What’s a piece of SF that you just couldn’t get into, even though you feel like you should?

I tried to watch Babylon 5, for instance, and just couldn’t connect to it. I know it’s popular and people love it, but it never hooked me.

Another is The Three Body Problem. I tried reading it after a friend’s glowing recommendation, but I couldn’t get past the first chapter. I even tried reading it in another language in case it was the translation I couldn’t connect with, but the same thing happened.

Both are things I feel like I should like, but just don’t.

  • Dhalgen. I know some people absolutely love this book but to me it was just a directionless ramble from one random sci-fi plot to the next with little-to-no resolution to any of them.

    And come on one-shoe-guy: When somebody offers you a new pair of shoes, put the damn things on instead of saying you’re good and continuing to hobble around half shod / half barefoot.

    • Same here. I feel the same way about a lot of New Wave SF from that era. I like J.G. Ballard because he’s such a strong writer that he can pull off that sort of plotless “experimental” stuff, but the rest of them don’t do it for me. Why would I want to read an SF writer trying to write like William S. Burroughs when I can just read William S. Burroughs?