Wow, this thread sure got resurrected from the dead.
I also saw an interview with Michael Ironside where he commented, with approbation, on how one of Paul Verhoeven's major goals was to satirize the "strong Fascist themes" in Heinlein's book. Which told me 3 things:
1) Ironside, and possibly Verhoven did not read the book;
2) Virginia never met Verhoven before the rights were sold;
3) I probably don't need to see any more Paul Verhoven films
I liked the film, though I'm not sure I could tell you why. One thing that is very interesting about it, though, is the DVD commentary between Verhoeven and the guy who wrote the film. It's very clear that they had, err, very different ideas of what the film was about. It makes for an interesting conversation, and one of the only DVD commentaries that I've found worthwhile listening to.
I hate to hear people calling Verhoeven a fascist; he actually grew up in Holland while it was occupied by the Nazis, and mentions this in the commentary. That said, the imagery in Starship Troopers was intentionally fascistic, just not in a way that
promotes fascism. Unfortunately, I think the film does fail in that, else people wouldn't go around calling it pro-fascism, heh. Still, it is kind of a fun watch.
Check out Lois McMaster Bujold. She's won three Hugos for science fiction novels (and one for her fantasy)
Just finished reading "Paladin of Souls" ... prety good read. I'm a little confussed by the list of books the publisher has on the back of the front cover tho. It lists 19 books, but they don't seem to be in order. The front cover of the book advertises the author as being a multiple award winner for writing the book that is listed after the one I read. Maybe her style is more balanced, and each book can stand alone. Like I said, it was a good read, didn't need any other book to flesh out the background.
Yeah. One thing about LMB is that she writes stuff out of sequence. You probably should have started with
Curse of Chalion which precedes
Paladin of Souls and is a much better book to boot, IMHO. The third book in the series is in a different part of the world and a few hundred years before the events of CoC/PoS, and is also, I'm afraid to say, not quite as good a read. Really, I'd recommend reading her science fiction instead... try to find a copy of
Young Miles and go from there. There are two books written before
Young Miles, but they're about Miles' mother and father, and don't really need to be read first. Her best stories are about Miles Vorkosigan himself.
Oops! Since some of the folk here are emphasizing authors with matching chromosomes, I can't let us leave out a recommendation for C.J. Cherryh. The mistress of...disturbing...space drama. Also perhaps the greatest living filk composer.
I have to admit that there is no science fiction writer I have a more difficult time reading that C.J. Cherryh. I slogged through both
Downbelow Station and
Cyteen and couldn't wait for them to be over. I have no idea how she won the Hugos for those years.
