>I recall when I read Stranger in a Strange Land, which was my
>first exposure to Heinlein, not really digging the worldview
>but still enjoying the writing.

I haven't read it in long enough to comment properly. When I did I was kind of meh with it. But I really wonder about 'enjoying the writing'. To go extreme, people say Hitler was a great speaker but was it also good writing or just effective?

So much fiction writing today is more focused on effective than good. I blame the Davinci Code. That has to be one of the worst written books of all time. Seriously. But it's effective as shit, meaning it keeps you turning the pages, makes you feel smart (if you're dumb enough to be manipulated like that, ie the majority of the book reading public) and touches on all the cultural signifiers. There's nothing clever about it, no technique at all, it just works. I'm guessing that it's the same with shit like Hunger Games and Game of Thrones, which is why they too are so easily adapted to visual media. They lack any depth which would be lost when taken beyond the page.

Sorry that was a tangent.

>I'm not as familiar with sci-fi as I'd like sometimes, just
>due to feeling constrained on time and not feeling like I can
>relax with a book very often

It's literally been a couple of years since the last time I've had time to read a book, but recent circumstances pretty much required I pick up some reading material to offset everything else happening in life. Lo and behold just doing that has taken me in to the stress filled reality of our modern society.

>--- but I try to gradually check
>stuff out now and then. I also prefer hard sci-fi, I think -
>what I like is when there is a clear idea/projection being
>explored in a narrative -rather than stuff that leans more
>towards fantasy/plot.

Hard SF is typically defined by an adherance to scientific consistency. No fantastical elements to muddle the potential science. I often like fanstastical shit as character and social studies, but am more pulled by hard sf that chart the possibilities from what we know right now.

Again I think it's an interesting break down to how right leaning the writers on that side of the spectrum are. It's a conservatism to only imagine from what we know right now and not imagine beyond the realms of known and predictable science. Other sf writers are more likely to take liberties in order to emphasize social and character points.

>So while Asimov gets knocked for not
>having deep characters, I always liked him because he's using
>the story as a vehicle for an idea and does that part well.

Yeah the concepts are the key to his work not neccessarily the characters, which is why I think a lot of his stuff doesn't translate as well to visual media which is all character driven.

>So more recently I bought a copy of Kim Stanley Robinson's Red
>Mars - not read yet - but I did this after reading his short
>stories in a compilation. He's more what I like and I gather
>leans left rather than right - environmental at times and all
>that. Some reviews online suggest that some people find him
>dry, and I understand why but it doesn't bother me that much.

There have been some environmental sf that I've read (havent read KSR) which could be understood as right leaning but at the same time holding to a level of conservatism. The book "Earth" comes to mind.

>There's enough sci-fi podcasts out there devoted to reading
>current stories that this isn't a bad way to keep up if you
>have time - I wish I listened as much as I used to, because I
>was able to hear a lot of the main award nominees in a given
>year.

Yeah I just don't have the time for podcasts. I may have to pick up an anthology. I'm thinking of grabbing Ancillary Justice last year's nebula winner. I really need some casual reading material to get me through the summer.



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"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." © Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."