What’s something that you feel like you should like, but for some reason can’t get into, no matter how many chances you give it?
For me, it’s The Three Body Problem. It should be right up my alley from everything I’ve heard about it (especially the second book, which looks at the Fermi Paradox and the Great Filter!), but for the life of me, I can’t get past the first chapter at all. I even tried reading it in another language to see if it was the translation that kept me from getting into it, and nope.
(Ignore this comment; sometimes you have to add one when posting from kbin to make the post properly federate.)
I read it.
I’ll do it again. You can’t stop me.
Not reading it
Ignored
What comment?
Star Wars.
It’s got everything I enjoy: big ass spaceships brawling it out and a long history of lore. But for some reason, I’ve never been able get into it. I should be a huge fan, but I’m just not, I cannot bring myself to care less about it.
Same. It did nothing for me until I watched The Force Awakens. I actually really got into that and started to think this was what people who liked SW felt.
Then I watched the Last Jedi and the feeling was gone.
…it is so wild to me that I’m getting downvoted for saying I liked something. This is another reason I ran screaming from Star Wars fandom. Y’all are wild.
Star wars fans hate TFA for reasons that elude me.
I’m with you, TFA was cool. I wanted to know more about the knights of Ren. Kylo was interesting, here is a villain who is struggling with using the dark side, but is trying to commit to it. That’s something we don’t see ever. Finn was a neat character, and another new perspective.
I think the Rey hatred is actually misogyny. People don’t lose their minds that Luke is best fighter pilot in the rebellion, but Rey uses the force in the “wrong” way and she’s an unredeemable Mary Sue. I’m not one to cry discrimination, but the amount of venom targeted at the character implies something deeper.
I too gave up after TLJ, it seemed designed to make me stop caring about star wars.
They set up so much in TFA that was just dropped in TLJ, like how they set Finn up to be someone who could use the Force. He quickly got relegated to side character, and there was just so much potential with him that they just abandoned.
And I completely agree that a lot of the Rey hate was misogyny, like how so much of the Rose hate was misogyny and racism. It was honestly just depressing to see happening.
I will give TLJ credit; that scene where the general rammed her ship into the enemy was breathtaking. The hairs on my arms stood up at it, and to this day, it’s still the image that sticks with me from the movie.
One of my biggest complaints about TLJ was how poor the plot was. It’s surprising because Rian Johnson has some of the best thought out plots in his other movies.
The slow speed chase didn’t make sense, the
empirefirst order could see they were heading to a planet. Finn and Rose had time to leave, go to another planet and come back without issue, why weren’t they scattering parts of the fleet and people the whole time?Worst, the entirety of the movie didn’t move the plot forward. At the end of TFA Rey is a nascent Jedi searching for a place to fit in, Kylo is struggling with his path trying, Finn is trying to fit in and Poe is a hotshot pilot. At the end of TLJ no character advanced, they are all in the same spot.
I would have preferred if they did some really weird stuff, like Rey becomes Kylo’s student to save everyone else. Will she redeem him or be corrupted? Will she be a double agent? What exactly are the goals of the first order? Can they be subverted into something good?
After TLJ I didn’t care what was going to happen to anyone, and still don’t.
The pacing was also a nightmare. Everything at the casino took up far, far too much screen time and just dragged.
Agreed. The whole thing was just a waste. It felt like they were trying to create a desperate situation similar to the Empire Strikes Back, but to do so they made the Resistance have the worst planning and resources and strategy. They made the plucky heroes stupid in order to make the stakes higher. It only built on the unbelievability of the setup for TFA that after the fall of the Empire, the New Republic would just give up any memory of having very recently recovered from galactic fascism and immediately become weak and useless.
The slow speed chase and multiple ships just getting picked off felt like a horror movie where characters are getting picked off by the serial killer over the course of a few hours instead of an adventure movie you want to rewatch.
I get what your saying about misogyny, certainly noticed it myself. For me, conversations i tried to have were mine “I feel her characterization was lacking depth” (most of the movie was like… that scene on the falcon, where they were repairing it or with solo.) followed with an asshole agreeing with me and going off on angry tangents…. So I stopped mentioning it.
Rey was the least annoying problem in the movie though. I like my Star Wars villains to be like tarkin or the OG Vader. I don’t like them to be screaming tantrum-tossing toddlers.
And the resistance was totally incompetent. Luke was totally incompetent. Everyone was totally incompetent. Frustrating.
I grew up w/out a tv at home for most of my life–but Star Wars was also released a bit before I was born, and the prequels were released right as I hit adulthood, so I just missed being “the right age” for it completely.
