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sci-fi recommendation?

Oooh, Lem! Did someone mention Stanislaw Lem? Either you hate him or love him, but he's certaintly interesting.
 
Brainache said:
Umm I think that statistics thing is a plot device. If you are going to get all huffy about SF books with unrealistic plot devices, maybe you should stick to reading text books.

Don't get me started on "psychohistory", FTL, positronic brains, force fields, transporter beams, time travel, anti-gravity, galactic empires, or any one of a thousand other concepts in so-called "Hard SF". None of them work as real science in our current understanding.

Expecting an SF author to stick to the laws of physics as currently understood is just silly.

It is fiction, not science. It should be enjoyed as a story, not held to some standard of scientific rigour. If it fails to entertain, then it fails as fiction. It can't fail as scientific fact, because it isn't supposed to be scientific fact.


Oh and did anyone mention Brian Aldiss? I like his early stuff and his anthologies. His "Billion Year Spree" is a pretty good reference book for finding highlights from the pulps.
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Ehm, did you totally disregard my first post on this subject?

I specificaly stated, and i quote.

TobiasTheCommie said:
Stephen Baxter bothers me with all his errors.

In normal scifi i don't care if there is stuff that goes contrary to science. But when you try to make hard scifi, and work with all the real theories and stuff like that. Then it really bothers me when your science is wrong.

Which it, unfortunatly, is with Stephen Baxter.
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In some books i don't care at all. For instance in Dune. In some books i do care. Like Rama. Depends on what one is trying to accomplish. Either one justs want to tell a story, and that is fine with me (and the science is so so) or one is trying to make a story based on science, in which case it shouldn't have big gaping holes.
 
TobiasTheCommie said:
Ehm, did you totally disregard my first post on this subject?

I specificaly stated, and i quote.



In some books i don't care at all. For instance in Dune. In some books i do care. Like Rama. Depends on what one is trying to accomplish. Either one justs want to tell a story, and that is fine with me (and the science is so so) or one is trying to make a story based on science, in which case it shouldn't have big gaping holes.
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But I don't assume that Baxter is writing such hard SF with the Manifold series. I think he is telling great SF stories. Why do you assume he is writing a science text?
I like the talking squid idea.
I like the successive extinction waves idea.
I even kind of like Reid Malenfant as a character.
I wouldn't call Manifold really hard SF and so I don't understand your complaint about holes in the science.

I have nothing personal against commies either.
 
Brainache said:
But I don't assume that Baxter is writing such hard SF with the Manifold series. I think he is telling great SF stories. Why do you assume he is writing a science text?
I like the talking squid idea.
I like the successive extinction waves idea.
I even kind of like Reid Malenfant as a character.
I wouldn't call Manifold really hard SF and so I don't understand your complaint about holes in the science.

I have nothing personal against commies either.
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I agree with the squid and succesive extinction things.. Malenfant, i'm kinda indifferent towards him.

I guess i just expected hard SF, maybe i shouldn't have. :D


I have nothing personal against non-commies either. :)
 
If you like psychological SF, try A canticle for Leibowitz or Elizabeth Moon's The Speed of Dark

Tobias, if you've read the latter I'd be very interesting in hearing your views. It tries to describe autism "from the inside", but I'm not sure how good a job it does.
 
How about Larry Niven's "Known Space" stories? Or any of his books with Jerry Pournelle? Once a friend told me I simply had to read Stephen King's The Stand. After I read it, I handed it back and told him if he wanted an end-of-the-world story, he should read Lucifer's Hammer.

Also anything by Robert F. Forward.

Also also Encounter With Tiber, by Buzz Aldrin & John Barnes.
 
Anything by Orson Scott Card - his Ender's Game books or my own favourite "Wyrms" which isn't the book you think it is at the start
 
ArmillarySphere said:
If you like psychological SF, try A canticle for Leibowitz or Elizabeth Moon's The Speed of Dark

Tobias, if you've read the latter I'd be very interesting in hearing your views. It tries to describe autism "from the inside", but I'm not sure how good a job it does.
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Never heard of it, i am currently in the middle of some rather big novels so it will have to wait a bit. I will put it on my list though, and you can pop me a message and ask.. i'll get to it in due time. :)

If, however, you want to make a short summery/review i could post it on my site and ask people for their thoughts. :)
 
Rather fond of the works of John Wyndham myself, memorable works include: The Day Of The Triffids,The Midwich Cuckoos, and my all-time favourite Chocky.
 
