50 Book Challenge 2015 Part Five

[southeastdweller]

Thread five of the 50 Book Challenge for this year.

The challenge is to read fifty books (or more!) in 2015, though reading fifty isn't mandatory. It's still not too late to join, any type of book can count, and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.

First thread of the year here, second thread here, third thread here, and fourth thread here.

Happy reading

Sadik - I think there is a lot of overlap in the sci-fi books that we have read, both as teenagers and later on.

I haven't read any China Mieville, though. Which are his sci-fi books that you enjoyed? I have The City & The City on my Kindle but I haven't read it yet.

Re cyberpunk authors - I read all William Gibson with admiration until All Tomorrow Parties which left me scratching my head, wondering if he has had a stroke or if the aliens replaced him with a replica who can't write. Then came Pattern Recognition which was pointless rubbish, and then Spook Country made me swear I will never read another book by him again. I broke that promise recently because I read reviews of The Peripheral that said it was Gibson back to his old form - it was a disaster. I got to 18% and realised I have no idea who any of the characters are, what they are up to, and why the hell it matters. So I gave up.

Now I believe that William Gibson has died and we have been suffering the brain farts of someone else who is trying to be W Gibson.

Neal Stephenson is and has always been brilliant, though. I can't think of another author who has been so consistently fantastic over the years. I hope he never changes his style or has whatever lobotomy Gibson had.

Will give it a go Cote 😄

wilting - I agree with all you have said about Station Eleven (and yes, you were quite restrained ) except:

"Unlike cote I would not call it sic fi"

You can do whatever you like, but it is sci-fi. Post-apocalyptic fiction is a sub-genre of sci-fi.

"There's is nothing to suggest this is somehow in the future."

Sci-fi doesn't have to be in the future (it might be an alternate universe, primitive humans might have an encounter with aliens, etc) but most of Station Eleven does take place in the future: In the first couple of pages, characters are talking on their cell phones in the theatre and people are receiving confirmation emails for their international flights. Everything sounds exactly as it is today. Then the book skips forward 20 years, when most people on Earth have died and the rest have become whining, navel-gazing, bores. Of course, we are in the future.

"Whether it is or not does not actually matter to the story, at all."

Welcome to the world of sci-fi That is how it is in most sci-fi.

"The back death killed a lot of people, a virus killing a lot of people is not enough imo to render a book automatically sic fi"

If you read some more sci-fi, I think you will find that post-apocalyptic books invariably take place in the future because they talk about major catastrophes that have not yet taken place and... well... no author is going to look like an idiot and claim that it has

Anyway, as I said above, Station Eleven does actually start in today's world and then jump forward 20 years so it is kind of obvious that it takes place in the future.

"I'm also rather doubtful on the dystopia label. Setting aside the plausibility of the story, they all seem fairly content to me!"

Station Eleven is not dystopian. We talked about this at length before on one of these 50-Book threads boring everyone to tears so I won't get into why.

However, characters don't have to be miserable in dystopian fiction - pretty much everyone is very happy in Brave New World, as well, but it is dystopian.

Cote, we've had international flight for quite some time now. I don't agree because the book's timeline flips forward that means it is in the future. There's no particular starting point, it's actually your own assumption. But nothing turns on it anyway.

Most events in books have not taken place. That makes them fiction. Not science fiction.

In real sci fi, the science or the fact it is in the future is a big theme in the book. Here it is not even a minor side show.

Glad we can agree it's not dystopian Brave new world relies on the readers reaction but you don't get that with SE. Imo anyway.

sadik great reading list there I'm off to check it out! Actually had a eye on a China mieville one recently but couldn't decide if id enjoy it or not, it was Embassytown, have you read that one?

Really must read some Gibson too...

It hasn't been 20 years since everyone's been talking into their cell phones in theatres and been receiving email confirmation of international flights. There are many other details in the earlier parts of the story that make it perfectly clear that those are the events taking place in today's world.

20 years after that is, well, in the future

Not that it matters. As I said before (1) sci-fi stories are not necessarily in the future, and (2) post-apocalyptic is a sub-genre of sci-fi.

So, Station Eleven is sci-fi. QED

"The audience was a clamour of voices, flashes from cell phone cameras, indistinct exclamations in the dark." from page 4 of Station Eleven, scene at the theatre.

In case you are wondering when cameras started appearing in cell phones, the first cell phone with a built-in camera was manufactured by Samsung and released in South Korea in June 2000.

Even if you assume (as I know you want to ) that those people watching Arthur die on stage had the first South Korean cell phones with cameras in the world: the year 2000 + 20 years = THE FUTURE

I liked Embassytown in particular, wilting. I also very much enjoyed The City and The City, but it's less SF-y IYKWIM.

June 200 huh? 15y ago

It's still not sci fi cote NEVER

Plus it won't be the future FOREVER then I'll be more right

Station Eleven seemed to me to be almost a poor imitation of The Stand. Would you call that Sci-fi? As I said previously I haven't read much in this genre and I think I prefer the more science-y books to the one s that veer towards fantasy.

