NationStates Jolt Archive

In my time meandering through the pastures of NS:G I’ve come to notice the large amount of folks who like their science fiction. Personally, I really like a good sci-fi story, but I’ve always found it hard to pick out a good novel(la) from the reams of books available.

Could I trouble you fine ladies and gents for some suggestions?

I’ve read and loved the Dune trilogy, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed, most of Iain M. Banks’ Culture series and a smattering of Philip K. Dick, so perhaps stories with a political or philosophical bent is the way to go.

*tips hat*

i like david brin.

the uplift trilogies are great fun even if they end a bit messy. i loved the postman and glory season too.

L. E. Modesitt - Timegods' world & Ecolitan series are a good read

In my time meandering through the pastures of NS:G I’ve come to notice the large amount of folks who like their science fiction. Personally, I really like a good sci-fi story, but I’ve always found it hard to pick out a good novel(la) from the reams of books available.

Could I trouble you fine ladies and gents for some suggestions?

I’ve read and loved the Dune trilogy, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed, most of Iain M. Banks’ Culture series and a smattering of Philip K. Dick, so perhaps stories with a political or philosophical bent is the way to go.

*tips hat*


Questions.

1) how much technobabble do you want?

2) which is more important.
Science
Story
Character
Action
Setting

3) Type of science
Space opera (lots of battles)
Character Driven
Cyberpunk
War torn apocalypse

Questions.
Answers:

1) I can handle some technobabble. Well thought-out fictional/theoretical technologies that add something to the story and it’s universe are fine by me.

2) Story, character and setting are probably most important.

3) I’d want to steer clear of Space Operas. Something more than just spaceships.

i like david brin.

L. E. Modesitt–Timegods’ world & Ecolitan series are a good read
Cheers. I’ll certainly look into them.

I've never got into SciFi at all, but I did like the Ringworld (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringworld) books by Larry Niven.

Also, Snowcrash (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowcrash) & The Diamond Age (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diamond_Age) by Neal Stephenson. In fact, I really like all of Neal Stephenson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Stephenson)'s books, but there are few differing genres in there.

I personally prefer 20th Century classics.

Go and read The Great Gatsby, Grapes of Wrath, 1984, Catch 22 etc.

They beat any Sci-Fi novel.

Answers:

1) I can handle some technobabble. Well thought-out fictional/theoretical technologies that add something to the story and it’s universe are fine by me.

2) Story, character and setting are probably most important.

3) I’d want to steer clear of Space Operas. Something more than just spaceships.

Authors/books I like.

Anne McCaffery
Even tho it's got dragons, her Pern Series is good. also her Brawn and Brainship series. Low to non-existant technobabble.

Cyberpunk
SNOW CRASH by Neal Stephenson is awsome. the Deliverator and Uncle Eno and a conspiracy to hack people. :)

Willam Gibson is (to me) the master of Cyberpunk. medium to high techno/Cyberbabble.

dunno if it's still in print. but I liked A.C. Crispin's Starbridge series (http://www.accrispin.com/published.htm)
Ambassadors to help soften the shocks of first contact.

series where you need to pick and choose
Star Trek, Some are good (like Federation (http://www.amazon.com/Federation-Star-Trek-Judith-Reeves-Stevens/dp/0671894226)... which would've made a better movie than 'Generations')
Battletech
Star Wars (ok, I only read X-Wing: Rouge Squadron)
the Bolo Series by Keith Laumer. short stories, but great portayal of Intelligent Armored Tanks calld BOLOs.

Red Tape War (http://www.amazon.com/Red-Tape-War-Jack-Chalker/dp/0812512820)
imagine three authors... Jack L. Chalker, Mike Resnick, George Alec Effinger who challenge themselves in a collaborative work, but end up in a contest of sorts. the premise? they have to write the other author's character into a corner. The only rule is they cannot kill the character.

the Sholan Alliance Series (http://www.sholan-alliance.org/books.html).

and most books by C.J. Cherryh and Jack L Chalker.

there are others, but I can't remember them off the top of my head.

In my time meandering through the pastures of NS:G I’ve come to notice the large amount of folks who like their science fiction.

You discovered that people on the internet like Sci Fi? Perhaps now you can turn that massive power of observation towards letting us know what color the sky is...

Already, chiding aside...

I have in the last year or so just got into Karel Capek. He wrote R.U.R. which coined the term 'robot'. That's not the work (it's a play) that got me into him, though. It's War with the Newts. A really funny and interesting book.

I also am a big fan of Stanislaw Lem, who has a similar style.

I personally prefer 20th Century classics.

Go and read The Great Gatsby, Grapes of Wrath, 1984, Catch 22 etc.

