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Interesting. I can't speak for the others but I have read Childhood's End and some Philip K. Dick. I propose by plot you mean action. I've always found scifi to be quite rich in plot and ideas, but lacking in character development and writing, generally speaking.

Childhood's End... actually, yeah, you're right, it is sci-fi. Uncharacteristically of Clarke, who usually wrote science fiction instead. PKD I'll give ya. I believe my discussion of his merit with Jory is upthread somewhere. *smirks unbecomingly*

Anyhoo, Hull Zero Three - which is, whatever else, science fiction - went from "dull" to "interesting" but has moved right back to "dull" in its third quarter. I'm having an adverse reaction to the character development.

Yes, by plot I mean action, but not necessarily explosions and gunfights and chases. Perhaps progression is a better word than action. If by Chapter 2 you're in the same place you were in Chapter 1, either in terms of physical location or in understanding of the settings or in character growth, you've failed as a writer.



What, exactly, is the difference between sci-fi and science fiction? I’ve heard a lot of science fiction fans attack the term “sci-fi,” but I’ve never heard anyone suggest that it’s something other than some alternate terminology that they dislike.

I'll tell you if you can exactly describe the difference between crime drama and romance.

Science fiction entertains by playing with the world in a consistent way.
(To do this, the author must have a reasonable understanding of the world.)

Sci-fi entertains by playing with the world in an inconsistent way.
(Anyone can do this.)

I'll try a metaphor.

There is a mosaic with a picture of the world on it.

A science fiction author makes a new picture by moving the bricks around and maybe adding some new ones or taking some out.

A sci-fi author paints whatever they want to see on top of the mosaic.


...and I've almost run out of reading material, so I'm on to Thomas the Rhymer, Ellen Kushner. Which should be good. Her Swordspoint is excellent. (I suspect you'd like it, Jory. )

^ So what you're saying is, it's all silly semantics? That's how I see it, anyway.

No. I'm saying there is a crucial, fundamental and largely irreconcilable difference between the two.

Suppose we are talking about engineering, instead. We're talking about engineering books.

Alice is an engineer. Alice knows about engineering. Alice writes a book about engineering. That's an engineering book.

Bob is not an engineer and knows nothing about engineering. Bob writes a book about engineering, but because he doesn't know what he's talking about he makes random stuff up however he feels like it. That's not an engineering book. That's a book pretending to be an engineering book.

Now imagine you went to a book shop looking for an engineering book, and Bob's book was next to Alice's book. Imagine everyone talked about it as if they were in the same genre. Imagine ten people bought Bob's book for every one of Alice's books sold, and imagine Bob's book was splashed across the telly every night in an adaptation by Charlie, who knows even less about engineering than Bob does.

Imagine that the people like Bob were, on the whole, not good writers. The kind of person who doesn't know anything about what they are writing about and doesn't care about it either usually isn't a good writer. Imagine that because people thought Bob's book and Alice's book were the same sort of thing - both "engineering books", everyone assumed that Alice's book must automatically be rubbish as well - and incidentally miss the important point that the strength of Alice's book does not rest entirely on her skill as a writer but on her grasp and treatment of the subject material. You might be royally pissed off if you were a fan of engineering books, especially if you felt the genre you love was persistently and unjustly criticised and condemned because a bunch of ignorant talentless hacks had largely succeeded in appropriating its name in the eyes of the public.

And y'know what? Maybe we were talking about engineering books. It's a good enough description for a lot of science fiction.

A crucial, fundamental and largely irreconcilable difference to you, a bunch of semantic horses**t to me. If you need me, I'll be over here reading and enjoying the books and not wasting my time worrying about their classification. My apologies to Alice.

All in One A+ Certification by Mike Meyers. Finished the latest George R R Martin Last Week.

The Filter Bubble by Eli Pariser

Asperger Syndrome by Arthur Gillard

I concur; it was rather fantastic.

The Mighty Micro, an interesting thirty-year-old book on the future of computing.
Thomas the Rhymer, Ellen Kushner, was good.
Harry Potter et la Chambre des Secrets, to be followed by Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal as I don't have the following ones in Frog yet. *grins* It pays to embiggen your word power.
The Limits to Growth (which was mentioned in The Mighty Micro) should be arriving shortly, an economic prediction from way back when.
I'm looking for a second-hand version of A Dance With Dragons. I don't want to read it. I feel obliged to do so but I'm not giving GRRM any money at any rate. Can't find a cheap one (that hasn't been bought-to-resell, which would be giving GRRM money...) so it'll have to wait.

Pretty short on books at the moment.

The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language by Steven Pinker

How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie

By far the best self-help book I have ever read. Taught me more about learning to relax and not let (the bad parts of) my imagination run away with me than either of my therapists had.

The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear
Rumo
Yeah, I read these quite often, 'cause they're just that good. If you can put aside the slightly sexist viewpoint (I can't work out how much of it is an artefact of the translation - like translating something which in the original is, I dunno, blaubärin or something to "girl bluebear" every time, tricky one to handle - and some of it reads in an oddly naive kinda way - unbelievably naive, when you consider what else the author writes. ^^ Maybe it's a German thing I'm just not getting. I keep meaning to read them in the original but I doubt I'm up to it.) But anyway, the series is literally fantastic, very inventive.
To be followed by The City of Dreaming Books and The Alchemaster's Apprentice.

But; I'm back to reading these 'cause I'm out of new books.

book thief, again.

If you're talking about the book...
Read that one four or five times.