Overrated Sci-Fi Novels...

[Big Orange]

What highly successful sci-fi novels do you think derserve to be seen as overrated? Here is my shortlist:

The Man in the High Castle - OooKaayy Dick, what was all that about? Fatherland was vastly better.

The Algebraist - By no means a bad novel per se, but for a Hugo awarded book written by Iain M. Banks it was pretty hard going, and was far too long for it's content, with a couple of redundant subplots, and too much padding (but a ridiculously camp supervillain, a few action scenes, and brilliant universe building saves the proceedings).

A Fire Upon the Deep - Maybe I was too young to read it (maybe 10?), but it had the very same set of problems as The Algebraist, but somehow worse, with a very ill defined menace ("the Blight"), and silly dog aliens with pack minds (the Tines). I just lost interest in it, but I'll probably read it again - maybe I'll get it the second time.

[JediToren]

Starship Troopers - Okay, its got some cool military hardware, but come on every thing that happens to Rico from the color his uniform to the shape of his turd somehow relates to his high school morality class. Half the book is little more than a chance for Heinlein/Dubois to preach his views and ideal society to the reader. I don't mind sf with a message, but you can be more creative and subtle than having a major character tell you.

[Stark]

Can I throw in Fahrenheit 451? I dig the dystopia, I dig the theme of knowledge, and I dig the psychological action. It's just badly plotted, badly paced, preachy and often boring. Bradbury has done better, but cause it's on high-school reading books people love it.

[Uraniun235]

Starship Troopers - Okay, its got some cool military hardware, but come on every thing that happens to Rico from the color his uniform to the shape of his turd somehow relates to his high school morality class. Half the book is little more than a chance for Heinlein/Dubois to preach his views and ideal society to the reader. I don't mind sf with a message, but you can be more creative and subtle than having a major character tell you.

If I remember right, SST was hacked out in the space of a couple of weeks as basically a big retort to someone else.

[Gil Hamilton]

A Fire Upon the Deep - Maybe I was too young to read it (maybe 10?), but it had the very same set of problems as The Algebraist, but somehow worse, with a very ill defined menace ("the Blight"), and silly dog aliens with pack minds (the Tines). I just lost interest in it, but I'll probably read it again - maybe I'll get it the second time.

I'm not going to agree with you. The Blight was somewhat ill-defined except as a pan-galactic technology threat with transcendental power, but the Tines were really clever and the plot was pretty decent. It was a unique book and I don't think it is all that overrated, particular since I don't think it's well known enough to be overrated.

That said, "A Deepness in the Sky", which was written later and also featured Pham Nuwen before his voyage that took him to "A Fire Upon the Deep" was a better book and alot more polished.

[Gullible Jones]

Dawn by Octavia Butler. There are a lot of good things to be said about this book - the postulations on the way aliens might think, etc. are pretty interesting. But the misandrist crap is so over the top that it becomes hard to keep reading after a certain point.

[Winston Blake]

Hyperion. For every 'that's pretty cool', there were 99 'give me fucking break's.

[Gullible Jones]

I think any "science fiction" universe in which love is a fundamental force automatically qualifies.

[Lord of the Abyss]

I think any "science fiction" universe in which love is a fundamental force automatically qualifies.

Since such a book could be regarded as utter garbage, and therefore not overrated, no, it doesn't. And while that certainly doesn't apply in the real universe, there's any number of universes where emotions or imagination are real forces that directly affect the world. Just because that's not how the real world works, it doesn't mean that good fiction can't be written about worlds where it does work that way.

I assume you have a specific book/series in mind. Could you enlighten those like me who don't get the reference ?

[Bakustra]

I think any "science fiction" universe in which love is a fundamental force automatically qualifies.

Since such a book could be regarded as utter garbage, and therefore not overrated, no, it doesn't. And while that certainly doesn't apply in the real universe, there's any number of universes where emotions or imagination are real forces that directly affect the world. Just because that's not how the real world works, it doesn't mean that good fiction can't be written about worlds where it does work that way.

I assume you have a specific book/series in mind. Could you enlighten those like me who don't get the reference ?

He's referring to the Hyperion series, which does feature the revelation that love is a fundamental force of the universe, like gravity, the strong and weak nuclear forces and electromagnetism. Not "emotions affect the universe," but love is a fundamental part of the universe. This is sold as totally serious science fiction, too.

[Ryan Thunder]

Anything written by Margaret Atwood. Blech.

[Feil]

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. There was some really cool stuff in that book, and it's a fun read, but the plot has more holes than swiss cheese.

