Just for fun: a fannish question

[bookzombie]

I've noted in conversation many times in the past that there's a tendency to a sort of 'hive mind' about what you are supposed to like and not like in fandom (though this is maybe not as true as it used to be.) So, just for fun, what important/critically lauded/popular sf books, movies or tv series can you just not get what the fuss is about? Or understand the fuss but don't work for you?

Okay, so here's a starter from me:

I can understand why people consider 2001: A Space Odyssey and Blade Runner to be classics of sf cinema, but try as I might to like them I find them a bit...boring. I'd rather watch Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan or Back to the Future again than either of them.

*Prepares for brickbats...!*

Comments

[bookzombie.livejournal.com]

I actually like a lot of China's books, but I really didn't get the fuss over 'Perdido Street Station'. I've upset several people by describing it as a 'feature length Doctor Who story'!

I mainly dislike Morgan's. I've read several I'm okay with, but I hated, hated, hated 'Altered Carbon' with a passion. I think mainly the level of violence was more than I'm really comfortable with.

On the other hand I like Abercrombie a lot. While his books are also violent, the violence has consequences. Mainly, though, they are saved for me by being quite funny - pitch dark humour maybe, but nevertheless...

[fjm.livejournal.com]

Geniunely gratuitous violence. Apparently surgeons and nurses are ok to gun down?

I never read another one.

[bookzombie.livejournal.com]

I assume you're referring to Morgan here?

I had major problems with 'Black Man' as well. It starts off as an interesting examination of someone who is created to be a warrior but is fighting that. But 2/3rds of the way through the book his girlfriend is put into a refrigerator to give him the excuse to put his growth aside and go on a revenge-fuelled killing rampage. That was my reading anyway. I have been told that I was 'wrong head' about that by a certain ex-Vector editor of our mutual acquaintance!

[rawdon.livejournal.com]

I think Mieville is okay. I enjoyed Perdido Street Station and The Scar, but I find his books to be overlong and in need of editing. I didn't care much for The City & The City, which I thought was a pedestrian story with low ideas content. I'll probably read more by him sometime, but he's not on my must-read list.