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What are some of your favorite science fiction books?

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Earth001 Since: Jul, 2012
#1: Aug 1st 2014 at 5:20:26 PM

What science fiction books growing up are some of your favorites? Which do you like?

DomaDoma Three-Puppet Saluter Since: Jan, 2001
Three-Puppet Saluter
#2: Aug 1st 2014 at 8:01:03 PM

The Firestar series by Michael Flynn is never, ever going to be topped. The humans are the most human I've ever seen in genre fiction, for good and ill alike, and it's stuffed to the brim with a modern-day version of Right Stuff optimism that could actually be brought about if enough people worked at it.

On the titchy-little-potboiler little-tin-god-of-characterization old-school side of things, Lest Darkness Fall by L. Sprague de Camp is tremendous amounts of fun. A 1930s archaeologist gets transported to Rome right before Justinian tries to reconquer the place, and sets about "inventing" as much modern technology as the political climate will allow in the hopes of thwarting the Dark Ages.

Hail Martin Septim!
lexicon Since: May, 2012
#3: Aug 2nd 2014 at 1:25:18 AM

I love The Dark Side Of Nowhere. It's simplistic and the characters are very human but maybe that's why I like it so much.

Journeyman Overlording the Underworld from On a throne in a vault overlooking the Wasteland Since: Nov, 2010
Overlording the Underworld
#4: Aug 4th 2014 at 4:17:29 PM

Ring World. It uses limited third person omniscience in the first two books of the quadrilogy. Which means we get to explore the original Big Dumb Object on the shoulder of a single character. It's a fun ride. He's literally in every scene in the first two books, and we get to see the world as he goes through it.

shiro_okami Since: Apr, 2010
#5: Aug 5th 2014 at 3:20:05 PM

Dune, the first book. Everybody is Dangerously Genre-Savvy and think before they act, and instead of an Idiot Hero who becomes a leader just because he's a main character, we have a Guile Hero who learns about his powers and surroundings quickly and has years of training to draw on. It also explores the concept of prescience while averting You Can't Fight Fate.

TamH70 Since: Nov, 2011 Relationship Status: Faithful to 2D
#6: Aug 6th 2014 at 2:48:43 AM

Out of the Dark, by David Weber, is my recent favorite skiffy novel. Some readers don't like the ending but I am so not one of them.

Nohbody "In distress", my ass. from Somewhere in Dixie Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Mu
"In distress", my ass.
#7: Aug 6th 2014 at 4:21:40 AM

Off the top of my head, and not a complete list:

That's all that comes to mind offhand, but I've not dug through my boxed books in like forever.

All your safe space are belong to Trump
AndrewGPaul Since: Oct, 2009
#8: Aug 6th 2014 at 8:16:32 AM

Off the top of my head ...

David Zindell's Neverness (the followup A Requiem for Homo Sapiens trilogy is also good, but gets a bit overblown at times)

Jon Courtenay Grimwood's two main series; Neo Addix, Lucifer's Dragon, Re Mix and redRobe (ignore the painful CamelCase titles, please! They're cyberpunk with a hint of decaying old Europe and some religious themes) and the Arabesk trilogy; Pashazade, Effendi and Felaheen. Starts out as a sort of crime noir with a hint of cyberpunk (again) in an alternative near future Alexandria where the Ottoman Empire, Imperial Germany, France and Russia are the major world powers. Again, gets a little ... mystical at the end.

Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space novels. Hard sci-fi space opera, with a side order of transhumanism and the odd bit of Body Horror.

Dan Abnett's Eisenhorn trilogy. Set in the Warhammer 40,000 setting, they're the story of what lengths a zealot will go to, and how far he'll fall, in pursuit of his nemesis. To be honest, I'm not sure how accessible this trilogy is if you're not already a 40k fan, but I'll leave this here anyway. :)

Anything by Iain M Banks, although I think Against a Dark Background is my favourite.

I also liked Arthur C Clarke's Songs of Distant Earth, for a more classic recommendation, and John Wyndham's The Chrysalids.

TamH70 Since: Nov, 2011 Relationship Status: Faithful to 2D
#9: Aug 6th 2014 at 8:20:07 AM

Does the 1632 series count as sci-fi, or as only speculative fiction? Because I really love those.

Nohbody "In distress", my ass. from Somewhere in Dixie Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Mu
"In distress", my ass.
#10: Aug 6th 2014 at 8:32:03 AM

^ I'd say that they don't count as SF, as the only Skiffy thing in them is the Assiti shard that transported them in the first place, which never gets mentioned again within the context of the series (the Time Spike stuff, on the other hand...). Not that they're not worthy of being a "favorite", just that they're beyond the scope of this thread.

