Best Sci-Fi books

[mushroomman]

On 8/25/2017 at 5:16 PM, daniel l. said:

Rendevous with Rama - By Arthur C. Clarke (I only like the first one. The three sequels are crap.)

I wish I realized that before I started reading them

Rendezvous with Rama is one of my favourite books and I would highly recommend it to anyone who is into sci-fi, but for the love of god don't read the sequels. By all rights they shouldn't even exist.

I'm still mad about it.

 

The City and the Stars was also interesting if you want something a more out there (by Clarke standards)

[daniel l.]

1 minute ago, mushroomman said:

I wish I realized that before I started reading them

 

Amen.

[TheSaint]

Jerry Pournelle passed away in his sleep today.  Most of the stuff he wrote on his own was just okay, but his collaborations with Larry Niven were some of their best works. Lucifer's Hammer, Footfall, Oath of Fealty, The Mote in God's Eye, The Gripping Hand, The Legacy of Heorot, Beowulf's Children, all great reads.

[stibbons]

On 30/08/2017 at 1:58 PM, spacebrick3 said:

Anything by Stephen Baxter, especially his NASA trilogy, (Titan, Moonseed, and Voyage), and his Long Earth series with Terry Pratchett. The NASA books in particular are great "hard" sci-fi books that most KSP players will probably appreciate.

I'll second the Long Earth series. Have been a Pratchett fan for decades, and those books got me in to reading more Baxter. 

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell is fantastic but very grim. I really should read the sequel soon. 

[Cydonian Monk]

I rather enjoyed the three books in the "Remembrance of Earth's Past" series (The Three Body Problem / The Dark Forest / Death's End) by Liu Cixin. The first two much more than the last. Death's End really builds up The Dark Forest into a better story (it's good to start with), and it has some really amazing ideas and "visuals", but I'm not particularly a fan of the direction it takes at the end. All three are good books regardless, and the English translations are reasonably easy to get through.

I'll also continue to recommend anything by Lem.

 

On 8/28/2017 at 2:42 PM, regex said:

I find Asimov hard to read because...

Glad I'm not the only one. That particular issue aside: Asimov's short stories I'm fine with, and even some of his longer works (that we'd call novellas today). Foundation and its later spawn? Especially the ones he didn't want to write? Of all the usual highly recommended novels, Asimov's later Foundation books and Herbert's ChapterHouse Dune are the only ones I've never been able to slog through. Foundation is just not my thing.

Edited September 10, 2017 by Cydonian Monk

[regex]

8 minutes ago, Cydonian Monk said:

Glad I'm not the only one. That particular issue aside: Asimov's short stories I'm fine with, and even some of his longer works (that we'd call novellas today). Foundation and its later spawn? Especially the ones he didn't want to write? Of all the usual highly recommended novels, Asimov's later Foundation books and Herbert's ChapterHouse Dune are the only ones I've never been able to slog through. Foundation is just not my thing.

Oh, Asimov's a decent writer, no doubt, and I thought the first Foundation book was good (why I bought the next two), but if he has a woman character to butcher she'll get an olde-timey gender role and maybe a blatantly sexist treatment to boot. That lack of imagination on his part greatly diminishes his value as an author to me. And you're totally right, the last two Dune books kind of peter out, clearly only written to keep the ball rolling. I only read them because I'm a big fan of Herbert his body of work, just for the breadth of his vision and imagination.

Edited September 10, 2017 by regex

[WinkAllKerb'']

i don't remind the title of the book but i remind it's plot:

it's a book where scientist discovered that brain emit some specific frequencies when you talk, they associated each word in every existing languages, to the point they and some others become able to throw some thought in people brain using the electrical device surrounding them using the dtmf or ntmf process, result where quiet sparse from an individual to another and depending the kind of emotive field frequencies as well (fear, sexual, hot, cold and all and all & etc.), they were even able to associate emotion with wording thought, at some point later population became immun to that, some run into suicide, some run into killing random, some people build a fortune from it, some totally don't care, some thought they found the grall but forgot some don't wanted to share that cake, some people get killed, some civilian revolution happened, some war etc etc. much later some people became telepath more or less roughly and accurately naturally producing with there own biological brain there own dtmf and ntmf on surrounding signals using mimetism like darwin describe it etc. etc. while some others where still using there cell phones the topics was kinda taboo at first before thing became totally out of control a nice sci fi book

sadly i don't remind the name, but it's was really creepy to imagine it could happen for real

Edited October 5, 2017 by WinkAllKerb''
edited a few time with some little sum up details, my memories so often lack

[tater]

I read Asimov so long ago, that I didn't notice the sexism, but the Foundation series was never really my thing.

I read all of Clarke, Heinlein, Niven, and more than I can name. It's been a while, though. I have 500+ SF books in banker's boxes, and no place to put them... even though I have a huge length of bookshelf I the house, it's already full.

[0111narwhalz]

1 hour ago, tater said:

no place to put them

scribbles out mailing address

I won't even charge storage fees!

[DAL59]

On 10/6/2017 at 8:29 PM, tater said:

I have 500+ SF books in banker's boxes, and no place to put them... even though I have a huge length of bookshelf I the house, it's already full.

! 

I thought I had a lot...

only 75...

 

Edited January 22, 2018 by DAL59

[Just Jim]

On 9/10/2017 at 12:19 PM, Cydonian Monk said:

...Herbert's ChapterHouse Dune are the only ones I've never been able to slog through.

Chapterhouse is good... but terribly incomplete. Thankfully Herbert's son managed to finish the original Saga in fairly decent fashion, or else the ending of Chapterhouse is really frustrating.

