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Comment by ericmcer | Hacker News Reader

I am surprised he likes some of the classics as they hold up really poorly IMO. The Foundation books especially just... are not good viewed through a modern lens. I hate to pull the misogyny card, but I think there is only one woman in Foundation and she has no lines, just models a necklace for some space trader types. They also suffer from the classic sci-fi conundrum where a spaceman is flying at light speed while reading a newspaper and listening to a tape. It's not really excusable for me when people consider this like... the greatest sci fi book. Other authors were able to confront our social and technological future in a much more realistic and interesting way, not like, cowboys in spaceships.

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Books that have become dated can sometimes be quite interesting when read with the period they were published in in mind. Not just for the retro-effect they invariably invoke, but also to see how the thought experiments encapsulated in them would have appeared to people then.

Sci-fi classics are like any other classic books; you have to read them in the context of the author and his times. You can't read Conrad's Heart of Darkness ignoring the cultural and historical context either.

And honestly, sometimes a Heinlein juvenile makes for a nice change of pace between heavier works (either sci-fi/fantasy or any other genre).

I totally agree, I think Foundation is a fun book, it just does not deserve the accolades it receives. Same thing with Heinlein, can be kinda fun, but an alien sex cult with the leader hovering naked women into his lap is not that interesting. I just read Ubik and you can see some of these amazing time travel sci-fi concepts playing out, conversely in Heinlein's 'Time Enough For Love' the protagonist goes back in time, sleeps with his own mom, and tells her he is her son from the future. It just feels dumb to me.

Agreed, the author of this list could do well to expand his horizons beyond the classics a bit.

Yeah, same here. I tried to read old American science fiction, the so-called western classics and the so-called eastern classics. All of that stuff is racist, sexist and bigoted. After many unsuccessful tries I decided that reading anything from other times and cultures is just too regressive to be worth it. After all, what can someone as bigoted and outdated as Asimov really teach us about society and technology in 2020? What can Jane Austen with her internalized misogyny tell us about human nature? I will stick to modern and progressive literature, thank-you-very-much.

And so should you. In fact, those old books can be downright dangerous and normalize regressive behaviors that will cause real harm. I mean, today we are rightfully worried about individual bigoted tweets and messages, but imagine someone reading an entire book of that stuff?

>I decided that reading anything from other times and cultures is just too regressive to be worth it. . . What can [they] tell us about human nature

Are you serious? You don't think there is any insight into human nature in the works of anyone, ever, except the exact values of the culture you happen to live in at this particular point in time?

Edit: ugh, I had to go look at your other comments to tell if this was sarcasm. It seems it was, and satire and reality have converged too much for me to differentiate.

> Are you serious?

No.

Are we already at the point where a suggestion to read nothing outside your own cultural bubble can be interpreted as a serious comment? If we are, this is seriously disturbing.

Yes, I've just realized that, my apologies. I can't tell any more.

We are in fact, sadly there. Poe’s Law in action. I totally thought you were being sincere. I was becoming more indignant with each sentence!

Great Sarcasm. I said 'I hate to play the misogyny card' and I do, because I knew people would hone in on that and ignore what I was trying to say, such is our political climate.

> I knew people would hone in on that and ignore what I was trying to say

You were forcing your reference frame onto a science fiction novel and presenting that as critique. Complaining about newspapers and tapes in space is actually more of the same thing, except explaining why it's not a good way to treat fiction would take way longer.

You're missing the point. Sci-fi isn't about technology, it's about imagining life and existence from a non-earth non-human perspective. Also, Bayta Darell is a very central character with a significant role.

Granddaughter Arkady as well.

I wasn't arguing about what sci-fi is, its fairly amorphous. More just highlighting the laziness of creating a novel based around future tech and then having someone just reading a paper, its fine but not GOAT material imo. It is a space western/drama which is totally fine.

"Well actually" there's TWO (2!) women. One has one line, and she's talking to a man, so it still fails the Bechtel test. The other, like you said, models a necklace, and has no lines.

I seem to remember different, but that may be because I haven't read all of his stuff (not a fan), only picked some.

Anyways, in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Currents_of_Space there is this: https://www.9novelsread.com/read/the-currents-of-space/30353...

and more.

(just sayin')

I also didn't really get the love of Foundation. I like a lot of Asimov's short stories but just found Foundation to be kind of dry.

While reading it I also noticed that there were no female characters in the book. Since I didn't like the book I haven't read any of the others in the series but I seem to recall someone saying that when the lack of women was pointed out to Asimov that he made women central to at least some of the prequels?

Which authors/books would you recommend that have held up over time?

Bradbury & Vonnegut if you are gonna stay in the same time period. Delaney, PKD and Gene Wolfe are my favorites of all time, they are 10-20 years later but I think they raise social and philosophical issues that resonate to this day.

I liked the foundation books its just always been a pet peeve that Foundation, Enders Game, and Hitchhikers Guide are always listed as greatest of all time. They are super enjoyable books but not like... what I would choose to represent the genre.

wholeheartedly agree. A female friend wanted me to recommend some classic sci-fi since it had influenced me so much. I knew they were going to have aged badly on social issues but, my god, they are unreadably awful. Even Bradbury whom I considered a good writer, not just a creative thinker - and it's the same problem. Same issue finding classic video games - pervasive, unavoidable, and utterly unnecessary biases that ruin the works.

Now imagine that some sci-fi novels have no women in it at all. Or men for that matter. The nerve of the authors!

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