NationStates Jolt Archive

i gotta go with phillip jose farmer... his river world books might as well be my bible, and he has many MANY more great books, and serieses too....anyone read his work?? or have your own ideas of good sci fi? i like verne too, great mind there

http://www.shared-visions.com/reviews/Dune-s.jpg

If you haven't read it, do yourself an immense favour and do so. Now.

I don't care how many villages you rape and plunder to get the money to buy it, or how many traffic laws you break to get to the library fast enough, just get it.

well I'm not sure if these guys fall under sci fi or fantasy but I LOVE:

Andre' Norton, Morgan Llewellyn, Terry Brooks, AND OF COURSE
TOLKIEN

http://www.shared-visions.com/reviews/Dune-s.jpg

If you haven't read it, do yourself an immense favour and do so. Now.

I don't care how many villages you rape and plunder to get the money to buy it, or how many traffic laws you break to get to the library fast enough, just get it.

YES! FRANK HERBERT RULES! EVEN IF YOU DONT LIKE THE NEXT ONES, DUNE IS ULTIMATELY THE BEST BOOK I HAVE EVER READ. PERIOD. After i read it, i was like wowwwwwwwwwwwwww. I've reccommended it to more than 6 people and all of them love it. Paul Atreides is one of those impossible-to-hate charactors with an intelligence and wit that is so cool.

And yes, all of those above authors are fantasy. (clladdagh)

havent read the first two but brooks and tolkein are fantasy.....not saying i dont like them..... i love tolkein as well, but thats fantasy....i

George Lucas (Star Wars)

or

Arthur C. Clarke (2001 A Space Odyssey)

i love star wars too....but thats a screenplay and i was thinking more of book.....has nobody read the riverworld series?? it is a great series of sci fi by phillip jose farmer.....he won many hugo awards

Douglas Adams is brilliant, although I think his Dirk Gently novels are actually better than his Hitchhiker books.

Isaac Asimov was a brilliant short story writer. I am not really a fan of his novels, but when it comes to sci fi short stories, no one can get a point across like Asimov. Also, while not sci fi, his non-fiction essays are the most interesting science papers I have ever read.

Phillip Jose Farmer is pretty cool, too, so I can see your point. I have been meaning to read the rest of his Riverworld books for a while. Dayworld was an interesting series as well.

Oh, and Ray Bradbury shouldn't be left out either. Fahrenheit 451 is a damn interesting book. And I almost forgot Arthur C. Clarke. Songs of Distant Earth gave me chills.

George Orwell-1984

I have.

To Your Scattered Bodies Go was awesomely cool, and The Dark Design was OK.

Sadly, I have not been able to locate copies of the two novels in between.

One day. :)

farenheight 451 is good.. so is something wicked this way comes.... with it, the shortest chapter in a novel of all time....i believe it goes "it came" but i may be misquoting it.....dayworld is also really good... i think philip jose farmer also did the xanth series, and yes dayworld is good....also liked the stone god awakens, jesus on mars, and hadan of ancient opar, all by farmer

i love michael crichton.....him and farmer are my two favorite authors, with tolkein, jk rowlings, and janet evonavich rounding off the top 5

I have.

To Your Scattered Bodies Go was awesomely cool, and The Dark Design was OK.

Sadly, I have not been able to locate copies of the two novels in between.

One day. :)

i have like 3 copies of some of the books....got them at yard sales mainly, but a few off ebay for cheap in large lots, and also at half priced books...

to where your scattered bodies go is the best of the series (also the first)

Yes, that's where I look for a lot of sci-fi, used book stores where you just look through boxes of them. Half of it is usually sci-fi.

yeah cause if you look at church booksales and goodwill they only have paperback romances.....and who wants to read those :shock:

Aldous Huxley with his Brave New World

farenheight 451 is good.. so is something wicked this way comes.... with it, the shortest chapter in a novel of all time....i believe it goes "it came" but i may be misquoting it.....dayworld is also really good... i think philip jose farmer also did the xanth series, and yes dayworld is good....also liked the stone god awakens, jesus on mars, and hadan of ancient opar, all by farmer

i love michael crichton.....him and farmer are my two favorite authors, with tolkein, jk rowlings, and janet evonavich rounding off the top 5

Nah, Xanth was by Piers Anthony, who is also pretty good. Xanth got old once the books got into the double digits, though. But Anthony's Apprentice Adept series was really good.

