Quote from: Malc on September 02, 2015, 09:46:02 AM
I do remember the Amber series by Zelazny. I read them in the 70s. Perhaps we should start a Fantasy/SF thread? Anyone remember the Stainless Steel rat series?

I'll see your Rat & raise you a DeathWorld 

Quote from: MikeDunn on September 02, 2015, 10:07:32 AM

Quote from: Malc on September 02, 2015, 09:46:02 AM
I do remember the Amber series by Zelazny. I read them in the 70s. Perhaps we should start a Fantasy/SF thread? Anyone remember the Stainless Steel rat series?

I'll see your Rat & raise you a DeathWorld 

Never worked out why SF and Fantasy are linked. Good SF is a logical story based on the premis of a scientific developement beyond that which is current, whereas when you allow magic, anything can happen and that, for me anyway, makes the whole thing incredible.
My favourite SF author is Azimov, his robot stories especially and he has written some cracking detective stories which are only classed as SF because they are set in a period with a colony on Mars.

Quote from: MikeDunn on September 02, 2015, 10:07:32 AM

Quote from: Malc on September 02, 2015, 09:46:02 AM
I do remember the Amber series by Zelazny. I read them in the 70s. Perhaps we should start a Fantasy/SF thread? Anyone remember the Stainless Steel rat series?

I'll see your Rat & raise you a DeathWorld 

Both good Harry Harrison novels.

Have you read his Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers ?  Talk about a pee-take 

In the 'space opera' vein (with more than a passing nod to the 'hard SF' arena) I do enjoy the Honor Harrington series by Weber.

And moving to the UK again, the alternate history of the Thursday Next series by Fforde is hilarious    Neither Swindon nor Reading have ever been the same to me since ...    Let's face it : any history that has George Formby as the English President has got to have something (weird) going for it !

Quote from: steve836 on September 02, 2015, 10:42:21 AM

Never worked out why SF and Fantasy are linked.

Tend to agree with you there, Steve. Although I used to be keen on SF, later in life I much prefer Fantasy, with Raymond E. Feist and Janny Wurts being high on my 'best authors' list. However, I would judge Frank Herbert's 'Dune' (started off as a trilogy and ended up as 6 books) as a good mix of the two. Just my opinion, though.

Anyone into fantasy and looking for a great read should check into 'The Cycle Of Arawn'.  If you have a kindle, it is available now on Amazon for one pound ninety-nine peez... It's a three parter and that is the price for the whole thing.  Can't recommend it highly enough.....

Quote from: steve836 on September 02, 2015, 10:42:21 AM
Never worked out why SF and Fantasy are linked. Good SF is a logical story based on the premis of a scientific developement beyond that which is current, whereas when you allow magic,
,,, his robot stories especially, ,

and Nightfall for eg.  which could have become a fantasy but he neatly avoided it being so.

Couldnt agree more,

>> But it's horribly sexist. Like a lot of sci-fi writers of his generation
>> Niven was writing for teenage boys and young men,

I may have been one of them !

Quote from: MalcolmAL on September 02, 2015, 10:32:02 PM
and then there is Heinlein who had some great satirical semiSF propositions ( Storm Ship Troopers

I assume you mean Starship Troopers ?  A decent book, but one that did upset various other authors ...  One I enjoy; ditto Star Beast

Quotewhere vas  I ,, oh yes Heinlein,, if you want some really strange sexual SF conjunctions  remember his Hamadryad stuff ?

  No ... ? Hamadryad was a small character in Time Enough For Love ?  Can't say I recall anything strange in there ?  Another good book, basically a collection of tales with another tale woven around them.

Quote from: MikeDunn on September 02, 2015, 10:55:17 PM

Quote from: MalcolmAL on September 02, 2015, 10:32:02 PM
and then there is Heinlein who had some great satirical semiSF propositions ( Storm Ship Troopers

I assume you mean Starship Troopers ? ]

quite right, why assume, obvious want it ? mustav been mixing with SteeleyeSpan, forgive me ?

Quote??  No ... ? Hamadryad was a small character in Time Enough For Love ?

