I go more by authors than books.
Peter F Hamilton
Robert Heinlein
Robert Silverberg
Timothy Zahn
Patrick Tilley
Tad Williams
Philip K. Dick
John Wyndham
Lucian’s True Histories. It is probably the first sci fi novel. It’s a short, fun read.
last one I read was “Ender’s Game” back when I was in middle school. Great book by Orson Scott Card
I made my post then read through this thread a little bit. I had no idea that OSC was so popular.
How were the sequels to Ender’s Game? It seemed like it didn’t end very open ended… then again, I guess Ender was still only a kid by the book’s end.
[quote]CU AeroStallion wrote:
I made my post then read through this thread a little bit. I had no idea that OSC was so popular.
How were the sequels to Ender’s Game? It seemed like it didn’t end very open ended… then again, I guess Ender was still only a kid by the book’s end.[/quote]
Ender’s Game is a classic. OSC himself is one of the bigger names in SF.
Speaker for the Dead, the direct sequel to Ender’s Game, was a pretty good book. Xenocide sort of sucked. I never got to the fourth book in the quartet (Children of the Mind)
OSC also wrote a parallel series starring Bean. It starts with Ender’s Shadow, which covers the exact same events as Ender’s Game, but from a different POV. It’s an interesting book, but doesn’t really compare to the original. There are sequels to Ender’s Shadow, but I never read them (Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets, Shadow of the Giant).
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
Ok, well due to the other two mentions of scifi FANTASY, you need to look into…
LOTR–given, as this is the landmark that largely rejuvenated, no, resurrected, the epic fantasy genre. Also, Tolkien created 10 languages from scratch, you know, just to add depth. He’s a literary god.
Game of Thrones (1st book), and the rest of the “song of fire and ice” series (I think that’s the name) by George R.R. Martin. I’m in the middle of it. Totally unpredictable, which is very unusual for me. Pretty hard edged as far as fantasy goes (ie–not a classic, noble, Arthurian fantasy. This is down and dirty), and that’s a great thing here. I was/am [b]completely[/b] unable to figure out who is going to bite the dust.[/quote]
Gotta agree with the Song of Ice and Fire. Other good series in this genre are…
The Wheel of Time(books 1-8 are really on par with Martin’s stuff but the last 3 or 4 books have been blah)
Though its somewhat juvenile I really enjoy RA Salvatore’s stuff as well as The Dragonlance series that someone mentioned earlier.
The DeathGate Cycle by Margret Weis and Tracy Hickman
[quote]ephrem wrote:
…the ultimate in sci-fi: The Hyperion Saga by Dan Simmons![/quote]
I agree. This series is a great read. Doesn’t get any better than this.
1- Hyperion
2- The fall of Hyperion
3- Endymion
4- The rise of Endymion
Harry Harrison’s “Stainless Steel Rat” series is very entertaining, as is Keith Laumer’s “Retief” satire series. Keith Laumer also has the “Bolo” self-aware battle tank series. David Gerrold has a series on an ecological invasion of earth called the “War Against the Chtorr”, but who knows if this series will ever be finished. (His web site says he’s working on it.) All good reads in my opinion.
The Left Hand of Darkness by Le Guin
UBIK by Dick
Didn’t like ‘the number of the beast’ by Heinlein,but ‘Stranger’ and ‘Time enough for Love’ were excellent.I second heartily the recommendation of John Wyndham.His books were written in the fifties and still sound relatively modern.
Indeed.
[quote]TONEdef wrote:
Cthulhu wrote:
Ahh,very loud.
Makes the women orgasim.
I take it that this is similar to an orgasm, but can only be carried out by the high priest of the Great Old Ones?
;^D[/quote]
Another vote for Enders Game, Enders Shadow and Stranger in a Strange Land.
i also though ‘Friday’ by Heinlein was great fun.
Heinlein is my fave…lots of awesome books if you like his style and viewpoint on certain things
Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett - ‘Good Omens’
Neil Gaiman - ‘Sandman’
Grant Morrison - ‘The Invisibles’
Grant Morrison - ‘The Filth’
I know the last three are comics/graphic novels, but they are stunning.
Tone
A big ditto on the ‘Dune’ series. I did a big chunk of my master’s degree on that series.
Arthur C. Clarke is good, especially if you like stuff explained technically. A lot of his stuff is possible in the near future. Shame he’s a pedophile hiding out in Sri Lanka.
Short stories are a good way to get into this genre. Each year some pretty good ‘Best of…’ SF short story collections are put out.
My favorite SF writer at the moment though is Iain Banks. Wild imagination, very dark.
[quote]deanosumo wrote:
A big ditto on the ‘Dune’ series. I did a big chunk of my master’s degree on that series.
Arthur C. Clarke is good, especially if you like stuff explained technically. A lot of his stuff is possible in the near future. Shame he’s a pedophile hiding out in Sri Lanka.
Short stories are a good way to get into this genre. Each year some pretty good ‘Best of…’ SF short story collections are put out.
My favorite SF writer at the moment though is Iain Banks. Wild imagination, very dark.
[/quote]
That’s pretty interesting, doing part of your masters on Dune. I’m reading the second part right now. Not nearly as engaging as part one…we’ll see!
Damn, i’m actually going to print this thread out and head to the local used book store. I have got to get on par with you guys in terms of reading. I looked up some stuff on Robert A. Wilson…what are your thoughts on this…I’m approaching this one with caution!
Excellent post.
A few I’ve read and really liked (not in any order):
- Liege Killer…Christoper Hinz
- Hyperion, and the 2 books that follow…Dan Simmons
- When Gravity Fails…George Alec Effinger
[quote]nolecat wrote:
I looked up some stuff on Robert A. Wilson…what are your thoughts on this…I’m approaching this one with caution![/quote]
I’ve seen in Wilson books that looked intriguing, but his Amazon reviews have been quite mixed.
I’m not typically a guy who lets his decisions be defined by other people’s reviews — I’ll experience it myself and form my own opinion. But when it comes to books, my tastes are so diverse, I have to narrow down my potential reads somehow or I’ll never get to them all.
Amazon reviews are mainly done by readers and not book reviewers per se. A few shills show up once in a while, but these are usually pretty obvious.
Scott
Necronomicon