[The Dark]

Starship Troopers - Okay, its got some cool military hardware, but come on every thing that happens to Rico from the color his uniform to the shape of his turd somehow relates to his high school morality class. Half the book is little more than a chance for Heinlein/Dubois to preach his views and ideal society to the reader. I don't mind sf with a message, but you can be more creative and subtle than having a major character tell you.

If I remember right, SST was hacked out in the space of a couple of weeks as basically a big retort to someone else.

It was a response to an ad by the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy calling for a complete end of nuclear testing. Heinlein was of the opinion that total pacifism would lead to an invasion by the Soviets, and also somewhat reflects the experience of World War II (blasting the Bugs out tunnel by tunnel) and the Korean War (a popular opinion at the time was it was worth restarting the war to recover POWs). It was written fairly quickly, since it was published about a year after the ad appeared in the newspaper. Starship Troopers was (and should still be) classified as juvenile fiction, so to compare it to "adult" science fiction is a poor critical decision, since it's not intended as such.

[Gullible Jones]

Anything written by Margaret Atwood. Blech.

I'm not sure about "everything", but can I second Oryx and Crake on charges of moronic assertions, luddism, lack of understanding of human nature, and grotesquely blatant attempts to manipulate the reader?

[Gullible Jones]

Meanwhile I'm going to throw in another one: Vitals by Greg Bear.

This is a really special case. It does a lot of stuff right. It has the material in it to be a complete brainfuck. And yet it just isn't believable - the premise of "fine manipulation of peoples' behavior by messing with their endogenous bacteria" doesn't click; the deal with so many characters (including the protagonist's own mother!) being in on the conspiracy is ludicrous; and the whole Soviet Union angle, especially the stupid anti-Semitic historian and the Stalin-in-a-tank scene, is groan-inducing. The atmosphere is perfect, the imagery is perfect, but everything else is just wrong.

[Alerik the Fortunate]

I'm going to have to mention Asimov's Foundation series. Fun for young ones, and interesting ideas, but grossly simplistic. This might have to be expanded to include most of Asimov in general.

[Connor MacLeod]

David Weber. Much as I like the series. I think they grossly overrate him. And John Ringo. I've become more of a David Drake fan, though he seems to be much less trumpeted (or is it prolific) than the other two...

[Bob the Gunslinger]

I have to go with Hyperion and everything else Dan Simmons wrote and with Ender's Game. The short story was much better than the novel. I tend to find Bradbury and Heinlein overrated in general, and most of Niven's solo work is highly overvalued. Harlan Ellison is, for the most part, sustaining himself entirely on 30-years-stale hype.

On the other hand, I enjoyed Fire upon the Deep and the Foundation trilogy (only the original three) a great deal.

I'm also surprised that neither Neal Stephenson nor Kim Stanley Robinson has made it into this thread yet. Since I haven't been able to force myself to finish any of their books, I don't think it would be fair of me to rate them.

[Xess]

I'm going with David Weber's Honor Harrington books, they're fun to read for the most part but Weber gets too easily dragged into long, long expositions.

[Zixinus]

I can't remember the name.
There was a book about interstellar hippies that ripped our moon apart. They had massive technologies, and one of the aliens fucked one of the protagonists. The alien looked like a catwoman.

Also, by ripping the moon apart, it caused massive tidal waves of enormous destruction.
There was one scene where two soldiers also fucked, but because they were dying and had no way out. It was quite sad in a way.

The book was quite obvious portrayer of hippies. It also had an astronomer that told its audience that he indeed visited other planets.

The book made me hate hippies. Well, at least the irresponcible kind. Destroying a whole living world when there are a dozen of other planets worth destroying and nobody would care about is immoral to say the least.

[NecronLord]

What's 'hippie' about ripping a moon apart?

[Master_Baerne]

Anything written by Brian Herbert. That fool has forever poisoned the Dune universe.

[Gullible Jones]

I'm also surprised that neither Neal Stephenson nor Kim Stanley Robinson has made it into this thread yet. Since I haven't been able to force myself to finish any of their books, I don't think it would be fair of me to rate them.

Kim Stanley Robinson isn't overrated... he's just crap.

[Dartzap]

I'm also surprised that neither Neal Stephenson nor Kim Stanley Robinson has made it into this thread yet. Since I haven't been able to force myself to finish any of their books, I don't think it would be fair of me to rate them.

I cannot, despite multiple attempts, get into either Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon. I read anything and everything, but those two books continue to beat me.

[General Zod]

I have to echo the nomination of Honor-verse books. They read like 1 page plot detail 10 pages technical sheet.