They beat any Sci-Fi novel.

Yeah, but doesn't it get uncomfortable reading, what with that giant stick up the ass...?

In my time meandering through the pastures of NS:G I’ve come to notice the large amount of folks who like their science fiction. Personally, I really like a good sci-fi story, but I’ve always found it hard to pick out a good novel(la) from the reams of books available.

Could I trouble you fine ladies and gents for some suggestions?

I’ve read and loved the Dune trilogy, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed, most of Iain M. Banks’ Culture series and a smattering of Philip K. Dick, so perhaps stories with a political or philosophical bent is the way to go.

*tips hat*

Trilogy? My friend, the original Dune Chronicles by Frank Herbert is 6 volumes, and his son Brian wrote 2 more trilogies as well as the final 2 for the original set :)

*snip*

Cyberpunk
SNOW CRASH by Neal Stephenson is awsome. the Deliverator and Uncle Eno and a conspiracy to hack people. :)

Great minds think alike! :)

Great minds think alike! :)

ever wanted the harpoon gun and skateboard the messenger girl had? I did. :p

stories with a political or philosophical bent is the way to go.

Answers:

1) I can handle some technobabble. Well thought-out fictional/theoretical technologies that add something to the story and it’s universe are fine by me.

2) Story, character and setting are probably most important.

3) I’d want to steer clear of Space Operas. Something more than just spaceships.

I'll give you the same list I put in the Hard SF topic, with explanations. :)

Bruce Sterling:
Islands in the Net - almost 20 years old, but has (mostly) aged well, lots of interesting ideas about the near future
Heavy Weather - storm chasers in the middle 21st C.
Distraction - great characters and facsinating politics, deals with a political wonk in 2040s USA, here's a good review (http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/nonfiction/distract.htm)

Charles Stross's Accelerando: the Technological Singularity explored in depth

Nancy Kress' Beggars trilogy (Beggars in Spain, Beggars and Choosers, and Beggars Ride): exploration of politico-ecomomic ideas

The author's commentary:
What do the haves owe the have-nots? The two poles that interest me are Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged on the one side, and Le Gum's The Dispossessed on the other. The Rand solution is, we owe the have-nots nothing. Le Gum's is that we are all an integrated community--what happens to one, happens to all, and one should not have more than another, in economic terms. But neither of those is really practical or workable, and nether of them describes what I see when I look out the window.

The rest of the list are equally good:
Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy and Three Californias
John Varley's Eight Worlds stories and novels
Michael Swanwick's Vacuum Flowers
Joe Haldeman's The Forever War
Robert A. Heinlein's The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
Allen Steele's Coyote and Near Space novels

ever wanted the harpoon gun and skateboard the messenger girl had? I did. :p

Yeah, that was cool. I really liked the idea of the avatars interacting in the cyberworld too.

I'm a huge fan of Heinlein - everything, including his juveniles.
I also like Arthur C. Clarke - I'm re-reading The Deep Range right now.
Lois McMaster Bujold - the Vorkosigan series - start with Cordelia's Honor..
If you like dystopian fare read A Canticle for Leibowitz.
Michael Flynn has written a series of books starting with Firestar. Others in the series include Rogue Star and Lodestar (there are a couple of others that I'm not remembering at the moment).

Under no circumstances read anything by Jean Lorrah, she is trite and overrated. She primarily writes bad StarTrek fanfic, which for some reason actually got published.

I personally prefer 20th Century classics.

Go and read The Great Gatsby, Grapes of Wrath, 1984, Catch 22 etc.

They beat any Sci-Fi novel.
Perhaps you could entertain the wacky notion that one could enjoy both ‘classic’ novels and sci-fi?

After all, many (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine) classics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_(novel)) are (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_Earth_to_the_Moon) also (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World) science-fiction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451).


Trilogy? My friend, the original Dune Chronicles by Frank Herbert is 6 volumes, and his son Brian wrote 2 more trilogies as well as the final 2 for the original set :)
I realise this, but I’ve only read the first three, which often come packaged together in an omnibus known as the Dune trilogy.


I’ll give you the same list I put in the Hard SF topic, with explanations. :)

Authors/books I like.
Thanks to both of you.

Many interesting suggestions, especially Stirling and Stephenson.

David Brin is pretty good. I wasn't too fond of the future Niven painted but the stories were usually good and ocassionally thought provoking. Starship Troopers started out good but the story seemed to get stuck a couple of times, a good chunk of the book is bootcamp.

And just for kicks I'll throw in Bill Shatner's Star Trek: The Return. No, it's not good SF, it's not good writing, but it was so bad it made me laugh. And then cry because it dragged the good name of Star Trek through an ocean of shit.

