Getting back into reading. I’m looking for good fiction / sci-fi / fantasy that are more mature (without sex).
I was looking at some of the classic authors/books and wondering if these are actually good or just respected for what they did for the genre.
I’m asking primarily about Dune, H P Lovecraft and Stephen King.
by Fether1337
3 Comments
Classics are generally good, that’s what makes them classic. Being good doesn’t mean *you* will enjoy it though.
Dune has amazing wordbuilding, Lovecraft has insane ideas but might come across as antique due to his themes and prose. Stephen King books are generally going to be more enjoyable in the modern sense, the reason he is regarded as the most popular author of the modern era is because he has such a diverse and digestible catalog.
Check out some of King’s short stories to see if you like what he’s putting down, and check out Lovecraft’s greatest work imo At The Mountains of Madness. They’re short enough to sample and not have to read a 900 page classic
Dune was amazing when it was published. Now, it’s very dated. Still very complex worldbuilding, and the Litany Against Fear is still cited, many years on, but the gender and racial politics are SO sketchy (bear in mind that it was written in the early ’60s. Ugh.)
Lovecraft’s work is creepy – but he was a giant racist (and sadly, I don’t mean just a lil’ bit, either.) However, his work was hella influential – whether direct or indirect – his themes inform a lot of popular works today, just as they did many of his contemporaries. Read them to get a good idea of the baseline, then branch out to today’s weird fiction.
Stephen King (‘*the classics*’? Really? You know he’s still alive and writing, yeah?) has some great work, but it’s more popular than literary, if you know what I mean. Out of his work, “The Shining” is my favorite.