The books fudge things a bit (Flint admitted that black powder rockets were fudged for plot reasons, f'rex, IIRC in the foreword of 1633), and miss things on occasion elsewhere, but for the most part it's real world physics and psychology.

edited 6th Aug '14 8:32:15 AM by Nohbody

All your safe space are belong to Trump
TamH70 Since: Nov, 2011 Relationship Status: Faithful to 2D
#11: Aug 6th 2014 at 11:23:48 AM

Oh okay. I will leave them out of consideration then. Thanks for that.

edit. I don't really read much hard sci-fi. I have read Banks in his Culture phase, but the ones that left the deepest impact were these ones:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gap_Cycle

They are epic. Pretty much unfilmable but epic nonetheless.

Oh yeah, as for Warhammer 40K stuff? Ciaphas Cain novels and Shinji and Warhammer 40K are as far as I go on those.

edited 6th Aug '14 2:34:01 PM by TamH70

mrshine Since: Jun, 2011 Relationship Status: Hoping Senpai notices me
#12: Aug 6th 2014 at 5:04:33 PM

Favourite sci-fi growing up: Ringworld series, Dune series, Foundation series.

Overall favourite: Culture series.

Somebody up above mentioned Revelation Space, that is the book i'm currently reading. So far it seems pretty good though maybe not super groundbreaking. I'm also a little surprised how long it is.

AndrewGPaul Since: Oct, 2009
#13: Aug 7th 2014 at 12:22:22 AM

Not sure what you mean by "super groundbreaking", but he's one of the only authors to actually deal with the ramifications of relativistic space travel, rather than just handwaving it away(Stephen Baxter is another one; two of his books use the potential of a wormhole to act as a time machine as major plot elements).

He's also not an uncritical fan of Brain Uploading, as evidenced by the fate of Sylveste's Eighty. One of the major themes, as noted explicitly by the author, is the effect of extreme technology and environments on human societies (most obviously the Ultras in Revelation Space, but later the Conjoiners and the various societies in the pre-Melding Plague Glitter Band).

Like Baxter, the science behind the stories is of the "take a new 'theory', assume it's totally valid and squeeze it until the pips fall out", but unlike Baxter, his characters do more than stand around expounding the plot. :)

Nohbody "In distress", my ass. from Somewhere in Dixie Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Mu
"In distress", my ass.
#14: Aug 7th 2014 at 1:22:16 AM

[H]e's one of the only authors to actually deal with the ramifications of relativistic space travel

I believe there's one William Mandella who might like a word with you...

All your safe space are belong to Trump
DomaDoma Three-Puppet Saluter Since: Jan, 2001
Three-Puppet Saluter
#15: Aug 7th 2014 at 5:03:38 AM

I'm going to say that 1632 counts but Dies the Fire doesn't. Both make a serious attempt at speculative worldbuilding from a given scenario, but the universe of Dies the Fire winds up involving straight-up magic. In any case, they're both very good books.

Hail Martin Septim!
TamH70 Since: Nov, 2011 Relationship Status: Faithful to 2D
#16: Aug 7th 2014 at 5:10:59 AM

I don't think I would ever read Dies the Fire. Reminds me of Revolution and my mind screamed "this is all just utter luddite stuff" at me when I first heard about THAT. Though 1632 is a really good book, I agree. And it's free on the Baen Free Library.

https://www.baenebooks.com/c-1-free-library.aspx

mrshine Since: Jun, 2011 Relationship Status: Hoping Senpai notices me
#17: Aug 7th 2014 at 5:33:50 AM

"Not super groundbreaking" wasn't meant as an insult. Not every author needs to be Frederik Pohl or Joe Haldeman.

AndrewGPaul Since: Oct, 2009
#18: Aug 7th 2014 at 7:58:21 AM

[up]#14: I did say "one of the only" :P That makes three, that I know of.

mrshine Since: Jun, 2011 Relationship Status: Hoping Senpai notices me
#19: Aug 7th 2014 at 10:03:28 AM

Have you checked out Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke? One of the earliest examples I've read of relativistic space travel being plot-relevant and published in 1953. Vernor Vinge's books are interesting in that they have both slower and faster than light travel but the way his universe's physics works is super weird.

HisInfernalMajesty Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: Gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
#20: Aug 7th 2014 at 10:15:14 AM

Slaughterhouse 5 if that counts. Or, if you prefer...

The Children's Crusade: A Duty Dance with Death, by Kurt Vonnegut, A Fourth-Generation German-American Low Living in Easy Circumstances on Cape Cod [and smoking too Much], Who, as an American Infantry Scout Hors de Combat, as a Prisoner of War, Witnessed the Fire Bombing of Dresden, Germany, 'The Florence of the Elbe,' a Long Time Ago, and Survived to Tell the Tale. This is a Novel Somewhat in the Telegraphic Schizophrenic Manner of Tales of the Planet Tralfamadore, Where the Flying Saucers Come From. Peace.