"Plus it won't be the future FOREVER then I'll be more right"

Like "1984", you mean?

I guess it often gets fudged as SF = Speculative Fiction. Having said that I was deeply unimpressed with the last 'SF' anthology I bought which was disappointingly lacking in aliens, spaceships et al.

Just been reading another of dd's books, 'The Rest of Us Just Live Here' by Patrick Ness, which is slight but amusing (YA novel, the premise being that it is telling the story of the 'ordinary kids' from Sunnydale High / Forks or the like, while the special ones save the world in the background).

I'm currently short of my own books to read, but have a couple on order. (Perdido Street Station - this thread reminded me I've been meaning to read it - and Viper Wine by Hermione Eyre, which I expect to be a fluffy Christmas read.)

There is this odd thing where people who don't normally read sci-fi read one, like it, and then claim that it's not actually sci-fi. I guess they have a negative idea in their head that sci-fi is just space battles and 6-eyed green Martians, which obviously is not the case at all. Or they think sci-fi isn't a worthy genre so they can't have enjoyed a sci-fi book.

Margaret Atwood frankly comes off as an idiot and a twat when she claims she doesn't write sci-fi because (and I quote) "if a book is realistic or plausible, then it's not science fiction" which has to be one of the most moronic things I have heard on this subject. All good sci-fi is both realistic and plausible, and judging by the one book of hers I have read, most are far more so than the ones she is capable of writing.

Well, I think some books are not easily categorized really. Plus, sci fi is a bit like chick lit and not generally considered worthy of serious review. Hence denial etc.

Think authors are a bit like musicians and shouldn't really talk about their work

I would probably more readily accept SE as an attempt at speculative fiction. But in fairness to the author, she probably just wanted to write an engaging book!

Another interesting one is 1Q84. Is that science fiction?

All essays must be submitted by 4pm tomorrow please

"Well, I think some books are not easily categorized really."

J G Ballard's books aren't easy to classify. Station Eleven is. Yes, there is no science in the book because the author has made no attempt isn't smart or knowledgeable enough to explain the epidemic and its aftermath scientifically or at least rationally does not mean the book isn't in the post-apocalyptic sub-genre under science fiction.

Call it speculative fiction if it makes you feel better. The two terms are used interchangeably in most contexts, anyway.

"Plus, sci fi is a bit like chick lit and not generally considered worthy of serious review. "

Now you are just trying to make me angry but I'll rise above it (omm )

I'm sitting at hairdressers with my hair up in dyed strands so will write more on this later when I have a minute.

Having had a short break from Mumsnet and a new identity (used to be DuchessofMalfi but was feeling a bit cursed by it), updating my list:-

121. Slade House by David Mitchell. Thoroughly enjoyed this. Really good read, a short follow on from The Bone Clocks which I loved.

122. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Listened to the author reading the audio book. Liked it a lot more than I thought I would. She is a quite self deprecating and humorous and had a lot to say that I found interesting.

123. Snowdrops by A D Miller. Short and interesting thriller set in post Communist Russia.

124. The Slaughter Man by Tony Parsons. His second crime thriller novel with DC Max Wolfe. Excellent, gripping story.

I would call Station Eleven scienceless-fiction. The people in a fully functioning airport couldn't communicate with the outside world. A decade later not a single power station was up and running. It felt like it was written by a 15 year old who doesn't know there was life before mobile phones and the internet.
The world Justin Cronin created in The Passage made a lot more sense even though it's about vampires. I really must get around to reading The Stand.

I can't understand why such a slight, poorly developed nonentity of a book as, 'Station Eleven' is generating so much discussion space. For that reason, I refuse to engage in any further discussion of it.

What is everybody planning on reading over Christmas? I need something wonderful to get my teeth into, that is not to do with the Second World War. Something Edwardian appeals, but I have no idea what that might be!

mmack - re "The people in a fully functioning airport couldn't communicate with the outside world.. It felt like it was written by a 15 year old who doesn't know there was life before mobile phones and the internet."

Yes, the whole thing was ridiculous

"I would call Station Eleven scienceless-fiction. "

Yes, it's "scienceless sci-fi", a sad sort. Just like Never Let Me Go.

Imho it is what happens when people who don't read sci-fi try to write sci-fi.

I have Station Eleven waiting on my kindle, but I'm a bit scared to read it now, in case I enjoy it and have to endure the virtual contempt of several of you!

Quog / Duchess, I'm pleased to hear you enjoyed Eat, Pray, Love. I thought it was great, especially the section in India, but most people don't seem to think much of it. Possibly because the film was rubbish.

Remus - We are talking about Station Eleven because it seems quite a few of us have read it and a few misguided souls among us have thought it was a great book

I just realised that I have left my Kindle at the hairdresser and now I'm having a little panic attack about it. Not sure how I will get to sleep tonight. And what if I can't find it tomorrow?

Tumble - the contempt is purely for the book and not for the readers who enjoyed it, I promise!

Cote - oh how I loathed, 'Never Let Me Go.' 'Never Let Me Read Another Book by this Bloody Boring Writer', more like.