The Sci-Fi Book Thread

  • Guest, it's time once again for the hotly contested and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!



    Go here and fill out your bracket!
    Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Once again, only you can decide!

Zhakrin

Trakanon Raider
19
2
sci-fi:

Weber- harrington or the books he did with White, his Dahak Series (first two books-third book is more "fantasy" in nature(planet that lost tech. all books combined into empire from the ashes)
Campbell's Lost Fleet series
john ringo's looking glass series that he did with travis "doc" taylor(Darpa employed rocket scientist, and star of rocket city rednecks). it starts alt-earth and ends up with space travel & space marines.
John Ringo's Troy Series (starts alt earth and ends with planetoid battle stations in space.

lets see what else has not been listed...

well going to old pulp fiction, the Perry Rhodan Series (it is dated-tech wise, starts out in the late 1960's) and only 130ish books got translated.
For some reason after reading book 3 of the Dahak series i feel that i formed the basis of his Safehold series, there seem to be a lot of parallels.
 

Zhakrin

Trakanon Raider
19
2
Big fan of the Deathstalker series, its a bit of a guilty pleasure though. You know its crap, but its a FUN read!
 

dnL

Molten Core Raider
28
18
I had never read a Philip K Dick book prior to a few weeks ago, but on a whim I bought and read The Zap Gun. It's a pretty entertaining story, albeit it could use a good editing to remedy some of the problems the story had with serialization. It's witty, and offers some great insights and parodies of the Cold War. I think I gave it a 3 or 3.5/5 on LibraryThing for being entertaining enough, but lacking real substance and having issues with lengthy and unnecessary prose due to serialization.

Because of that I did go to the store to pick up another PKD book, The Man Who Japed. It's another one that isn't super popular, but I wanted to give it a shot as it has an interesting premise.

Any thoughts on PKD, The Zap Gun, or The Man Who Japed?
 

T-rex_sl

shitlord
28
0
PKD is certainly my favorite scifi author. The Man Who Japed is one of few books that I haven't read, though. In his case, the most popular novels are the definitely among the best (A Scanner Darkly and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch are probably my favorite.) Out of the less popular, I think The Zap Gun rates pretty highly, although I really like Galactic Pot Healer as well.

In the general scheme of scifi, PKD was definitely a trailblazer. Some of the settings and concepts he used were familiar, but he was definitely asking different questions from his contemporaries. Reality, identity, conception of time ... Dick certainly valued the perception of his characters more than the technology and events. I don't think it is difficult to see these themes in The Zap Gun.

In a more personal sense, I really enjoy reading PKD because (with the exception of a couple novels) it seems to me like Dick writes because the result hold answers for him. That's why his best novels are those that come from the heart. A Scanner Darkly and Confessions of a Crap Artist are probably the best examples. While there are many fictional layers, both these novels come from some level of personal experience and it seems to me like he is trying to find meaning by looking at his life from an alternate, omniscient perspective.

I could talk about PKD all day. I just hope they stop making terrible movie adaptations of his novels/short stories (not talking about Blade Runner).
 

Kinkle_sl

shitlord
163
1
Just read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep for the first time and might've come thiiiiiiis close to becoming a nihilist. Powerful shit.

For anyone really interested in scifi, pick up the Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction. Is a compilation of many of the best short stories I've ever read, and just happens to also be all science fiction.
 

T-rex_sl

shitlord
28
0
That does look like an interesting list, but a bit lacking. They chose "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" and "Supertoys Last All Summer Long" because they have movies based on them, they are far from the best by Dick and Aldiss.

"'Repent Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman" is similarly not Ellison's best, but it is pretty good. If I had to chose something to represent Ellison it would probably be "I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream."

I understand that weren't trying to make a best ever list, though, because if it were it would be half Ellison and the rest Sturgeon.
 

Kinkle_sl

shitlord
163
1
Yeah, they seemed to be going for more of an all-around evenly distributed anthology based on theme. Even the index has the stories listed by alphabetical author, but then re-lists them into categories of Alien Encounters, Apocalypse/Post-Apocalypse, Artificial/Posthuman Life-Forms, Computers and Virtual Reality, Evolution and Environment, Gender and Sexuality, Time Travel and Alternate History, Utopias/Dystopias, and War and Conflict. They also seem to be trying to encompass the history of science fiction as well, starting with Jules Verne and going as recent as 2008.
 

Wolfen_sl

shitlord
746
12
Finished the Void trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton. I liked it but I wasn't crazy about how the final confrontation went down. A bunch of people standing around talking? I was expecting some serious action. It was a good series overall, but the ending was bleh.
 

