• Welcome to the new Internet Infidels Discussion Board, formerly Talk Freethought.

Your Science Fiction recommendations

 
 
 
B

bigfield

the baby-eater
Joined
May 4, 2011
Messages
4,965
Location
Straya
Basic Beliefs
yeah nah
Please recommend science fiction novels, novellas, short stories etc. that you have read and enjoyed.

Recently I finished reading Dune by Frank Herbert.

I enjoyed it because it speculated on some interesting themes, like techniques for extreme desert existence, an intergalactic society world without computers, resource politics, and alien habitats. It also featured a "game of thrones".

I've also read Asimov's I, Robot collection of short stories. Asimov speculates about robots governed by simple laws and the myriad unexpected behaviours it can produce. He also sets the stories in interesting, "spacey" settings which stimulate one's imagination.

Both books introduced novel ideas (or at least, they were novel to me) and then spun a good "what if" story based on those ideas, stimulating my imagination. I'd definitely like to read more books with the same qualities.
 
Among my favorites are Stranger in a Strange Land and Starship Troopers both by Robert A. Heinlein. Stranger in a Strange Land involves a human who was born on Mars, and comes back to Earth with powers that make people regard him as a god. It is a fascinating novel that explores religion, and how the protagonist handles being regarded as a deity. Starship Troopers bears only passing resemblance to the movie, so whether you liked the movie or not, the novel is a much different experience. The first part of the novel deals with the extreme training the soldiers go through, and the rest deals with the two wars humans are fighting involving two entirely different alien species, and the tactics used to fight them.

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card is another long time favorite of mine. The movie did a much better job of portraying that story than in the case of Starship Troopers, but it misses a lot of the nuance. Once again, it is an excellent novel regardless of whether you liked the movie, or not.

A more recent favorite of mine was A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge. It is a far future space odyssey novel, and a bit slow at first, but once it gets going it doesn't really let up.

As for the present, I am currently reading the fourth book of Jack McDevitt's Academy series. It starts with The Engines of God, and is followed by Deep Six, Chindi, and Omega, where I am now, and I believe there are currently 3 other novels published in the series. The series is generally about archaeologists in the future who find monuments and artifacts from long extinct alien civilizations, the trouble they get into, and the mysteries surrounding what they find.
 
The Frontiers Saga by Ryk Brown. A ship testing a revolutionary new type of teleportation drive goes through a mishap and finds itself stuck 1000 light years away from Earth in the middle of an interplanetary civil war with all the command officers dead and a young and untrained lieutenant in charge of everything. Hijinks ensue as they try to find their way back to Earth. It's written in individual volumes with a new one put out every few months and is quite entertaining.

The Star Foce Saga by B.V. Larson. Earth finds itself caught up in a war between two groups of alien machines. The main character is a computer science professor who manages to exploit a bunch of programming bugs in order to dedeat them. Kind of slow and odd in places, but mostly enjoyable.
 
braces_for_impact said:
I enjoyed the Ringworld series by Larry Niven. The Last Question by Asimov is my favorite short story from him ever. Well worth the short amount of time it will take to read it.
Click to expand...
Most of the future history by Niven is pretty good. I especially like the various organlegger stories and, of course, the Pak.

bigfield, have you ever read "The White Plague," also by Frank Herbert?
 
Bujold's Vorkosigan saga is well worth reading. Follows (mostly) the life of a boy/man who's about six heartbeats and a civil war away from the Imperial throne. Physical weakness forces him to develop as a sneaky cuss, and, MAN, he does that well.
 
I really liked the "Mars" trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. It's old-school "hard" science fiction: no laser swords, no half-alien children, no Heisenberg-defying teleporters, and no weird metaphors for the animist elements of the Shinto religion. It has a gigantic cast of characters, most of whom are scheming against each other, stabbing each other in the back, or simply murdering each other. It's glorious political chaos, like some sick adult version of Lord of the Flies.
 
Underseer said:
I really liked the "Mars" trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. It's old-school "hard" science fiction: no laser swords, no half-alien children, no Heisenberg-defying teleporters, and no weird metaphors for the animist elements of the Shinto religion. It has a gigantic cast of characters, most of whom are scheming against each other, stabbing each other in the back, or simply murdering each other. It's glorious political chaos, like some sick adult version of Lord of the Flies.
Click to expand...

Ya, I liked the part when they were expanding the Mars colony and trying to control immigration and the Chinese just dumped a few rocket loads of colonists on the other side of the planet who then told the Martians to go and fuck off and stay away from their land. Possession is 9/10th of the law no matter what planet you're on.
 
Try Margaret Atwood's trilogy, 'Oryx and Crake', 'After the Flood', and 'Maddaddam'. Set in a dystopian future where a bio-hacker (Crake) has both created a new race of humans (with gigantic blue dicks) and unleashed a plague that has wiped out most of the 'normals'. Groups duking out out in the ruins include God's Gardeners, Painballers, rogue gene spliced animals like Pigoons (very dangerous, have human cortex material - smart, fast, and hungry!) and more benevolent types, or at least harmless, Chickynobs, headless chickens bred for meat.

