Overrated Sci-Fi Novels...

MJ12 Commando · Post by **MJ12 Commando** » 2007-11-23 08:33pm

And constantly misused in arguments to prove points as well, let's not forget.

Ditto for 1984.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-11-23 08:36pm

I hardly think 1984 is overrated: it's certainly over *quoted*, particularly in cases not even vaguely related, but that's true of anything popular. It's actually good, unlike BNW which is pretty damn silly and very, very polemical.

MJ12 Commando · Post by **MJ12 Commando** » 2007-11-23 08:39pm

Stark wrote:I hardly think 1984 is overrated: it's certainly over *quoted*, particularly in cases not even vaguely related, but that's true of anything popular. It's actually good, unlike BNW which is pretty damn silly and very, very polemical.

I wasn't saying it's overrated, although my wording sucked at that point. I was saying that 1984 and BNW are the Dynamic Duo of being way too famous for their own good.

Personally I liked Animal Farm better than 1984, but that's just personal taste. It's also, 99% of the time, the right book to cite when everyone is saying "ZOMG 1984".

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-11-23 08:45pm

Yeah you're right. It is pretty funny every time someone says 'big brother lol zomg 1984' when they should really be referring to Animal Farm, though.

I thought I'd never read BNW, but it turns out I read it in highschool and just forgot about it. I read 1984 in highschool, and remembered, so there's clearly a difference there.

MJ12 Commando · Post by **MJ12 Commando** » 2007-11-23 08:51pm

Stark wrote:Yeah you're right. It is pretty funny every time someone says 'big brother lol zomg 1984' when they should really be referring to Animal Farm, though.

All book quotes are equally supportive of a point, but some are more equal than others.

I thought I'd never read BNW, but it turns out I read it in highschool and just forgot about it. I read 1984 in highschool, and remembered, so there's clearly a difference there.

I remember BNW more clearly than 1984, because I had to argue against someone using it on my debate team. I believe the topic was stem cells and genetic therapy.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2007-11-23 09:15pm

Batman wrote: You want a truly overrated SciFi novel?
Dune.

Dune was actually good until God Emperor of Dune, then things just started gradually spiralling down. But the original novel itself was fairly enjoyable.

Ryan Thunder · Post by **Ryan Thunder** » 2007-11-23 09:29pm

Hmm yes. I remember happily purchasing Chapterhouse (I was curious about how the series ended) only to discover that it merely trailed off...

General Soontir Fel · Post by **General Soontir Fel** » 2007-11-23 10:13pm

Ryan Thunder wrote:Hmm yes. I remember happily purchasing Chapterhouse (I was curious about how the series ended) only to discover that it merely trailed off...

Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert did write a conclusion of sorts.

Gaidin · Post by **Gaidin** » 2007-11-23 10:22pm

General_Soontir_Fel wrote:
Ryan Thunder wrote:Hmm yes. I remember happily purchasing Chapterhouse (I was curious about how the series ended) only to discover that it merely trailed off...
Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert did write a conclusion of sorts.

One day after those two die I want a release of the original notes when they're not around to "organize" them for readability.

Ryan Thunder · Post by **Ryan Thunder** » 2007-11-23 11:36pm

General_Soontir_Fel wrote:
Ryan Thunder wrote:Hmm yes. I remember happily purchasing Chapterhouse (I was curious about how the series ended) only to discover that it merely trailed off...
Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert did write a conclusion of sorts.

No no, I meant a conclusion to the saga, not the most recent milking of the cash cow.

Boyish-Tigerlilly · Post by **Boyish-Tigerlilly** » 2007-11-24 01:05am

I loved BNW, but when I read it, I always got the opposite message the instructor wanted me to see. I thought he did a piss-poor job of creating an actual dystopia. To think: everyone's happy and there's no war, starvation, disease, etc. Oh no!

As for the most overrated Sci-Fi book I had to read: For Us, The Living. That has got to be the worst god damn book ever written, but it's praised by so many people I know as a masterpiece of original fiction. This guy falls off a cliff in his car, teleports into the future where you get lectured to every five pages. By the end of chapter one, he falls madly in love with someone he's never met before (not to mention this person takes him into her home and she doesn't even know him).

The whole thing is absurd.

Junghalli · Post by **Junghalli** » 2007-11-24 03:09am

Boyish-Tigerlilly wrote:I loved BNW, but when I read it, I always got the opposite message the instructor wanted me to see. I thought he did a piss-poor job of creating an actual dystopia. To think: everyone's happy and there's no war, starvation, disease, etc.

I got the dystopic elements right away from reading it. The place sounded like an entire planet full of Paris Hilton clones.

