Any good book's?

FSOneblin · Post by **FSOneblin** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 6:26 pm

Well, I Know you people are into science fiction, so are there any Science fiction book's that you people (and cats humanoids, exe) suggest reading? I also think I might start watching battle star galacta.

Don't panic: FSOneblin

Ace Garp · Post by **Ace Garp** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 7:01 pm

ANYTHING by Arthur C Clarke is highly recommended.

(OK, I haven't read ALL of them, but what I have read has always been superb)

Post by **Disembodied** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 7:10 pm

Well, it depends on what you're interested in. For Space Opera -- big-scale stuff, interstellar shenanigans, galactic empires and the like, there are classics such as Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, and Frank Herbert's Dune books (although I don't think that any of the later books in the Dune series were as good as the original; still, the first one is well worth reading). There Iain M. Banks's "Culture" novels, too: start with Consider Phlebas and maybe move on to The Player of Games (a favourite of mine) and Use of Weapons before moving on to the weirder Excession. The stand-alone Against a Dark Background is good fun too, as is Feersum Endjinn.

For less epic, more gritty and often nasty cyberpunk stuff, Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash is a laugh (the main character is called Hiro Protagonist, and he delivers pizza for the Mafia). The Diamond Age is good too. William Gibson's Neuromancer, Count Zero and The Mona Lisa Overdrive are great books. Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix is an exellent future history. Michael Swanwick's Vacuum Flowers, and the novella Griffin's Egg, are brilliant, although you might have to look for them second-hand. Charles Stross produces some fairly mind-bending stuff: Accelerando is one example. Ken MacLeod's novels are good, too: I like his Fall revolution series, The Star Fraction, The Stone Canal, The Cassini Division and The Sky Road. Quite political, though.

Also quite political, and quite "hard" SF, are Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars books, about the settlement and terraforming of the planet in the near future. And of course there's George Orwell's 1984, and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World... and speaking of classics, there's H.G. Wells's The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine, too.

Jack Vance writes excellent SF, as well as fantasy: The Dragon Masters (a novella) is great, and his latest (possibly last) books, set in "the Gaean Reach" are good fun even if there often isn't much of what you could call a plot... Ports of Call and Lurulu are really just about trundling around the stars in a tramp freighter. Of his fantasy stuff, The Dying Earth books are very, very good, and very funny too in their way.

M. John Harrison's Light and Nova Swing, and The Centauri Device, are bogglingly good, although (no offence!) if you're 13 I'd leave it a few years! I'm pushing 40 (with my face) and I had to take them slowly...

I still don't understand Nova Swing, although I definitely enjoyed it.

David Brin's Uplift books, just about anything by Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury's short stories (The Illustrated Man is a belter of a collection), Larry Niven's Tales of Known Space books (Protector, Ringworld and so on), Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5... a whole bunch of other stuff. Oh, Alastair Reynolds books: quite "hard" SF again (no faster-than-light, for a start), but good when you get into them.

LittleBear · Post by **LittleBear** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 7:53 pm

The Dice Man (non-sci fi) but one of the best books I've ever read. Also His Dark Materials, The Dark Tower Series, Foundation, The Big Over Easy & The Fourth Bear and all the Thursday Next series! The Dark Tower Series.

Post by **Disembodied** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 9:02 pm

...and there's our own (sort of -- he wrote The Dark Wheel) Robert Holdstock's Mythago Wood, which is great, too: some might class it as "fantasy" -- it won a World Fantasy Award -- but it all depends on where you draw the line between fantasy and SF. And Stephen Baxter's "Xeelee Sequence" short stories and novels are good. Greg Egan's worth reading, too. And I already mentioned Charles Stross, but if you've ever read any H.P. Lovecraft you should check out The Atrocity Archive and The Jennifer Morgue: very funny! "Saving the world is Bob Howard's job. There are a surprising number of meetings involved." Oh, and Brian Aldiss's Helliconia trilogy is worth a go.

Post by **Kaks** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 10:22 pm

Since noone else mentioned them, Orson Scott Card's Ender and Ender's Shadow series are pretty much classics, and Heinlein's "Job" is an excellent example of alternate reality sf.
Hamilton's The Reality Dysfunction series is pretty epic too...

FSOneblin · Post by **FSOneblin** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 10:36 pm

Ok, thank's for the sudgestions. I think I might write an oolite book for kid's: The Little Adder that could. I only sifi book(s) I read was The Ultiment hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy (witch is 6 books). But keep them coming. If there are more reader's out there they could look at this thread.

Don't panic: FSOneblin

P.S. How many add's could an adder advertise if an adder could advertise adds?

TGHC · Post by **TGHC** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 11:15 pm

You could also have a look at the 64 fiction entries in the Elite/Frontier/Oolite wiki, some of them are short novellas others are massive endeavors.

