On a related note

[james_davis_nicoll]

What should go on a Top Ten "In retrospect, what the hell were we thinking" list of once-popular SF?

Comments

[dhole.livejournal.com]

Was They'd Rather be Right ever actually popular? It's certainly got to head some sort of "what the hell were we thinking" list.

[fitzcamel.livejournal.com]

Lucifer's Hammer?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Was there something exceptionally wrong with it that I don't remember since I read it half my life ago?

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

Critical darlings, award winners, or slaps in the face to mundane taste?

I think people will likely look back at Ender's Game and wtf.

[montoya.livejournal.com]

I don't. I've given that book to too many people (even people who don't generally read SF) and had them devour it.

I vote for Stranger in a Strange Land, which is already only of historical interest.

[brigidsblest.livejournal.com]

I'd suggest the Gor series...but of course, we all know what they were thinking.

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

Some embarrassing trends, like Laurenn J. Framingham, haven't even crested yet. But I think these two are in a persistent vegetative state:

John W. Campbell's editorship. Because what science fiction really needed was an injection of Confederate Psychic magazine!

The Star Trek novel. There have been, what, two good Star Trek novels? out of six hundred sixty-six? and now you can't even give them away at rummage sales?

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

More than two, at least in my opinion. But central to that--it's arguably not fair to relegate all Star Trek novels to the bin together; short of relegating all tie-in fiction, that is. Nothing is inherently bad about a Trek novel except insofar as something is inherently bad about a media tie-in (a claim I will not make).

[jwgh]

Slan?

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Don't get me started on that. There's nothing more hilarious than coming across a "sf readers are just naturally more open-minded and curious than regular folk" essay in the middle of Race Fail '09.

[rbos.livejournal.com]

I don't know, I don't agree with Ayn Rand or Heinlein's moral philosophies, but they did a great job of cracking my head open and making me think about things I would not have otherwise considered, like the morality of money and when it might be a good idea to have a war.

Um. Here's a WTF for me.

[jamesenge.livejournal.com]

Hm. I know people hate Heinlein for political reasons, and because of the suffering he inflicted on innocent readers in his later career (say, from I Will Fear No Spankings onward). But do people really not get why things like the Future History, Double Star, etc. are still in print, generations after they first saw the light? Hint: it has nothing to do with Randism.

Re: Um. Here's a WTF for me.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

The nice thing about Heinlein is the wide variety of political stances he took over his life time, allowing people of all walks to disagree with him about something.

[joenotcharles.livejournal.com]

Written SF only? Because I'd like to nominate The Dark Knight Returns.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

If we include comics, we'll be here all day.

[eagle]

In a much more recent vein than most of the suggestions offered to date: Laurell K. Hamilton.

Personally, I would also nominate A Case of Conscience, which I thought was one of the most horrible messes of a novel that I've ever read. But I still seem to be in a minority opinion on that.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Hamilton is not SF. And was mentioned up above.

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

If you pull out the old SF Hall of Fame collections, you can find some real shockers in the short-story field. "The Marching Morons" comes to mind.

[oh6.livejournal.com]

I remain somewhat bewildered at my one-time fascination with the Pern novels, but I suppose experiences vary.

[agharta75.livejournal.com]

Well, I still think the first story "Weyr Search" is pretty damn great. But the cliches and formula were beginning to set in as early as the second novel.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

"Ringworld"? Hell, the whole "known space" universe in general? Ignore the unobtanium-mediated physics, just the biology alone is more than a bit weird. And have you noticed how the human protagonists all seem to be Californian-descended millionaires? Just once I'd like to have seen some hint that poor folks still existed -- other than the odd token pickpocket.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

And have you noticed how the human protagonists all seem to be Californian-descended millionaires?

I'll grant the California thing but Niven used to use a lot of working-class protagonists. Just off the top of my head:

Wossface from A Gift from Earth, his world's version of a black worker in South Africa circa 1965.

Beowulf Shafer, who made good money as a pilot but spent it so fast he had to keep looking for work. When we first meet him he is about to be tossed into prison because he cannot pay his debts. Shafer knows rich people but being so broke he has to take dodgy jobs used to be part of who he was.

The bartender from the Thank God the Chirps aren't Being Written by Baxter series, as well as the other bartender from "The Fourth Profession".

"A Relic of Empire" has a guy who used to be rich and then lost it all, forcing him to develop skills he never dreamed he'd need, like how to budget.

The couple from "The Soft Weapon" are basically running a taxi service.

Gil the Arm is a cop.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Dune (and really, everything by Frank Herbert) - dear god that man manages to pack big heaps of misogyny into everything he ever wrote.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Managed. Past tense.

[fridgepunk.livejournal.com]

Peter F Hamilton's Night's Dawn Trilogy would have to be quite high up, around the 3 or 4 mark easily, just on the strength of the Gypsy character who is also a prostitute with herbal powers that allow her to treat giant psychic cancer tumours.

Actually, will people look back on the 1000+ page doorstop novels in general with horror?

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I was thankfully spared any interest in Hamilton by running into Mindstar Rising as the first of his work that I looked at. Before I attempted to read that novel, I didn't know that scary British neocon nutbars existed - now I do.

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

If there was ever a perfect SF novel, then there wouldnt be a need to keep publishing more SF, so, each flawed novel keeps our brains alert for the threads of greatness we are denied.

When a certain book/series or a Venerated Author gets to the point where no one really can poke at the Sacred Cow for the work, they get away with bad writing, but, on the opposite side, flaying said cow alive and parading its head through town is a bit cruel.

