Sci-Fi Books

Woden

Hi anyone wanna recommend some good Sci-Fi books to me?

I recommend to others Orson Scott Card's Enders Game and Enders Shadow Saga's

Iain M. Banks sci-fi stuff, especially "The player of games"

and recently read some philip k. dick short stories, think it was Volume 4 called Minority Report which was also quite good

Shinji

Been thinking about doing a post about SF literature here for a while, cheers for kicking me in the backside so that I actually do it

In terms of cyber-punk (which you may well enjoy if you liked the PKD stuff), William Gibson is still the daddy - Neuromancer, Virtual Light and Count Zero are probably his three best. Start with Neuromancer.

Neal Stephenson is the other god of cyberpunk - for me, Snow Crash is THE defining book of this kind of science fiction. The Diamond Age is also superb, and actually probably a better piece of literature than Snow Crash in a lot of ways.


For epic space battle stuff well writte, try CJ Cherryh. She's absolutely superb - excellent characters and sweeping story arcs. The Union/Company books are the place to start, either with the Cyteen books or with my personal favourite, Downbelow Station.

Stephen Baxter writes good science but terrible books. Avoid. The sole exception is his collaboration with Arthur C Clarke (still one of the great figures of science-fiction but terribly inconsistent), The Light of Other Days.

Alastair Reynolds is one of the most imaginative authors of the past few years, and his series of novels is downright superb - far-future science fiction with some mind-blowing concepts, and he's a damn fine writer too. Start with Revelation Space, and then work your way through Chasm City (arguably the low point of the series, but still an excellent book) and Redemption Ark. There's a pair of novellas out in softback now, Diamond Dogs / Turquoise Days, which is fun reading when you've finished reading the three main books of the series so far.

Greg Bear is quite a patchy author, but when he writes good stuff, he writes GREAT stuff. Read The Forge of God and then Anvil of Stars - those are his best books, and although Anvil of Stars is a sequel to Forge of God, they're very, very different novels, and each superb in their own way.

Richard Morgan has just started a very interesting series of books which are quite Blade Runner esque - near future science fiction mixed with almost film noir detective story and some pretty gruesome violence. Start with Altered Carbon, then move to Broken Angels.

You've already mentioned Iain M. Banks so there's no point singing his praises - but for any other SF fan reading this thread who hasn't read Player of Games, Use of Weapons or Look to Windward, sort your bloody life out and get your backside down to Easons this instant

Woden

cheers Shinji i'm not being smart here but could you elaborate a little on what you mean by cyberpunk. I'll check out William Gibson's stuff i'm sure i've seen it around

Use of Weapons

thought it was only o.k twist at the end was good though

working my way up to look to winward though

thanks again

data.

Shinji

Cyberpunk is basically near-future science fiction which focuses heavily on computers - networks, data flows etc. The Matrix is cyberpunk; a lot of Philip K Dick's work is cyberpunk. All of William Gibson is cyberpunk.

ykt0di9url7bc3

What shinji said....

Isaac Asimov is a great read...especially Foundation series.....

Woden

thanking you Shinji

Cloud

• Stephen Donaldson - The Gap series - but even better if you can take a bit of fantasy -> The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant series
• Isaac Asimov - Robot / Foundation series
• Patrick Tilley - The Amtrak Wars series - www.patrick-tilley.com
• Anything by Harlan Ellison

Ping Chow Chi

I also like C J cherryh - though some of her books can be a bit hit and miss, downbelow station is exellent, though I prefered Cyteen and the faded sun books.

Peter Hamilton is my favourite though - I have just read The Night's Dawn Trilogy and they have been the best books I have read

I wish I had know about Stephen Baxter though, I read the book he did with Arthur C CLarke, love it and went out and brought a couple more of his books, and just couldn't get into them.

Ben Bova is worth a mention - though again I find some of his books patchy and he seems to link charactors from previous books just for the sake of it sometimes.

MarVeL

I'd recommend Hamilton as well though I'd nearly go for his Mindstar books first as I found the ending of the Nights Dawn books to be disappointing. The basic concept for Nights Dawn was excellent though!

As for other authours I'd have to admit to being a bit of a Heinlein fan myself, in particular Job and Stranger in a Strange Land are excellent. Also the Niven and Pournelle books can be very good as are a lot of Niven's own books (his essay "Man of steel, woman of kleenex" has always struck me as a particularly interesting exploration of the potential problems of superpowers and deserves a special mention, it's on the net).