FSOneblin · Post by **FSOneblin** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 12:05 am

TGHC wrote:
You could also have a look at the 64 fiction entries in the Elite/Frontier/Oolite wiki, some of them are short novellas others are massive endeavors.

Hmm... The Main computer was about to be desteroid, I saw my 2nd mate's escape Adder fly out into the void, The laser fire hit the windshield, The computer said "goooooood niiiiiight" Then, BAM! The main computer was down. I had to use my old one, that kept talking about the letter r.
"Teddy" I shouted "Did you look through the Corgo! was there any C4 in the firearms!
"5 tones" replied Teddy
"Great!" I shouted, And ejected all of the fire arms, and it hit the renaged's ship, then BOOM! The C4 did it's job.

But then I Herd an alarm. The Wind shield! It was about to break!

Don't Panic: FSOneblin

Cmdr. Maegil · Post by **Cmdr. Maegil** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 3:23 am

"Teddy," I shouted, "did you look through the Cargo? Is there any 1000-YEARS OLD OBSOLETE PLASTIC EXPLOSIVE in the firearms?[/quote]

Watch your grammar, question marks can make a lot of difference!

Commander McLane · Post by **Commander McLane** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 6:15 am

As I don't recall him ever mentioned in any SF reading suggestion here, I have to include Stanislaw Lem to the list of great SF authors. On my personal list he is ranked at least equally with Arthur C. Clarke. Perhaps he is not as known in the English-speaking world as he certainly deserves to be?

He has written quite a lot of short storys, some of them also very funny. But most of it is as dark as we like our Oolite. The main underlying topic in his work is a healthy scepticism towards the future and our human abilities to deal with the challenges it may pose to us, not on the technical level, but on the cognitive/mental/spiritual levels. E.g. he has written a couple of books (Solaris perhaps being the best known) about how encounters with alien civilizations go wrong, terribly wrong or catastrophically wrong, because the humans, due to their own, human perceptions must fail to understand and interprete what's going on around them. (It may be supposed that the aliens involved suffer from the same perceptional shortcomings and therefore may carry their share of responsibility for the catatrophic outcome, but the stories are written from a human point of view; and it's the humans who are the driving force in wanting to establish contact, anyway. The aliens haven't been asked whether or not they want to meet humans.) It is so much more disturbing than your usual, everyday SF-series in TV, where all the aliens basically look and act like humans.

Great novels, great author. But because of his more philosophical than technical theme perhaps also one to wait for a couple of more years if you're 13.

Lestradae · Post by **Lestradae** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 6:46 am

If someone is interested in a hardcore sf space opera that includes a visionary projection of how future technologies might change mankind, I suggest Peter F. Hamilton`s Commonwealth series.

Over a course of 1500 years (from about 2040 to 3500) his stories are based on a background concept of what technological, biological (aging has been conquered), social, political, economical, spiritual and even sexual implications human expansion into space would have. And, notably, none of his aliens look human, feel human, even think human - some are so different that real contact is impossible, or indeed, catastrophic.

The books are "Misspent Youth" (2040), "Pandoras Star" (2350), "Judas Unchained" (2350) and "The Dreaming Void" (3500), with another two books (also 3500) upcoming.

You can find more about the series here:

http://www.peterfhamilton.co.uk//index. ... mmonwealth

Another real gem that is online is a collaborate effort of many different authors to make an educated guess at the future in 10.000 years. It`s very, very interesting even from a non-scifi view. It`s called "Orion`s Arm" and can be found here:

http://www.orionsarm.com/main.html

Enjoy

L

Hoopy · Post by **Hoopy** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 8:05 am

Lots of good suggestions there. My top few authors SF would be something like (in no particularl order):
Peter F Hamilton
Richard Morgan
Alastair Reynolds

I lied, those are my top three! Here are some more:

Arthur C Clarke (I prefer the longer series so Rama and 2001)
Isaac Asimov (longer series so Foundation and the Robot series)
Greg Bear (although he's a bit hit and miss)
Iain M Banks (a bit variable but player of games is great, Feersum Injun requires patience that I didn't have)
Robert Reed
Charles Stross (seems good, only read a couple)
Neal Stephenson (watch out as some of them are historical SF, an interesting concept but maybe not what you're looking for)
Kim Stanely Robertson (Mars series is great, just bought some others to try)

Lestradae · Post by **Lestradae** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 10:39 am

Yeah, I definitely second Alastair Reynolds` series.

Oh, and concerning TV series:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/

The longest-running still-producing scfi series ever ... since 1963, 45 years

Someone here even made a TARDIS oxp ...

bulrush · Post by **bulrush** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 6:08 pm

Personally I liked, and have reread:

- Rama series

- Ringworld series

- Any of the "Foundation" series by Asimov.

- Starwars books.

- Phil Foglio's graphical novel "Buck Godot: Zapgun for Hire." Shorter than a typical book, but the subtle expressions on the characters are priceless.