Sci-Fi Books

El Corazon

Baen books has several of James P. Hogan's for free... including my favorite: Inherit the Stars

_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)

SimulationofSai

Michael Crichton[^] He's very good. And you'll learn a lot of new stuff while reading his books. If you can get hold of the unabridged version of Jurassic Park, don't miss reading it.

SG Cause is effect concealed. Effect is cause revealed.

Member 96

I echo Neil Stephenson, Gaimon, Peter Hamilton and add Charles Stross, Cory Doctorow..I could go on and on really but so much depends on what flavour of sci fi you like, there is so much to choose from it's one of the hardest genres to recommend. I could recommend hundreds really, there are a *lot* of really good new authors out there and the last decade has seen an explosion in really, *really* good sci fi writers coming on the scene. The best way to do it is to look up the latest award winning novels, a good place to overview is the Locus Guide[^] to all the major sci fi awards then surf over to amazon and cross reference the titles to see the amazon reader ratings. The ratings are generally very accurate if they are over 4 stars and there are more than 20 reviewers or so. I've got probably every award winning sci fi novel right up to 2006 and awaiting paperback releases on the 2007 ones. Recently I've been trawling through looking for oldies that I haven't read in many years but loved at the time like all the Heinlein, Bester, Simak etc.

"I don't want more choice. I just want better things!" - Edina Monsoon

Member 96

I agree on the Hamilton and the Simmons, not just the Olympus stuff, all of Simmons is excellent, Bear though is clearly *not* a sci fi writer in the traditional sense whatever the book jacket says, kinda the McDonals cheeseburger of the sci fi realm in my clearly unhumble opinion :) and the rest well, maybe fun reads but not exactly the deeper end of the pool are they? ;)

"I don't want more choice. I just want better things!" - Edina Monsoon

peterchen

Stanislaw Lem[^] He's as much a philosopher as a science fictionaire.

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blackjack2150

My favorites are: Arthur C Clarke - [Childhood's End](http://Childhood's End)[^] : an absolute classic William Gibson - Neuromancer[^] : cyberpunk at it's best (a bit more difficult though)

Lost User

I find Peter Hamilton has good stories but weak endings but liked the Event Horizon series.

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Lost User

Ah, an old favourite :cool:

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Stuart Dootson

I'll second Jerry Hammond's suggestion of Neal Stephenson. Iain M Banks[^] - I especially enjoyed his earlier stuff, like Consider Phlebas and The Player of Games. And then you might read his non-SF stuff, published under his real name...which is Iain (M) Banks! The Crow Road and Complicity are good. I enjoyed The Wasp Factory, but that's an acquired taste. I've always been partial to a bit of Bruce Sterling[^] as well.

Mustafa Ismail Mustafa

Have you guys ruled out Isaac Asimov? I mean, its not new but I've read and read the robot series books and the foundations series books again and again to the point where my books are in tatters. Another older series by Piers Anthony is the "Apprentice Adept" series though his Xanth series are cool too. yes yes I KNOW they're older but they make good reads! :p

There are 10 kinds of people in this world. Those who understand binary and those who don't... ______________________ "Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." - Rick Cook

originSH

I liked the ending of the Commonwealth Saga, it's ending was nowhere near as weak as a Stephen King ending hehe, I'm not sure any ending could be though :P I've only just gotten hold of some of his other books so I'll see how they are :)

hairy_hats

Stephen Baxter, especially Titan and Evolution. Very good indeed.

hairy_hats

The Cyberiad is great.

originSH

As others have said, Peter F. Hamilton[^] and Iain M Banks[^] are great. A name I haven't spotted yet (although I might have missed it) is Larry Niven[^] who is the author of the ringworld books. They aren't quite as deep as some of the others mentioned here but I found them enjoyable.

destynova

Iain M. Banks's Culture novels are among the best books I've read... accompanied by (non sci-fi) the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen Donaldson (amazing stuff) and some of Andy McNab's fiction (Remote Control, Crisis Four being good examples). Check out "Consider Phlebas" by Banks, it's a great read.

DumpsterJuice

You MUST read "Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson. Its a classic from the Mid 90's that has quite a lot of predictions that came true.

Where there's smoke, there's a Blue Screen of death.

stevepqr

Not new but perhaps one you may have missed - Bob Shaw, particularly The Palace of Eternity, Vertigo, Who Goes Here and Orbitville. Also I found Keith Laumer good too with a lot of humor in the stories particularly the Lafayette O'Leary series.

Apathy Rules - I suppose...

Jim Crafton

I like most of Greg Bear. I thought Eon, The Forge of God, Anvil of Stars were all great reads with some really interesting ideas in them. Ditto for the Ian Douglas stuff. The way he gradually introduces technology (the 6 books take place over roughly 300 years), speculating on advances, how he describes space travel, all of these were pretty interesting and seemed to more firmly rooted in "science" than plain fiction. As for the deeper end of the pool? I have no idea. I just know I enjoyed reading them and considering some of the tech ideas he postulated :)

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MajorTom123

The Mote in God's Eye Sequel: The Gripping Hand Robot Novels by Asimov (Foundation Series: Foundation and Earth, Foundation and empire, etc...) Sphere - The book, not the movie. by Crichton The Tek novels are very trite. Very easy to guess where they're going and of course, the hero is really superman. Non-Sci-fi Executive Powers - by Tom Clancy. There is a prequel to this but can't remember it. Skeleton Coast - can't remember author. It is ok, maybe its me, but by the end of the first third I could predict most of the rest of the novel.

Alan Balkany

"The Man Who Folded Himself" is the ultimate time-travel novel. The author, David Gerold, also wrote The Trouble With Tribbles in the original Star Trek.