Old Sci-Fi books

[sparkchaser]

Vintage, old, golden age, whatever you want to call them.

Obviously there aren't Little Green men from Mars and Venus has no tentacled beasts or reptilian folks residing there.

My question is this: do the findings of modern science and our current state of where we are today versus where the writers thought we would be lessen your enjoyment of these older SciFi stories?

 

[silverseason]

Not at all

My question is this: do the findings of modern science and our current state of where we are today versus where the writers thought we would be lessen your enjoyment of these older SciFi stories?

Not at all, especially when the books deal with social issues and the way people react. Two of my all-time favorites are Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and Philip Wylie's When Worlds Collide. Anyone who hasn't read them should give them a try.

 

[Oklahoma]

No way! I can enjoy them, it's a simple process of dissociating cold hard logic from the hope of fantasy. After all, those green men might not be on Mars, but they might be out there somewhere. Some books, such as Philip Jose Farmer's ' Dark is the Sun' are set so far ahead in the future that we will never know if it comes true or not.

 

[BooknaMug]

I agree - modern scientific advances in no way effect the beauty of these older sci-fi novels. I have several of them on my list of books to read because I want to read them, in spite however the world has turned out so far.

 

[AsherNZ]

Vintage, old, golden age, whatever you want to call them.

My question is this: do the findings of modern science and our current state of where we are today versus where the writers thought we would be lessen your enjoyment of these older SciFi stories?

Not at all. I'm studying science and I love old science fiction books. A lot of them can still be read without modern scientific discoveries imposing themselves upon the story line. Take "Day of the Triffids" for example. Its a book that could be categorised as old sci-fi, and no matter what scientific discoveries have been made, the underlying morals and messages are still there and still relevant. As long as these messages are still able to be related and understood by readers, I think that the books will continue to be enjoyed

 

[Gilgamesh]

Only thing I can think of is something like 1984 by Orwell. A fine book. But, how are we to introduce these to our kids? A history book? I guess I would personally have to change the title to 2084 using a marker pen.

 

[AsherNZ]

Only thing I can think of is something like 1984 by Orwell. A fine book. But, how are we to introduce these to our kids? A history book? I guess I would personally have to change the title to 2084 using a marker pen.

Hi, I'm not sure how old your children are, but I'm 20 and I love 1984. I understand how it'll continue to be harder and harder to introduced this book to a younger generation as time goes on, but one of the things about 1984 is that Orwell's proposal of a distopian society is so futuristic and out-there, yet as time goes on, our society is going to display more and more slight similarities to the book. Although the title is out of date, i think generations will identify it as proposing some very important concepts.

 

[sparkchaser]

I think if you are going to introduce 1984 to someone today, you should first point out where the title came from then I think the reader should have little problem suspending disbelief.

What about books like Robert E. Howard's Mars series?

 

[AsherNZ]

I think if you are going to introduce 1984 to someone today, you should first point out where the title came from then I think the reader should have little problem suspending disbelief.

What about books like Robert E. Howard's Mars series?

Thats a really good point about 1984.

I've never read anything by Robert Howard. What are his books like?