It has been interesting encountering younger folk where the prequels were their childhood–because it’s their beloved childhood, they have a completely different view of it than what was going on amongst grown SFF fans when the prequels originally aired. (And I’m not bashing beloved childhoods; it makes me thoughtful about my own childhood favorites.)
I agree that it has a lot of elements that SHOULD make me love it. But I actually encountered FIRST (due to no TV at home and friends not exposing it to me outside the home) the influences in literature that Star Wars arose out of. I read the book Dune before I saw Star Wars, and I read plenty of SFF action/adventure before I saw Star Wars. So even when I finally did see Star Wars–I had already been exposed to the substratum that it arose out of, so it didn’t hit me as “unique”.
maybe it’s too much goodness… like having chocolate-dipped bacon covered in cheese. chocolate makes everything better, bacon makes everything better, and cheese, makes everything better… but they don’t make each other better. funny, huh?
Just skip chocolate (the latest trilogy) and you’re left with delicious bacon & cheese!
yup. the best combo there. and cheese and chocolate works (kinda sorta. weird. but it works,) and Chocolate and bacon also works (also weird,) but all three? nope. nope NOPE
Do I dare try this…
Rick & Morty.
Watched the first season but I just can’t get past how awful Rick is. All the constant burping and how much of an asshole he his really puts me off the whole thing.
Ayup. Can’t stand that show, and its (vocal) fan base makes it worse. Far worse.
Foundation stopped me from finishing for 20 years until I could get it on audiobook, and even then it was a slog. All the politics in that book are simply not what I’m after when it comes to sci-fi, even if I can acknowledge that it’s a fantastic piece of work.
I really like cool ideas in sci-fi, but with all of Asimov’s works I could never get over how cardboard the characters were.
Given the trends of recent SFF, I think a lot of readers who turned into writers agree, since the characterization has massively improved across the genre even in SFF books that are pretty thinky.
Yeah every time I try Asimov, it just feels kind of dry and lifeless. For me, Phillip K Dick is the undisputed heavyweight champion.
Wheel of time…maybe fantasy but still.
As someone who’s read the entire Wheel of Time series multiple times, I get it. I love it, but I get it.
Mat and Rand would probably be able to explain it better though if they were on here
I get this… :)
I can’t actually explain it in any sort of meaningful way, but I feel like it belongs here in spite of the obvious.
Yeah, I love these books but my wife can’t get into the first book at all.
I tried multiple times to get into it myself, and couldn’t.
I like Big Fat Fantasy. I like Kate Elliott and Robin Hobb and Lois McMaster Bujold’s Chalion books. I like Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey. I like Name of the Wind, and I like The Traitor Baru Cormorant. I’ve read Melanie Rawn’s books and C. S. Friedman’s more fantasy-leaning books.
Just couldn’t get into WoT.
I read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson earlier this year. It took me around 5 months because I was determined to finish it but HATED reading it. There’s some good world building and ideas going on, but it was just a slog. I’m normally a kind of slow reader, but it doesn’t take me half a year to finish a book.
And so the direct answer to the question would be: Neal Stephenson. Just doesn’t seem to be for me.
It took me two attempts to get through Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon even though it was thematically up my alley. He includes so many tangents and explanations that it can be tedious at times, however interesting some of them might be. I’d almost prefer footnotes to the longer tangents so I could just get into them optionally if I choose.
I enjoyed Snow Crash, but I think he’s better at world building than following a plot to a satisfying ending. It seems a common criticism that some of his books end a bit abruptly without enough investment in the conclusion, especially in contrast to the significant detail he puts in to the world building.
I agree, Neil Stephenson is hard work for me too. I kind of enjoyed Snow Crash and didn’t find it hard work.
But the other two I’ve read I’ve struggled with. Seveneves was amazing for the first 2 thirds but then I just couldn’t finish it. I eventually completed the book when I got in to audiobooks.
Termination Shock was just soooo slllloooowwww, nothing happened I almost quit it too.
I think I’ve tried Snow Crash 2 or 3 times, but have never made it very far in. It’s my friend’s favorite book, so I may try again sometime, but I think it’s just not for me, even though the subject matter is totally up my alley.
For me, Stephenson is a hit or miss. I hated Snow Crash, I disliked the Cryptonomicon, but I absolutely loved Anathem. I can’t tell you why, just that that’s how it is.
Oooh… Yeah, Stephenson is another one I should have added to my list. In fact I think I will!
