Remember those silly space Operas?

[Riftaxe]

Those without artistic merit at all?

Darn, turns out I really really love them :)

My latest has been http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lois_McMaster_Bujold">Lois McMaster Bujold works.

A story is only as good as the audience, and I have no idea how i missed this woman's masterpieces of fun.

[TygrBright]

1. Miles Vorkosigan is a picaresque hero for the ages: Past, present, and future.

Love Lois and all her works.

I love the way she grafts everything together: Action opera, sociopolitical commentary, picaresque comedy of manners, and deeper spiritual and ethical exploration.

Just wow.

I am not a fan of fantasy, by and large. But I'll read ANYTHING if it is by LMB, and so I stumbled onto her "Quintarian" trilogy. If you haven't discovered it yet, you have a delight in store, starting with "The Curse of Chalion."

appreciatively,
Bright

[MrModerate]

2. Sorry, can't handle it. I know lots of people love her work . . .

But I'm not among them. I find her characters made of one of the less tasty flavors of cardboard and her plots to be plods.

Especially when there's so much really good space opera out there by people like Peter Hamilton, Iain Banks, and others.

[TygrBright]

3. Different strokes and all that.

I find Iain Banks to be unbearably turgid, convoluted, self-referential and pretentious. Peter Hamilton, not so much, but not a fun read, either.

Fortunately there are all kinds of writers writing all kinds of fiction so we can all have our favorites.

equably,
Bright

[MrModerate]

4. Quite so. Although the "pretentious" charge about Banks stings a bit . . .

I was looking at my collection of sci-fi (actually trying to index it), and I have more than 10,000 files, more than I'll be able to read in my lifetime even if I never got another book -- or did anthing else, which my employer and my wife might object to. And general fiction and classic fiction, oy vey!

There's clearly enough of everything for everybody, at least in this one small area of the human adventure.