*shudder*

Lord Pounder · Post by **Lord Pounder** » 2007-11-24 01:39pm

Hyperion and the Fall Of hyperion really bothered me. I'd heard a lot of good things about it and quite frankly I was shit, hard to follow shit that cost me nearly £15, damn I could have had a massage with a happy ending for that. I read for pleasure not because I have to, getting through Hyperion was a chore. One I don't care to repeat.

Falkenhayn · Post by **Falkenhayn** » 2007-11-24 02:12pm

Lord Pounder wrote:Hyperion and the Fall Of hyperion really bothered me. I'd heard a lot of good things about it and quite frankly I was shit, hard to follow shit that cost me nearly £15, damn I could have had a massage with a happy ending for that. I read for pleasure not because I have to, getting through Hyperion was a chore. One I don't care to repeat.

Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion were the best of the series for me, but I've put Olympos up next to Look to Windward on my shelf of masochistic exercises.

Tsyroc · Post by **Tsyroc** » 2007-11-24 02:47pm

LadyTevar wrote: And Tyrsoc? Your Wiki link's screwed up.

Sorry.

The Handmaid's Tale

There's also a movie based on the book but I haven't seen it. I think it has Robert Duval in it.

I'd also like to say that the reason I didn't mention Brave New World is that I've been lucky enough not to have to read it.

speaker-to-trolls · Post by **speaker-to-trolls** » 2007-11-24 03:44pm

I'd say Richard Morgans Woken Furies, from what I can tell this book got rave reviews but I think it's the weakest of his Kovacs series. It wanders around almost aimlessly for most of its four hundred pages and ends with a very unsatisfying Deus Ex Machina (arguably, it was sort of set up beforehand). Plus there's the way in which both Morgan himself and Kovacs, the viewpoint character, seem to be completely taken in by his super-soldier mystique.

Gullible Jones · Post by **Gullible Jones** » 2007-11-24 04:03pm

Ah, the Kovacs series. I bought the first (Altered Carbon) after seeing the rave review Jeff Vandermeer gave it, and was rather disappointed. It's one of those books that would have been improved by a bit less sex and violence.

That being said, the Quellist philosophy was highly interesting. I would have liked to see more on that.

speaker-to-trolls · Post by **speaker-to-trolls** » 2007-11-24 04:23pm

They go into Quellism more in Woken Furies, it sounds more interesting in the other books than it turns out to be in the last one.

I should just say, though, that I found Altered Carbon to be very good, and most of the sex and violence to actually be done well. The thing is in the later books the sex becomes slowly more gratuitous and the violence becomes less noteworthy, when Kovacs goes on his killing spree in Altered Carbon it's shocking, when he goes on similar or worse killing sprees in the later books it's "Oh, another killing spree, hoorah".

Jadeite · Post by **Jadeite** » 2007-11-25 04:08am

Imperial Overlord wrote:
I hear that the Haven actually scores some big wins and threatens Manticore in the later books, but I had lost interest by then.

I'm a fan of the Harrington series, but after the People's Republic falls, I started cheering for Haven as well. If you like the Manticoran's getting the shit stomped out of them, Operation Thunderbolt in "War of Honor" retakes every single occupied Havenite system except for Trevor's Star, as well as taking out the Manty shipyard at Grendelsbane.

Spoilers for "At All Costs" are below, if you want to know how the war goes in that one:

Haven tosses practically its entire capital ship force into Manticore, over two hundred superdreadnoughts total. They take out Home Fleet and Third Fleet, then Harrington's Eight Fleet engages them and forces the Havenite survivors to surrender. Tourville dies in an earlier battle, Giscard is captured at Manticore, and McKeon (and I think Kuzak) die at Manticore.

Both nations have pretty much their entire offensive forces destroyed, so now its a scramble on both sides to rebuild their fleets.

Anyway, for my own contribution, I'm going to list the Thrawn Trilogy by Zahn. Disregarding the minimalism, he pulls a cop out at the end by killing Thrawn via assasination, it comes off as incredibly lazy writing.

"Foundation and Earth" sucks as well. "Hey guys, you know how we've been following the Seldon Plan for centuries? Well, we've decided that merging all of humanity into a supra-organism is a better idea. Your individuality will be a necessary sacrifice for the GREATER GOOD."

Flagg · Post by **Flagg** » 2007-11-25 04:28am

Darth Wong wrote:How can you have a thread about massively overrated sci-fi novels without mentioning Aldous Huxley's so-called "classic" work of speculative literature, Brave New World?

I saw maybe 15 minutes of some TV movie based on that with Leonard Nimoy in it. I started laughing my ass off when they got to the part about the words "father" and "mother" being considered obscene.

