good sci-fi?

[Bikewer]

Something to stir up endless arguments. I recall being in a bookstore and talking with several sci-fi readers. I mentioned that I liked Harlan Ellison. One fellow virtually sneered, "I don't read SOFT science fiction!"

Hehe- I like Dr. Asimov's idea; a good story is a good story.

 

[epepke]

I don't think anyone has mentioned Connie Willis yet, but I may have easily missed it if they have.

Connie Willis is damn good. I like her a lot. However, the people who like her seem to be the same people who like P.G. Wodehouse. I happen to be a member of this group. A lot of people are not.

 

[steinhenge]

Connie Willis is damn good. I like her a lot. However, the people who like her seem to be the same people who like P.G. Wodehouse. I happen to be a member of this group. A lot of people are not.

P.G. Wodehouse is one of those authors that I think I've heard of all my life and have never read. Everyone I know who has mentioned him seems to like S. J. Perleman as well (I'm certainly a member of that group). I'll have to look into the Wodehouse, thanks.

This topic inspired me to pick up and re-read Bellwether today, which I just finished. Better than I remembered. That and The Passage are really like nothing I've ever read.

 

[Jeff Corey]

I've been reading scientifiction since I was 8 or 9 and found Burroughs' Thuvia Maid of Mars in a box of books in the attic.
I just finished rereading Dick's Solar Lottery after almost 50 years. It stood up pretty well, but I think his The Man in the High Castle was better.

 

[epepke]

I've been reading scientifiction since I was 8 or 9 and found Burroughs' Thuvia Maid of Mars in a box of books in the attic.
I just finished rereading Dick's Solar Lottery after almost 50 years. It stood up pretty well, but I think his The Man in the High Castle was better.

Man in the High Castle, along possibly with Valis and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer are the SF books where Dick took the trouble to write. That is, where he took the trouble to get the wordcraft good.

That having been said, I think that Solar Lottery is brilliant. It was his first published novel, and the writing is rough, but the ideas are excellent. I like how well the feudalism in the book maps onto modern corporate culture. Also, how can one dislike a book that has a flagrant borderline get thrown out of an airlock? Another one of his "unusual" books I really like is Eye in the Sky. When it was written, it took a fair amount of courage to come out against racism and McCarthyism at the same time.

 

[epepke]

P.G. Wodehouse is one of those authors that I think I've heard of all my life and have never read. Everyone I know who has mentioned him seems to like S. J. Perleman as well (I'm certainly a member of that group). I'll have to look into the Wodehouse, thanks.

You're in for a treat. Start anywhere. It's all good.

 

[sorgoth]

Big favourite of mine:
Kim Stanley Robinsons "Mars"-series. Big fat thoroughly hard fiction. After you´ve read the 3 books (Red Mars/Green Mars/Blue Mars) you can´t listen to any Mars Mission commentary or some gouvernment creep trying to sell the next 40 billion dollar program without remembering this work of art...

I was going to mention this! I really liked those books, very well written.

Unfortunately, the local library is...small, and has very few of the books mentioned

 

[QuarkChild]

How many people have mentioned Snow Crash by now? Four? I'll "fifth" it--it's a wonderful book. So are the Gap Chronicles, which someone mentioned. Clarke's Childhood's End I'll second as well.

Even if you don't like classic Asimov, I recommend his book The Gods Themselves. It does the best job of characterizing alien life forms that I've ever encountered. It makes them believable. It really is amazing. I can't recommend it highly enough to do it justice.

One of my favorite books is Time's Arrow by Martin Amis. It's more philosophical than sci-fi, but not in the pretentious, obtuse way that many philosophical novels are. It's utterly simple, charming (if dark), and wonderful.


Sounds like I need to read the Ringworld books....

 

[Jundar]

How many people have mentioned Snow Crash by now? Four? I'll "fifth" it--it's a wonderful book.

