Thread: Your favorite Sci-Fi books

Originally Posted by aceofspades

oh the movie...now the movie I will agree....SUCKED. you see hienlien has never been one for that kind of stuff. He is big into philosophy and the plot of the book is just a way to tie in a certain philosophy that he is trying to show u.

But yah i really want to read the foundation series because ive head such ogod things about it from everyone i know.

Favorite science fiction series of all time, READ IT.

I read an interesting book called "The Dark Beyond the Stars" and I recommend it. A huge space craft left Earth to look for life on other planets and to look for other life-sustaining planets.

Originally Posted by Amazon.com

Sparrow is a crew member on the Astron , a multigenerational ship sent from earth on an unavailing, 2000-year search for other life-bearing worlds. On the last planet, Seti IV, Sparrow fell off a cliff and nearly died, losing his memory in the process. While recovering in sick bay and also while back on the job, he is beset by more accidents. Eventually he decides that someone is trying to kill him. Trying to find out who and why, Sparrow is plunged into an ever-deepening mystery; nobody will discuss his past with him, the computer has restricted his data, and the little he does discover about his history leads only to further secrets.

The Captain of the ship is also "immortal" and goes a bit crazy, not wanting to abandon his mission, but rather wants to take the ship through "the dark" from one spiral of the Milky Way to the next, but the rest of the crew isn't so sure.

I wonder where my copy went.

You really can't go wrong with Robert A. Heinlein and Orson Scott Card. Kurt Vonnegut and Douglas Adams (HHGttG is one of my favorite trilogies of all time, and Douglas Adams is my second favorite author) for respectively funnier yet not at all lighter reading, L. Ron Hubbard for some very original concepts and great writing, Timothy Zahn for some excellent writing with more original ideas (The Icarus Hunt is superb). Alan Dean Foster is another favorite of mine, and Gordon R. Dickson (namely Wolf And Iron) is damn good as well. Piers Anthony is awesome, and Poul Anderson and Dave Wolverton have their moments.

I'm sure I can think of a few others, given time. I read more fantasy than hard sci-fi these days.

HGTG series

Citizen of the Galaxy - Heinlein

And the guy that wrote Dune is pretty good too

And MOS, HGTG is not a trilogy. There's the original, Restaurant at the end of the universe: Life, the Universe and Everything; So long and thanks for the all the fish and Mostly Harmless. AND he meant to do a 6th book called the salmon of doubt where all the characters would meet back together in heaven

=biggest douglas adams fan ever

Originally Posted by Omnius Deus

HGTG series

Citizen of the Galaxy - Heinlein

And the guy that wrote Dune is pretty good too

And MOS, HGTG is not a trilogy. There's the original, Restaurant at the end of the universe: Life, the Universe and Everything; So long and thanks for the all the fish and Mostly Harmless. AND he meant to do a 6th book called the salmon of doubt where all the characters would meet back together in heaven

=biggest douglas adams fan ever

You're a pretty pathetic excuse for a Douglas Adams fan if you don't know what I mean when I say the HGtG Trilogy.

I would call it a saga.

Don't condescend me, I'll make you eat your parents.

What I meant by that, is that while it is technically a quintology, any true Douglas Adams fan would know that he always referred to HHGttG as a trilogy. It's an inside joke, I guess. Amongst us real Douglas Adams fans.

Dune Series

Originally Posted by aceofspades

I really got into Sci-Fi this summer and read 6 Sci-fi books in the span of 1 1/2 months.

They include:

1. Neuromancer - William Gibson
2. Old Man's War - John Scalzi
3. Ghost Brigades (sequel to old man's war) - John Scalzi
4. Starship Troopers - Heinlein
5. Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
6. I will fear no evil - Heinlein

My favorite book was probably Snow Crash. Loved reading ever moment of it and it was quite a wild ride.

I also enjoyed Starship Troopers as it was so far apart and so much better than the movie. I will fear no evil was the longest book I read and was quite an interesting read...learned a lot about women.

