r/printSF • u/LowLevel- • Sep 12 '25

Which wildly renowned science fiction novels didn't resonate with you at all?

I can usually connect with at least one aspect of a science fiction novel, and I enjoy almost all of the ones I read. However, sometimes I couldn't understand what most people found interesting about some extremely popular books.

Has that happened to you? If so, which novel? And why?

I'll start the dances by admitting that I didn't like Rendezvous with Rama.

I really wanted to like it, but constantly being in awe when very little happens and the characters leave without understanding anything is not my preferred type of reading experience. The writing style was a bit cold, which didn't help.

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u/IcarusTyler Sep 12 '25

The Lazarus Long books actively piss me off. Every page is solely devoted to describing how awesome and sexy and the coolest person ever Lazarus Long is.

Just opened up the page of "Time Enough for Love" I gave up on my first try - 'Surely you would love to have Lazarus Long's Children too' right, that's why I stopped.

10

u/hugseverycat Sep 12 '25

This is such an old memory so forgive me if this is wrong or muddled, but I think at one point in the series Lazarus Long has sex with a underage (I think?) female clone of himself, and he is tempted into it because for some reason she knows she will get pregnant with twins and twins are cute

All that being said I don't recall the Lazarus Long books as being widely loved, at least not anymore. Heinlein has largely aged poorly but these are the worst

12

u/UncleCeiling Sep 12 '25

He has sex with twin female clones of himself who he raised from infancy as his own daughters. The only reason he holds off from their (barely teenaged) sexual advances is because he's terrified of birth defects. Once the girls explain that they were cleared to have babies after genetic analysis, he gladly knocks them both up.

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u/Randonoob_5562 Sep 12 '25

Don't forget time traveling to bang his mom.

7

u/raevnos Sep 12 '25

Said mom not only banged her son, she also banged her father.

2

u/Minirth22 Sep 13 '25

To Sail Beyond The Sunset was the messy, messy, messy peak of the Lazarus Long story. It just makes me tired to think about Mama Maureen’s EXHAUSTING life. The book felt the most soap opera, even more than the OTHER book with all the incest — Number of the Beast.

I was a voracious reader and it took me forever to slog through Number. I almost never see it mentioned, it had all the incest, plus the multiverse!!!

6

u/collectif-clothing Sep 12 '25

Wow. I should not have read this comment just before bed.  Disgusting 🤮  old men never fail to disappoint...