David Brin's Uplift books are also well worth reading

cerebus

Great suggestions from all the previous posters - especially William Gibson.

I'd recommend Kim Stanley Robinson, particularly the Red Mars/Green Mars/Blue Mars story arc. All about the colonization and eventual terraforming of Mars. They can be a bit heavy going at times, but are well worth reading.

If you are a Philip K Dick fan, there's a number of writers who lived near him in his later life and to whom he acted as a mentor of sorts - KW Jeter, Tim Powers and James Blaylock are all worth checking out. Some of what they write has become known as 'Steampunk' - sort of 19th century cyberpunk for want of a better description - and indeed, Gibson and Bruce Sterling got in on the Steampunk thing with The Difference Engine.

Have to agree with the choices of Heinlein and Asimov from a couple of previous posters - hard to beat the masters from the Golden Age! I just finished reading bothStarman Jones and The Door Into Summer by Heinlein a few days ago - picked them up for next to nothing in a second-hand bookstore. Good fun

BossArky

Peter F. Hamilton - The Night's Dawn Trilogy

If you like Sci-Fi and haven't read this trilogy of bookes then get them. Excellent stuff.

echomadman

Steven Donaldsons Gap Series rank very high in my "hard science" Sci-Fi charts

also Asimov's short story collections, which I prefer to the foundation series

Arthur C. Clarkes Novels

Patrick Tilley's Amtrak Wars are amazing

Joe Haldemans, The Forever war is a masterpiece.

All of phil K's stuff, the collections are excellent but you should read some of his novels.
He ranges from typical Sci Fi to more esoteric parallels with the nuclear family/McCarthy era america

John Brunner, Stand on Zanzibar, and The Sheep Look Up, are hard going but very fulfilling reads.

Kim Stanley Robinsons Mars trilogy is quite good too.


If you like the mood and tone of some of Phil Ks shorts try reading Ray Bradburys short stories and some of Kurt Vonneguts books are science fictionish too

All these as well as everything else mentioned here.

hrm i could go on forever....

Boro

Most of my fave sci-fi authors have been mentioned already but one of my favourite series has to be the Mote in Gods Eye one. I think it was by Niven and Pournelle (authors of another great book - Lucifers Hammer).

Kwizatz Anorak

Dune
Dune Messiah
Children of Dune
God Emperor of Dune
Heretics of Dune
Dune Chapterhouse (all by Frank Herbert)

Dune has won multiple literary awards and is just a really good story which spans about 4 thousand years. If you,like it it's one of those series of books that takes over your life for a while.

If you like those, his son has a few prequels out
House Atreides
House Harkonnen
House Corrino - a really good series itself

and theres a new series starting, set about 10,000 years before the first book

Legends of Dune "The Butlerian Jihad"

Enjoy..................

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

tad williams otherland series.. sweet mother of pearl that was a great series

trunks

mmm yea got to recoment David Wingrove the Chung Kuo series
there very good a bit long in places http://www.chungkuo.org/wingrove.html

and of course Paul J McAuley's Fairyland this is realy good book
but the "Confluence" books are not to good

Ping Chow Chi

just finished reading Peter Hamilton's Fallen Dragon, exellent book

Hey.

Douglas Adams books are hilarious. They are so funny!:)

Woden

Have purchased Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash and The Diamond Age anyway, will get the nights dawn trilogy when i get through my ever increasing reading list it seems ,

yeah the douglas adams stuff is good, i also enjoyed the salmon of doubt which i read recently

Sarky

If you're in any way familiar with the Warhammer 40,000 universe (and even if you're not, the books give you enough background to appreciate it all...), I'd recommend a couple of those books. Dan Abnett has really impressed me with his Gaunt's Ghosts series. It's like a good war film, with extra technology, and a bit of magic thrown in for good measure.

Tree

greg bear's eon is great.
herberts dune series is fab
azimovs foundation and robot, (BTW if does anyone have a copy of the second empire novel?)
Clarke's Rama series and the 2001 series.
Dan Simmons Endymion and the Rise of Endymion
Robert Reed's Marrow

got oodles more i cant think of offhand

Jack B. Badd

Robert Reed's Well of Stars (sequel to Marrow) is likewise good but not to the same extent as Marrow. Nice to know Marrow wasn't a one-off though

pH

First let me recommend Singularity Sky by Charles Stross, and then add that another novel by him Accelerando is available as a free download under a CC license.

