An SF Cliche

"Faster-than-light travel between humanly colonized extra-solar planets, possibly interacting with nonhuman civilizations" became an sf cliche in the twentieth century and cliches are bad even if some writers, particularly Poul Anderson, were able to do them good. Wells was pre-cliche. Some of Anderson's later works are post-, although interstellar travel, even if slower-than-light, remained a persistent theme.

Despite my appreciation of Anderson's Technic History, I am not drawn to read much more on this cliched interstellar sf theme by other authors. In Sharpe's Cafe, Lancaster, I picked up a copy of George R.R. Martin, Dying of the Light (SF Masterworks). The first page described a rogue planet and referred to "Earth Imperials" or a similar phrase. Familiar stuff.

One Christmas or birthday - they are only a week apart -, Aileen gave me Iain M. Bank's first three Culture novels: well-written and imaginative but not persuading me to read any more. The characters command vast wealth - but for trivial or destructive purposes? One novel revolved around complicated board games so I thought that we should have been told the rules of one of the games.