Your favorite Sci-Fi books

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. Necromancer - 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 :P

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

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If a philosopher fell down in the woods....would anyone care?

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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 :D),

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).

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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 :D),

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).

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which one of those was your favorite. I have heard of Asimov though i read the slightly newer books, although starship troopers was written in 1952 and neuromancer and I will fear no evil in the 70s. Snow crash was 1992 (it was written when the basic internet was prevelant thus is the most accurate depicition....as the metaverse actually does pretty much exist. Second life is a pretty faithful depiction of it and Uru online is more faithful but second life is a much more popular game.

Old man's war and ghost bridges are just fun novels.

It's hard to play favorites. Cats Cradle (1963) was my favorite book, period, through my late teens and early twenties. For just a fun adventure story, probably Time's Eye (2003), the first book of Clarke & Baxter's Time Odyssey. For a philosophical mind bender, Blood Music (1983). For more social commentary, The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) or Pastwatch (1997).

Oh, and I left these out, but for crazy-fun-brain-candy-space-adventure, you can't beat David Brin's Uplift series ('90s-'00s)

My dad used to have a whole attic full of old scifi pulp from the 50's to the 90's, literally boxes and boxes full... i only managed to save a few... mostly asimovs and heinleins, some other assorted stuff. I loved the Foundation series by asimov, and there's this one book that blew my mind... I forgot what its called, my friend has it now... Some random author, but about discovering an orb so large it had a star in the middle, so you could live inside... ther was so much space, each species that discovered it eventually devolved from advanced spacefaring species to simple pacifistic agrarian societies because of the enormous amount of resources living space and energy inside the orb. Well i kinda spoiled it now but I really loved discovering that concept.

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Originally Posted by CT

My dad used to have a whole attic full of old scifi pulp from the 50's to the 90's, literally boxes and boxes full... i only managed to save a few... mostly asimovs and heinleins, some other assorted stuff. I loved the Foundation series by asimov, and there's this one book that blew my mind... I forgot what its called, my friend has it now... Some random author, but about discovering an orb so large it had a star in the middle, so you could live inside... ther was so much space, each species that discovered it eventually devolved from advanced spacefaring species to simple pacifistic agrarian societies because of the enormous amount of resources living space and energy inside the orb. Well i kinda spoiled it now but I really loved discovering that concept.

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A Dyson Sphere: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere

I think one showed up in Star Trek TNG, and maybe in Brin's Uplift series, too. Greg Bear's Hegira is along similar lines, as well, but heads in a different direction.

Hmm...I don't read a lot but my favorite sci-fi book would have to be Storm Theif.

It's an awesome sci-fi, action, adventure thing and everything in it just seems to tie up at the end.

I'm currently loving the Takeshi Kovacs series by Richard K. Morgan, but in reality I don't do nearly enough reading. I also have Ringworld by Larry Niven but it'll probably take a while to get to it. Anyways I highly recommend it.

There is only one: The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy :P

I liked Frank Herbert's Dune.

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Originally Posted by MrDoom

I liked Frank Herbert's Dune.

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My dad read that book, said it was amazing.

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Originally Posted by Sound

There is only one: The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy :P

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Saw the movie and loved it....i just bought the book but I haven't started yet.

BTW i just picked up "the last colony" cause I finally found a book store that had it :bowdown:. Its the sequal to the ghost brigades/old man's war. I also picked up gridlinked.

but damn I have a lot of reading to catch up to all of you :eek:

I just read snow crash, the god father, tuesday's with murrey, the last colony

Snow crash atm is my absolute favorite book. God that book was amazing. It was like a ride i read it in two days and savored every bit of it.

Reading stranger in a strange land which is really really long but quite awesome.

The Foundation books are pretty good.

isnt that asimov?

Yep.

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Originally Posted by archdreamer

Yep.

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thats on my personal reading list. Than after the foundation series...dune

Sirens of Titan, by Kurt Vonnegut

I read a book by the name of "The Duplicate" in like 8th grade, about a teenage kid who cloned himself, was pretty interesting, I hear the auther has some other pretty interesting books.

My favourite short story is by Isaac Asimov: The Last Question

I just finished that book stranger in a strange land in a strange land and it is by far the best book i have ever read. It was really long book but the sheer depth of his psychology, philophy, and analysis of government and religion.

But snow crash was a completely different book it was a little bit easier of a read and a better book for entertainment.

Ok, whoever thinks Hitchhiker's Guide is good is officially a hipster doofus and a twat.

Ender's Game. Read it. Now. It's basically Starship Troopers, except original.

so u are saying that Starship Troopers isn't original? its one of the first book's heinlien wrote. And unlike most space novels it didn't focus on the fighting. It was about philosophy (which i love).

The movie was horrible because you can't make a movie from a book that is basically focused on philosophy.

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Originally Posted by aceofspades

The movie was horrible because you can't make a movie from a book that is basically focused on philosophy.

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Well, I only saw the movie, but it looked EXTREMELY similar to Ender's Game and took many cues from dozens of other space movies.

No doubt the Jump 325 trilogy, starting with Infoquake (sorry, its late no links at this time)

And the foundation series by Issac Asimov (sp?)

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Originally Posted by drewmandan

Well, I only saw the movie, but it looked EXTREMELY similar to Ender's Game and took many cues from dozens of other space movies.

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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.

I have to read hitch hiker's guide within the next month or so, anyone have opinions on it?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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

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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. :roll:

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. :cheeky:

Dune Series

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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 :P

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

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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 :D),

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).

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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.