I wasn't as big a fan as Something Wicked This Way Comes as I thought I would be... I don't know, it was a neat book, but it just didn't click as much as Bradbury usually does. As for the shortest chapter, it was actually Chapter 31, "Nothing much else happened, all the rest of that night."

All hail, Douglas Adams!

farenheight 451 is good.. so is something wicked this way comes.... with it, the shortest chapter in a novel of all time....i believe it goes "it came" but i may be misquoting it.....dayworld is also really good... i think philip jose farmer also did the xanth series, and yes dayworld is good....also liked the stone god awakens, jesus on mars, and hadan of ancient opar, all by farmer

i love michael crichton.....him and farmer are my two favorite authors, with tolkein, jk rowlings, and janet evonavich rounding off the top 5

Nah, Xanth was by Piers Anthony, who is also pretty good. Xanth got old once the books got into the double digits, though. But Anthony's Apprentice Adept series was really good.

I wasn't as big a fan as Something Wicked This Way Comes as I thought I would be... I don't know, it was a neat book, but it just didn't click as much as Bradbury usually does.
ooh my bad that was piers anthony..... yeah i loved the apprentice adept series myself....stile was wicked cool as the blue adept.... was world of the teirs farmer?? i know im missing a series here

Hmm, I haven't read World of the Tiers. Perhaps that was Farmer? Piers Anthony has some neat ideas, like Steppe, where he tried to teach history with Science Fiction. That was a pretty neat book, though I don't know how much Mongol history I actually learned from it. But I did find that one about ancient Babylon really interesting as well as informative... I forget what it was called at the moment, though. Pretender, I believe?

ever read the chronicles of amber?

The General Series - S.M. Stirling
Island In The Sea Of Time- S.M. Stirling
N-space- Larry Niven
Ringworld- Larry Niven
Anything by Harry Turtledove

I can't recomend these authors enough.

i wrote evrything suggested down.... heres another good piers anthony book: the shade of the tree

Huxley, Orwell, Asimov, Bradbury, Herbert. Love love love them.

Lemme see:

Dune: Great epic/messiah story

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy: Adams is the only author that has ever made me laugh out loud.

Starship Troopers: The first novel to seriesly use power-armor

Ender's Game: A sci-fiction classic. Has a lot of cool space infantry combat. Avoid the sequals like the black death though.

At the Mountains of Madness: By HP Lovecraft. A horror story, but with ancient space aliens rather than the supernatural. Lovecraft has written an entire "mythology" about the true, insane history of earth.

First and Only: Set in the Warhammer 40k universe, a very good read.

i gotta go with phillip jose farmer... his river world books might as well be my bible, and he has many MANY more great books, and serieses too....anyone read his work?? or have your own ideas of good sci fi? i like verne too, great mind there

Much as I enjoy Farmer's work, it has to be said that he is a hack. Certainly he has produced some very good novels in his oeuvre, but they are dragged down by the turkeys he has let loose. Even the Riverworld series loses it completely somewhere around book 4, and book 5 (Gods Of Riverworld) is a complete disaster from start to finish. Also, having said that he dealt with exactly the same setup in his much earlier Inside Outside and added little to it in expanding it. I do like some of his stuff alot, though - his biographies of Tarzan and Doc Savage remain interesting curios, and Red Orc's Rage is an unexpectedly serious high-point from his World Of Tiers series. There are also some surprises like the truly bizarre Jesus On Mars.

Dune. As I said in the other 15 topics about this that popped up in the last two weeks, you can't beat foldspace 8)

i gotta go with phillip jose farmer... his river world books might as well be my bible, and he has many MANY more great books, and serieses too....anyone read his work?? or have your own ideas of good sci fi? i like verne too, great mind there

You might want to check out this thread.

http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=134045&highlight=

:D that was a good thread.

and I suppose I should add my contribution to this thread's question. it's Iain M Banks. 8)

Iain M Banks definitely should be there: my personal favourite is Excession but if you haven't read his stuff before you should probably start off with Consider Phlebas or The Player of Games.

