Gee, Ray - I cannot POSSIBLY imagine why people have stopped reading modern science fiction...
Back in the day, I used to buy a metric f-ton of books and read them. I had an unmanageable personal library of books - and that was with me trading them off with other book worms like TB and Pete and WL... and they'd all have their own disaster libraries going on, like as not! Even with combined bookworm libraries and trading and horse swapping going on - we'd all still have to buy a ton of new books because of the delay. If Pete F wanted a second hand book and TB was reading it - he had two choices: he could wait for TB to finish it and hand it over, or he could just go out and buy his own copy and then we'd have another book in the system to alleviate the wait times. Then there's the books where ya just want to have your own copy. There were wonderful boxed sets a fella could get with the collected works of big authors like Hemingway and WL Emery. It really was a golden age when ya think about it. As the books got swapped and horse traded we'd fight and squabble amongst ourselves on whether they were any good or not and that was all fun too. Some folks have an intuitive grasp of modern literature that I just didn't and a lot of authors made a lot more sense from differing standpoints. Bradbury actually wrote a book where they managed to make a screenplay that was actually superior to the book itself - the late 70's version of the Martian Chronicles were spectacularly well done by Hollywood.
But then... things began to change. Science fiction started putting in themes, characters, and plot lines that were, quite frankly, offensive and flat out indecent. I am not a prude - but I started getting treated to lurid narratives of homosexual sex scenes, the ignorant characters were entitled women, vibrants and sexual chit heads, and often I found myself rooting for the bad guys, hoping they would kill the protagonists. I thought it was a passing fad at first... and then it got worse. Then it spread to other genres. At first I started boycotting books written by women and then vibrants. I'd actually research the authors and if they weren't established authors... I started passing on them. But then established 'safe' authors started kuckling under to the cultur warriors... The fags in our informal book club didn't want the stinkers either so I couldn't even give them away.
The last new book I ever bought was written by the Chocolate Jesus himself. I was on a kick where I had been called a racist/homophobe/bigot/toxic etc etc... that I figured I should actually READ some of these people that were calling me these names and see if I could somehow understand them. I got aout 30 pages into The Audacity Of Hope by Barak Obama and then just had to quit. I realized I was being lectured by The Token Nigger, and that he was a malicious moron that would only lead blacks to ruin if they were stupid enough to listen to him. That black baboon was the biggest intolerant racist asshole going... and I threw that twaddle he wrote straight into the campfire! We are talking Farenheit 451, Ray! About the only useful thing I got out of that book is that given enough time, we are eventually going to have race wars, and pin heads like Obutthole were likely going to be the ones to stir them up and make them necessary.I got that those people wanted to kill me and take my stuff and be done with it.
When I talked about it, I was told that I was a fascist, Literally Worse Than Hitler... and I just laughed. Years later, I did some fact checking and would encourage you to do the same - which books were actually targeted by the Nazis when they burned books? Go ahead... I'll wait. Warning - you may find yourself a member of the 4th Reich too, afterward. Whatever - I paid my own good money for that book, it was my property, and I felt totally justified in disposing of it. I couldn't give that stinker away either! Nowadays I am still a villain, labelled so by the same cretins that censor people themselves, kick them off social media platforms, delete twitters and tweats and poasts...and think they can police the speech and thoughts of others.
I think you guys need to look in the mirror, Mr. Bradbury. You need to look at what your own side is doing in this culture war that was only in its infancy when you were alive and an active writer. If you guys want to start actually writing original, thoughtful content... welp, shut up and take my money. If you want to publish repetitive bland, state sponsored degenerate globohomo nonsense... welp, my campfire is hungry, and in the outhouse, I will be happy recycle to recycle your work and give it the appreciation and merit it deserves. But for now... science fiction means Star Trek and Star Wars and they both suck balls too! If I have my way, I WILL happily destroy your "culture"... if I can't have my way, it only delays things because you guys will destroy yourselves. It's all just a matter of who you take with you when your are finally erased!
It would be so nice to buy honest books written by gifted authors again.
that I think is why I tend to reread older books written before the current stupid. as for bozo's "book" never got past the back cover.
ReplyDeletelike most shit printed today, it not worth the paper it is written/printed on
They can can all line up in a row to shriek and point and call me names, A - I don't care. That black bastard was about ginning up hate and getting vengeance on white people, and that gorilla he had for a wife was worse. The world would be a better place if those two idiots fell down the stairs or got hit by falling anvils. They are awful people... like most liberals I suppose...
Delete"... which books were actually targeted by the Nazis when they burned books? "
ReplyDeleteYeah. I was raised on how terrible the Nazis were. But no ever explained why they happened. What was happening in Germany at the time that drove the German people into Nazism. Then the internet happened. History is indeed written by the winners.