Im sorry but Star Wars. Some stuff is freaking cool, like the whole smuggler side, but it’s something about mixing magic and scifi that rubs me the wrong way. Also, lightsabers are so… toylike.
Dune. And outside the realm of SF… wheel of time and game of thrones.
Mostly it’s just the pacing and the epic nature. Bugs the crap out of me.
Levianthan Wakes was a slog. mostly because of all the preachiness about how starships were supposed to work.
I’m so close to finishing Dune… And I maybe always will be.
Star Trek - I’m 40 and never gave it a proper chance and now I don’t even know where to start now
Omg. Star Trek and binging it when I was like six or seven when I visited my uncle as a kid. He had the then-entire collection on VHS and I found them and started watching.
Then, he found me watching trouble with tribbles and was like “ooh this is my favorite episode! Rewind it, I’ll go make popcorn.”
Yes. We binged the rest of everything else. Everyone else was either doing adult stuff (BORING.) or at my brothers soccer tournament (even more boring) all weekend.
Yes, this started my sci fi addiction. He also kicked off the fantasy addiction with the admittedly pulpy Belgariad.
You may be interested to know that a Belgariad series is currently in pre-production.
I mean, I knew, but I appreciate the reminder!
Though I am a bit scared of what they did to it.
I’m biased, so I say start with Next Gen. That’s what got me into it. I later went back and watched TOS. The other good starting point is Deep Space Nine.
Sisko is the best captain. He wasn’t even a captain to start. But he’s the best.
Q: [provokes sisko]
S: [knocks Q out]
Q: “you hit me! Picard would never have hit me!”
S: “I’m. not. Picard.”I let me officers commit acts of terrorism once in a while, as a treat!
you realize, of course, that pretty much all of the captains have committed war crimes and terrorist acts? Sisko is at least…nomimnally… justified in them.
I mean, Picard uses a child soldier as a helmsman for crying out loud. not exactly the paragon of virtue he claims to be.
That first season of TNG is… rough. Although, that’s kind of an issue with most trek and it can easily put people off. Only TOS, Lower Decks, and Strange New Worlds were birthed with beard full grown
I started watching star trek in my late thirties. Tried TOS, couldn’t tolerate more than one episode. Then started TNG and fell in love half way through first season. Now I am on Voyager. According to me, it’s a good replacement for me for TNG. Not sure what I will watch once I finish this.
My vote is DS9! It connects a lot with TNG, even having some characters move over to it after TNG ended.
Will try that out next.
I’m a very casual Star Trek enjoyer, and reckon the 2009 film wouldn’t be the worst place to start.
The opening scene of that movie is some of the best Trek ever made. I say that as someone who’s been watching since 1987
Absolutely. It’s a fantastic scene.
I started somewhere in the middle of Voyage, it was running on the classical channel. Absolutely loved it and was not at all bothered by starting in the middle. The channel also ran Deep Space Nine, but I never got into it. I could watch it to wait for the next program, but nothing more really.
Strange New Worlds is probably the best start. I like Discovery a lot, esp. since it kicked off this new age of Star Trek, but it is a different format than you’d usually expect from Trek, thus the outcry. Strange New Worlds takes the classic Trek formula (which is not a bad formula–there’s a reason it has legs) and updates it with modern values/stories/special effects/etc.
Older Trek is massively nostalgic for many, but it’s also massively uneven in quality as they were churning out seasons on a shoestring budget and it often shows. Also, they didn’t always correctly predict how tech would go (esp. computer tech) so you can have things that are plot holes given what we know of technology today. If you want to start with older Trek, I think the Star Trek Next Generation movie First Contact might stand well enough on its own, esp. if you cherry-pick the Borg-related episodes (there’s only a few) from the TV series and watch them first.
The beginning of 3BP is very, very dry and slow. There’s a lot of exposition, and a massive amount of footnotes (which I personally found very helpful as like many westerners, I have extremely limited knowledge of Chinese history).
I highly recommend persevering and soldiering on, there’s a reason why it’s very highly rated. One of my favourite series and totally made me do a 180 on my opinion of SETI.
I really enjoyed the cultural revolution stuff - very interesting. The VR world or whatever I absolutely just couldn’t care about. The folding and the desiccating were neat, once it became more real in the story, but in general I just found the writing or translation insufferable.
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It’s so funny to me how polarizing KSR’s writing is. I cannot understand how people could be bored by my absolute favorite sci-fi series; I could read a whole other trilogy in the same setting! I’ve talked to so many people who just cannot stand his writing, but he’s my absolute favorite modern sci-fi author.