Ken MacLeod is also good. The Star Fraction, The Stone Canal, The Cassini Division and The Sky Road make an enjoyable series, although maybe not as coherent as his recent Engines of Light trilogy. Fair warning to the right-wingers out there: neither Banks nor MacLeod has much use for you...

Alasdair Gray's monumental and very weird novel Lanark is (probably) science fiction. Very much at the boundary of classification, though.

Other good authors: Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash, The Diamond Age); Michael Swanwick (In the Drift, Vacuum Flowers); Bruce Sterling (Schismatrix, Distraction -- a definite recommendation). Plenty more as well I'm sure.

Iain M Banks definitely should be there: my personal favourite is Excession but if you haven't read his stuff before you should probably start off with Consider Phlebas or The Player of Games.

I've read them all. my favourite is Use of Weapons


Alasdair Gray's monumental and very weird novel Lanark is (probably) science fiction. Very much at the boundary of classification, though.


ooh, yes. Lanark. it's very strange isn't it. more or less completely baffles classification. if the 'realistic' bit with the young artist in Glasgow wasn't weird enough, the rest of it, with mouths in the palm of your hand and dead people being recyled as pink cake, is just extraordinary!

All six of Frank Herbert's Dune Chronicles.

Douglas Adams.

These are the bare requirements to live the Good Life.

All six of Frank Herbert's Dune Chronicles.

Douglas Adams.

These are the bare requirements to live the Good Life.

ever read the chronicles of amber?

One of my favourite Sci-fi/fantasy collections, that is! :)

All six of Frank Herbert's Dune Chronicles.


I thought there were 8 & 3 pre-quels? :?

Gaaah! I must confess, the first Dune novel was brilliant, original, and a time-honoured classic. But the rest... deeply disappointing. :?

All six of Frank Herbert's Dune Chronicles.


I thought there were 8 & 3 pre-quels? :?

No.

There are but six Dune books total, and they are by Frank Herbert. He was starting on a seventh but died.

The House and Butlerian Jihad "prequels" are unrelated 'novels' that plagiarise Dune in a manner worthy of capital punishment.

I have to say I do have a copy of Iain Banks' "Player of Games" at home alongside "Dune", however for me the best Scifi authour I have read has to be Robert A Heinlein.

One of you mentioned Starship Troopers already but my other favourites are:

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Sixth Column
JOB, A Comedy of Justice

I would highly recommend anyone to read his work.

:twisted:

Frank Herbert - Dune is brilliant

Of all time - has to be Asimov, but I prefer more modern stuff these days.

Iain M Banks definitely has to be my favorite - Player of Games is brilliant,
William Gibson for reinventing sci-fi

Michael Marshal Smith for Spares and Only Forward, Neal Stephenson for The Diamond Age

Peter F Hamilton and Alistair Reynolds have both written amazing modern epic trilogies

Ken McLeod is also an incredible force in modern sci-fi but, I feel sadly under-read - I prefer The Star Fraction series to the later ones (sorry Clappi)

Stephen Donaldson's (of Thomas Covenant fame) "Gap" series had me up all night for weeks

Neal Asher's "The Skinner" and China Mieville,s "Perdido Street Station" hasve to be two of the best sci-fi novels I have ever read.

And Douglas Adams - simultaneously one of the most intelligent and hillarious writers ever - like Clappi, nothing else has made me laugh out loud (which got me some very odd looks on the bus on my way to school!) and without whom...

More votes for Banks, McLeod and Reynolds.

I'm not sure if David Brin is great sci-fi, but he sure is fun to read. And Lois McMaster Bujould's "Miles Vorkosigan" series is also just a lot of fun, but probably not so great on sci-fi.

Recently, though, the best hard sci-fi I've seen came from Greg Egan. "Diaspora" is an amazing book.

anyone read frank herberts Jesus Incident, Ascencion factor and lazerous effect? (I may have factor and effect the wrong way round... but one was ascencion something and the other lazerous or other)
excellent trilagy I thought. As to Dune, Increadible and I like the second Dune book aswell excellent politics...

William Gibson, I wiped out the local book shop when neuromancer caught my eye (much talked of in RP circles) but along with neromancer picked up burning chrome, count zero, mona lisa and another one... I left the steam punk book *yawn*

anyone read frank herberts Jesus Incident, Ascencion factor and lazerous effect? (I may have factor and effect the wrong way round... but one was ascencion something and the other lazerous or other)
excellent trilagy I thought. As to Dune, Increadible and I like the second Dune book aswell excellent politics...

