Recommend me some sci-fi books from santa….

Santa doesn't know what sci-fi books to get for xmas. Can you recommend something?

Cheers and Merry Xmas

alistair reynolds or iain m banks.
enjoy!

Kurt Vonnegut – Sirens of Titan

I'll have a go:
Richard Morgan
Orson Scott Card, especially Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead and Ender's Shadow
Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld books, although might seem a bit dated
Kim Stanley Robinson, just about anything especially the Mars trilogy and the Three Californias trilogy. Latest three books (Forty signs of rain etc) are pants though

A Madness Of Angels by Kate Griffin
Halting State by Charles Stross, (in fact check out Charles's entire back catalogue, he's a fantastically inventive writer, in a number of different styles).
Snow Crash and Diamond Age by Neil Stephenson
Virtual Light, Idoru, All Tomorrow's Parties by William Gibson, a loosely linked trilogy that has a cycle courier in a future San Fransisco as heroine in the first book. Pattern Recognition, Spook Country, also by Gibson, are well worth reading, though they're not really SF, but can't be easily classified as anything else, either.
These are all books I've read over and over again, and most of them are also on my iPhone as ebooks as well. Can't recommend them highly enough.

Perdido Street Station – China Miéville

Not strictly sci-fi, more gothic fantasy horror with a bit of steam punk influence. But excellent, very dark, scary 🙂

Can also recommend The Scar by the same author – mind boggling in parts…

Neil Stephenson just ordered. Just reading Stross now (Laundry books). Gibson, Morgan, Scott Card (3rd :), Reynolds, Hamilton all well read. Mievill i found very dull (city and the city).

Maybe something epic with blowing sh!t up 😀

Just enjoyed stealing light/nova war by Gary Gibson.

Neuromancer – William Gibson.

The Alchemist – Iain M Banks

Second Ian M Banks (possibly my favourite author – especially the Culture novels), Alastait Reynolds and Orson Scott Card.

Stross +1

Hmm, Saberhagen, Cherryh, Stephen Baxter, David Drake.

Assume you've read Bruce Sterling and Jeff Noon?

Peter f hamilton, richard morgan (particularly altered carbon, to start with), iain m banks, alastair reynolds, all excellent, Neuromancer 2nded, and if you've readed that any of the other sprawl or bridge books.

Stanislaw Lem – The Pirx the Pilot books are probably the easier reading
Greg Egan, not for the mathophobic though
Ian M Banks & Charles Stross & Orson Scott Card +1
Joe Haldeman – Forever War, a little dated now but in some ways as relevant today as the day it was written.

Plus if you've never actually read them then some of the old and not so old classics like Frankenstein, 1984, Brave New World, H.G.Wells, Vonnegut, Philip K. Dick.

I also personally have a really soft spot for E.E."Doc" Smith, the father of all Space Opera.

Colin-T, lensman and Family d'Lambert stuff. Takes me back.

I also personally have a really soft spot for E.E."Doc" Smith, the father of all Space Opera.

I have a complete if falling apart set 🙂 Geektastic.

Some good suggestions above – Peter Hamilton? Has anyone suggested him?

I've got my fingers crossed for some China Miéville come Christmas morning. In addition to the above Ken MacLeod is both engrossing and good fun.

Plus if you've never actually read them then some of the old and not so old classics like Frankenstein, 1984, Brave New World, H.G.Wells, Vonnegut, Philip K. Dick.

Wot he said

I don't get Peter Hamilton- I've only read Pandora's Star and it's sequel, and they are two terribly written books- overblown, full of plot holes and terrible characterisation. The premise was great, but the rest….

Are they consistent with the rest of his writing?

Those mentioning Doc Smith are showing their age- anybody remember Perry Rhodan?

I love the EE"Doc"Smith stuff, got complete Family D'Alembert, Lensman and Skylark 🙂 but missing most of Lord Tedric 🙁

Some others.

Dune – Frank Herbert
The Stainless Steel Rat – Harry Harrison
Eisenhorn – Dan Abnett (slightly embarrassing choice if I was to be a bit snobbish about the genre, but I enjoyed it).

vinnyeh, the Greg Mandell (Mindstar) books are good, as is the Reality Dysfunction series.

E E Doc Smith and Isaac Asimov are the only two I really rate…

I think the Foundation series was a masterpiece especially the way he joined it up with his other series.

What's wrong with all of you?

Asimov – Foundation Series
Herbert – Dune Series
Baxter – Coalescent (series) Time/Space/Origin (series)

Another vote for Banks.

