Books???

[Kertech]

I want to start reading a new series, just wondering what other people are reading at the moment?? or suggestions (pref scifi/fantasy)

[Evanitis]

Fantasy: I recently finished the last volume of 'The Malazan Book of the Fallen' by Steven Erikson. It's the most epic, and most underrated fantasy series out there. The guy does an awesome job of making the lives of the common everymen, gods and various powerful entities, even countries and empires interesting and relevant.

It's 10 big and heavy books. If Michael Bay ever finds it, it'll occupy him for a decade.

Sci-fi: Ever read Phillip K. Dick? Though it's not 'classic' science fiction, kinda' anything you could pick from him will be awesome.

[RizzoTheRat]

Stuff any KSP fan should read (though not really in your scifi/fantasy field):

• The Martian - Andy Weir
• An Astronauts guide to life on earth - Chris Hadfield

For fantasy stuff, anything by Terry Pratchett or Neil Gamien

SciFi

• Starship Troopers - Robert Heinlen (so much better than the film)
• Dark Eden - Chris Becket (descendants of a crashed ship on an dark planet)

Other stuff I've read recently and enjoyed but isn't really scifi/fantasy or space

• Game of Thrones series - George R Martin,  (I wish he'd finish off writing the damn things)
• Farseer trilogy - Robin Hobb, (similar genre to GoT, and then led me on to another 3 of her trilogies)
• Bark Billinghams's Inspector Thorne series (British police detective series, Sleephead is the first one)
• 100 days - Sandy Woodward (Falklands war biography)

Oh and I'm currently reading The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, after stumbling across Lynch when I read George RR Martin's collection of short stories, Rogues.

Edited February 3, 2016 by RizzoTheRat

[Spaceception]

Time Riders by Alex Scarrow, It's a time-traveling sci-fi (9 novels)

Also, Flood and Ark by Stephen Baxter.

[Cydonian Monk]

Sci-Fi: Cixin Liu's "Rememberance of Earth's Past" series. Only the first two have been translated so far ("The Three Body Problem" and "The Dark Forest"), but as I understand it the third ("Death's End") should be released soon. (Can't remember if I preordered the third one, but it's not yet on my Kindle.)

As for what I'm reading right now, I'm finally at the 50% point in "Blue Mars". I'm convinced Elon Musk will set foot on Mars before I finish the trilogy. (And Blue Mars is the last book.... Oy.)

Edited February 3, 2016 by Cydonian Monk

[pxi]

2 hours ago, RizzoTheRat said:

• Game of Thrones series - George R Martin,  (I wish he'd finish off writing the damn things)

Don't we all.  I'm currently waiting to find a non-hardback copy of the Dunk & Egg trilogy that finally got released in one volume which should hold me over for a bit.

One book that I often recommend is The Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson & Robert Shea.  Often placed in the Sci-Fi / Fantasy sections because no-one quite seems to know how you properly categorize it.  If you can manage to slog past the first 50 or so pages, you'll find a book that eventually hooks you, and will leave you feeling simultaneously feeling more enlightened and confused then when you started.  One of the few books that genuinely changed the way I looked at the world.

I'd also recommend Neil Stephenson's books, especially The Diamond Age, and Snow Crash.

And then, in a slightly Terry Pratchett / Douglas Adams vein - Robert Rankin's stuff is pretty good.

Currently reading Anne Rice's Prince Lestat.

[RizzoTheRat]

7 minutes ago, pxi said:

And then, in a slightly Terry Pratchett / Douglas Adams vein - Robert Rankin's stuff is pretty good.

...providing you like sprouts...

[Emoss55]

The Kris Longknife series by Mike Shepherd is pretty good for Sci/fi.  It actually gets into the (mostly realistic) technology and the author doesn't completely ignore orbital physics.

[Evanitis]

20 minutes ago, RizzoTheRat said:

...providing you like sprouts...

That sounds my kinda of thing. I like both authors, and I eat a lot of sprouts.

[HebaruSan]

I suppose I can accept being the resident Larry Niven fanboy. Currently have 3 chapters left in part 3 of these 9 (originally read the first two before the others existed, then came back to it after getting hooked on KSP):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringworld_series

After that pops off the stack (library books take priority), I go back to Footfall, and then back to Dragon's Egg (not by Larry Niven!). If I finish everything else and get really desperate, I'll consider resuming the Rama series (I set the second book aside after it voided every element of the original setting in a chapter or two of pure exposition).

I would not necessarily recommend any of this, except possibly the original Ringworld. Sequels are hard to do right, and I'm in it more out of a sense of personal obligation as opposed to anything the books themselves offer.

[pxi]

2 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

If I finish everything else and get really desperate, I'll consider resuming the Rama series (I set the second book aside after it voided every element of the original setting in a chapter or two of pure exposition).

Obvious YMMV disclaimers apply, but I quite enjoyed the 3 Rama sequel books.  For me it's a real toss-up as to whether Rama or 2001 were Clarke's best series.  I still hope it eventually sees a big-screen adaptation.

[Shpaget]

Asimov's Robot series should keep you occupied for a while. It really is a must read for any sci-fi lover (and everybody else, really).

[Evanitis]

I liked the Foundation series better.

[Motokid600]

I'm working my way through GRRM's Song of Ice and Fire. Completed the fourth book Feast of Crows a week ago and I just started A Dance of Dragons. Hoping to finish it before season six starts.  

Sadly GRRM said Winds of Winter will not be ready before the season premiere. Probably not until fall. But DoD should keep me occupied for a good while. I'm in love with the books and show. It's the greatest fantasy series I've experienced in all my life. And any television show that inspires you to pick up a book and read... Must be doing something right.

