What’s something that you feel like you should like, but for some reason can’t get into, no matter how many chances you give it?
For me, it’s The Three Body Problem. It should be right up my alley from everything I’ve heard about it (especially the second book, which looks at the Fermi Paradox and the Great Filter!), but for the life of me, I can’t get past the first chapter at all. I even tried reading it in another language to see if it was the translation that kept me from getting into it, and nope.
(Ignore this comment; sometimes you have to add one when posting from kbin to make the post properly federate.)
Star Wars.
It’s got everything I enjoy: big ass spaceships brawling it out and a long history of lore. But for some reason, I’ve never been able get into it. I should be a huge fan, but I’m just not, I cannot bring myself to care less about it.
Same. It did nothing for me until I watched The Force Awakens. I actually really got into that and started to think this was what people who liked SW felt.
Then I watched the Last Jedi and the feeling was gone.
…it is so wild to me that I’m getting downvoted for saying I liked something. This is another reason I ran screaming from Star Wars fandom. Y’all are wild.
Star wars fans hate TFA for reasons that elude me.
I’m with you, TFA was cool. I wanted to know more about the knights of Ren. Kylo was interesting, here is a villain who is struggling with using the dark side, but is trying to commit to it. That’s something we don’t see ever. Finn was a neat character, and another new perspective.
I think the Rey hatred is actually misogyny. People don’t lose their minds that Luke is best fighter pilot in the rebellion, but Rey uses the force in the “wrong” way and she’s an unredeemable Mary Sue. I’m not one to cry discrimination, but the amount of venom targeted at the character implies something deeper.
I too gave up after TLJ, it seemed designed to make me stop caring about star wars.
I grew up w/out a tv at home for most of my life–but Star Wars was also released a bit before I was born, and the prequels were released right as I hit adulthood, so I just missed being “the right age” for it completely.
It has been interesting encountering younger folk where the prequels were their childhood–because it’s their beloved childhood, they have a completely different view of it than what was going on amongst grown SFF fans when the prequels originally aired. (And I’m not bashing beloved childhoods; it makes me thoughtful about my own childhood favorites.)
I agree that it has a lot of elements that SHOULD make me love it. But I actually encountered FIRST (due to no TV at home and friends not exposing it to me outside the home) the influences in literature that Star Wars arose out of. I read the book Dune before I saw Star Wars, and I read plenty of SFF action/adventure before I saw Star Wars. So even when I finally did see Star Wars–I had already been exposed to the substratum that it arose out of, so it didn’t hit me as “unique”.
maybe it’s too much goodness… like having chocolate-dipped bacon covered in cheese. chocolate makes everything better, bacon makes everything better, and cheese, makes everything better… but they don’t make each other better. funny, huh?
Just skip chocolate (the latest trilogy) and you’re left with delicious bacon & cheese!
Rick & Morty.
Watched the first season but I just can’t get past how awful Rick is. All the constant burping and how much of an asshole he his really puts me off the whole thing.
Foundation stopped me from finishing for 20 years until I could get it on audiobook, and even then it was a slog. All the politics in that book are simply not what I’m after when it comes to sci-fi, even if I can acknowledge that it’s a fantastic piece of work.
I really like cool ideas in sci-fi, but with all of Asimov’s works I could never get over how cardboard the characters were.
Given the trends of recent SFF, I think a lot of readers who turned into writers agree, since the characterization has massively improved across the genre even in SFF books that are pretty thinky.
Wheel of time…maybe fantasy but still.
I tried multiple times to get into it myself, and couldn’t.
I like Big Fat Fantasy. I like Kate Elliott and Robin Hobb and Lois McMaster Bujold’s Chalion books. I like Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey. I like Name of the Wind, and I like The Traitor Baru Cormorant. I’ve read Melanie Rawn’s books and C. S. Friedman’s more fantasy-leaning books.
Just couldn’t get into WoT.
