Comments on: Spy Fiction: A genre in distress

By: wolfe

wolfe — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 17:29:40 +0000

Excellent, Sonyad’s made it with at least one comment. Sony, Dick had to approve it. Spam Karma does seem very agressive, but I’ve heard when trained that it’s good. Thanks for approving it, Dick.

@Sony: I used to love sf, but mostly have drifted away from it over the years. Asimov is good, but I somewhat prefer Heinlein. Jerry Pournelle, H. Beam Piper are also favorites. (All three had quite good, coherent future histories too. So did Asimov to a more limited degree, though I did love The Caves of Steel and its sequels).

@Sony: Yeah, I liked Game, Set, Match. Hook, Line, Sinker wasn’t bad either. I really liked the character of Bernard Samson: well drawn. I always felt that was something Asimov lacked: much weaker characters, weaker dialogue.

Any good Romanian SF writers (preferably that have been translated)? I’m afraid Stanislaw Lem’s about the only one I’ve read from Eastern Europe. Wasn’t wild about Solaris, but loved The Cyberiad and quite liked His Master’s Voice.

@Dick: Yeah, if the graphics looked good, they must have improved. I guess that’s the only time you can safely play with firearms and be drunk…

@Fem. true.
-wolfe

By: Fem

Fem — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 12:42:21 +0000

Yet.

By: admin

admin — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 04:49:51 +0000

You know, I really have no idea if they’re better. I was watching some students playing a recent incarnation of the Clancy series and I was amazed at the graphics. They seemed to be having a good time. They were also quite drunk.

-Dick

By: wolfe

wolfe — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 20:08:23 +0000

@Dick: Are his new games any better? I found Rainbow 6 buggy and suffering from horrible graphics. I admit I have had some fun times playing other stuff, but FPS (even intelligent FPS) is generally not my genre.

@Female Thanks, I think. Yes, I do love books. I think they’re the one great form of immortality (other than reproduction) that human beings have. I think books will remain vital even as we move into an increasingly digitized age. I’ve thought about writing, but apart from some published technical stuff, I’ve really not gone down that road.

-wolfe

By: Fem

Fem — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 05:47:12 +0000

You really like books, don’t you. Have you thought about writing your own? Something in a genre similiar to this one maybe?
http://www.gleebooks.com.au/default.asp?p=events/events4_htm#Robyn_Williams
You probably won’t agree with the content (I haven’t read it, so can’t say) but you’d probably be pretty good in a genre of relating scientific facts to cultural concepts.

By: admin

admin — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 18:28:34 +0000

While the end of the cold war may have killed Clancy’s literary career, his video game career only flourishes.

-Dick

By: sonyad

sonyad — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 17:16:05 +0000

Len Deighton’s Berlin Game and Mexico Set are the only ones I remotely enjoyed.

Jonathan Black’s The Carnage Merchants was a far more enjoyable read albeit cornier and more of a stretch for the imagination. It rings familiar to some of Clancy’s books.

I find SciFi to be a much more appealing genre. Especially Asimov’s books.