If you like your stories with political/philosophical theme to them then I'd probably suggest, in addition to everything else, that you read some of Isaac Asimov's work (I started with the collection of short stories in I, Robot).

I am also shocked that no one has mentioned Asimov yet. People had got around to mentioning Heinlein and Clarke, but not Asimov - disgraceful. *shakes head* :p

I personally prefer 20th Century classics.

Go and read The Great Gatsby, Grapes of Wrath, 1984, Catch 22 etc.

They beat any Sci-Fi novel.1984 is dystopian science fiction...

I'll second the recommendations of Asimov and Bujold... and add just about anything by Poul Anderson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poul_Anderson), Gordon Dickson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Dickson) (especially the 'Childe Cycle' series, which includes the famous Dorsai (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorsai) stories... and the Hoka stories, which were written in collaboration with Anderson, too), H. Beam Piper (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Beam_Piper), David Weber (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Weber), Hal Clement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Clement), James White (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_White_%28author%29) (who's best known for his Sector General (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sector_General) series, which is about a multi-species hospital), L. Sprague de Camp (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._Sprague_de_Camp) (especially the Viagens Interplanetarias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viagens_Interplanetarias) series, most of which are set on a planet called 'Krishna'...) to the list.

Oh, and I saw Larry Niven mentioned earlier: In my opinion, his collaborations with Jerry Pournelle tend to be better than either of those authors' solo works...

Trilogy? My friend, the original Dune Chronicles by Frank Herbert is 6 volumes, and his son Brian wrote 2 more trilogies as well as the final 2 for the original set :)

The original books were meant to be a trilogy.

It wasn't until the mid 80's that he started writing further Dune books...some say to help pay for his hospitalisation and others that it was not realised that Dune would be as successful as it was.

If I remember the latter 6 books were marketed as the Second Dune Trilogy.

I also think there is a marked deterioration of the writing in the second set of three books.

well i like a little humor and or mystery sometimes with mine, so my list is a rather long one. and yes i prefer realism over drama so space opera, which is most of what holywood seems to mistake for real science fiction is pritty much right out. a bit of it for campyness maybe, but just not really what it's about.

r.a.llafferty's short stories.
poul anderson's polysotecnic league
hienline's NONspace opera
though i take those two's idiologies with a very large grain of salt mostly
jo claton's skeen's stories
and her diadem series too
ron goulart and harry harrison's stuff (satyrical in the origeonal mostly)
and that of course brings in douglas adams
le guine's science is anthropology and sociology so that gets you quite a ways from space opera
alfred bester, david brin, i could indeed go through the whole alphabet.

most litterary science fiction written between the late 60s and early 80s.

you might pick up one of ellison's dangerous visions anthologies for some whacked out 'dangerous' real litterary NONspace opera.

mccaffery and macavoy are both good,
and carol cherreh's chenure series, which is space opera, mostly, sort of, but very charicter driven.

and george rr martin's tuff voyaging, which does involve a rediculously large space ship but takes place mostly on the surface of a variety of interesting planets. though it does begin with the salvaging of said ship itself.

well there is an author for just about every letter of the alphabet who has written something good. and nevin's ring world IS real science fiction, what real science fiction is really about. strainge interesting places and real people, many of them from other worlds and cultures, but having to deal with real challanges, tecnological, environmental and social, and seldom involving wars of any kind, or at least not the inanity of ship to ship warfare in space.

becuase real science fiction is driven by believability as well as wonder, and the logic of space battles just pretty much isn't.

there's a whole lot i haven't mentioned, like i say, an author, usually more then one, for every letter of the alphabet, from adams to zelazney.

fred pohl, and james shmitz, or is that a.e.schmitz i forget, the latter wrote the telzey amberdon stories among other and pohl, that thing about the little erks, and a lot of suff before then.

most of the pohl and cornbluth colaberations were more fanatsy then real science fiction but many of them are funkey fun too.

=^^=
.../\...

*snip*
fred pohl, and james shmitz, or is that a.e.schmitz i forget, the latter wrote the telzey amberdon stories among other and pohl, that thing about the little erks, and a lot of suff before then.

most of the pohl and cornbluth colaberations were more fanatsy then real science fiction but many of them are funkey fun too.

James Schmitz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Schmitz). Yes, he was good. You mentioned the 'Telzey Amberdon' stories, but have you also read his novel 'The Witches of Karres'? If not, then do...

Whipping Star and The Dosadi Experiment (Frank Herbert) are pretty good reads..

Thing is there are loads! (Or problem?)

