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Bookmarking and bumping.
Monkeyboyjc and eddiebaby’s tips remind me of this clip:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rqU8EQ6G1i0
Currently reading Alisdair Reynolds’ Galactic North, having finished the Revelation novels suggested in a previous thread here.
Just enjoyed Peter Cawdron’s Losing Mars. Fairly short but enjoyable.
Seveneves is the last book I read, took a bit of work to get into it, but really enjoyed the scope of it, although I’m not quite sure about the slightly unsubtle storyline dividing society into red and blue.
I’m now reading Anathem, didn’t have a clue where it was going, and only have a vague idea roughly ⅓ of the way into it, but I’m taking every opportunity to dive back into it to find out.
Anyone mentioned the Gibson trilogies - Neuromancer and the bridge trilogy? Fantastic books.
Southern reach trilogy (start with annihilation)
Roadside picnic is a classic that’s aged brilliantly IMHO
OP I share your non-enthusiasm for Wool. Padded and predictable, nice premise but nothing special at all.
Im a sucker for the Sprawl and Bridge trilogies and then came Blue Ant that I loved but suddenly I stumbled with The Peripheral. I love his work rating Neuromancer quite a bit higher than Dreams of Blood and Sand by WT Quick that felt derivative but folk like Rudy Rucker really got into the cyber too.
I'm not certain why I'm so hesitant about The Peripheral. Maybe other stuff it starting to outweigh it. Cryptonomicon is my go to WTF book. its density is amazing but it is not SciF really.
Can I just point out tho that thee genre is Science fiction or SF. Sci-fi is for dorks only!
I think this is my most successful thread ever!
Thank you for all the recommendations, some of which I’ve read on the back of the last thread on here, Children of Time, Wayfarers series, Red Mars etc but plenty of new series to look in too!
I also had a very kind offer of receiving a copy of Children if Time in the post! Whilst I have already read it it for me thinking that maybe we could set up an STW book swap shop, new reads and recycling for the cost of a couple of stamps? Just a thought...
This is as much of my SF collection as I can get in one photo! In the next couple of years I have to get rid of the lot 🙁 It varies from a full set of EE "doc" Smith to Golden era collectons to Modern stuff like Stephenson and Moon
[url= https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4849/32413212308_8ed666ec35_b.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4849/32413212308_8ed666ec35_b.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/RofbL5 ]DSC_0703[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/25846484@N04/ ]TandemJeremy[/url], on Flickr
I don't know if that works with Kindle books...
Just started Richard Morgan’s new book Thin Air. Seems decent so far, dirty cyber punk noir. I just hope that there’ll be less of the embarrassingly written sex scenes in this one. Not holding my breath though.
I’m now reading Anathem, didn’t have a clue where it was going, and only have a vague idea roughly ⅓ of the way into it, but I’m taking every opportunity to dive back into it to find out.
I don't think Stephenson had a clue where it was going when he started it. It grows exponentially in scope as it goes on.
First time I read it I didn't really understand the ending or fully get what was going on. Second time I knew how it ended so I was able to take it slower and think about what I'd read. That's when I was really blown away on so many levels from so many directions.
Another shout for Alastair Reynolds and Ian M Banks. Reynolds especially, made twelve hour night shifts fly 😉
Mentioned before, but Dune is a great read. Also try Borne by Jeff VanderMeer is a great read - bit odd but not too much. Also I'd agree that Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson is really good.
Yep, Dune
Neuromancer
Shadow of the Torturer( Gene Wolfe)
Neuromancer has been mentioned, but William Gibson’s later books are all well worth reading, especially as they run in loosely-linked trilogies, despite his best efforts to do otherwise. Here’s a list of his published works in order:
Publication Order of Sprawl Books
Neuromancer (1984)
Count Zero (1986)
Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988)
Publication Order of Bridge Books
Virtual Light (1993)
Idoru (1996)
All Tomorrow's Parties (1999)
Publication Order of Blue Ant/Bigend Books
Pattern Recognition (2003)
Spook Country (2007)
Zero History (2010)
Publication Order of Standalone Novels
The Difference Engine (1990)
The Peripheral (2014)
Publication Order of Short Story Collections
Burning Chrome
The Periferal is no longer a standalone story, Gibson’s next book, which should have been published earlier this year, had to be completely re-written after dTrump won the Presidency, and everything he’d written couldn’t match the reality of what had actually happened - the original story imagined the US with Hilary Clinton as President, and the new book will link in with the events of The Periferal
+1 for Iain Banks, Peter Hamilton, Alistair Reynolds, Dune #1 & Gibson.
