Science Fiction

13672 readers

248 users here now

Welcome to /c/ScienceFiction

December book club canceled. Short stories instead!

We are a community for discussing all things Science Fiction. We want this to be a place for members to discuss and share everything they love about Science Fiction, whether that be books, movies, TV shows and more. Please feel free to take part and help our community grow.

Be civil: disagreements happen, but that doesn’t provide the right to personally insult others.
Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, ableist, or advocating violence will be removed.
Spam, self promotion, trolling, and bots are not allowed
Put (Spoilers) in the title of your post if you anticipate spoilers.
Please use spoiler tags whenever commenting a spoiler in a non-spoiler thread.

Lemmy World Rules

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

Tenthrow

Looking for a good Sci Fi Novel available on Project Gutenberg (self.sciencefiction)

submitted 1 year ago by PlanetOfOrd to c/sciencefiction

28 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Been out of work for a while so buying books is out the question (yeah, I get there's always the library, but I don't like it for a lot of reasons).

I like how PG has free books. I realize I'm not going to find top-tier modern writers on PG, but I'm open to suggestions of good reads.

What I look for in sci fi:

An idea to chew on; something that stays with me even after I turn the last page.
Some emotional intrigue; I want to feel what the characters feel.

What I like to avoid:

Technobabble. I like a good story; I don't want to spend half the book understanding how the ship works. (I found Frank Herbet was good with avoiding technobabble...he often obeyed the rule of "show don't tell")
Stock characters. Gimme some depth.

A few I've read so far that I'd consider "passable" are Off on a Comet by Jules Vern (I only listen to about 2/3 of this on librivox) and Space Prison by Tom Godwin (although the plot is pretty simplistic).

I just finished Frankenstein. A lot of people think its The Greatest Novel. It was kinda meh. I see why people would get excited about it, but it didn't grab me like it does other people.

Any suggestions?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] BrerChicken 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Can we talk more about your aversion to libraries? You can get great digital and audio books, and I don't see a big difference getting a digital book from the library versus downloading one from PG. Is it an app issue?

[–] PlanetOfOrd 3 points 1 year ago

I'm not against libraries. It's just that I prefer reading physical books. But with a library it's a lot of stress to remember the due date (although I usually finish books long before the due date), and it does make me slightly uncomfortable that the library keeps a record of every book read (I'm sure it sounds paranoid, but I also know on here I'm in good company. lol). While my reading material isn't anything noteworthy it just makes me uncomfortable.

So I prefer raiding Good Will or bargain book stores for secondhand books. No due date, no record that I bought it (since I pay in cash, although I'm sure if you're really desperate you can look at security cam footage when I bought the books and cross-reference). But since I can't afford that I figured I could make do with digital books until I can afford to buy books again.