Book meme

[fanf]

From uitlander:

Oscar Wilde
John Fowles
C.J. Cherryh (but i haven't read it because it bored me)
Umberto Eco
John Le Carre
Stephen Jay Gould
Douglas Adams
John Mortimer (I think)
Terry Pratchett (lots)
J.R.R. Tolkein (boring)
Stephen Fry
Iain Banks
China Mieville
Ben Schott
Mike Burrows

From rmc28:

Terry Pratchett
Arthur C. Clarke
Ursula K. Le Guin
Diana Wynne Jones
Robin Hobb / Megan Lindholm
Bernard Cornwell
Lois McMaster Bujold
Dick Francis
Georgette Heyer
Isaac Asimov
Michael Crichton
Edward Tufte
Richard Stevens
Donald Knuth
Greg Egan

So, 5 and 5...

Comments

[acronym.livejournal.com]

From you:
Douglas Adams
Terry Pratchett
J.R.R. Tolkein
Iain Banks
China Mieville (on loan from Mobbsy, so tenuous...) survive: I'll add
Jared Diamond
Dava Sobel
Alexander Solzhenitsyn (counting my shelves in Edinburgh, where most of my books are)
Robert Llewellyn
Ben Elton


Via rmc28:
Surviving;
Terry Pratchett
Arthur C. Clarke
Ursula K. Le Guin
Isaac Asimov
Michael Crichton
Greg Egan, and I'll add
Peter Atkins (Chemistry textbook: unlikely to survive)
Martin C. Strong ("The Complete Rock Discography"; likewise...)
Douglas Coupland
Giles Smith

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

C.J. Cherryh (but i haven't read it because it bored me)

When I was younger, I wasn't greatly keen on most of her stuff. Now - well, I'm currently rereading everything of hers in the house. My tastes have changed.

One thing I really appreciate is that her protagonists are rarely Heinleinianly competent - they're usually trying their best under trying conditions with only limited knowledge of what's going on, and though things usually turn out OK, it's far from guaranteed in the earlier stages.

Oh, and I'll happily defend Cyteen as possibly one of the greatest SF novels ever - the character of Ariane Emory 1 is deliciously nasty while being, in her own lights, fully justified.

Ah, which Cherryh novel didn't you like? Just out of curiosity - I won't say you're a fool not to like it, since as I said, I didn't like the majority at first. Nor am I going to imply that your tastes are wrong, or that they'll 'grow up' to become more like mine.

[fanf]

Cyteen in fact! It didn't start within the first few chapters so I gave up on it after a couple of tries. This was a long time ago, so I may enjoy it more now -- though recent attempts at Tolkein have confirmed my earlier opinion of him as being good at worlds but dreadful at stories.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Hah. Yes, it's not a short book - quite long for its time - and it's got a density to it that's a real pain if you're more fond of 'things happening'. I'm usually a great fan of story, so Cherryh is probably my major exception. It's not that things don't happen, more that she concentrates on character interaction - with each other, and with the circumstances they find themselves in. Somehow she sucks me in to that in a way that other writers just don't.

Strip all that out, and you have a quite short book of pure story.

Perhaps you'd click now, or it could be another ten years, or perhaps never.