Consider Phlebas or Use of Weapons would be a good starting place.

Heinlein for me; never really likes Asimov that much.

Plus (a bit more on the fantasy side) Stephen Donaldson – Thomas Covenant Chronicles, and (I think) Julian May – the Torc thingy series

VinneyH I agree about Peter F Hamilton. Didn't really get on with The Reality Dysfunction stuff, some great ideas but poorly written books, with a better editor I'd rate him higher.

Asimov, Clark and Heinlein all geniuses in their earlier work, all went a bit weird in the later stuff.

How could I forget Dune. But only the Frank Herbert books, the recent cash-ins written by Kevin J Anderson are pale imitations (I read one, it made me angry to see such rubbish based on such genius).

All the Douglas Adams Hitchhiker books.

Babel-17 – Samuel Delany
A Scanner Darkly – Philip K Dick
Cat's Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut
Vurt – Jeff Noon
Terraplane – Jack Womack
The Shockwave Rider – John Brunner

Have you heard of Gene Wolfe? – He's a SF old master rather than a young up and coming guy. He's known for two things – writing a bona fide masterpiece in the 80s – The Book of the New Sun, and being the best SF short story writer of the last 30 years. He has a collection out just now – the 'Best of Gene Wolfe' or something similar, which is his self-selected favourite short stories. Peerless, would make a great gift.

Neal Asher – Various threads/ongoing stories through his books, probably worth working out which ones to read first . . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Asher

Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy, best SF there is IMO

And the second best would be Richard Morgan, anything with Takeshi Kovacs in.

And the last of the three would be Roger Zelazny with Lord of Light, which hides is scifiism well but is absolutely stunning (his Chronicles of Amber are worth a dip as well, not scifi at all, more intelligent modern fantasy, but the line between the two's pretty skinny anyway)

Robert Heinlein- the Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Ken MacLeod's Fall Revolution series

Iain M Banks's Culture novels, starting at the start when he was still good

Charlie Stross, I don't get at all, Ken made me get one of his- Singularity Sky? And it was pretty rotten. Not so much space opera as space panto.

Alastair Reynolds if you want your space opera cold and black. Not very good in a lot of ways but very good in others.

Peter F Hamilton- absolutely rotten, in parts, but he's pretty much the master of Blowing S**t Up In Space. Can't right characters or dialogue but he gets away with it, on account of the SPACE ZOMBIES and the big mad ideas and the absolutely stunning setpieces. Reality Dysfunction is the place to start, his later stuff manages to actually do the stuff he does badly even worse. (ironically, he could actually do characters and relationships in his earlier books)

John Brunner's Stand On Zanzibar maybe? Not very explodey but absolutely brilliant. I've not read that for years actually, I should. Or Michael Marshall Smith, starting with Spares.

OK, so if we're going to the classic SF authors, then the best should be included:
Larry Niven, Ringworld, although I prefer Time Out Of Mind, Alfred Bester, for two of the most influential genre books ever written, Tiger, Tiger and The Demolished Man, Fritz Leiber, and Roger Zelazney, who writes prose beautifully, and creates characters who are fully formed, not just pieces to be shoved around as plot demands. Charles Stross owes an awful lot to Zelazney in his books. My favourite Zelazney books are Roadmarks, Today We Choose Faces, The Last Defender Of Camelot, and the Amber series. He also finished a book that Bester had started, the title of which escapes me at the mo'. Cory Doctorow is good, his latest Makers, is excellent, and quite thought-provoking, and a book by Walter Jon Williams, This Is Not A Game, I enjoyed very much recently, too.

Heinlein's Starship Troopers, a world away from the film.

Zelazny also cowrote the only coherent Philip K Dick novel, which is quite a feat…

Some great stuff there. Must delve in my attic and read them again.

If you like funny/subversive then most of Eric Frank Russell is worth a read.

Neal Stephenson for sure. Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon. The Baroque Cycle has its moments (but is knocking on for, what, 3000 pages?)

Bill Gibson. Spook Country I really enjoyed.

Second the Joe Haldeman, you can get the Forever Wars in a one volume trilogy now. You can tell it was written in the 70s but that's a good thing. I couldn't put it down.

The Algebrist Iain Banks was a return to form I thought but was a bit disappointed in the last one.

Did anybody say Kurt Vonnegut yet ?

Black Man by Richard Morgan. Seriously cool.

Only forward and Spares by Michael Marshall Smith.

and a second on Snow Crash it's superb!