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

[michaeldthomas.livejournal.com]

The Windup Girl.

Neuromancer.

[bookzombie.livejournal.com]

I was a teenager when I read Neuromancer. Not sure what I'd think of it now.

The Windup Girl is on the shelf to read, but I'm approaching with caution given the very mixed comments I've heard (it seems to be really divisive - one of those books people either love or hate.)

[rawdon.livejournal.com]

Neither of these books do it for me, either. I don't really buy virtual reality as a dramatic premise for a story, so every such novel I've read has not worked for me. I struggled to get through The Windup Girl, finding the writing tedious, its plot a jumble, the characters unlikable, and its ideas uninteresting.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

It always surprises me when people say "Neuromancer," in response to this type of question because I don't know anybody who actually thinks it's a great book, so it feels like a reaction against a position that doesn't exist. I'm a huge fan of Gibson in general, but even I don't think it's a great book. I think it was in some ways seminal, and I've seen other people refer to it in the same sort of way, and I think a lot of people who read it when it first came out found it to be important to them and their development within the context of the time, but I think that's different from saying that it's a great, enjoyable novel.

Personally, I think he really honed his writing chops over time, and if I were to recommend books of his to someone, they'd all be much more recent works. (For example, I really love Pattern Recognition.)