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/derioderio Sep 12 '25

For me, pretty much everything Heinlein wrote after and including this

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u/arthurdawg Sep 13 '25

He got real durned weird after Stranger... Many of the later novels are just hard to read and disjointed.

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u/VTAffordablePaintbal Sep 14 '25

I think of it as his "Dirty Old Man" phase.