Not mentioned yet but I really rate River of Gods (& slightly less so) Cyberadad days by Ian McDonald. Future Indian subcontinent AIs, tech wars, quantum mechanics, a new sex, ageless children & Krishna cops.
Not quite Sci Fi but I also rate Perdido St Station & the Scar by China Mieville. Amazing world building science steampunk fantasy fiction. I don't like fantasy but would read anything else set in Bas Lag.
Richard Morgan - Takeshi Kovaks series (Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, Woken Furies).
I don’t think anyone has mentioned it yet, but I’d definitely recommend ‘The Three Body Problem’ by Cixin Liu, some of the most inventive SF I’ve had the pleasure to read since the Culture Novels.
I also really rated Simon Winstanley’s Field series.
If you can stomach giving the Wool series another go, do so. It ranks in my top 10.
Yep, Dune
Neuromancer
Shadow of the Torturer( Gene Wolfe)
I finished a reread of Book of the New Sun last month - Jesus Christ that is some book.
G. O. A. T. SF novel and for me it's not even close. Obviously a ridiculous statement to make for an entire genre, but honestly I couldn't name anything in the same league. Not everyone's cup of tea, though, as you would expect from something at this level.
I found it hard to understand how Wolfe wrote that book. Like with most of the classics you have an inkling of the author's motivations, what they're trying to achieve, what the point of the book is. To be such an exceptional writer, and write that obscure a novel, it's sort of hard to make sense of the process.
I’m a big fan of Gibsons Blueant trilogy, especially Spook Country (def my fave Gibson). I’ve pretty much everything (bar difference engine I think).
Stephenson, yeah, read everything I think. Anathem, Snow Crash & Cryptonomicon are his jewels. Just finished DODO which I found a slow start. Picked it up/put it down a couple times but enjoyed it.
Anybody mentioned Neil Gaimans American Gods yet?
Bearing in mind the above can anybody recommend ‘similar’ stuff for me to try?
Bearing in mind the above can anybody recommend ‘similar’ stuff for me to try?
Zachary Mason's Void Star. Dense, somewhat endebted to Gibson, written by someone with a better understanding of AI than most.
Anybody read Poul Anderson's Tau Zero? Not an exciting novel but an interesting attempt to be scientific about fiction. Would be grateful if anyone knows other books he's written which are also good.
Anybody read Poul Anderson’s Tau Zero?
Yep, picked it up for 20p in a charity shop, enjoyed it but found it very slow going.
Enjoyed Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven. Short single novel but a weekend well spent.
Have read Wool which was ok, but not such I immediately sought out the sequel.
I read all three. Meh, was okay but not amazingly so, Dust felt unfinished. Good concepts but not great execution.
For more hard sci fi, Kim Stanley Robinson
Is that hard as in hard to see why it would be classified as such? I read 2312 and it was more of a social sciences fiction than anything else focussing just about entirely on gender politics (take your pick of at least 6) to the expense of everything else. Plus veeeeery monotonous with pretentious characters you just want to slap.
Is Red Mars more of the same or was 2312 just a miss?
Okay, my recommendations - as always Ken MacLeod if you are into Banks. Not so much his Culture as opposed to Taysiders in Space. A couple of Banks' non-M books like Walking on Glass and Transition are worth looking at as well, they are more M than not tbh. Andrew Bannister's Spin series isn't bad either though the stories are only connected by the universe they are set in.
Here's what's currently on my Kindle that fits the brief, hasn't been mentioned yet and I'm willing to own up to reading:
The Calculating Stars and The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal
Embers of War by Gareth Powell
The Wrong Stars by Tim Pratt (I think the sequel to this is just out as well)
The War Dogs Trilogy by Greg Bear
The Last Good Man and the The Red Trilogy by Linda Nagata
Not quite Sci Fi but I also rate Perdido St Station & the Scar by China Mieville. Amazing world building science steampunk fantasy fiction. I don’t like fantasy but would read anything else set in Bas Lag.
