Not yet. I've been meaning to, and recently my wife bought me hardcover Foundation books for my birthday; it's my next fiction to read after I finish the newest Safehold book!

Funny. I can look down my nose at David Weber’s wooden and cringeworthy characters and dialog, but at the end of the day, I lapped up every Safehold book.

I don’t need my sci-fi to be literature, but I need the story to move every ten or twenty pages, or characters I care about. Character development is an alternative to plot development, basically, but to go along side your interesting science bits, you have to give me at least one of:

A) short

B) characters who I care at least slightly about

C) a plot that moves faster than your average snail

The Three Body Problem had none of the above. Although the last 40 or so pages was at least a perfectly good short story in its own right.

Ironically, while I always react to new Safehold books like children to candies, I find them to be overly long and spending too much time on introducing (and then killing off) characters whose names I won't remember by the end of the chapter - and it's something I don't remember feeling about 3BP. Then again, Uplift saga felt sluggish to me too at times. However, in all of those cases, the plot is good enough for me to like it. I guess I can bear overly long stories if they're still interesting stories.

EDIT:

> I can look down my nose at David Weber’s wooden and cringeworthy characters and dialog

"Truer words have never been spoken." ;).

Re: Safehold:

I mostly skip the soldier narratives after the first few books taught me they were all going to become either red-shirts or over the top permanent sycophants within 10 pages.

But man, Safehold has far and away the best set up for “what if I knew everything about the history of militaries and military technology and wanted to conquer the world circa 1200 A.D. with it” I’ve ever seen. So satisfying ;)

I’ve actually recommended people who can’t abide military sci-fi or David Weber in general just read the first 50 pages of the first book.

Surprisingly many of these people go on to read the whole series.

That's a good a three prong test as I've ever heard for sci-fi!

I've never been able to explain as succinctly how I can enjoy both Asimov and Bacigalupi.

I'm guessing you'll enjoy it, from you preferences!

The Asimovian characters-as-plot-revealers isn't for everyone, but he does an entrancing job.

Thanks! I'll be sure to remark on it the next time the "your favourite sci-fi" thread pops up on HN :).