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Diana von Oertzen's avatar

I remember giving up reading Patrick O’Brians’s Master & Commander because I was just lost in all that sailing lingo and definitely lacked the historic background knowledge to understand what was going on. Likewise I struggled with David Weber’s first Honor Harrington book, even though he provided pages upon pages explaining the tech - but I still don’t know how the aliens they fight in the end are supposed to look like… I settled on something like a giant praying mantis. And I’ve actually googled what an “artic” is because Terry Pratchett used it in a description (it’s an articulated lorry or what Americans call a “semi”) and I was just like wtf?! 🤣

I think finding a sci-fi book that is a good introduction is a tall order, because the genre is so varied? You can read a sci-fi book and never encounter spaceships or phasers at all. I can’t quite remember what the first science-fiction book was that I read - Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues under the Sea maybe? 🤔 But like you, I’ve had seen enough Star Wars and Star Trek to have a grasp of what was going on when I encountered Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which definitely was the first book I read that had spaceships and aliens.

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Cole Haddon's avatar

Very humbled to see my name on this list - thank you!

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