Leave it at that. Don't bother with the third in the trilogy, "Iron Council". Very weak.
Another recommendation for Iain M Banks’ Culture novels, there really is no better sci fi and I am consistently sad every time I’m reminded there won’t ever be another one.
For more hard sci fi, Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy is very, very good. Start with Red Mars, all about the colonisation of the planet and everything that goes along with it.
These would be my recommendations too plenty there to keep you occupied for two or three holidays...
Coyote
Member
Not quite Sci Fi but I also rate Perdido St Station & the Scar by China Mieville. Amazing world building science steampunk fantasy fiction. I don’t like fantasy but would read anything else set in Bas Lag.Leave it at that. Don’t bother with the third in the trilogy, “Iron Council”. Very weak.
I didn't mind Iron Council - I think there is a good book in there trying to get out, but there are structural problems that bog it down.
Actually reads like an author's first book - good ideas, characters etc but the writer doesn't yet have the skill to make it all work together. So it's strange that it came later on - PSS and the Scar are fantastically accomplished books given Mieville wrote them early in his career.
Skimmed through the thread and didn't see: The Quantum Thief trilogy by Hannu Rajaniemi.
I found them hard work but really rewarding. Abstract ideas based on various concepts, stretched to the ridiculous. Took me a few reads to 'get' the worlds but once it clicked, it's a fun adventure through a crazy and bizarre story.
Ringworld FTW.
I seem to remember a mote in gods eye buy Niven and Pournelle being good but it has been a loooong time since i read it.
*by...
(come back edit button!)
Becky Chambers’ the Long way to a small angry planet (and the rest of the wayfarers books).
Great books, hugely enjoyable. I’ve got a massive list of books by Larry Niven ebooks, aquired through a Chinese ebook site that’s no longer accessible, many of them are books that haven’t been in print for many years. The Man-Kzin Wars books, a shared universe series written by a bunch of other writers are great fun, but Niven wrote lots of short stories later put into collections, and many have a sense of humour as well, some of his stories are magical fantasy, like The Magic Goes Away, and What Good Is A Glass Dagger.
I also have to mention Roger Zelazney as well, one of SF’s finest writers, who wrote great fantasy stories as well as SF, and co-wrote a book with Alfred Bester, considered to be the father of Cyberpunk with his books Tiger! Tiger!, also known as The Stars My Destination, and The Demolished Man.
I don’t think there’s anything written by either Zelazney or Niven that I haven’t read, most of them several times, quite a few many times over the years.
All this way and I don’t think I’ve seen any mention of Harlan Ellison or Harry Harrison.
Yep. Don't read them. They're for kids.
Ooooooooooh. Burn.
Hyperion books or The Reality Dysfunction
Harry Harrison - good call! I discovered sci-fi when I was a kid 🙂
Mark you I still happily read Black Library stuff too...
I was absolutely smitten with Revenger by the end of it.
The last SF novel that had me so affected was probably Hyperion, of maybe Banks' Matter.
On more of a fantasy theme - any Steven Donaldson fans here?
Nope, Mr rape McRapmyster, can stick his own book up his arse (except for "one ride through" and "a mirror of her dreams") I resisted for ages but caved and bought the gap series, how I regret it.. why did I not learn from the chronicles.
I loved the Chronicles (first 3, not the second 3 so much) but I read them as a young teenager, not sure if they would survive a re-read. He seems to get a lot of stick for really florid, ham-fisted writing but that's not really a problem for a young reader - plus the dramatic melancholy is right up your street at that age. I can still picture a lot of the imagery to this day so he was doing something right with his storytelling. The (anti)hero of the books is obv quite problematic for a number of reasons.
He does seem to have a thing for rape-as-plot-device IIRC - like z1ppy I read the first gapinto book and really couldn't be arsed with it.
"The “Red Rising” trilogy."
Is the right answer. I've never been so eager for the next book in a series to come out.