Older books that in the past I loved and haven't already been mentioned ...

Brian Aldiss - Helliconia Trilogy - I have memories of trying to read it a number of times but when I finally managed I loved it.

Other books from this time I have fond memories of are Harry Harrisons - especially his West of Eden trilogy

John Wyndham - Get yourself to a second hand bookshop and get anything from him. You can probably get his entire back catalog for a fiver! - The Kracken Wakes, Midwich Cuckoos, Trouble with Lichen and of course the Triffids ....

And while we're back here in a 2nd hand bookshop pick up "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes. It's a million miles from Hard-SF but is an immensely rewarding read - winning a Hugo and a Nebula - back in the day they meant something

Hagar

Anything by Larry Niven - The Ringworld books are especially worth a read.

Cronus333

Mordeth wrote:

tad williams otherland series.. sweet mother of pearl that was a great series

great stuff. Id also recomend the Hyperion Quartet (Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion, Endymion, the rise of Endymion) by Dan Simmons, They were a great series.

Hitch-Hiker

Kwizatz Anorak wrote:

Dune
Dune Messiah
Children of Dune
God Emperor of Dune
Heretics of Dune
Dune Chapterhouse (all by Frank Herbert)

Dune has won multiple literary awards and is just a really good story which spans about 4 thousand years. If you,like it it's one of those series of books that takes over your life for a while.

If you like those, his son has a few prequels out
House Atreides
House Harkonnen
House Corrino - a really good series itself

and theres a new series starting, set about 10,000 years before the first book

Legends of Dune "The Butlerian Jihad"

Enjoy..................

I love the Dune saga too. recommended to everyone, althugh I felt it lost its way a bit in the last two, what with the Honoured Matres and all.

Tree

legends of dune series were kinda crap, well i found them crap, my friend who read them before readding dune enjoyed them and then said they were crap compared to dune

Demetrius

Ilium by Dan Simmons, one of the best science fiction novels ever. Also 2001 series by Clark along with Rama. Space by Baxter is also qiuite good.

CiDeRmAn

Not to sure now about the space, time and origin series by Baxter, like a lot of his recent stuff he seems to be way off form, still can't forgive him for the woolly mammoth books, but the Xeelee sequence was fantastic and the time ships a great officially sanctioned sequel to the time machine.
I have found foundation and dune sagas to be a big waste of time, getting bogged down in soapy nonsense, read the first 3 foundation books starting with foundation itself, heck just read that and you will enjoy it and save yourself a lot of time. The dune books just got rubbish, the first 3 I liked but then it disappeared up itsown blackhole.
I second Stand on Zanzibar, awesome book and hard going and you only appreciate the scope of it when you get to the end.
Illium does inded rock, can't wait to get Olympos.
Yes, yes do get Flowers for Algernon, i work with folk with learning disabilities and I have to say I would be relatively hardened but it really touched me in a way I never thought SciFi would.
Cities In Flight, The Forever War both must haves.
Case of Conscience and Black Easter have to be read also, Blish at his best.
And of course Richard Morgan and his Takeshi Kovacs books some of the best most intense stuf I have read this past couple of years.

Strange no one has mentioned Michael Marshall Smith, Spares, Only Forward, One of Us, super stuff and no one has mentioned Ken McLeod, Cassini Divison, Stone Canal etc, if you like Iain M Banks, this guy is a mate of his and equally brilliant.

Hagar

I haven't heard of Black Easter in years. A great read for sure.
If any one has a spare copy I would gladly buy it.

quad_red

Neal Stephenson - Cryptonimicon. Fast, sharp, hilarious, cutting yet encapsulating some very complicated concepts. Excellent.

Stephenson: The Baroque cycle
Quicksilver, The Confusion, The System of the World
A trilogy set hundreds of years before Cryptonimicon (set in WWII and current day) yet containing many of the same characters Superb but you have to stick with it.

Richard Matheson: I am Legend.
Superb vampire sci fi

Daniel Keyes: Flowers for Algernon

Jack McDevitt's: The Engines of God
Space opera with some big ideas

Hamilton: Nightdrawn Trilogy

David Brin: The Uplift Series - particulary Sundiver, Startide Rising, The Uplift War etc.