But I tried to read Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds, and I just couldn’t be less interested. People talk about that series in the same ways as the Mars books, so I know I’m missing something good; I feel like some books capture our imaginations while others don’t.
It’s a bit frustrating that some books just aren’t for me, at least for right now.
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I could read a whole other trilogy in the same setting!
Well, luckily for you, there are several other KSR books that are considered part of the same fictional universe, even if they aren’t on Mars. Off the top of my head, I think 2312 and Red Moon are thought to be the same universe, plus you’ve got The Martians and maybe even Aurora
I believe Antarctica also shares a setting, but I’ve not read that one yet.
I feel like I should space them out; it’s hard to face not having another KSR book waiting for me.
Aurora is also one of my favorite books ever; I used it to inspire an RPG campaign that I ran.
I don’t know that I’d heard of Antarctica yet, so thanks for that one! Also, it’s a bit more more mystical and alt-history than his typical hard sci-fi, but don’t sleep on Years of Rice and Salt. I put off reading it for a long time as the concept is not what I usually look for in KSR or sci-fi in general, but it’s become one of my most frequent rereads.
On a separate note, what system did you use for your Aurora campaign? I gravitate towards sci-fi for my reading and fantasy for my TT gaming, mostly because I don’t like how “hand-wavey” a lot of sci-fi RPG systems get with their science, so I’m curious what’s out there that can accommodate a KSR sci-fi campaign.
I still need to read The Years of Rice and Salt, I love his historical stuff like Galleleo’s Dream and Shaman too.
And the campaign was definitely not a hard sci-fi setting, I just took the concepts of generation ships, self-supporting biomes, and a war on such a ship and used those as my starting point (sprinkled with a bit of Battlestar Galactica and Rendezvous With Rama). I used the Apocalypse World system (my very favorite), and a big part of that game is having the players set up their own corner of the lore and setting; it came out as something quite unique and compelling. We started the story about a hundred years after a failed revolution blew out about half the ship with the survivors scrapping over the remaining resources. Apocalypse World is more narrative focused than simulation directed though (and tends to go PVP in the endgame), so it’s not for everyone.
its definitly my favourite sci fi books but I totally get it. the John Detective part was pretty uninteresting to me also
I know this thread is about science fiction, but dark fantasy is kinda like sci-fi if you squint really hard. And close your eyes.
Anyway, I really wanna be into the Soulsborne game franchise (Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Elden Ring, etc.) but every time I try playing one, it simply doesn’t spark my interest like I feel like it should, as I love fantasy and darkly themed stories. So now I wanna read the Berserk series, which is widely regarded as the greatest manga of all time. But then I hear the Soulsborne franchise is directly inspired by Berserk, so now I’m worried that it won’t spark my interest once I start reading it. I really wanna like these franchises, both are regarded as some of the greatest of their medium and I’d love to enjoy them as much as other people do.
Is it the story and/or the gameplay you don’t like about the souls borne games? If it is just the gameplay you can look at some lore videos and if you like them, you probably like the Berserk series.
To be fair, the Soulsbourne games seem to mostly appeal to the “get gud” type of masochist gamer. You have to like pain to really get into them, it seems like. I haven’t been able to personally because I want my games to be fun, not insisting you memorize attack patterns and are OK getting curbstomped until you do.
This is the contradiction for my taste. I like the dark themes and some of the aesthetics, but not the masochistic game play. I play as much for the narrative or even moreso than the gameplay, so games that make the player get better rather than the character get better are just frustrating because they’re punishing me for not spending more time on the least interesting aspect.
Spending 20 more attempts before I defeat a boss doesn’t give me a greater sense of accomplishment, but rather a greater sense of wasted time when I could have been enjoying interesting details of the narrative or the aesthetics.
Sounds like you want less of a game and more of an animated choose your own adventure story book.
I play games as active entertainment (e.g. my own effort contributes to the game) rather than just a pick an option and see the outcome kind of thing (e.g. passive entertainment, I don’t put effort in beyond select an option.) I see appeal to both since I grew up reading choose your own adventure books.
I find that active entertainment satisfies a different need and grows a skill, whereas passive entertainment is just like heroin - a good drip probably feels good but chasing that next high gets harder and harder and harder to reach the first height.
e.g. Sometimes you want to play sports, sometimes you just want to get high.
No, I like action games. I’m just saying there’s a point at which increased difficulty doesn’t contribute positively to the experience for me. I don’t mind a learning curve. I don’t mind realizing I’ve underestimated the difficulty of a particular game mechanic or boss or level. I’ll play at normal difficulty or hard, depending on the game. But if the essential game mechanic is just being really hard and unforgiving, it’s not a game to me anymore. It’s just a frustration engine and a time sink at that point.
