The simpler life

I still like my Sci Fi in book form. I bought over 500 used Sci Fi books this year. Most were 11 cents each.

Problem is, I will never read them again. Plus there is very little SF these days that is worth buying. Much of science and tech has outstripped the knowledge of would-be SF writers. The only authors I will pay money for are Stross, Egan and Banks.

I still prefer books. I get a "crick" in my neck doing any lengthy reading off screens.

I _will_ listen to books on CD while doing lengthy drives (*), because there's not much on radio worth listening to.

(*) I have a granddaughter graduating early from U of A in December, so I'll be driving to Tucson.

Anyone lurking here located in Tucson? ...Jim Thompson

I like the oldies. EE 'Doc' Smith, Heinlein, and others. Sure, the so called 'science' is outdated, but that's why I enjoy reading them. I recently finished John Cambell's "Black Star Passes" which was copyrighted in 1953. It's fun to see what they thought they knew, or understood. Like one old book where they were telling someone how many 'racks of tubes' they would have to use to talk to them by radio. From one solar system, to another. ;-)

I picked up a new "Black Star Passes" in paperback for $1.25, but it is now on Project Gutenberg for free:

I recall another story that actually had a computer on board to calculate orbits etc. It could do "thousands" of calculations per second!

I suspect all the best ideas have been mined out decades back.

Not bad for relay logic. ;-)

Not really, but space opera is out of favor these days. :(

That's why I've been reading the classics.

Have you considered selling them on ABEBooks or Ebay?

And when you buy a "book", you won't be able to read it in 5 years, when the reader technology is obsolete. Books are approaching pay-per-view.

John

Iain Banks "Culture" novels are quite good:

I find it difficult to reread books, and I read all the classics decades ago. At one point, for several years, I read almost a book a day.

I might do, but they weigh a LOT! Shipping might be a problem

For a work of fiction that's not a problem. I hardly ever re-read those books, same as I hardly ever re-view movies.

I'll take a look.

Have you checked out the baen free library?

What I'm rereading are books I read 40 to 50 years ago. At one time I read three of four books a day, on the weekends, while I was in the service. I bought everything I could find on base, and off base. It was cheap entertainment, and I was saving my money to reopen my electronics business when I was discharged from active duty. You could buy paperbacks for 25 to 50 cents each back then. :)

Sell them one at a time. Then you get more per book, and only ship them a few at a time. :)

I have some books that I re-read every year or so.

Pride and Prejudice

A Damsel in Distress (probably the best-written book in the English language)

The Circus of Dr Lao

The Lyoness Trilogy, maybe not so often.

The Aubrey/Maturin books, ditto.

John

Well, be sure to add "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies"

I have a shelf of books that I re-read whenever I don't have something new. It contains the Lord of the Rings (at least once a year) the Harry Potter Series, the Miles Vorkosigan Series, and Clancy's John Ryan novels. I don't buy a lot of books, esp. since the library started inter-library loan that spans both Riverside and San Bernardino Counties, but there are always some that I just have to have.

Same with DVDs. I don't buy very many, but the ones that I do have I often view multiple times. The entire Babylon 5 series, classic Sci FI like Day the Earth Stood Still and Forbidden Planet, Singing in the Rain, Grease and Beauty and the Beast. If I don't re-watch it at least every couple of years, I usually just get rid of it!

Charlie

Vinge is good too.

I haven't seen anything of his since Fire Upon The Deep and its followup.

Sci Fi

He made a step up a few years ago, with "A Fire upon the Deep" and did almost as well with "A Deepness in the Sky". I was less impressed with "Rainbows End" but it was still much better than the stuff he used to write.

Neal Stephenson is probably the best SF writer around today - Ursula K. Le Guin writes better, but she's less into the science. Neal Stephenson's most recent book "Anathem" makes it clear that he - at least - is up with current science.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

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Louis McMaster Bujold is one of my favourite comic authors, up there with P.G. Wodehouse and Terry Prachett. She has now dropped back into pot-boiler mode, which is a bit sad, but even her pot-boilers are worth buying and reading, though one wouldn't boast about reading them.

Elizabeth Moon

doesn't seem to have written anything at all recently, which is even sadder.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

Tom Sharpe?

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I=92m totally addicted to reading. I have to have something to read at night or I tend to stay up thinking about other stuff. Biking around Europe one summer I remember reading my toothpaste label, by flashlight, when I ran out of other material (weird).

I will add Charles Sheffield to the list of decent current sci fi authors. Theodore Sturgeon is perhaps my all time favorite. (I read the ink off the pages of my Heinlein books in college.)

George H.