Sci-Fi books
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I'm a bit excited because there's a 35% discount at one book house here for all books in their SF collection, and I'm gonna spend some cash on that. The titles that I've chosen are: H2G2 Dune (the initial 6 volumes) Ender's Game & Ender's Shadow The Mars Trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars) I can't go wrong with these, can I? The only SF I've read so far is some Asimov, Childhood's End by Sir Arthur C Clarke and Starship Troopers.
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code-frog wrote:
Never read Dune
Dude! You *have* to correct that ASAP! At least the first, fifth, and sixth novels. The later one by his son are largely crap, so probably not worth the effort unless you become really curious about where they take things.
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meh. Dune's probably the best regarded SF book I've ever read that I considered utterly worthless. I think Dune > P. K. Dick, the other highly prominent SF author I can't stand (my opinion of new wave SF in general is almost as low, but I've seen a few stories by contemporaries that only triggered indifference).
Today's lesson is brought to you by the word "niggardly". Remember kids, don't attribute to racism what can be explained by Scandinavian language roots. -- Robert Royall
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Pardon my knowledge on Sci-Fi books, but I have never ever read any Sci-Fi. Can anybody recommand a good Sci-Fi book to start with?
Anything by Asimov on the Robot series or the foundation series.
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Pardon my knowledge on Sci-Fi books, but I have never ever read any Sci-Fi. Can anybody recommand a good Sci-Fi book to start with?
It's a very wide genre, could you define what you're interested in a bit better so that we can give more appropriate recomendations. eg political bias, military tolerance, hard (lots of real science) vs soft (eg star wars/trek), physics/space vs computers vs biology, upper vs downer, tolerance for good stories with dated gaps in their technology (almost no classic SF saw the growth of the PC).
Today's lesson is brought to you by the word "niggardly". Remember kids, don't attribute to racism what can be explained by Scandinavian language roots. -- Robert Royall
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I'm a bit excited because there's a 35% discount at one book house here for all books in their SF collection, and I'm gonna spend some cash on that. The titles that I've chosen are: H2G2 Dune (the initial 6 volumes) Ender's Game & Ender's Shadow The Mars Trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars) I can't go wrong with these, can I? The only SF I've read so far is some Asimov, Childhood's End by Sir Arthur C Clarke and Starship Troopers.
The Saga of Seven Suns[^] by Kevin J. Anderson. Anything by Peter F. Hamilton or Greg Bear.
We are the all singing, all dancing crap of the world. - Tyler Durden
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Anything by Niven and Pournelle is decent, especially Footfall. If you can find it, Anvil of the Heart, by Bruce T. Holmes is good. Stone, by Adam Roberts was fantastic!
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Steve Echols wrote:
Anything by Niven and Pournelle is decent, especially Footfall.
Footfall and Mote in God's Eye are fantastic books. Also Niven and Pournelle did their own take on Dante's Inferno. Classic Stuff. But, and I hate to say this, stay away from Destiny's Road and Rainbow Mars....simply awful in my opinion.
Sovereign ingredient for a happy marriage: Pay cash or do without. Interest charges not only eat up a household budget; awareness of debt eats up domestic felicity. --Lazarus Long
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Pardon my knowledge on Sci-Fi books, but I have never ever read any Sci-Fi. Can anybody recommand a good Sci-Fi book to start with?
Ain't that fun, you're in a thread talking about good sci-Fi books. Isaac Azimov : Foundation, The Robots series. Frank Herbert : Dune, The Dosadi Experiment Dan Simmons : Hyperion (not easy but fascinating) Carl Sagan : Contact Kim Stanley Robinson : The Mars trilogy.
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I'm a bit excited because there's a 35% discount at one book house here for all books in their SF collection, and I'm gonna spend some cash on that. The titles that I've chosen are: H2G2 Dune (the initial 6 volumes) Ender's Game & Ender's Shadow The Mars Trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars) I can't go wrong with these, can I? The only SF I've read so far is some Asimov, Childhood's End by Sir Arthur C Clarke and Starship Troopers.
