The bookclub decided to read Heinlein’s masterpiece — the brilliant spectacular and incredibly popular novel (quote from the back cover of the Ace Science Fiction edition, published in 1987). The book Stranger in a Strange Land hasn’t quite stood the test of time (assuming it ever did match up to the breathless praise). War of the World’s review is decent and points out some of the strengths and weaknesses of the book.
The bookclub found the book worth reading for its historical value, even though the sexist and racist tones are irritating, the dialogues don’t quite match up to the supposed sophistication of the characters (particularly Jubal), and the bits about the archangels don’t appear to serve any purpose. The book could have done with a good editing. A couple of interesting questions came up – we spent some time discussing privacy in a telepathic world, especially on how one would bring up children with a sense of who they are in such a community, and the implications of a group where people take money as they need it and give money as they can (shades of the socialist ideal from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs
that never seems to work beyond a small circle of people, such as a family).
In the end, we came to the conclusion that there were good ideas in the book, and parts of it were reasonably well-written, but that there must be better science fiction out there, with believable dialogues and characters. Does anyone have recommendations?
If you like lots of psychological drama and tension, as well as “realistic” aliens whose heads you can get inside, then C. J. Cherryh might be for you. Her many novels set in the “Alliance-Union universe” are full of fragile egos — which can admittedly get pretty tiring if you read the whole Cyteen book in one go.
Many years ago, while I was home sick with a bad cold, my hubby kindly went out and got me a care package that included something to read — which turned out to be the second book in the Cyteen trilogy, which I only figured out partway through! It was good enough, though, that I ultimately went and bought the rest. According to the Wikipedia, ) it is now only published as a single unified book.
Every book has its strengths and weaknesses. If everything is edited then how would we got to know about the weaknesses. Then there would only be appreciation from all over.But at the end there r some good ideas also.
I would recommend Asimov to you, if everyone hasn’t already read them all. In particular, the foundation trilogy (all *5* books — “Foundation”, “Foundation & Empire”, “Second Foundation”, …). Also the robots series (“I, Robot”, etc.).
Cheers, Tony.
I would second Anthony’s recommendation to read the Foundation “trilogy”; they are somewhere in my volatile queue for rereading. Right now I’m somewhere in the middle of Kim Stanley Robinson’s “Mars” trilogy (which begins with “Red Mars”), and I would recommend it as a very convincingly human (though not terran) future history of exploration and adaptation beyond our current planet.
I second the recommendation for Robinson’s Mars trilogy, consisting of Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars; there’s also a fourth book of short pieces, outtakes, and poetry called Martians, but it’s not essential.
A trilogy, however, is a considerable investment of time and energy, particularly since the books constitute a continuous story like The Lord of the Rings. I therfore recommend Ursula K. Le Guin’s classic 1969 novel The Left Hand of Darkness (reviewed here) for the next science fiction your book club does. It’s from the same time period as Stranger (the Mars books are more modern), and it is in an odd way concerned with the same subject, pursued from a completely different (and much more literate and interesting) viewpoint.
“I’ll make my report as though I told a story, for I was taught as a child on my homeworld that Truth is a matter of the imagination.”
I would recommend Dan Simmons’ Hyperion. It’s a great mix of sci-fi, religion, time-travel, and good vs. evil with a twist. Dan is a very good writer and now I’m spoiled and can’t go back to just every day stuff.