It's ridiculous. In high school the narrative was that Hitler was a magically evil sorcerer that made people magically hate jews for no reason at all. "He told lies and half-truths...!!!!" Welp... there's trouble right there - there are no 'half-truths' and something is true or it isn't. And questioning that idiot holocaust narrative is not the same as denying it. Obviously, an obscene number of people were killed unjustly... but those fuggin jews were NOT innocent, and they did a lot to generate that hatred in a time when it was all too easy to lose control of it. And those stupid sonsabitches are doing their level best to bring it about again.
DeleteThe bible says that God isn't finished with those a-holes yet and I am happy to leave their destiny up to Him... but I will not open myself up to abuse or predation at their hands and if they get stupid about forcing the issue I will make sure they regret it...
I grew up loving the works of Bradbury and Clarke. Asimov was OK but better with ideas than with writing. I lost interest with SF for years but recently read a huge, three volume work , “The Three Body Problem” by Cixin Liu.
ReplyDeleteIt’s not Bradbury or Clarke and it’s tough going but I enjoyed it immensely.
I thought "The Expanse" was pretty good even the TV show variant, The wife just started working part time on Sundays at the local used book place and I gave her a list of old Scifi and fantasy novels to look out for.
ReplyDeleteI made it to the, I think, 4th book where everybody and the plot were just on the slow drift or whatever they called it. BORING. Didn't go any further.
DeleteThe TV show lost me at the beginning of the second season. Besides the sound engineers they turn out these last couple of decades not knowing how to make the dialogue loud enough to actually hear, the actors in S2E1 seemed to be just walking through their lines. Wife thought so too.
Steve S6
Yeah I watched the expanse too and there was actually a half arsed attempt at hard sci-fi.. but I found it dragged and had a bit too much diversity in places too...
DeleteI took my daughter to her tae kwon do class last night. While I was sitting there in the gym, reading my copy of 'The Rebel Outlaw: Josey Wales', I had some kid come up to me and ask me "are you reading a book??". I guess he was surprised because the other half dozen parents were glued to their phones.
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear about your pup, Glen. Just read about that now. It's never an easy thing to deal with.
I was in a hospital back in July and scarfed a few books from the hospital book cart going around. The clueless automaton pushing the cart said "no one takes books anymore they just watch TV".
DeleteLater on the Doctor came to my room and marveled at the fact that I was actually reading a book.
We really are devolving as a species.
Yeah that's the other thing. I have read a few books over the years on a tablet on Kindle ... and I don't like it. I'd rather have a book too.
DeleteI wonder what it's like for kids in school now? Do they even need libraries anymore...?
I was a rabid sci fi reader and devoured everything and like you when the homo crap and the nigger dieversity started in and women started writing books men normally wrote for boys and men, that did it. I never got into the sci fi Cons or cosplay or any of that bullshit and that was what it was. Reading was one thing, playing dress up and acting the fool was not what rotated my wagon. I have all and I mean all the StarTrek series and movies and I don't watch them because of all the subtle messages and propaganda in them and wokeism before wokeism woke up.
ReplyDeleteAt this point, it is impossible to RUIN either Star Trek or Star Wars. They were buried, dug up, and their corpses defiled years ago ... and they are STILL doing it...
DeleteThe original Star Trek was entertaining. I lost interest when they had some blind gay black guy try to run the engines.
DeleteMy own collection reached numbers generally found in used book stores back in the 1960s. I've had to pare it down several times as I moved around the U.S. of A.
ReplyDeleteI refuse to read, let alone buy and read, anything written or lauded by the Ayatollah Obongo, or any of his cohorts for that matter. I don't burn books, but I'd burn his work by the box car load and call it my good deed for the day. I discovered what Obongo was when he sat through the infamous sermon given by the devil worshiping Jeremiah Wright; God damn America. That shows everyone just what Obongo is and what he believes in.
I like science fiction, but I distinctly remember PKD's work having some graphic sex scenes in it. I was disappointed.
Probably one of my favorite authors is Robert E. Howard. I also like Asimov, Carter, and Bradbury... how could you not like Bradbury?
I also enjoyed Lord Dunsany, who is an acquired taste, and Jack Vance. I tried reading Vance three times before I succeeded, but it was worth the effort! If you ever get the opportunity, read his biography. He led a truly amazing life.
Write one short story a week for an entire year. No one can write 52 bad short stories.
- Ray Bradbury
If you like Robert E Howard , try the Kane books by Karl Edward Wagner and the Tagari and Kings Champion books by Peter Grant. For Sci-fi, the Rimworld series by JL Curtis.
DeleteYou are an excellent writer too WL. I find your yarns short, and enjoyable. Nobody writes to entertain or thrill anymore... and I think it is because our young "creative talents" are mush brained incels and shrieking hose bags that have never really lived properly. Whadda I know...?
DeleteAs a teen I was a huge REH fan. Going so far as driving to Cross Plains, TX to see where he was from during one of my rambles across the Excited States.
DeleteFor modern SciFi and fantasy, I agree. Most of it is shite. I liked The Expanse but it was not great. For fantasy, try The Lies of Locke Lamora.
