SF/F Books: Chapter Two - What Are You Reading?
- Thread starter Neroon
- Start date
So yeah, finished Solaris a while back. It was good. Mostly what was interesting was its in-depth discussion of the planet and human science's often feeble and ideology-driven efforts to understand it. Buried in there is the notion that all our fantasies about contact are little more then myths of human civilizations meeting each other transposed into space, which is a fair enough point.
Also The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike. I love Philip K. Dick titles. They're long and strange, quite often, and it doesn't hurt this title means more then one of two things. There aren't any surprises here - it's another non-sf book of his, but like much of his sf it's about very odd people in California - though there is something heartbreaking about Runcible's depressed and self-destructive decency (again, nothing new.)
Also The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike. I love Philip K. Dick titles. They're long and strange, quite often, and it doesn't hurt this title means more then one of two things. There aren't any surprises here - it's another non-sf book of his, but like much of his sf it's about very odd people in California - though there is something heartbreaking about Runcible's depressed and self-destructive decency (again, nothing new.)
Q-Squared by Peter David
Read this book ten years ago or so. I didn't actually remember how awesome it was (or maybe I didn't find it awesome back then... who knows).
Read this book ten years ago or so. I didn't actually remember how awesome it was (or maybe I didn't find it awesome back then... who knows).
Cities in Flight (omnibus) by James Blish
I'm currently reading "Doctor Who The Visual Dictionary Third Revision"
The Evolutionary Void by Peter F. Hamilton.
How to stay alive in the woods.
At the moment, The Invisible Man, which I must admit I've never read before. Apparently being invisible turns you into a massive jerk, at least from what I've read so far.
Started Tau Zero. Sweden rules the world? I've seen stranger fictions, I guess.
And what kind of name is "Poul," anyway?
And what kind of name is "Poul," anyway?
I think that was the point. It was sort of based on the writings of the philosopher Plato in regards to the Ring of Gyges in which a shepherd finds a ring which turns him invisible and the supposedly 'moral' shepherd then turns into an amoral person by using the ring to steal and eventually kill a king and take his place. The main argument from Plato being that while man may act moral, or believe they are just, that only exists because of what we fear can happen to us from the consequences of our actions.
It's something which comes up a lot in terms of superpower comics/stories as well. Whether by removing the constraints of society by giving someone power over everything if they use it for good or evil. I would surmise if Plato was alive today he'd completely disagree with so many superheroes acting morally when they acquired superpowers.
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