[adsii1970]

2 minutes ago, Just Jim said:

Chapterhouse is good... but terribly incomplete. Thankfully Herbert's son managed to finish the original Saga in fairly decent fashion, or else the ending of Chapterhouse is really frustrating.

This post deserves the "Understatement of the Year" award.

On 10/6/2017 at 7:29 PM, tater said:

I read Asimov so long ago, that I didn't notice the sexism, but the Foundation series was never really my thing.

I enjoyed the Foundation series and the I, Robot series. There was even some crossover between the two. In my opinion, they are all a part of the same story and time line.

May I recommend the RAMA series? It's pretty good.

On 10/6/2017 at 7:29 PM, tater said:

I have 500+ SF books in banker's boxes, and no place to put them... even though I have a huge length of bookshelf I the house, it's already full.

Between my history books, religion books, and science fiction, I have books that are in boxes that have not seen the light of day in about six years. I feel your pain.

[Cydonian Monk]

6 minutes ago, Just Jim said:

Chapterhouse is good... but terribly incomplete. Thankfully Herbert's son managed to finish the original Saga in fairly decent fashion, or else the ending of Chapterhouse is really frustrating.

It’s one of those I’ll eventually get around to finishing (or at this point re-reading). I did eventually read the second half of Childhood’s End after 15 years of stops and starts, so shelving stories for a couple decades isn’t unprecedented. Lots to get through in my backlog though, and I had just started into the Ringworld books late last year before I was sidetracked by.... rather excessively fictional non-fiction from 100 years ago that we shouldn’t discuss here.

[DAL59]

-

8 minutes ago, adsii1970 said:

RAMA series? It's pretty good.

Only the first one...

Edited January 22, 2018 by DAL59

[Bill Phil]

21 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

-

Only the first one...

There are two Rama series, or, well, there's Rama and then there's a separate series that's similar, but definitely different.

[tater]

Maybe I should reread Foundation, I read it... maybe in the early 1980s, possibly the late 70s, and never reread it (only the original ones from the 50s).

I like my house, the only thing I would really want in a different house would be a proper library. Maybe I can remodel the downstairs to have more shelves, a couple hundred linear feet isn't enough. I probably have a couple thousand books shelved right now, anyway. Need more books (my sneakers are ratty, but I buy new books constantly).

[Tex]

I am personally a huge fan of the Artemis Fowl series. It has a ton of cool sciency and futuristic takes on the genre, and even offers humorous explanations for many strange real-life events.

[Piatzin]

Ender's Game is a bit overrated in my opinion....

plz don't kill meee....

[Bill Phil]

12 hours ago, Earthlinger said:

Ender's Game is a bit overrated in my opinion....

plz don't kill meee....

I like Ender's Shadow more. 

[radonek]

On 22. 1. 2018 at 3:06 AM, Just Jim said:

Chapterhouse is good... but terribly incomplete. Thankfully Herbert's son managed to finish the original Saga in fairly decent fashion, or else the ending of Chapterhouse is really frustrating.

I've read two pieces produced by Herbert jr. (Butlerian Jihad and one of prequels to Dune) and they are absolutely horrible. I consider original about best thing I've ever read, "decent"  additions just does not cut it.

Most of my favourites were already mentioned, others:

• War of the Worlds by H.G.Wells, it just does not age.
• Schismatrix by Bruce Sterling
• Neuromancer by William Gibson is about closest I ever came to poetry :-)
• Stalker by Strugacky brothers

[p1t1o]

1 hour ago, radonek said:

• War of the Worlds by H.G.Wells, it just does not age.

I recently read "The Massacre of Mankind", an officially authorised sequel by Stephen Baxter, it quite faithfully recreates Wells' world, I'd  recommend it.

[Just Jim]

4 hours ago, radonek said:

I've read two pieces produced by Herbert jr. (Butlerian Jihad and one of prequels to Dune) and they are absolutely horrible. I consider original about best thing I've ever read, "decent"  additions just does not cut it

I hear ya! I've talked to a lot of people, and there seems to be a love/hate thing about the later Dune books much like the later Star Wars movies. Some I know have no problem with them, while others absolutely hate them, and want nothing but the originals... and either opinion is fine.  

 

[p1t1o]

16 minutes ago, Just Jim said:

I hear ya! I've talked to a lot of people, and there seems to be a love/hate thing about the later Dune books much like the later Star Wars movies. Some I know have no problem with them, while others absolutely hate them, and want nothing but the originals... and either opinion is fine.  

 

Writing wise, the prequels are inferior to the original trilogy, for sure. But after consuming the originals they are a great source of "more".

[Just Jim]

6 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

Writing wise, the prequels are inferior to the original trilogy, for sure. But after consuming the originals they are a great source of "more".

Agreed. I applaud Herbert's son for trying to match Frank's style, but IMO, it's not quite the same. Frank had an amazing vision... he didn't look a century or even a millennium down the road... why bother??? Waste of time...

Now, 10,000 years in the future??? For Frank Herbert that was a good start!

However, having said that, What I like about the Butlarian prequel, and books 7 & 8, is they were based on Franks long-lost notes, so they're fairly true to his original plot, and answer a lot of questions he left hanging when he passed, even if they weren't actually written by him.

[DarkOwl57]

*Pops knuckles*

About 3 years ago, I went to the house of one of my mom's old college friends. The friend has a brother, who plays chess, and loves to read (Same as me). We instantly were friends, and after only about 15 minutes, we were discussing various novels, chess strategies, and of course playing the game. When it was time to leave (After a delicious homemade lasagna dinner), the friend gave me a book; Enders Game. We haven't gone back to the house in quite a while, but I still have the book. It's a pretty cool read too- one of my favorites by far.