Yup. One more. Diamond Age is nice too... and after that I tried Zodiac which is, well, interesting but not really SF (somehow reminded me of Indiana Jones wearing a bioprotectiong suit )

Anyone here confessing having read Herbert Franke´s Dune series? I actually liked it but I always was a bit disappointed - it feels like he only wrote 90% of the book and then stopped...

 

[Jabberwock]

How 'bout Stephen Baxter's "Voyage?" It's an alternate reality novel where Kennedy survives and uses the space program as the centerpiece of his administration. It means we get to Mars in the '80's. The nice thing about it is that it's fairly realistic. Sure we get to Mars in the '80's but other things are changed also...

In a similiar vein, Norman Spinrad did a book called "Russian Spring." It was, I think, intended as a possible future when it was written, but the break up of the Soviet Union has pretty much turned it into another alternate reality story. It shows a robust space program based in Europe and led by a kinder, gentler Soviet Union. The US is living off past space glories and is too debt ridden and paranoid to pursue space in any real fashion.

I second the person who mentioned Weber's "Honor Harrington" books! While they are great space opera, he does have some annoying habits. Some times he gets too cute with names (Rob Pierre, Russ Perot). It is also really apparent that his inspirations are Hornblower and history. You can sort of figure out the general direction of things if you've read Hornblower and are familiar with the French Reign of Terror. Worse, in later books he sometimes falls into the Tom Clancy excessive details trap ("Honor looked at the monkey wrench. The monkey wrench had been made by a small Latvian company on Sphinx. One of her holding companies, the company had also made a bazillion dollars building widgets. These widgets were the mainstay of a small subspecies of treecats, who used the wrenchs to create a type of music. This music had been hailed by the Trash Art movement as an expression of...). Still, it's a very rich universe and he excels at writing space battles and political intrigue. When Weber's firing on all cylinders, the Harrington books are great reads. IMHO, the best books in the series are "On Basilisk Station, The Honor of the Queen, Field of Dishonor," and "Flag in Exile".

Edited to correct spelling errors

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Even if you don't like classic Asimov, I recommend his book The Gods Themselves. It does the best job of characterizing alien life forms that I've ever encountered. It makes them believable. It really is amazing. I can't recommend it highly enough to do it justice.

I haven't read that one.

But I though C.J. Cherryh had some great aliens in the Foreigner series and the Chanur series. No humans in funny suits there.

 

[local weather]

Another big vote for Snow Crash, one of the most prescient near future novels ever written. Stephenson is so right on.

I have only see one other reference of China Meiville. He has written two absolutely outstanding novels, Perdido Street Station and The Scar. Both of these are good, but The Scar is really great, it's worth reading the first novel to get the background for it. I hear he's releasing another novel set in the same universe this year.

 

[Bikewer]

I loved both of Miehville's novels. Very inventive, and marvellous prose. Some of the sci-fi fans on another board found his writing too "dense", but I loved it.

Less well known from Cheryyh are her Fantasy/Sci-fi "gates" trilogy.

Only "Fantasy" in regards to the swords/horses/armor setting; the books are pretty much straight scifi, dealing with planet-spanning "gates" which can alter time and space disastrously if misused.
The primary character, Morgaine, is wonderful. Nearly crazy, purpose-driven to the point of being willing to sacrifice anything fo her mission.
Uncompromising accuracy on the mideaval weapons/tactics, etc.

 

[local weather]

I loved both of Miehville's novels. Very inventive, and marvellous prose. Some of the sci-fi fans on another board found his writing too "dense", but I loved it.

The Scar is so intense, there are moments in it that just tear you right out of your seat and throw you into the story.

Dan Simmons also has written an excellent series, I guess it's the Hyperion series. The first two novels (Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion) are top notch sci-fi. He really knows how to create a world that you wish you were a part of.

 

[Jundar]

While I´m at it, I´d like to mention Vernor Vinge´s "A Fire upon the Deep" and "A Deepness in the Sky". Some of the best alien characters and intermingled plots I´ve found so far... and in "True Names" he wrote about cyberspace some years before Gibson did.

