagine that William’s favourite book is Gulliver’s Travels and he decides to have a go at writing a sci-fi version of it having read Brave New World just before starting. I think that pretty much sums up the first 31%.
The problem is that while Gulliver’s Travels and Brave New World are both very good books, both are very well written and keep the reader’s attention, Star Maker is tedious, dull and plodding: at least that’s how i found it to be. I can imagine for its time it was very exciting, but sadly some books just don’t age well and i think this is one of them.
I don’t feel that it’s bad enough to warrant a place on “The Deleted” page, so it will get a reprieve and stay in my Amazon lists for now and i may give it another go at some future date when i’m feeling a lot better about life and stuff.
Olaf’s Page
#scifi #sfmasterworks #olafstapledon
The Man Who Fell to Earth — Walter Tevis
Nova — Samuel R. Delany
Having previously read Babel-17 i was very much hoping this was just as good: so i did have very high expectations and it certainly had a lot to live up to.
So, yes, i did set out rather biased when i began to read this book, and while i have to say that it didn’t quite meet with my expectations with regards to Babel-17, it was still a very enjoyable read.
Samuel certainly has his own style, very arty, very high brow, and also very imaginative: Nova holds it’s place as one of the books which gave birth to the cyberpunk genre. But where Babel-17 felt like a timeless read, Nova did feel a little dated to me, like it’s from the 1960’s or something. 
But dated or not, it certainly has earned a deserving place in the “SF Masterworks” series.
Samuel’s Page
#scifi #sfmasterworks #samuelrdelany
The Caltraps of Time — David I. Masson
Greybeard — Brian Aldiss
Worlds of Exile and Illusion — Ursula K. Le Guin
I Am Legend — Richard Matheson
So i got 23% into this book and i simply cannot take another page of this.
Stupid, alcoholic, smoking, crap eating, sad, miserable idiot getting chased by lots of vampires. Woohoo! Yes folks, another dull and boring vampire story, only difference from the norm is that this one is post-apocalyptic as the vampires have wiped out all humans apart from this one pathetic, sad alcoholic.
Seriously, if you had the daylight hours of every day to do whatever you want, go wherever you want, you have the whole world and its contents at your disposal before the vampires came out at night to hunt and all you could think to do was live like this sad twat because you’re a pathetic, miserable alcoholic, then you may as well just throw yourself into the vampire’s grasp and get it over with. Stop torturing yourself, and most of all, stop torturing us poor readers who have large “To Read” piles to get through.
I have no idea about the rest of the book, but the first quarter of it has no sci-fi whatsoever in it. How this has managed to get itself into “SF Masterworks” is quite beyond me. I suppose there always has to be the bottom of pile, hopefully this is it because i’m going to despair if there are any worse books than this in the series.
Richard’s Page
#sfmasterworks #vampires #postapocalypse #richardmatheson #whataloadofcrap
Rendezvous With Rama — Arthur C. Clarke
What’s there to say: proper, good, classic sci-fi. As with Childhood’s End, it is well deserving of it’s place in the “SF Masterworks” series.
This time, instead of actual aliens coming to Earth and a prophecy of how humanity will eventually evolve, in Rendezvous With Rama we have a large alien vessel entering the solar system on a path that will take it inside the orbit of Mercury, around the Sun, and then, is anyone’s guess. Will it adjust it’s trajectory, pull a breaking manouvre and find a stable orbit in the solar system, or will it use the Sun and sling shot elsewhere? Where did it come from, who sent it, who or what is inside, what is it’s purpose?
Set in a time when humans have colonised several planets and moons in the solar system and space flight is quite normal, we have one space ship — the Endeavour, captained by a big fan of James Cook — that is able to get some fuel and rendezvous with this vessel and investigate it. However, once the vessel has passed inside the orbit of Mercury, the Mercurians decide to take matters into their own hands and ignore what the rest of humanity has to say on the matter.
As i say, this is a proper old school sci-fi first contact story at its best and well deserving of its place as a “SF Masterworks”.