I used to like James Lee Burke and his Dave Robicheaux stories but he got repetitive quick (same as Lee Childs). I sometimes just go back and reread the Joseph Conrad novels I loved when I was young.
When civilization soon dies, someone hide a few good books for the aliens to eventually find, please.
There's a massive genre of good modern scifi that makes a ton of money and is deeply hated by the blue hairs because if involves good stories without political messages, made up genders and assorted other gayness. Guys like Larry Correia, Jason Anspaugh, Doc Spears, Nick Cole, etc, are all sleeping on piles of money and buying all the guns while the blue hair scifi set are crying about inclusiveness and doing gofundme's for cat food.
ReplyDeleteI used to read through an author's entire set of books if they were good, Tolkien, Lee Childs, Baldacci, Mitchener, Ludlum.
ReplyDeleteBut now there is a tendency for the author to be woke and inclusive.
So I start seeing the rainbow garbage showing up in their new stuff. To be fair the authors are being pressured to do this and they either do this or stop publishing with them.
I got as far as chapter 3 in Ludlum's last book that I bought and they traipsed out the gay relationship. And it was right in your face. So I don't buy books anymore from this generation.
I tore the novel in two and threw it in the trash. I didn't even want anyone else to read it. I used to return my extra books to the library but I don't want that action attached to my name later on.
Found the same thing with a series I was watching from Australia. Irreverent it's called. It was all fine until episode 3 and out comes the gays, then one of the lead actors turns gay, well I ditched that show right there. Turned to crap in the 3rd show.
Go Woke = Go broke.
That's what I do now too. The second the clowns and queers come out - I am done.
DeleteBooks for young children are also going downhill fast. The commies want to get them young.
ReplyDeleteAs for my own fiction reading, I've never gone wrong with Louis L'Amour.
An old client gave me a Louis Lamour years ago when he found out we were moving West.
DeleteThanked him for getting me hooked and having to buy all the rest, something around 390 books. I'm still looking for some of them 10 years later!
I've said for half a century that all I did in high school was read science fiction and build model airplanes. Not much of an exaggeration, and even at the time I said that 90% of what I read was crap, but that rare 10% made it all worth it. Somewhere in my college years I just lost interest and stopped reading it; long before the "sad puppies" debacle came about.
ReplyDeleteI've read a few sci-fi books over the years, but very few. One recent, new to me author, is Orson Scott Card. I burned through the entire Ender series in a few weeks, and I'd highly recommend it. I've been reading a lot of doomsday porn lately, both fiction and non-fiction. Again, a lot of repetitive crap out there, but some of it is very much worth the time. From all the "pockyclips" scenarios, it's interesting to try to synthesize what our future might hold.
I stopped reading Scifi when the majority included Climate Changes, and the UN as the world government.
ReplyDeleteFor good SF, some fantasy check out the publisher Baen. They have a monthly bundle (ebooks, DRM free) for $18. Typically 7 books at least 4 new ones (to Baen). Opposite of the blue hair "Sad Puppies" (do a search on that, lots of hilarity).
ReplyDeleteSteve S6
Hard to find good books now. I’m a pretty fast reader. In high school I would walk into the library and pick a book to read for the day. They could be history of some kind or autobiographical. Usually more enlightening than my formal education.
ReplyDeleteI am resisting female and also British crime. I too am seeing my favorite modern authors becoming woke. John Sandford and Daniel Silva being my two examples.
I usually buy books and give them to the local library. The last couple times I just threw them away.
Paul J
Sandfords latest book is a left-wingers wet dream with the militias being the root cause of the Portland Anti-FA riots!!
DeleteI used to have several bookcases full of books, but decided several years ago to donate most of them to the local library and go digital with a Jetbook Lite reader. There are enough free e-books on-line to last me the rest of my life. Try Project Gutenberg or download the classic SF stuff from metallicman.com
ReplyDeleteMost libraries and used book stores don't want them anymore.
DeleteUsed to have hundreds of books mostly sci-fi and the rest hysterical fiction. Then one day I tore through the shelves and got rid of everything I wasn't gonna read again. A few months later I got food of everything I don't re-read once a year. Got a kindle reader 3 years ago and haven't bought a book since that isn't a reloading manuel.
ReplyDeleteUse to be a fan of all the big franchises and authors but after 20 years they all repeat themselves over and over. Got tired of having everything being about the universe in the story explained and nothing actually happening(David Weber). Got tired of authors spending more time networking than writing(Larry Corria). Writers who create a too perfect,can do anything main character(John Ringo). Finally an author who can write really good stories but inserts his fetishes for diverse lesbian sex(S M Stirling).
These days I just read western and historical fiction or alternate history fiction.
You don't realise how had most of these books are until you listen to the Audible version. Most times when I'm reading I will just flip pass the pointless shit or the sex. But hard to do when listening.
All the money I save on not buying books goes to ammo
ReplyDelete