[Shpaget]

Uh, yeah, I was thinking about both Robot and Foundation, since a large number of novels and stories are set in the same universe. When I read them quite a while ago I read them together, so the boundaries between the series are somewhat mixed up in my head.

[StrandedonEarth]

Hold on a sec while I put on my flame-resistant suit, cuz I'll probably get flamed for this....

Ok, much better. If you can stomach some of the questionable "science", I quite enjoyed Anne McAffrey's "DragonRiders of Pern" series. It's more fantasy than sci-fi, but hey, the stories tend to suck you in. Just stay away from the ones co-written by her son Todd. Her "Talent" series also entertained me (the first 3, the "Pegasus" ones, are the best IMO) 

And I'm also a Niven fanboy. His "Known Space" universe is vast and richly textured. On the other hand, there are over 10 collections of short stories and novellas written by other authors but set in Known Space, known collectively as Tales from the Man-Kzin Wars. Quite entertaining. On the gripping hand, he also has some excellent stand-alone novels, such as Footfall, The Mote in God's Eye, and Fallen Angels (others may disagree with the last one, but it's a nice salute to fandom).

[HebaruSan]

7 hours ago, pxi said:

Obvious YMMV disclaimers apply, but I quite enjoyed the 3 Rama sequel books.  For me it's a real toss-up as to whether Rama or 2001 were Clarke's best series.  I still hope it eventually sees a big-screen adaptation.

The first one, that Clarke wrote by himself, was amazing and really impressively hard sci fi. I couldn't wait to know more when it was over (what a classic teaser ending!). Then I open up the next book and it says oh and by the way, we evacuated the colonies on the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Ganymede, Titan, and Triton, and that United Planets thing that governed the solar system in the previous book? It's gone now. And everybody has turned sexually conservative. It felt like that Gentry Lee guy was taking over, and not in a cunning or subtle way, but with a bazooka that didn't respect the original source material. I'll probably come back to it once I have more distance and can compartmentalize the sequels as their own series rather than as a continuation of something I liked.

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

I've read the Martian, I just started Rocket Company, which looks like it's going to be good.

I recommend any Terry Pratchett book, any Megan Whalen Turner book, and most Eoin Colfer books.  Lemony Snicket is always great, and Bill Bryson's A Short History Of Nearly Everything is a great science book.  Umm.... Jonathan Stroud's books are great, Diana Wynne Jones, especially The Dark Lord of Derkholm.  I like all of Patricia C. Wrede, I've read some of Carl Hiaasen, Joshua Mowell's books are visually really neat. 

[Bill Phil]

Hmm...

Foundation by Isaac Asimov is pretty good. 

If you're into dystopian I would recommend Farenheit 451. It's a bit frightening.... But in deep ways.

Ender's Game, of course. And then the prequels, starting with "Earth Unaware." 

*sigh

If only 2112 had a book adaption... Although it needs a movie.

[Ehco Corrallo]

I've been reading Dune, and I just finished reading the Martian. I'm also reading Catch 22. 

I can recommend all three.

[Shpaget]

1 hour ago, Mad Rocket Scientist said:

  Lemony Snicket is always great

Afte reading ten or so novels from the Series of unfortunate events, I just couldn't stomach him any more. Too repetitive and predictable. Kids are incredibly (as in hard to belive) naive and unobservant, authoroties, which should have been involved from the start, nonexistant... The word explaining, while fun for the first three times, soon becomes annoying and condescending. Lack of characters...

[Evanitis]

1 hour ago, Ehco Corrallo said:

I'm also reading Catch 22.

Yay! That's the one I keep re-reading for the longest of time.

[Ehco Corrallo]

13 hours ago, Evanitis said:

Yay! That's the one I keep re-reading for the longest of time.

The quote that springs most readily to mind (mostly because it's the least contextually sensitive) is: "Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major, it had been all three." 

It took me slightly by surprise just how constantly funny Catch 22 is. I can definitely see myself re-reading it. 

Edited February 4, 2016 by Ehco Corrallo
Verified veracity of quotation.

[Evanitis]

"Men, you're American officers. The officers of no other army in the world can make that statement. Think about it."

[RizzoTheRat]

I understand why they're doing it but the TV series of Game of Thrones in wandering away from the books quite a bit.  I read the whole lot of them before I started watching the series, and it's been flipping years without another one.  Apparently GRRM has outlined the rest of the storyline to the TV people so despite the TV series getting ahead of the books they'll hopefully be roughly consistent.  I've accidentally been quite a few of the filming locations too. 

 

3 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

Ender's Game, of course. And then the prequels, starting with "Earth Unaware." 

How do the other books compare?  Enders game is just fantastic but I've never hear good things about the sequels and didn't realise there were an prequels.

 

5 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

I quite enjoyed Anne McAffrey's "DragonRiders of Pern" series

Same here, great series.  I've not read that many of her other books though, but one of her short stories was about the deep space survey team that named Pern, and that line looks interesting.

 

15 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringworld_series

Appears you can download the first few chapters for free on Kindle as a sampler, I'll give it a try.

 

Other space stuff

• Emperion - Stephen Lawhead (an expedition goes to investigate what happened to a off world colony, but arrive hundreds of years in the colonies future)
• Voyagers - Ben Bova (present day space mission to meet an alien probe detected coming into the solar system)
• Millenium/Colony/Kinsman - Ben Bova (set on moon base as the earth heads towards war)
• Eon - Greg Bear (a hollowed out asteroid with a deserted city inside it enters earth orbit)

 

 

Oh and I'm also reading this which a mate bought me for my birthday

Edited February 4, 2016 by RizzoTheRat