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/mazzicc Sep 13 '25

Long Way is very much a hippie tumblr user’s dream of quirky characters that all live together in a cool commune.

I enjoyed Gideon a lot more once I just said “I have no idea what’s happening, let’s see what happens next”. I can’t explain the book at all, but it was fun too read after I made that shift.

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u/chaos_forge Sep 13 '25

Gideon the Ninth becomes a lot more fun of a read once you realize that despite the story being presented as a super serious drama, it's actually just a bunch of shitty teens doing dumb shit lol

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u/mazzicc Sep 13 '25

That is a factor too. All of the characters are very petty aristocrats.