 

[Hamish]

Anyone here confessing having read Herbert Franke´s Dune series? I actually liked it but I always was a bit disappointed - it feels like he only wrote 90% of the book and then stopped...

That would be Frank Herbert's Dune series. I got to the end of the fifth book the first time through and to the end of the fourth book on the second run through a few months ago. The first one, Dune, is an amazing book. The second and third are well worth reading but something's lost by the fourth one. The problem is that there is no tidy ending, he just keeps leaving room for another sequel which then doesn't fill your expectations.

No one has mentioned H. G. Wells yet, so I'll drop his name in. Some of it is almost comical because of its age (written round the end of the 19th century) but it has been the inspiration for so much sci-fi that it can be worth a read. The Time Machine and War of the Worlds are probably the most famous works.

I have to echo support for Larry Niven but I'd reccomend the Crashlander stories as well as Ringworld.

(Incidentally, Terry Pratchett's forgotten sci-fi dabbling Strata is a mildly amusing spoof of Ringworld for those who like that sort of thing)

Iain M. Banks is near the top of my list - Use Of Weapons being about the best of a good bunch.

If I can blur the lines between sci-fi, fantasy and horror just a bit then I recommend giving Michael Marshall Smith a go. Actually, I insist that you try Only Forward - I read it cover to cover in one day and only through a supreme effort of will managed to put it down long enough to eat something. Not pure sci-fi but who cares when it's such a good story.

 

[Hexxenhammer]

If I can blur the lines between sci-fi, fantasy and horror just a bit then I recommend giving Michael Marshall Smith a go. Actually, I insist that you try Only Forward - I read it cover to cover in one day and only through a supreme effort of will managed to put it down long enough to eat something. Not pure sci-fi but who cares when it's such a good story.

Only Forward is one of the most crazy-@$$ books I've ever read. 100% pure insane insanity. I loved it.

 

[Jundar]

That would be Frank Herbert's Dune series.

Argh. Sorry, Herbert Franke is in a fact a German SF writer. Jehovah!

 

[BillyTK]

IMO Gibson is one of the best SF authors of the past couple of decades, who injected a great deal of inventiveness, energy and style into (again IMO) what had become a rather stale and inward-looking genre (I admit I'm not a big fan of space opera/hard science stuff, what with their parade of one-dimensional characters and superficial settings from the killer-B crowd; Bova, Bear &c).

I've read Snow Crash (fun but ungainly, and the James Bond ending felt unconvincing) and Cryptonomicon (hugely enjoyable in a Boy's Own style, but some of the gimmicks grated) but I'd recommend The Diamond Age as his bestest work, which refines the themes and ideas that Stephenson sketched out in Snow Crash and buried in Crypto..., and is altogether a more satisfying read than either.

I'd also recommend Ken McLeod, a Scottish author and contemporary of Iain M. Banks, who writes inventive, fast-paced yet thoughtful SF with more than a smattering of politics; his Fall Revolution future history trilogy (in four parts) stretches from student politics in Glasgow in the seventies to the far future and distant corners of the universe via an ever so subtly satirical mediation on communism, socialism and libertarian politics.

Finally, I'm just getting to the end of David Mitchell's The Cloud Atlas, which although not traditional SF, has some SF pastiches in it (two sections set in dystopian futures), and which for me is looking like best read of the year.

 

[asthmatic camel]

I'm fascinated by everyones' opinion of Frank Herbert. Of the Dune series, the first, third and fourth (Dune, Children of Dune and God Emperor), I enjoyed tremendously. The others were yawn making.

Herbert and Ransom's "The Jesus Incident" and the sequel "The Lazarus Effect" had me spellbound. The final episode, The Ascenscion Factor, mostly written by Ransom following Herbert's death was lacklustre.

As for Herbert, I really enjoyed some of his lesser known novels...The Dosadi Experiment, The Green Brain, The Santarago Barrier, The Godmakers and, more mainstream, Soul Catcher.

Probably hard to find now, but worth looking for.

AC