Re: [slightly OT]SF novels (was Re: Rules for BFG/FT...)

On Thu, 28 Jan 1999, Brian Burger wrote:

> On Thu, 28 Jan 1999, Thomas Anderson wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, 28 Jan 1999, John C wrote:
> > 
> > > Kim Stanley Newman 
> > 
> > ummm... i don't know of a kim stanley newman. i know of a kim
newman, and
> > i know of a kim stanley robinson (of 'coloured mars' infamy).
> 
> Infamy? You didn't like the "Red/Green/Blue Mars" trilogy?

i can't really say; i read about half of red mars, but by then it was so
boring i gave up. i know this is a statement of the most unforgivable
heresy! i intend to go back and read it one day, as everyone else in the
world says it is brilliant. they can't all be wrong (although there
could
be a sequence in the second half of the book which taps into embedded
language patters to brainwash fnord the reader into thinking he had just
read a brilliant book ...).

specifically, arthur clarke did space elevators better in "the fountains
of paradise", criminals in space better in "garden of rama" and
terraforming mars better in "the snows of olympus". but then, i'm just a
clarke fanatic, so we should just call a truce here :-).

> His characters
> are interesting,

characters? if i want characters, i read umberto eco. if i want space
elevators and genetic engineering, i read sf. and, yes, i am being
facetious here.

> his science seems accurate (or at least a very high order
> of PSB) and the setting was interesting.

well, there's one thing, taking in setting and science: the suggestion
that mars could be made fit for shirtsleeve human habitation makes me
foam
at the mouth and reach for my massdriver. that and the fact that once
you've read one terraform-mars story, you've read 'em all ... :-).

still (he wrote, making a token attempt to bring the message back
on-topic), you might be able to put together a scenario involving a
space
fleet trying to catch the top end of a collapsing elevator so that they
can avert planetary disaster, whilst another fleet tries to stop them.

Tom