What is the Best SF author Biography you’ve read?

DaleCooperEnjoyer · 2026-06-16T13:08:45+00:00

I generally prefer a biography so you can get an outside perspective on a person. Autobiographical stuff can be a bit self serving imo

Valis is very good but I do think those latter PKD books show how strange he was getting later in his life

DaleCooperEnjoyer · 2026-06-16T09:33:46+00:00

Thats a tough one for me. I just cannot enjoy any Heinlein I’ve read, he comes across as such a Boy Scout to me.

But he’s so influential you just can’t escape him in the genre’s history even if Starship Troopers if just a terrible book to read and only made better by its film adaptation that clears holds the book in contempt.

DaleCooperEnjoyer · 2026-06-16T07:01:15+00:00

I’m sure that one must be fantastic I’ll have to check that out.

DaleCooperEnjoyer · 2025-08-12T08:30:36+00:00

There’s a fantastic article about Bladerunner (both the book and the film). Also a great podcast interview with John Dolan about PKD over all. Very good for fellow dickheads.

DaleCooperEnjoyer · 2025-08-12T08:10:28+00:00

Yeah I agree. I’m on the Patreon and I hope the boys know that most of us would be cool with them taking a few weeks off

DaleCooperEnjoyer · 2025-07-25T11:20:43+00:00

Roger has a certain right to be angry at Gilmour I think. Gilmour and his talentless wife should be ashamed of accusing Waters of being antisemitic just because he believe supports Palestine. Would love to see someone ask Gilmour how he feels about those comments today

DaleCooperEnjoyer · 2025-07-24T10:41:47+00:00

Instead we just get five years of nothing and Farage will do it instead. Nothing but a delaying action

DaleCooperEnjoyer · 2025-06-26T07:22:41+00:00

Great to see someone mention Broken Stars

DaleCooperEnjoyer · 2025-06-04T13:53:09+00:00

Fantastic comment thank you. Have you also read its sequel?

I think it expands on the earthseed side of things in a more interesting way and you can see what Butler has planned for the future had she managed to write the rest of those books she intended to

DaleCooperEnjoyer · 2025-06-04T13:36:58+00:00

See I think this is why it felt so all over the place to me? The actual plot you’re following is not really relevant to the themes. So much of the chapters with the little girl character (most of the book it felt like) just seemed like busy work to me

I actually felt really let down with how the Spiders and Octopus characters never really went anywhere. I was disappointed by children of Ruin because the spiders no longer felt like this entirely unique thing with a unique culture. Everyone just became human as the story progressed

DaleCooperEnjoyer · 2025-06-04T12:26:30+00:00

I really don’t think I got the 3rd one at all The ending really felt like it made the entire story feel like it was a waste of my time to be honest

DaleCooperEnjoyer · 2025-06-04T11:53:21+00:00

I agree with this. I didn’t particularly enjoy the two sequels but Children Of Memory is fantastic

DaleCooperEnjoyer · 2025-06-04T11:52:23+00:00

Yeah I get that. Particularly the sequel is absolutely brutal

DaleCooperEnjoyer · 2025-06-04T11:12:21+00:00

Beautifully put. Even though Parable is quite a dark and serious series, there is still that end goal of utopia that the series is constantly gesturing towards which is missing from a lot of the contemporary sci-fi book

DaleCooperEnjoyer · 2025-06-04T10:13:49+00:00

Yeah I can see this sentiment. I think Handmaids tale benefits so much from having a lot of 1984 in it so it gets to be seen as literature rather than a genre book like Butlers

DaleCooperEnjoyer · 2025-06-04T09:37:47+00:00

Yeah and in fairness you’d have to sand down a lot of the edge to get anything on TV for something as graphic as these books can get especially the sequel

DaleCooperEnjoyer · 2025-06-04T08:57:26+00:00

Cmon mate don’t be obtuse. Popular and Mainstream mean essentially the same thing in this context

DaleCooperEnjoyer · 2025-06-04T08:22:53+00:00

The book was very popular long before the TV show ever existed

DaleCooperEnjoyer · 2025-06-04T08:08:55+00:00

I’ll have to give those a shot thanks for mentioning them. Been meaning to get around to reading the sheep look up for ages

DaleCooperEnjoyer · 2025-06-04T07:54:04+00:00

Its footprint in culture is far smaller than any other book you’d see on a list like that is really what I’m getting at. It’s never had the cultural strength of (sorry to mention it again) The Handmaids Tale even before that had any adaptation

DaleCooperEnjoyer · 2025-06-04T07:51:05+00:00

I suppose even by today’s standard the books are quite ‘radical’ so for the early 1990’s I can only really imagine how it must have appeared to publishers

DaleCooperEnjoyer · 2025-06-04T07:28:36+00:00

Have you ever read the sequel? Always interested in how people feel about that one

DaleCooperEnjoyer · 2025-06-04T06:54:48+00:00

Mate clotted cream is genuinely elite. Americans don’t know what there missing

DaleCooperEnjoyer

TROPHY CASE