You mention Philip K. Dick...(as have others)...I figure that out of the 10ish PKD books I've read few have really disappointed.

Asimov is a giant and many of his books are also worth reading...you just need to read them wearing the 'Golden Age' goggles ;)

Frederick Pohl is pretty good btw...worth checking out.

William Gibson is another one of my favorite authors. I am glad that he has progressed from the cyberpunk stuff to his 2nd to last book - Pattern Recognition which is a hell of a good read. I have not read Spook Country yet...am going to have to order that forthwith.

Of course my most favorite author (Michael Moorcock) has written so many different styles of books and such...from high fantasy/sci fi like Elric to Mother London...a decidedly non sci fi book but links into his 'Eternal Champion' theme...

One area I have not kept up on is non Western sci fi/SF...whatever*...I have read RUR but really I am pretty much in the dark...oh ...I did watch Tarkovsky's Solaris but never read the book by Lem. I suspect one of the problems of at least writers in the old Communist block (and I suspect the ones that still exist) would have been writing their stories as samizdat.

Harry Harrison is a good fun author (Stainless Steel Rat series amongst others)...and of course Mr. Pratchett (not all his stuff is Ringworld).

Hmmm in retrospect I am not sure how this post helps...! LOL

Gibson: Neuromancer, The Difference Engine. Both wonderful books, and helped define their respective genres.

Heinlein: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Fantastic book, awesome look at politics and people.

PKD: The Penultimate Truth, for one. Very nice look at people being manipulated by rulers. Most of his other stuff is very good as well.

That's just a few suggestions, but I haven't read anywhere near as much SF as I would like to have.

The original books were meant to be a trilogy.

It wasn't until the mid 80's that he started writing further Dune books...some say to help pay for his hospitalisation and others that it was not realised that Dune would be as successful as it was.

If I remember the latter 6 books were marketed as the Second Dune Trilogy.

I also think there is a marked deterioration of the writing in the second set of three books.

it doesnt matter. only the first dune book is worth reading. the rest are terrible in plot and characters and pacing.

but the first dune is a masterpiece that shouldnt be missed.

I personally prefer 20th Century classics.

Go and read The Great Gatsby, Grapes of Wrath, 1984, Catch 22 etc.

They beat any Sci-Fi novel.

Seriously off-topic, though they are great novels.

If you like your sci fi mixed with history, no one can beat Harry Turtledove. He has a way of mixing his sci fi with actual history that is incredible. Most of his books are considered "alternative history".

You can find all of his series at http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/

This covers sci fi, horror, mystery, etc.

This is a fantastic resource for checking out your favorite sci fi authors, and to see if there is anything that you may have missed in your favorite series.

Vic

Islands in the Net - almost 20 years old, but has (mostly) aged well, lots of interesting ideas about the near future

Damn... forgot that one.

also John Varley's Gaean trilogy (http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Rampart/3870/)
Titan
Wizard
Demon

One area I have not kept up on is non Western sci fi/SF...whatever*...I have read RUR but really I am pretty much in the dark...oh ...I did watch Tarkovsky's Solaris but never read the book by Lem. I suspect one of the problems of at least writers in the old Communist block (and I suspect the ones that still exist) would have been writing their stories as samizdat.

I'll toss in one interesting suggestion: Sakyo Komatsu's Japan Sinks -

If you like your sci fi mixed with history, no one can beat Harry Turtledove.

I used to like Turtledove a lot. Unfortunately, he seems to have succumbed to a bad case of Robert Jordan disease, particularly with the Southern Victory/Timeline 191 books - 11 books and counting, with no end in sight and a cast of 1000s.

He has a way of mixing his sci fi with actual history that is incredible. Most of his books are considered "alternative history".

Indeed alternate history, which, while often mixed in with science fiction under the umbrella speculative fiction, really isn't science fiction in most cases.

I'll toss in one interesting suggestion: Sakyo Komatsu's Japan Sinks -



Cheers!

Another fantasy author who does not seem to get as many as he should is Fritz Leiber...

Cheers!

Another fantasy author who does not seem to get as many as he should is Fritz Leiber...

Fahfrd and the Grey Mouser .... yes!

Fahfrd and the Grey Mouser .... yes!

Yep...and much more fun to read that Tolkien...

James Schmitz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Schmitz). Yes, he was good. You mentioned the 'Telzey Amberdon' stories, but have you also read his novel 'The Witches of Karres'? If not, then do...

yes, 'relling a vetch', one of my favorite. and i'll add kudos to fritz lieber, although, dark as it is (but i seem to recall, its been a while since i read it, a brighter ending), i though gather darkness was more interesting and perhapse gratifying.

=^^=
.../\...