I adore Dickson's "The Cosmic Computer", but its dated and rereading it now has cringy bits, but, I felt at first read that it had a lot to say.

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

It's not the reader's job to make excuses for the writer.

[avram]

Hey, here's a convenient list of Hugo-winning novels! Let's see, which ones do I look back at and wince...?

• 1959: A Case of Conscience, Blish
• 1965: The Wanderer, Leiber (I should probably re-read this one)
• 1973: The Gods Themselves, Asimov
• 1974: Rendezvous with Rama, Clarke
• 1988: The Uplift War, Brin
• 2003: Hominids, Sawyer (Haven't actually read this, but I did read Sawyer's Calculating God, which I hated so much that I'm assuming that everything he writes just sucks)

...plus probably a few others I haven't read.

[eagle]

The Wanderer, Leiber (I should probably re-read this one)

I wouldn't bother. Just insert your giant multi-viewpoint disaster novel here, and then add catgirls.

I'm also in the camp of being mystified why people keep giving Sawyer awards, and I have read Hominids. I don't recommend the experience. He's 0.5 for 3 with me (Rollback was kind of a meh but failed to completely suck). The Terminal Experiment was even worse than Hominids, particularly with the incredibly cringe-worthy relationship bits. To paraphrase David R. Henry, you know your novel is in trouble when your characters start complaining about how bad their dialogue is.

[joenotcharles.livejournal.com]

Oh, oh, I know. Neuromancer.

[rosefox]

Does fantasy get a separate list? If not, I nominate Harry Potter and the Endless Sequels.

[blpurdom.livejournal.com]

How can they be endless if she planned to write seven books and wrote seven books and then stopped?

[fsandow.livejournal.com]

James, how about a spinoff asking which SF works have notably withstood the test of time?

Having recently re-read Childhood's End, it would be my nominee.

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

Bob Shea & Anton-Wilson's Illuminatus Trilogy. I had very fond memories of those books after discovering them....ooh about 15 years ago. Re-reading them recently really did make me wonder, "what the hell was I thinking?"

[doug-palmer.livejournal.com]

I was going to nominate Illuminatus, as well. It did tear the top off my head when I was in the right target age range (late teens) though and I wonder what effect it would have on someone who was that age now.

I still enjoy the game.

The Dangerous Visions books seem to have turned into a historical curiosity in a way that I wouldn't have predicted in the 70s.

[jeffr23.livejournal.com]

Foundation's Edge, which was apparently well-received enough to win some major awards.

It's a bit mindboggling that nobody has yet mentioned Gor...(which I can still remember dominating bookstore SF sections)

Did anyone ever actually enjoy Silverlock, or was the various self-complementary blurbage and introductions in the version I saw rather a form of informed popularity?

[wdstarr.livejournal.com]

It's a bit mindboggling that nobody has yet mentioned Gor...(which I can still remember dominating bookstore SF sections)

I think a question there is, how many of us were thinking good things about it? (I'll confess that I was, once, but that was a case of being a horny fourteen-year-old male for [mumble] years.)

[http://users.livejournal.com/krin_o_o_/]

Ok... two (edit: wait, I found more) several for the hall of shame:

"The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant: Lord Foul's Bane" by Stephen R. Donaldson - way to start a mass market trade on the super market store shelve with a graphic rape scene right at the beginning.

"Tarot" by Piers Anthony - genetic racial profiling loses out to a really bad 'black trash talk" contest ala 'yo momma' where the winner loses by comparing his competitor to excrement and urine(thus violating the color rules because talk about anything black and yellow means you're really a whitey.) no, I'm not making that up. Read it yourself if you are a fan of 1970's ethnic stereotyping.

... by Jack L. Chalker - no one specific title because, well, there are just so many twisted and disturbing titles to choose from. He did some great work at one time, but degenerated into repeating the same body and mind twisting motif. Like a record stuck in a grove and slowly degrading in quality with each repitiion. Choose from the Lord of the Diamond series, Dancing Gods series, Soul Rider series, Changewinds series, Quintara Marathonseriess, Wonderland Gambit series... and many singletons too.


Xanth 4+ by Piers Anthony - Back to him, sigh. This series was pretty good and probably should have stopped at number 3. But it became a yearly series with the same story 'coming of age' story repeated over and over. Up to what number 34 now? I guess that once a working formula is established, using it to make a living shouldn't be damning. But I did so like his story telling at one point, and now I just get 'deja vue' anytime I pick up one of these.


There's probably more. Last one for now.

What IDIOT placed John Ringo's "Paladin of Shadows" series (Ghost, Kildar, Chooser of the Slain, Unto the Breach, and A Deeper Blue)in the SCI-FI category??? I'm sure most readers of his science fiction will be surprised by the graphic BDSM scenes and doublely disappointed to find it a Tom Clancy-ish modern military fiction having no "Sci-Fi" elements at all.


- l8tr

[amberite.livejournal.com]

I have found a perfect use for Piers Anthony novels - they're great for insomnia. Just mentally stimulating enough to distract me from the day's worries, yet foolish enough not to actually make me think in any way. Since I normally suffer from thought overload at bedtime...

[roseembolism.livejournal.com]

Palmer's Emergence is one of those books that seemed really cool when I first read it, but on reflection turned creepier and creepier. There's the narrator Mary Sue character, the pre-adolescent sex element, the "fans are slan" subtext, the "Let's kill off all the stupid people" tone...I don't think I could read it again.