Had to read it as part of a "dystopian" section of my high school English class. Not sure how much I agree with it being dystopian, but it remains one of my favorite books, and it definitely has some science fiction elements to it.

"A king has no friends. Only subjects and enemies."
ComicX6 (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#21: Aug 7th 2014 at 3:14:43 PM

Arthur C. Clarke's my favorite author, so naturally I've liked a lot of what I've read of his. Even when he uses a lot of jargon and whatnot I always find the way he writes to be really easy to read and follow.

Recently I've read the Red Mars Trilogy and its Spiritual Successor 2312 (as in it seems to take place in the same universe) by Kim Stanley Robinson and they were definitely a series of books that really stuck with me. I did have some plot-related issues with them, but being the first sci-fi books I've read to be that hard and go into that level of detail into the whole menargerie of scientific and psychological disciplines made them quite a fascinating reading experience.

My Megaman and MegaTen RPG Liveblogs
TamH70 Since: Nov, 2011 Relationship Status: Faithful to 2D
#22: Aug 7th 2014 at 3:32:59 PM

I liked Clarke as a documentary presenter, not really fond of his books. And I never really got his most famous one, "2001 - A Space Odyssey", nor indeed the film that was made of it.

Yuanchosaan antic disposition from Australia Since: Jan, 2010
antic disposition
#23: Aug 7th 2014 at 5:26:59 PM

  • Solaris, Stanislaw Lem
  • Ubik, Philip K. Dick
  • Journey to the Centre of the Earth, Jules Verne
  • The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
  • Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson.
  • Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes

"Doctor Who means never having to say you're kidding." - Bocaj
WarriorEowyn from Victoria Since: Oct, 2010
#24: Aug 7th 2014 at 8:20:39 PM

Starting with the birth of modern science fiction, Frankenstein is amazing. I wish someone would try to make an adaptation that does it justice, but everyone else prefers writing the monster as a dumb brute.

Arthur C. Clarke's books are good but creepy. Childhoods End disturbed me more, on a Cosmic Horror level, than anything Lovecraft ever wrote.

Dune is one of my favourites, though I've never read the sequels. I love the worldbuilding, and I like how it makes all of the factions intelligent with multilayered plans; it's far more satisfying that the protagonists winning just because the villains are idiots, as happens in a lot of fiction.

I like Asimov's robot books, although the buddy-cop trilogy sometimes makes me wonder if the guy ever had a real conversation with a woman, because he's better at writing robots as people than he is at writing women. I really enjoy the lack of A.I. Is a Crapshoot, though, and the way the short stories in I, Robot shows a wide range of things that could go wrong with robotics, but they're all due to human programming errors rather than robot malice and can be fixed.

However, the more I think about it the more the concept of sapient robots disturbs me. If we create an intelligent and self-aware class of beings and program them so that they're incapable of disobeying us - or even of wanting to disobey us - haven't we essentially created a race of slaves? (Thanks, Star Trek The Next Generation, somehow this never occurred to me until you pointed it out. The Positronic Man, which is also fantastic, communicates the same point.)

On a far less prestigious note, I love Timothy Zahn's Thrawn Triology, and the Hand of Thrawn books, set in the Star Wars universe. Matt Stover's Shatterpoint, set during the Clone Wars, is also fantastic. And the X-Wing books are great fun, especially Wraith Squadron.

edited 7th Aug '14 8:27:17 PM by WarriorEowyn

Yuanchosaan antic disposition from Australia Since: Jan, 2010
antic disposition
#25: Aug 7th 2014 at 9:16:45 PM

^Nick Dear's Frankenstein is an amazing adaptation. It's a stage play, but there's a recorded version of the NT production starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Johnny Lee Miller - they alternated playing the Creature and Frankenstein to emphasise their connection. Rather than having the Creature narrate his story to Frankenstein, the first half of the play follows the Creature on his journey to find Frankenstein. It also gives a larger role to Elizabeth and the blind old man, de Lacey.

It's surprisingly humorous at times:

CREATURE : Why do men live in herds in cities? I cannot imagine a city. I cannot imagine Rome! The numbers are too great.
DE LACEY : We band together to help one another, and do good.
CREATURE : But then you massacre each other!
DE LACEY : Yes, it’s...inconsistent.

edited 7th Aug '14 9:17:21 PM by Yuanchosaan

"Doctor Who means never having to say you're kidding." - Bocaj

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