Bibliophile dramanauts, I was thinking about having a few recommendation threads according to genre, this one is Sci-fi but then we could go into horror, fantasy, realism, math textbooks, etc.
Here’s mine, or at least the few one’s I read.
HG Wells
“War of the Worlds”
Isaac Asimov
I robot
Foundation Trilogy
Frank Herbert
Dune
Dune messiah
Andy Weir
The Martian
Edit: I forgot about Robert Henlein, in his case “Starship Troopers”
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Asimov's short story collections, especially Nightfall and The Martian Way
Strugatsky's Roadside Picnic
Unusual, imaginative sci fi dealing with the fallout of aliens landing on earth and then leaving. It was the inspiration behind Stalker.
Lem's Solaris
Can't say much without spoiling but this book showed me why Lem is so respected. Lots of unexpected twists, bordering on science fantasy.
Gibson's Neuromancer
Incredibly well written (for sci fi) and imo a masterclass in pacing. Always reads like a 30k word novella, even though it's much longer. Little depth but amazing atmosphere.
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Adding on to Lem: His Master's Voice.
Great "first contact" book that, like Solaris, is about how human cognition may be incapable of understanding the motives of alien life-forms.
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Neuromancer is great but still the worst book in the first trilogy. Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive are much better. The do-over of Count Zero (Pattern Recognition) is better still.
Both Stalker and Solyaris are great movies. I have a third one saved but can't remember what the name is right now. (I checked my files, it's 'Come and See.')
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Been meaning to watch Come and See, couldn't get through the GIGANTIC monologue in the solaris movie opening. Does it get better?
Hard disagree with count zero/mona lisa. I feel the books lose the momentum of the first one entirely and somehow the vibe of the sprawl is missing and falls flat. There are fantastic ideas and scenes in the two, the B plots often better than the main ones, but the whole voodoo thing I dont care for. They're still really good, but Neuromancer just has a different feel imo.
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I've watched Solaris three times and no, it does not get any more interesting. The pace is so slow that I can't even follow it. There's long stretches where absolutely nothing happens and my mind starts wandering, thinking about what I have to buy the next time I go to the store.
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Yeah it's a movie that at first glance I want to like, the soviet sci fi aesthetic is really cool but jfc imagine opening ur movie with a long excerpt from a book
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Self-referentially enough, Gibson actually mentioned this... Cayce (from Pattern Recognition) is talking about being unable to stay awake through Tarkovsky movies and 'going under during a seemingly endless pan' lol
(Hi ouroboros, nice to meet you.)
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Gonna have to read Pattern Recognition. I barely got through Tarkovsky's Stalker movie. Solaris would be a difficult movie to pull off without using pretty intense visual effects, stalker could be phoned in a bit more with less detriment.
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Also Pattern Recognition is very good, though it's written as one long string without any shifts in perspective. I remember reading it and finding out the next chapter was still from Cayce's perspective and literally sighing. I understand now why authors shift character perspectives, it can feel a bit exhausting.
Pattern Recognition, to me, seems like a do-over of Count Zero, some of the themes are very similar and the main protagonist is a similar-feeling character. CZ is almost certainly my favourite Gibson book so it was great reading something you could take to be a re-imagining of it.
If you read it let me know if you notice the similarities.
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Is count zero the one with the arcology defection? And the art dealer and the rich dude with cancer? I always read all 3 books back to back, count zero and mona lisa blur together.
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Are you thinking of the correct film? From what I remember (I did just check) the opening to Solyaris is the team watching the debriefing of the astronaut in the dacha. I don't remember a huge monologue...
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That's the one. I was incredibly stoned and just could not get thru that part
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It isn't that long. Give it a go, alternatively just watch the do-over with Clooney. That's good (vaguely) too.
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Doesn't Neuromancer barely touch the Sprawl, though? Count Zero fills in much more of the blanks as to what life in the Sprawl actually would be like, Bobby's apartment, the club he goes to to wait for his plug, the arcology thing where the weird guys live (the one with Hypermart on top...) Neuromancer starts in Chiba and almost immediately heads to Istanbul and then Freeside.
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You're right. Idk tho because something changed in the writing after Neuromancer. Johnny Mnemonic and Burning Chrome along with a few other stories all had that Neuromancer energy but it was like the writing started to meander after or smth
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My opinion does vary a bit with time, though. I never thought Idoru was particularly great (I think it's the best of the 2nd trilogy though) but I read it a few months ago and I was absolutely riveted to it and almost in tears at points. It seemed so poignant.
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Yeah, I completely agree, I just think it got a lot better, but I can understand your perspective. Neuromancer is a faster 'rougher' book that's noticeably less edited than the other two. It's like a live performance compared to a studio performance.
I'm not pooping on it, it's a great book. I just think the others are better :)
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I think you're onto something. Early Gibson is my jam, my all time favorite story of his is The Winter Market
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That's a good story. The one with the girl who can't move without an exoskeleton and they're all cracked out bohemians? Yeah I liked that one too, it's pretty raw. Burning Chrome (the short story, not the collection) is also pretty amazing.
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