William Gibson, I wiped out the local book shop when neuromancer caught my eye (much talked of in RP circles) but along with neromancer picked up burning chrome, count zero, mona lisa and another one... I left the steam punk book *yawn*
I think I read them as a teenager but I don't remember what they were about. I was born with an apalling memory - even books I've really enjoyed I've usually forgotten most of by the time I'm halfway through the next one. Still, it gives me an excuse to continually re-read old favs all the time. Not that I often do; too many books too little time. Anyway remind me what they were about?
As for "The Difference Engine" I seem too remember it being pretty good - not that I remember anything else much about it of course!

As to Dune, Increadible and I like the second Dune book aswell excellent politics...



Could someone please explain to me the politics of the Dune books: given that their political sections all focus heavily on plot devices such as super-powers or psionics, I have never been able to understand them as anything other than warnings about expecting uber-Messiah figures to save you.

Dune. As I said in the other 15 topics about this that popped up in the last two weeks, you can't beat foldspace 8)
FRANK!FRANK!FRANK!FRANK!FRANK!FRANK!FRANK!FRANK!FRANK!FRANK!FRANK!FRANK!FRANK!FRANK!FRANK!
8)

Nothing beats Frank Herbert when it comes to sci-fi(I am a member of 2 Dune fansites,I am :wink: :) )

Nothing beats Frank Herbert when it comes to sci-fi(I am a member of 2 Dune fansites,I am :wink: :) )

Ah, then maybe you could explain to me why people claim that Dune is a political book, no?

I've not read much sci-fi, but I do love the books of Ben Bova, his Mars books, especially.

Nothing beats Frank Herbert when it comes to sci-fi(I am a member of 2 Dune fansites,I am :wink: :) )

Ah, then maybe you could explain to me why people claim that Dune is a political book, no?

Dune is political!Thats the beauty of it!Its political,full of inter-House rivalry,betrayals,and scheming,but still with a good bit of action(Particularly at the end,when the Fremen and Muad'Dib(AKA Paul AKA the Kwisatz Haderach) rebel against the Padisha Emperor and overrun his elite Sardauakr legions.
The people that say Dune is a political book are right...The people who say Dune is ONLY a political book are cynical assholes 8)

H.G Wells.

War Of The Worlds is a true classic.

Orson Scott Card.

War of the Worlds sucked! That has to be one of the worst Sci-Fi books i've ever read, next to Farehnheit 451

Orson Scott Card.

War of the Worlds sucked! That has to be one of the worst Sci-Fi books i've ever read, next to Farehnheit 451

Come on D, they were written 50-odd years ago! And they were great social commentary, as well as being sci-fi

Orson Scott Card.

War of the Worlds sucked! That has to be one of the worst Sci-Fi books i've ever read, next to Farehnheit 451

Come on D, they were written 50-odd years ago! And they were great social commentary, as well as being sci-fi

Point, but that doesn't make them good books.

You have poor taste

H.G Wells.

War Of The Worlds is a true classic.

I asked you this before and you never answered: how do you reconcile your self proclaimed "fascist" political outlook with HG Well's vision of scientific socialism?

Orson Scott Card.

War of the Worlds sucked! That has to be one of the worst Sci-Fi books i've ever read, next to Farehnheit 451

Come on D, they were written 50-odd years ago! And they were great social commentary, as well as being sci-fi

Well technically War of the Worlds was written 106 years ago. It will be interesting to see how much OSC is read in a 100+ years...

Any chance of a bit more detailed critique of why War of the Worlds sucked, Rhyno D?

H.G Wells.

War Of The Worlds is a true classic.

I asked you this before and you never answered: how do you reconcile your self proclaimed "fascist" political outlook with HG Well's vision of scientific socialism?

I just fink he a good writer. It is genius. Alien invading earth, what vision!

H.G Wells.

War Of The Worlds is a true classic.

I asked you this before and you never answered: how do you reconcile your self proclaimed "fascist" political outlook with HG Well's vision of scientific socialism?

I just fink he a good writer. It is genius. Alien invading earth, what vision!