Another vote for Iain M Banks (Consider Phlebas and The Player of Games especially). And Neal Stephenson - Zodiac and The Diamond Age thoroughly recommended Bruce Sterling's written some excellent stuff - Heavy Weather's the one I remember best Jeff Noon - Vurt, Pollen and Nymphomation J.G.Ballard has written many excellent books that could almost be considered SF - The Drowned World, The Burning World/The Drought, The Crystal World and High Rise are the closest Joe Haldeman - The Forever War is excellent - an interstellar Vietnam novel And if you like the "cosy catastrophe" style, give John Wyndham (Midwich Cuckoos, Day of the Kraken) and Fred Hoyle (The Black Cloud, The Inferno)
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Steve Echols wrote:
Anything by Niven and Pournelle is decent, especially Footfall.
Footfall and Mote in God's Eye are fantastic books. Also Niven and Pournelle did their own take on Dante's Inferno. Classic Stuff. But, and I hate to say this, stay away from Destiny's Road and Rainbow Mars....simply awful in my opinion.
Sovereign ingredient for a happy marriage: Pay cash or do without. Interest charges not only eat up a household budget; awareness of debt eats up domestic felicity. --Lazarus Long
Also, Legacy of Heorot was awesome! I agree about Rainbow Mars - pretty lame.
- S 50 cups of coffee and you know it's on! A post a day, keeps the white coats away!
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I'm a bit excited because there's a 35% discount at one book house here for all books in their SF collection, and I'm gonna spend some cash on that. The titles that I've chosen are: H2G2 Dune (the initial 6 volumes) Ender's Game & Ender's Shadow The Mars Trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars) I can't go wrong with these, can I? The only SF I've read so far is some Asimov, Childhood's End by Sir Arthur C Clarke and Starship Troopers.
blackjack2150 wrote:
The only SF I've read so far is some Asimov, Childhood's End by Sir Arthur C Clarke and Starship Troopers.
:omg: Dude, I don't even know where to start. :) I could recommend pretty close to a thousand books just off the top of my head if I had the time. Those all sound like good choices, Dune I'm not so keen on it's decent enough but there are about 1000 books ahead of it that are ultra classics but YMMV and I've no idea what H2G2 is. Remember you can get all those classics for probably even less at a decent sized used book store these days. I envy you, I've probably read every notable or even semi interested sci fi book ever published in the english language over the last 30+ years. It would be cool if I could take a pill and forget the plot of all those books and happily read them all again. :)
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it." -Sam Levenson
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I'm a bit excited because there's a 35% discount at one book house here for all books in their SF collection, and I'm gonna spend some cash on that. The titles that I've chosen are: H2G2 Dune (the initial 6 volumes) Ender's Game & Ender's Shadow The Mars Trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars) I can't go wrong with these, can I? The only SF I've read so far is some Asimov, Childhood's End by Sir Arthur C Clarke and Starship Troopers.
Dune is amazing.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.
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I'm a bit excited because there's a 35% discount at one book house here for all books in their SF collection, and I'm gonna spend some cash on that. The titles that I've chosen are: H2G2 Dune (the initial 6 volumes) Ender's Game & Ender's Shadow The Mars Trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars) I can't go wrong with these, can I? The only SF I've read so far is some Asimov, Childhood's End by Sir Arthur C Clarke and Starship Troopers.
blackjack2150 wrote:
Red Mars,
On this one I'd suggest skipping the first section of the book (festival night) until one of the interludes triggers a massive WTF when did that happen. It's an extended flash forward, but lacks context needed to really understand what's going on or to place the events. The first time I tried to read the book I quit because it didn't make sense on its own. It really read like book 2 of a series where the author didn't provide anything for new readers to help get them up to speed. I think the intent was to set a mood/tone for how future events were going to play out but the implementation sucked. IT works quite well as a mid book section though. PS The hardest part is leaving Earth behind.
Today's lesson is brought to you by the word "niggardly". Remember kids, don't attribute to racism what can be explained by Scandinavian language roots. -- Robert Royall
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Baen free library[^] :cool:
Visit http://www.notreadytogiveup.com/[^] and do something special today.
Of the titles listed, any that you reccommend?
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blackjack2150 wrote:
The only SF I've read so far is some Asimov, Childhood's End by Sir Arthur C Clarke and Starship Troopers.
