I loved his early work. Wasp Factory, Espedair Street, The Bridge and Walking on Glass. I had my hand on one of his just last week....wasn't as knocked out by the last couple I've read. Might give it a go though. When he's on form he is one Britain's best writers imo.

Sundae you ever read any Jeff Noon? Well worth a go. I love his use of language. A true poet.

I keep hearing about Heinlein. If I were to start in, what would you recommend as a first book?

This was the first one I read.

Bastard.


Smooth. First one of his I read was Job. Then Stranger in a Strange Land, The Cat who Walked Through Walls and Time Enough For Love (can't recall in which order). There are a bunch of light, little Heinleins like Starship Troopers. But I found the more involved of his books (Time Enough For Love has an epic feel to it) more engaging. In Job, Stranger, The Cat, and Time Enough for Love, he is exploring fundamental questions. Job is very funny and dark.


[eta] Heinlein's work is of its time. It needs to be read on its own terms. Set aside modern notions of gender :P

Ew, I hated Job. And I thought it was completely different from all of the other books of his that I'd read (both in style and in the fact that I hated it.) I hated it for mostly other reasons, but IMHO you'd be really irritated by its stupid religious interpretations, smooth.

You would like The Moon is a Harsh Mistress a lot. Stranger in a Strange Land after that.

I'll check out Job.

I didn't realize (or had forgotten) that Stranger in a Strange Land was him. I really didn't like that book. Maybe Job will be better.

:lol: Harsh. I think I'll pretend that a four-minute timestamp difference means you weren't responding directly to my post about Job.

For the record, I really enjoyed the first two thirds of Stranger in a Strange Land, but thought the last third kind of went off the deep end.

My two favourite Heinleins are Job and The Cat who Walked Through Walls.

I think i like Job because it's different. It's original and clever. And I found it funny.

I'd plump for RAH's Time Enough For Love. I recently reread Number Of The Beast and was amused to rediscover a sequel element in it to TEFL, though NOTB is perhaps the most peculiar of late Heinlein. Computer plotbunnies end up dating the piece, at best.

Other dead white men in Sci-Fi that I've found stand rereading: Zelazny, Anderson, Clarke; just about any title from these. Bradbury is of that generation, and still with us for the next few years anyway. He's quite lit'r'ry. I've rather lost my taste for Ellison, though the man's still fun to watch. The now apparently retired Alan Dean Foster is my idea of someone to write better than.

Nonfiction: you could hardly do better than the perennial John McPhee. Particularly his tetralogy-plus Annals Of The Former World -- four and a half books all about rocks and deep time, and he makes the rocks sing. Even those who believe they must reject science to be good Christians could read the long handiwork of the Creator, marvelous in our sight, in this tale told in the rocks.

I just reread McPhee's Oranges.