Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Geek Talk & Media
What is the single best science fiction novel of all time?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 9110279" data-attributes="member: 18"><p>Would definitely agree re: Crichton. He's at his best when quickly sketching characters with simple motivations in difficult situations, particularly survival. Every time he's tried to write more complex or nuanced characters it's just ended up with them being unpleasant people with either implausible or stereotypical backstories (or both!), and often projecting some very questionable views (verging on the conspiratorial at times).</p><p></p><p>Fewer than the novel?</p><p></p><p>Also, I think people today are better at detecting undercurrents and subtext in movies than a lot of people were in the 1990s, even though today fewer people seem to be literate in the language of cinema. Maybe just the proliferation of memes, trolling, internet videos and so on, so many of them ironic/sarcastic that has keyed people to recognise Starship Troopers for what it was - essentially an elaborate troll. Whereas in the 1990s, you basically had to have seen propaganda movies to understand what Verhoeven was trying to convey - I think a lot of people got a sense that "something was off", but couldn't exactly place it. I remember, when I saw it at the cinema with my brother and a friend, we came out and me and my brother are laughing (having watched countless propaganda movies, hell at that point we'd even made ironic ones back with Stunt Island's moviemaker!), but our friend, who is a very intelligent guy, but has never seen a propaganda movie a day in his life was like "What's this movie actually trying to say? Are we supposed to take it seriously or not?" - so he knew something was wrong, but didn't quite get it.</p><p></p><p>With the novel, which is just an amazing mess of wildly contradictory political messaging, borderline accidental BDSM fetish stuff (a classic often seen in SF and fantasy - I'll take intentional BDSM fetish over accidental any day of the week), confused ideas about how such a society could even function (which Heinlein later tried, rather unsuccessfully, to retcon), and the most gung-ho and frankly pretty racist bollocks possible (you can't be calling humanoid aliens "skinnies" and directly advocating for their genocide then when the US is engaging in wars in Asia with<em> very similar</em> racist terms for Asian people, especially not with the long-term "Oriental Horde" racism going on, especially given the implied "solution" (ahem) to the "Oriental Horde" was always "regretful genocide"*), I find it amazing anyone could see the humans as "good guys", but I think more people manage it than the books. It takes a really wild "I believe everything these humans are saying, even though they contradict themselves multiple times!" attitude. I've rarely seen a book undermine it's own thesis as effectively - and certainly never seen one where it was unintentional.</p><p></p><p>(The only recent SF book I've seen really wreck it's own thesis was <em>Leech</em>, which is a novel with a totally wild and cool vibe and ideas, but tries to draw a <em>direct</em> moral equivalence between an entity which essentially possesses a few hundred people planetwide - admittedly not fully informed volunteers - and uses them to improve the lives of billions, and has no greater goal than that (not even self-preservation, really), with an entity which seeks to violently dominate and destroy literally <em>all life</em> but itself. And it's like, nah mate. Those aren't the same. It doesn't matter how mad your characters get about the former, they just aren't as bad as the latter. Not even in the same ballpark. But the entire emotional arc of the book and its thesis relies on you agreeing that these things are morally equally bad.)</p><p></p><p>* = The Mote in God's Eye has some similar problems re: the "Oriental Horde" and clearly intentional parallels with the Moties. Luckily the story is so wild and imaginative that largely fades into the background (except when the protagonist is like "Yo genocide is cool y'all"), but does exist as very uncomfortable context.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ruin Explorer, post: 9110279, member: 18"] Would definitely agree re: Crichton. He's at his best when quickly sketching characters with simple motivations in difficult situations, particularly survival. Every time he's tried to write more complex or nuanced characters it's just ended up with them being unpleasant people with either implausible or stereotypical backstories (or both!), and often projecting some very questionable views (verging on the conspiratorial at times). Fewer than the novel? Also, I think people today are better at detecting undercurrents and subtext in movies than a lot of people were in the 1990s, even though today fewer people seem to be literate in the language of cinema. Maybe just the proliferation of memes, trolling, internet videos and so on, so many of them ironic/sarcastic that has keyed people to recognise Starship Troopers for what it was - essentially an elaborate troll. Whereas in the 1990s, you basically had to have seen propaganda movies to understand what Verhoeven was trying to convey - I think a lot of people got a sense that "something was off", but couldn't exactly place it. I remember, when I saw it at the cinema with my brother and a friend, we came out and me and my brother are laughing (having watched countless propaganda movies, hell at that point we'd even made ironic ones back with Stunt Island's moviemaker!), but our friend, who is a very intelligent guy, but has never seen a propaganda movie a day in his life was like "What's this movie actually trying to say? Are we supposed to take it seriously or not?" - so he knew something was wrong, but didn't quite get it. With the novel, which is just an amazing mess of wildly contradictory political messaging, borderline accidental BDSM fetish stuff (a classic often seen in SF and fantasy - I'll take intentional BDSM fetish over accidental any day of the week), confused ideas about how such a society could even function (which Heinlein later tried, rather unsuccessfully, to retcon), and the most gung-ho and frankly pretty racist bollocks possible (you can't be calling humanoid aliens "skinnies" and directly advocating for their genocide then when the US is engaging in wars in Asia with[I] very similar[/I] racist terms for Asian people, especially not with the long-term "Oriental Horde" racism going on, especially given the implied "solution" (ahem) to the "Oriental Horde" was always "regretful genocide"*), I find it amazing anyone could see the humans as "good guys", but I think more people manage it than the books. It takes a really wild "I believe everything these humans are saying, even though they contradict themselves multiple times!" attitude. I've rarely seen a book undermine it's own thesis as effectively - and certainly never seen one where it was unintentional. (The only recent SF book I've seen really wreck it's own thesis was [I]Leech[/I], which is a novel with a totally wild and cool vibe and ideas, but tries to draw a [I]direct[/I] moral equivalence between an entity which essentially possesses a few hundred people planetwide - admittedly not fully informed volunteers - and uses them to improve the lives of billions, and has no greater goal than that (not even self-preservation, really), with an entity which seeks to violently dominate and destroy literally [I]all life[/I] but itself. And it's like, nah mate. Those aren't the same. It doesn't matter how mad your characters get about the former, they just aren't as bad as the latter. Not even in the same ballpark. But the entire emotional arc of the book and its thesis relies on you agreeing that these things are morally equally bad.) * = The Mote in God's Eye has some similar problems re: the "Oriental Horde" and clearly intentional parallels with the Moties. Luckily the story is so wild and imaginative that largely fades into the background (except when the protagonist is like "Yo genocide is cool y'all"), but does exist as very uncomfortable context. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Geek Talk & Media
What is the single best science fiction novel of all time?
Top