I spent my youth playing the same Nintendo and Super Nintendo game levels over and over again, like notoriously difficult Battletoads levels, and the satisfaction of finally getting it after fifty tries just comes in increasingly diminishing returns. I guess I like games that make me think more rather than just react faster or memorize boss behavior formulas.
I am on my second year trying to get through the three body problem. It has drained me, but I refuse to give up.
I’m hoping the Netflix series will be good, despite the delay due to, um, a murder.
I also heard that there’s a Chinese series of it that’s already been released, and that it’s really good.
The Chinese series is in post-production Hell. It has not yet been released to my knowledge.
I read the first book for a book club so I just crunched it, but I’m listening to the audio book of the second and it’s annoying the hell out of me.
The characters are horrible, the story is so so. Some of the ideas are interesting, but the books have been a slog.
I listened to the first book but wasn’t hooked enough to carry on.
For me, it was that the science just seemed too out-there at times. I can’t explain why it bothered me, I can enjoy science fiction with magical elements, or accept that some shows have bad science.
There was just something about this book that just completely failed to make stuff like the protons sound convincing.
I enjoyed the audio books, I’m on Death’s End now. If you’re into audiobooks I would say try that approach.
The Expanse did it for me. I couldn’t read the books. I couldn’t watch the show past two episodes.
The oft-praised Honor Harrington books also fall into this camp. It seems I’m completely allergic to David Weber’s writing, because I can’t read any of his other series either.
Anything billed as “Young Adult”. I just find them off-putting in their formulaic structures and find the way they talk down to their readers a bit insulting. I read a lot of adult books as a child (pre-teen, not even “young adult”), though, so perhaps I’m not the target market.
edited to add
Neal Stephenson. I hate hate hate his writing. I think if he wrote essays I might find them readable, but his fiction is atrociously bad. (It doesn’t help that he spouts gibberish on topics he knows little to nothing about—e.g. Chinese culture—with dogmatic authority.)
P.S. I can understand completely why you didn’t like The Three Body Problem. It is, especially at the beginning, very Chinese and incorporates outlooks and ideas that are utterly alien to the western mindset.
The Expanse is a little slow for the first couple of episodes, it picks up after that.
And we all know the first thing writers are taught is “bore the audience to death in the beginning of your story because they’ll stick around for the possibility of things finally picking up”.
No, wait.
They’re taught the exact opposite. They’re taught to hook the audience early to induce the interest that keeps people going over the slow parts because they’re already invested.
A TV show has 3, sometimes 4, episodes to hook me. If I’m not hooked, I’m out. A book has 50 pages to hook me. If I’m not hooked, I’m out. Life’s too short to slog through boring crap on the off chance it gets better. Because it rarely does.
Yep. It was a disservice to the show. I have no idea why the first few episodes were designed to be so slow and dull. The rest are not like that. It makes me wonder if someone at the studio saw the dailies during S1 production and stepped in to make changes.
The recent Audiobooks versions are well done. The narrator does a great job of personifying the characters with the same traits as the TV actors.
I can understand completely why you didn’t like The Three Body Problem. It is, especially at the beginning, very Chinese and incorporates outlooks and ideas that are utterly alien to the western mindset.
Oddly enough, that’s not what got me. I studied Chinese (I’ve sadly forgotten so much I wouldn’t even try to read it in Chinese), have been to China, and love a lot of Chinese movies, web novels and dramas. Plus, I’ve lived in Asia for nearly half my life at this point (yeah, countries all have their own unique cultures, but there’s a lot of influence and overlap). It was something about the writing style that I couldn’t get into, which was why I tried reading it in Japanese, to see if it was just the translation I wasn’t vibing with. lol but trying to read it in Japanese threw me for an entire different reason, because my brain switched to the Chinese reading the Chinese names and then it was just a linguistic nightmare inside my head as my brain struggled to pick a single language to read in. I’ve had to give up watching Chinese movies if the subtitles are in Japanese because my brain can not handle both languages at once.
OK, so more like me and Neal Stephenson.
Uh
What, exactly, do you find completely alien about Chinese POV?
I somewhat understand, because I can’t read a lot of stuff written by South Koreans because, imo, they have this weird cultural heirarchy that often comes off as sycophantic to me, but that’s not “alien.”
That is … almost the very definition of “alien”. As in:
unlike one’s own; strange; not belonging to one:
Adjectives matter, friend.
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