Neuromancer was the first Sci-Fi book i read and was probobly one of hardest Sci-Fi books so I might reread it later. It just went way over my head since I didn't really understand it.

Old Man's War and Ghost Brigades were easy reads and were very entertaining. Wasn't really too much philosophy like my other books. So they were alright none the less...good reads.

So what have you guys read

Also if any one wants to talk philosophy I ain't gonna stop em. Philosophical dance...."does it really exist or am I just imagining this dance"

Originally Posted by Taosaur

I haven't read anything lately that blew me away, but you can't go wrong with some classics:

Ursula K. LeGuin--The Left Hand of Darkness, or any of her Hain books

Arthur C. Clarke--Songs of Distant Earth, Childhood's End, or his recent Time Oddysey series w/ Stephen Baxter

Greg Bear--Blood Music (Moving Mars is also pretty sweet)

Orson Scott Card--Pastwatch: the Redemption of Christopher Columbus, and I can't fault Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead, though the series goes south fast from there

Asimov + ??--The Positronic Man

Lawrence Manning--The Man Who Awoke (it's a rarer pulp novel from the '30s, but I think there's been a recent reprint)

And if you don't mind veering a bit into magical realism (I highly recommend that you do ),

Vonnegut--Cats Cradle

Italo Calvino--Cosmicomics (on a less sci-fi note, If on a Winter's Night a Traveller is probably the best novel I've read in the last five years).

Going to look into those of your´s I do not yet know!
Sure - I know Asimov and Heinlein and they are masters of course, but very widely known, too.
And what would the world be without the "Hitchhiker´s Guide"..??
Thanks!

And the authors I put in fat lettering are among my favourites, too!
For John Scalzi - definitively don´t miss out on "The Android´s Dream" and I really like the "young-adult-fiction" book belonging into Old Man´s War, too - "Zoe´s Tale".
For Gibson I esp. like "Virtual Light" but basically read and liked almost all of them.

Neal Stevenson, though - he is my all time hero - the one who wrote Snow Crash.
And "Anathem" is my all time favourite novel: Wikipedia Anathem

But getting quite some heavy, heavy competition with what I read at the moment after Sageous recommendation - "The Winter Horse" by Mark Helprin - this is such wonderful stuff - hard to find words there - I am really deeply moved. I would call it fantastic fiction after being not far in, and it has got to do with dreaming - also lucid dreaming.
I asked him for a tip, because he also deems Anathem a great book..

For something less than a 1000 pages of Stephenson´s and a great sci-fi novel, too: "The Diamond Age".
I read every single book of his and am yet to be disappointed.. while the latest stuff - Reamde and The Mongoliad are maybe the ones I like least..
Check out the Baroque Cycle, if you are interested in not only science fiction.

I agree with shadowofwind - Neal Asher and Aleister Reynolds are a bit dark and violent but genial both.
I have a recommendation of his as well to yet try out: Vandana Singh.
And one to revisit after a tip of dutchraptor´s - Peter F. Hamilton for his Commonwealth Saga and the Void trilogy.




Small list of other science fiction authors I really, really like:

Greg Egan I read Quarantine, Diaspora, short story collections "Axiomatic" and "Luminous" and more

Ian M. Banks - for example The Algebraist, but all of the Culture Series, and actually all others - I think, I read them all, and I´m afraid the Scott is dead now...He did write "normal" fiction as well, as Ian Banks.

Lois McMaster Bujold and her Vorkosigan Saga, read it all, and can´t wait for a new book of hers - very unique and funny

Paolo Bacigalupi - he wrote very good short stories, didn´t read a novel of his, though

Kim Stanley Robinson - Mars Trilogy - this is something with "real" scientists - in the sense, that they and other´s personalities and the story are compellingly realistic and seeming possible.

Charles Stross - Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise, Accelerando

David Marusek - really great collection of shorts: "Getting to Know You" and also "Counting Heads" and "Mind Over Ship"

Vernor Vinge - bit easier to digest than some of the above - I did enjoy "A Deepness In The Sky" and "Fire Upon The Deep of his, too.