Yes that is true, but much developed in later stuff

QuoteCan't say I recall anything strange in there ? 

Really!
wait till you read the The Hamadryads (as a class) later stuff

Quote from: MikeDunn on September 02, 2015, 10:55:17 PMbut one that did upset various other authors ... 

Oh go on then, I know you are dying to, , ,

Those uninterested in this topis, please click your <back> button now - you have been warned 

Quote from: MalcolmAL on September 02, 2015, 11:13:14 PM
Yes that is true, but much developed in later stuff

Ah, you mean in The Cat Who Walked Through Walls and To Sail Beyond The Sunset ?  Yes, he did expand earlier tendencies in those.

Quote from: MalcolmAL on September 02, 2015, 11:21:24 PM

Quote from: MikeDunn on September 02, 2015, 10:55:17 PMbut one that did upset various other authors ... 

Oh go on then, I know you are dying to, , ,

Well, not really, but ...

(for those who don't know, Starship Troopers is (like the title suggests) a story about a man who joins a space-faring military as a trooper; it is a Hugo award winner - unlike the film which is a pile of    ; they bought the name to slap onto a B-grade movie hoping for a better turnout than otherwise they'd get   Apparently a sympathetic (to the book) version is on the cards)

There are several areas; personally, I feel it's people trying to make things out of nothing, but ... :

• Rampant militarism - that the book glorifies war.  Joe Haldeman (another author) is reputed to have hated this idea so much he wrote The Forever War as an antithesis to Starship Troopers (this other book, winner of Nebula, Hugo and Locus awards, treats war as dirty & depressing, with the troops considered no more than machines), as well as a commentary on the Vietnam War he was in.  Not a story I enjoyed, far too long & depressing, in my opinion !  And I've read Dick's "Do Andoids Dream Of Electric Sheep ?" so I know a long depressing book when I see it    Possibly part of the argument here is that it's the first SF novel to be on the reading list for 3 of the US's military branches ?
• Fascism - the Federation can be viewed as a Fascist organisation; again, I think it's over-analysing the story ...  But this thread was pulled out in the film (check the uniforms, for example).  One argument for this is that only veterans can vote; another the compulsory teachings of "moral philosophy" in the schools.  However, there is some evidence that points to Switzerland as the source of his thoughts on these lines ... and also that Federal Service is actually the source of the vote, the military arm being a small part of this; the book also states the Federation is a democracy ...
• Utopian - the book shows a wonderful Federation, far from the realities we have.  Well - is this different from other stories ?     Both Farmer & Moorcock have had scathing opinions on Utopianism ...
• Racist - the Arachnids are approached as a pest to be exterminated.  That's because they want the same type of planets that we do, and they apparently began the war by their own exterminations of humanity on a planet they wanted ...  The reaction to that & the hive mentality they have (think ants) seems to be the objection, which various people have mapped against racial epithets used in the Korean and Vietnamese theatres

Harry Harrison was mentiond earlier; well, Bill, The Galactic Hero is a p***take against Starship Troopers    It's OK, but the series is dismal ...

Overall, the book gave us some items that have become staples in SF : space marines is the obvious one, as is powered armour.  The film Aliens borrows a lot from the story (the cast of Marines were required to have read the book as part of their preparation for the film).  Looking at reality, aspects of the powered armour are slowly making it into the modern armies; how long before we do have a real-life example ?

Not forgetting the best version of Starship Troopers.
http://youtu.be/QQKVqVpoMxw

Now, how about "Stranger, in a strange land" for a good book?

Quote from: Malc on September 03, 2015, 02:21:50 PM
Not forgetting the best version of Starship Troopers.

But but but ... where's Sarah Brightman 

Quote
Now, how about "Stranger, in a strange land" for a good book?

Original printing, or the original manuscript (late printing) ?

Quote from: MikeDunn on September 03, 2015, 02:57:00 PM
Original printing, or the original manuscript (late printing) ?

I dunno, I borrowed it from the library in the early '60s. I think it was fairly new when I read it.

That's be the heavily-edited version then ... you may wish to grok the proper one