SylasGaunt · Post by **SylasGaunt** » 2007-11-25 11:24am

speaker-to-trolls wrote:I'd say Richard Morgans Woken Furies, from what I can tell this book got rave reviews but I think it's the weakest of his Kovacs series. It wanders around almost aimlessly for most of its four hundred pages and ends with a very unsatisfying Deus Ex Machina (arguably, it was sort of set up beforehand). Plus there's the way in which both Morgan himself and Kovacs, the viewpoint character, seem to be completely taken in by his super-soldier mystique.

For some extra fun- I listened to the first two Kovacs books on audiobook from audible.com. And he mentions how people say his name wrong and specifically how it's mispronounced... and then they changed narrators for Woken Furies and he's pronouncing the name wrong.

Luke Starkiller · Post by **Luke Starkiller** » 2007-11-25 12:23pm

Jadeite wrote:
Imperial Overlord wrote:
I hear that the Haven actually scores some big wins and threatens Manticore in the later books, but I had lost interest by then.
I'm a fan of the Harrington series, but after the People's Republic falls, I started cheering for Haven as well. If you like the Manticoran's getting the shit stomped out of them, Operation Thunderbolt in "War of Honor" retakes every single occupied Havenite system except for Trevor's Star, as well as taking out the Manty shipyard at Grendelsbane.

Spoilers for "At All Costs" are below, if you want to know how the war goes in that one:

Haven tosses practically its entire capital ship force into Manticore, over two hundred superdreadnoughts total. They take out Home Fleet and Third Fleet, then Harrington's Eight Fleet engages them and forces the Havenite survivors to surrender. Tourville dies in an earlier battle, Giscard is captured at Manticore, and McKeon (and I think Kuzak) die at Manticore.

Both nations have pretty much their entire offensive forces destroyed, so now its a scramble on both sides to rebuild their fleets.

Anyway, for my own contribution, I'm going to list the Thrawn Trilogy by Zahn. Disregarding the minimalism, he pulls a cop out at the end by killing Thrawn via assasination, it comes off as incredibly lazy writing.

"Foundation and Earth" sucks as well. "Hey guys, you know how we've been following the Seldon Plan for centuries? Well, we've decided that merging all of humanity into a supra-organism is a better idea. Your individuality will be a necessary sacrifice for the GREATER GOOD."

You are backwards on that, Giscard is blown away in the first use of Apollo and Tourville surrenders at Manticore.

Falkenhayn · Post by **Falkenhayn** » 2007-11-25 12:43pm

Jadeite wrote:
Spoilers for "At All Costs" are below, if you want to know how the war goes in that one:

Haven tosses practically its entire capital ship force into Manticore, over two hundred superdreadnoughts total. They take out Home Fleet and Third Fleet, then Harrington's Eight Fleet engages them and forces the Havenite survivors to surrender. Tourville dies in an earlier battle, Giscard is captured at Manticore, and McKeon (and I think Kuzak) die at Manticore.

Both nations have pretty much their entire offensive forces destroyed, so now its a scramble on both sides to rebuild their fleets.

Harrington killed Javier Giscard, Tourville surrendered the surivovors of Beatrice to her after she reamed out Genevieve Chin's Fleet. Chin trapped McKeon, Kuzak and Alice Truman between her and Tourville, and McKeon and Kuzak were killed. Before that, Tourville slaughtered Home Fleet and killed Sebastian D'Orville. Right now, the IAN and Harrington's 8th Fleet pretty much are the Alliance navy, and Haven still has another 300 or so of the Wall, +600 or so working up and under construction. They'll be in service in the next 8-12 months in series. However Manticore has Apollo, there newest Deus Ex missile design, so Haven't can't touch them...but only 8th Fleet has it, and they can't move or Haven will pile drive manticore again. So if anything it's a slight Advantage Haven. The fun thing is, Eloise Pritchard is Elizabeth III's Havenite analogue, and HH just killed her boyfriend...

TimothyC · Post by **TimothyC** » 2007-11-25 07:45pm

Gullible Jones wrote:
Ryan Thunder wrote: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?

The only reason I ever read that piece of crap was for a class, and I wasn't the only one in the class who hated it, in point of fact, I don't think any of us liked it.

Lusankya · Post by **Lusankya** » 2007-11-26 12:24am

I'd say the Foundation trilogy is overrated, especially considering that I read a thing by Asimov himself once about when he was forced to write more Foundation novels, in which he pretty much said, "I reread them, since I hadn't looked at them in years and though 'why the hell do they want me to write more of this tripe?'"

That said, I hate everything by David Brin. You'd think that if people were going around calling him a good author, then he'd actually be readable, but apparently not.