Very funny, lots of action, and very much to the point. She says she gets her ideas from the news.

Another SF by her is 'The Handmaid's Tale', also set in a dystopian future where the population has crashed, the U.S. has fragmented, and the action is set in a Religious Republic run by a sect something like the Church of Latter Day Saints. Dark, but very good. I believe that the Swedes or the Norwegians have turned it into an opera. That dark.
 
What kind of Sci Fi do you like?

C.J. Cherryl's Cyteen. Some of Cherryl's stuff is dated, and hacky, but Cyteen was pretty good, as are some of her earlier books. Read too much of her and you start feeling the hacky part.

Atwood sounds interesting.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/196262.Mindswap 15 years before Hitchhikers Guide. Sci Fi Satire.

And then there is the magazine, and I still go back and read some of the stories in old issues. Golden...

http://www.asimovs.com/2014_04-05/index.shtml

And their Link page is like a who's who...and reading list combined

http://www.asimovs.com/info/links.shtml


Heinlein has become too dated (sexist) for me, and I liked his Job: A Comedy of Justice better than Stranger in a Strange Land.

Asimov never disappoints. Silverberg is another of my favorites.

Micheal Moorcock Dancers at the End of Time series.

Frank Herbert's White Plague was before it's time.
 
Last edited:
Well, if you're willing to move away from books, the two things that have really stood out as science fiction for me in the last couple of years are Schlock Mercenary (though the first couple of years of the comics are honestly just bad, so that's a barrier) and the Mass Effect series of games(I was just very impressed that it includes some biospheres being incompatible with others due to stereochemistry problems.)

For actual books, The Mote in God's Eye is... interesting.
 
I've recently enjoyed reading John Scalzi, particularly the Old Man's War series. His other, more comic novels don't interest me as much. But the Old Man's War series is more hard SF, and the humor is more sophisticated. Scalzi's been called The New Heinlein countless times, something I only partially agree with. His characters are Heinleinian, but his stories are more provincial (ie., less nudity and incest.) Scalzi's characters are intelligent reason-based, and pragmatically moral, which is so refreshing to me.
 
James Brown said:
I've recently enjoyed reading John Scalzi, particularly the Old Man's War series. His other, more comic novels don't interest me as much. But the Old Man's War series is more hard SF, and the humor is more sophisticated. Scalzi's been called The New Heinlein countless times, something I only partially agree with. His characters are Heinleinian, but his stories are more provincial (ie., less nudity and incest.) Scalzi's characters are intelligent reason-based, and pragmatically moral, which is so refreshing to me.
Click to expand...

I rather enjoyed Sclazi's Redshirts, but it is the only novel I have read of his. I have been meaning to read more from him, and I have heard good things about the Old Man's War series.
 
I second Mageth's recommendations above and add Ian M. Banks to the list. He is my favourite SF author by far. Fairly unusually for a writer of the genre he has also had critical and popular success writing regular fiction (Though some of these books are pretty mental). I find his humour and character development is a lot more refined than you find when compared even with other good SF authors - and he has an imagination to rival any of them.

In SF circles he is most well known for his Culture series, though he has written a few books outside this canon - The Algebraist is one such and is possibly my favourite SF book.

P.S. - It's a bit sad to lose my post count, I know it was peanuts compared to some of the other regulars but I was really happy to hit 1000 :(
 
KeepTalking said:
I rather enjoyed Sclazi's Redshirts, but it is the only novel I have read of his. I have been meaning to read more from him, and I have heard good things about the Old Man's War series.
Click to expand...
I also enjoyed the Redshirts book
Might look into the Old Man's War now

As for other Sci-Fi...

The Honorverse Series by David Weber
John Ringo and the Legacy of the Aldenata (aka Posleen War) series
Or try his Empire of Man Series
Vattas War saga by Elizabeth Moon and if you can get past the slowish start you can try the Serrano Legacy
Finally the Seafort Saga by David Feintuch, it is kinda weird though
 
I'd recommend looking at most anything by Neal Asher or Iain M. Banks. Both have a 'future history' in which most of their novels take place. Interestingly, there are more than a few similarities between their futures.
Asher is also notable for being one of the very few SF authors to take biology seriously. He seems to genuinely 'get it' that creatures are inherently embedded within ecosystems, that changing the ecosystem into which a creature is to live can and will result in some pretty wildly unexpected results over time. The carnivorous sheep in one short story, the 'Jain Technology' that pervades his main future history series, and his humaniform adaptations are all interesting concepts. He makes good use of them as well.
Banks is occasionally irritating for playing 'authorial games' but when he's good he's superb. Surface Detail is especially interesting from an afterlife perspective.
Sadly, Banks died last year. Asher is still writing.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom