Miles, you're dumb. Asimov and Bradbury are soft. All of the classical science fiction novelists are soft (generally). Your reason for disliking them is invalid. End of discussion.

Miles has a rather long, well-earned reputation for being dumb.

Oh, and one novel I forgot; Alpha Centauri by William Barton and Michael Capobianco. The execution could have been better (and I don't think the sex needed to be so emphasized) but it was definitely different, and the latter half of the novel was more entertaining than the former even though the ending was very open-ended and left you wondering.

Bros we are forgetting Harry Turtledove who writes some pretty good semi-hard scifi.

Hehe. Semi-hard

JACK VANCE, everything ever. Especially the Planet Of Adventure quadrilogy.

I read a bit of Big Planet but then I got bored.

if your insisting that that those painfully dry reads are 'soft' then you have fun with it.

You do know what soft vs hard sci-fi is, don't you miles?
I can't say I've read (or at least remember reading) Bradbury, but the most Asimov provides in the way of explanation for his technology is "It runs on positrons". Obviously an over-generalization, but the sentiment is what I'm getting at.

While I don't really care for Asimov, I think Bradbury is magnificent. I don't see how it's a "dry read".

It depends on how you like your fiction. Again, Bradbury is very soft. His stories are philosophical and sociological discussions framed in futuristic themes. Most people don't care for humanistic analysis and as such think it is "dry."

brave new world and stranger in a strange land are very much human analysis, but there only really dry reads for the first chapter or so.

the difference is in bradbury's works (that i've seen) "stuff happens", like 'hum dee dum, my jobs retarded I burn things rather than hauling them to an incinerator.... i'mma go watch the news dum dee dum' while in the ones I like "Interesting stuff happens"... rather than just going to work "Oh ♥♥♥♥ someone's been murdered" or "hay lets 'liberate' that dude that lived on mars lol"

day to day life vs interesting plots.

as for the quick little 'its powered by positrons' that was actually HUGE and they also wrote papers on that stuff explaining in detail HOW it works. nowhere near as interesting as saying "we make thousands of clones from one fetus with radiation by exploiting abnormal cell division"


but anyway, has anyone actually read the books I've mentioned, rather than discount them because 'oh gawd he said bad things about bradbury'?

You're talking about Alien in a thread where we are talking about some of the classics of science-fiction literature and we've already talked about Card and Heinlein.

Woah, I totally missed lafe mentioning stranger. lol.

Miles, for me, the day-to-day account in Fahrenheit 451 definitely made it more enjoyable for me; the casual acceptance of things we'd perceive as shocking, the lack of intimacy between most of the characters, and so forth.

In my opinion, it felt entirely more real than what you describe (generalizing horribly here, I haven't read any of it.), which certainly appeals to me.
If that doesn't float your boat, then fine, but to discount entire authors seems a little naïve.

I only discount the authors due to there creations which I have read, either in part or in full. yeah, I get it, in the future, such and such a thing is normal. thats not enjoyable to read. when you add that AND a plot, it becomes more enjoyable.


For instance, in brave new world, it's commonplace for people to have the same names, to have sex as recreation, to be a clone, to have recreational drugs that are distributed by the government. at one point at a particular cloning facility, some *particularly taboo* things took place and everyone's like "oh just let them be, they are just having fun". it was not uncommon or unheard of to travel around the globe for lunch.

but

stuff happened, there was a plot that ties it all together. it was unheard of, to refuse to take your drugs because you want to feel, especially when it was pain, but also when it was pleasure. it was unusual to sympathize with the old ways. beyond that it seems to blur together in my memory with another book and beyond that, damned if I could tell them apart without re-reading. I'm pretty sure someone was killed near the beginning, although that may have been stranger. beyond that I think I'd be spoiling major plot points if you haven't read it.


but I guess your right, looking back some of my favorites included some hard-ish content. I guess I just don't like bradbury or asimov's style of writing. to slow, to boring. could not keep interest. like if you sat down to try to watch Lawrence of arabia from start to finish. supposedly it gets more interesting after the first hour but I could never stay awake that long. bradbury and asmiov to me are like that. exactly like that, what feels like an hour of 1 guy on a camel in a straight line through the desert, and that the whole thing.


IF YOU CAN NAME A BRADBURY OR ASIMOV BOOK THAT ISN'T THAT SLOW
Please, PLEASE recommend it to me, and I will try to find it to read. but it had better not be a slow social commentary where nothing really happens. I hate reading day to day life and drama, thats sit-coms and soap operas.

Swear to god Miles just ♥♥♥♥ let it go.

That applies to everyone else too. If you make Miles make another post that ♥♥♥♥ long, everyone involved is getting a board warning.