Composter

Golden Knight of the Realm
505
22
I just finished Old Man's War. I really enjoyed it. I realized that is the first non-school book I've read in almost a year, and I MISSED reading...read half the book in 3 hours today.

As far as a recommendation that I haven't seen yet: Santiago by Mike Resnick. Very very good book.
 

Seventh

Golden Squire
892
15
I just finished Old Man's War. I really enjoyed it. I realized that is the first non-school book I've read in almost a year, and I MISSED reading...read half the book in 3 hours today.
The follow-ups are all just as good, but do NOT pick up Zoe's Tale. It's a retelling of The Lost Colony (which was good) from the POV of the main character's teenage daughter. It reads like a young adult book and was just overall a terrible idea on Scalzi's part. I couldn't even finish it.
 

Tango_Down_sl

shitlord
5
0
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned William Gibson yet. The Sprawl trilogy is probably still one of my favorites. On the other hand, I probably everyone has just assumed that everyone else has already read them.

Someone mentioned Larry Niven earlier. I haven't read his earlier work, but his latest, "Of Worlds," series is amazing. It starts at:

1) Fleet of Worlds
2) Juggler of Worlds
3) Destroyer of Worlds
4) Betrayer of worlds

And it's continuing. Sci-fi book about intergalactic politics, intrigue, alien races and a lot of interesting theories and well-put together conclusions.
 

Gask

Bronze Baron of the Realm
11,752
44,146
Someone mentioned Larry Niven earlier. I haven't read his earlier work, but his latest, "Of Worlds," series is amazing.
I recently read his Ringworld and The State series and found them to be enjoyable but they all seemed to follow the same basic structure and they all end a bit weak. They each begin with a person or group of people starting out on an adventure of some sort (usually against their will) followed by the usual challenges, a lot of inter species fornication and a final confrontation that doesn't ever get fully resolved (in a satisfying way).

They were fun for what they were though.
 

Rallox_sl

shitlord
6
0
Long time lurker...some good scifi books to check into are:
Space naval combat series: To Honor You Call Us (Man of War series) by Harvey G. Phillips
Time traveling duel to the end, has two characters one traveling back through time and one traveling forward through time: Orion: A Novel by Ben Bova
 

Gask

Bronze Baron of the Realm
11,752
44,146
The Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. Can't recommend it enough.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_trilogy
Thanks for this, I'm on book two and enjoying it quite a bit. It is a fun story despite the frequently heavy handed descriptions of places and processes that will never be revisited in a meaningful way. But anyone that has read WoT should be well prepared and able to skim at need
smile.png
.
 

Rod-138

Trakanon Raider
1,136
887
Excellent SciFi reads

Dan Simmons - Hyperion series, Illium, and Olympos. The best Sci FI you will ever read hands down.
Orson Scott Card, Enders Game. The others in the series, and the Bean series are good books, however it is like comparing Dune to its Sequels, they all pale in comparison.
Robert A. Heinlein - Starship Troopers
Richard K. Morgan - Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, and Woken Furies. Market Forces and Black Man were ok books
Roger Zelazny - Lord of Light, this is perhaps one of the best books of all times, and is on par with the likes of Hyperion as far as quality of the read.
Peter F hamilton - The Commonwealth Saga (excellent space opera), Fallen Dragon, The Night's Dawn series are all reasonably good books.
Hannu Rajaniemi - The Quantum Thief
Larry Niven - A Mote in God's Eye, and to a less extent The Gripping hand. The ringworld series are also good.
Herbert - Dune, skip the other books, none of them even remotely compare.
John Scalzi - Old Mans War is excellent the rest of the seriers are ok.

There is one series with a good amount of space combat, but it' name fails me. I will put it in here once I remember.

If you Like Halo read Greg Bear - Cryptum
thanks for the recommendations, I read stranger in strange land and The Mote in God's Eye during this latest work hitch.

Stranger was pretty good, but Mote blew me away. I was really into the technology / zerg style razor they were skating on. cool book!
 

BrotherWu

MAGA
<Silver Donator>
2,996
5,770
Thanks for this, I'm on book two and enjoying it quite a bit. It is a fun story despite the frequently heavy handed descriptions of places and processes that will never be revisited in a meaningful way. But anyone that has read WoT should be well prepared and able to skim at need
smile.png
.
Just finished book 1. I have to say that it took perseverance; parts were just painful to get through. I mean, how much time can you spend rambling on about people roaming around Mars? Turns out quite a bit.

I bought book 2 and I'm going to give it a go after a hiatus.
 

King Ashram_sl

shitlord
7
0
John Ringo and David Weber - Empire of Man books (March Upcountry and so on). really fun reads if you like to see the evolutoin of warfare in fast pace.