This book changed my lifeThe Goat writes, "Some books have made a huge impact on my life." It's true. It wasn't until the b3ta mods read the Flashman novels that we changed from mild-mannered computer operators into heavily-whiskered copulators, poltroons and all round bastards in a well-known cavalry regiment.
What books have changed the way you think, the way you live, or just gave you a rollicking good time?
Friendly hint: A bit of background rather than just a bunch of book titles would make your stories more readable
(
chthonic, Thu 15 May 2008, 15:11)
« Go Back
As an easily influenced adolescent....... after watching and being amazed by the movie Bladerunner I tracked down a copy of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K Dick. Thinking that it would a pretty standard book/movie adaptation I was totally blown away by the simulacra concepts, Mercerism and the humanity of the replicants.
This of course led me onto Valis, A Scanner Darkly, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and the paranoid world of (in my humble opinion) of not only the greatest SF writer of all time, but greatest ever writer - Philip K Dick.
(, Thu 22 May 2008, 9:18, 4 replies)
Have you readHuman is or The Man in the High Castle?
Fantastic reads. Not life-changing, as such, but good nonetheless.
(
Thinker, Thu 22 May 2008, 9:27,
closed)
never readPhilip K. Dick on an aeroplane on a trans-Atlantic flight on the cusp of a psychotic episode. That way madness lies. (And I'd like to apologise to the inhabitants of Washington D.C. for doubting their reality, and I'd like to also apologise to the audience who must have wondered what the fuck my lecture was about. Sorry - A Scanner Darkly made me do it.)
(
crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Thu 22 May 2008, 9:40,
closed)
I've always found Phillip K Dick to be a writer with mind-blowing ideasbut he's a terrible storyteller.
Plots are usually thrown together with little to no structure and his characters are often quite two-dimensional.
Don't get me wrong, I love his work, I just don't think he's the greatest writer ever. He's one of the greatest conceptualisers (Is that a real word?) in Sci Fi though - right up there with Clark and Asimov.
(
chenobble rocking his explorer beard on, Thu 22 May 2008, 10:04,
closed)
agreed on the PKD..... but also try KW Jeter; eg "Dr Adder" and "The Glass Hammer"
edit: @chenobble -- I remember reading that a lot of PKD stuff was written very fast in order to pay the bills. Hence, a lot of the writing suffers; fortunately the ideas are still there.
(, Thu 22 May 2008, 10:50, closed)
« Go Back