:omg: Dude, I don't even know where to start. :) I could recommend pretty close to a thousand books just off the top of my head if I had the time. Those all sound like good choices, Dune I'm not so keen on it's decent enough but there are about 1000 books ahead of it that are ultra classics but YMMV and I've no idea what H2G2 is. Remember you can get all those classics for probably even less at a decent sized used book store these days. I envy you, I've probably read every notable or even semi interested sci fi book ever published in the english language over the last 30+ years. It would be cool if I could take a pill and forget the plot of all those books and happily read them all again. :)
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it." -Sam Levenson
John C wrote:
I've no idea what H2G2
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy?
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I'm a bit excited because there's a 35% discount at one book house here for all books in their SF collection, and I'm gonna spend some cash on that. The titles that I've chosen are: H2G2 Dune (the initial 6 volumes) Ender's Game & Ender's Shadow The Mars Trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars) I can't go wrong with these, can I? The only SF I've read so far is some Asimov, Childhood's End by Sir Arthur C Clarke and Starship Troopers.
Alastair Reynolds - All of His Novels are Excellent Kevin Anderson - Saga of the Seven Suns Simon Green - Deathstalker Series (Space Opera) I also recently read the collected works of HG Wells which were amazing especially considering when he wrote them.
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I'm a bit excited because there's a 35% discount at one book house here for all books in their SF collection, and I'm gonna spend some cash on that. The titles that I've chosen are: H2G2 Dune (the initial 6 volumes) Ender's Game & Ender's Shadow The Mars Trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars) I can't go wrong with these, can I? The only SF I've read so far is some Asimov, Childhood's End by Sir Arthur C Clarke and Starship Troopers.
Stephen Baxter: Titan and Evolution are superb, most of his stuff is very good. And I'll ditto calls for Iain M Banks, Asimov, Clarke etc.
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Another vote for Iain M Banks (Consider Phlebas and The Player of Games especially). And Neal Stephenson - Zodiac and The Diamond Age thoroughly recommended Bruce Sterling's written some excellent stuff - Heavy Weather's the one I remember best Jeff Noon - Vurt, Pollen and Nymphomation J.G.Ballard has written many excellent books that could almost be considered SF - The Drowned World, The Burning World/The Drought, The Crystal World and High Rise are the closest Joe Haldeman - The Forever War is excellent - an interstellar Vietnam novel And if you like the "cosy catastrophe" style, give John Wyndham (Midwich Cuckoos, Day of the Kraken) and Fred Hoyle (The Black Cloud, The Inferno)
Stuart Dootson wrote:
The Player of Games
Didn't get on with that on a first read - got very annoyed that the rules of the game itself weren't made plain. I will give it another go sometime. :)
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Stuart Dootson wrote:
The Player of Games
Didn't get on with that on a first read - got very annoyed that the rules of the game itself weren't made plain. I will give it another go sometime. :)
Steve_Harris wrote:
got very annoyed that the rules of the game itself weren't made plain
That was kind of the point, as far as I could tell - [SPOILER!!!!] the point was that until the end, Gurgeh didn't understand that the rules of the game were the rules of the Azad empire, and once he did, he (unknowingly) fulfilled what Contact/Special Circumstances expected, and started the decline of the empire. [/SPOILER!!!!]
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Of the titles listed, any that you reccommend?
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It depends on your tastes, I like Lois Bujold McMaster's books Mountains of Mourning[^] Keith Laumer's Retief[^] is humourous. Interstellar Patrol[^] is quite 'Buck Roger'. Take your pick, they're free!
Visit http://www.notreadytogiveup.com/[^] and do something special today.
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I'd recommend (in no particular order): Stephen Donaldson's "Gap" series; C J Cherryh's "Downbelow Station, "Cyteen" and others in that "future" (not her fantasy stuff, unless you're into that sort of nonsense...); Just about anythihg by Greg Bear; "Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson is a legend in it's own time - a real classic; And if you haven't read the graphic novel "The Watchmen" by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons you really really should... I've just re-read it and it still blows my mind... ..and any early Heinlein for some old classics ("The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress", "Stranger In A Strange Land", etc...) /edit - and Philip K Dick, of course... /edit
gmPhil wrote:
..and any early Heinlein for some old classics ("The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress", "Stranger In A Strange Land", etc...)
I second that. I read both those books last year. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress is one of the best sci-fi books I've ever read. I think it won the Hugo award back when it was published in the 60's.
Words fade as the meanings change, but somehow, it don't bother me.