I will leave it to others to recommend specific authors or series. One thing to consider is The Year's Best Science Fiction Stories series, edited by Gardener Dozois. There are plenty of known and unknown sci fi writers. And you will get a real spread of themes and styles. It may lead you in directions you never expected. You can sometimes pick up the hardbacks at good prices at Half Price Books or similar stores.

CT
 
Thank you, all, for the wonderful recommendations. I must get me to a bookshop, pronto.

Morwen said:
Oooh, Lem! Did someone mention Stanislaw Lem? Either you hate him or love him, but he's certaintly interesting.
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Actually, I mentioned him in my first post. I'm a big fan. For other fans out there, you might be interested in the several interviews with Lem that exist on the internet. (I don't have links handy, but I'll try to find them.) Really powerful mind and original thinker.
 
chance said:
Rather fond of the works of John Wyndham myself, memorable works include: The Day Of The Triffids,The Midwich Cuckoos, and my all-time favourite Chocky.
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Oh man, I haven't read any Wyndham in ages. I have a short story collection of his themed round time travel. It's very good.

To the wider topic:

I'd also recommend, if you can get a hold of it, the short story Collection Nova Scotia. Very good scottish short story collection. Worth it for 'Pisces Ya Bass' if nothing else.
 
No-one's mentioned LeGuin? She reminds me a bit of the little girl with the little curl right in the middle of her forehead, but it's well worth reading The Lathe of Heaven, The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed, The Wind's Twelve Quarters and The Compass Rose.

Fred Pohl's Gateway and Gladiators at Law (with Kornbluth). Keith Roberts' Pavane (OK, technically that's alternate history). For a recent book which ought to be a classic, try Souls in the Great Machine by Sean McMullen.

I'll second A Canticle for Leibowitz, and Ian M Banks (the best ones are The Player of Games, Inversions and Against a Dark Background).

As for the man Baxter, I read one of his thrillers lately in which in the first few pages he explains how Intelligent Design is proved by blood-clotting proteins, blah-de-blah. I flung the book across the room.
 
Dr Adequate said:
As for the man Baxter, I read one of his thrillers lately in which in the first few pages he explains how Intelligent Design is proved by blood-clotting proteins, blah-de-blah. I flung the book across the room.
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I somehow doubt you are referring to the same Baxter. The Baxter who wrote "Evolution" would not be talking ID. If he was I would join you in a book flinging party.
 
Brainache said:
But I don't assume that Baxter is writing such hard SF with the Manifold series. I think he is telling great SF stories. Why do you assume he is writing a science text?
I like the talking squid idea.
I like the successive extinction waves idea.
I even kind of like Reid Malenfant as a character.
I wouldn't call Manifold really hard SF and so I don't understand your complaint about holes in the science.

I have nothing personal against commies either.
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I thought Manifold: Time / Space / Origin were Great / Good / Crap, respectively. I just finished the latter last week, thanks to some serious skimming.

And I have to say, I treat Baxter like the original poster treats Dick. I read him fast and try to glean the ideas. As far as the writing goes: well, he tries, and he's improved, but I just don't think he's a good prosist.

But I keep coming back to him, because he thinks bigger than anyone, and occasionally manages to excite me about the conquest of space. And that counts for something. Check out his "The Light of Other Days" (written w/Arthur C. Clarke) for another worthy read.

And let me recommend a writer who a) gets the science right, b) can construct a sentence, and c) (in spite of a and b) writes clearly and understandably: Ted Chiang. He's actually only written short stories, and only about a dozen or so, but half of them are absolute gems.

Oh yeah: Greg Egan can write too, and is one of the rare writers who is actually improving as the years go on. His early stuff is good; his later stuff, even better. IMO.
 
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I'd like to recommend C.S. Friedman's This Alien Shore. Well plotted with an interesting choice of characters including a girl with multiple-personality disorders and who is being pursued by dangerous corporate entities who want what's in her brain, as well as a computer expert with Aspergers and who is trying to solve the mystery of a deadly computer virus that's killing the outpilots.

I'll also second the recommendations for Iain M. Banks's Culture series. The Player of Games is definitely the easiest book to get into the world. I'm currently midway through Use of Weapons and I want to get myself a personal droid like Skaffen-Amtiskaw.
 
I just started Robert A. Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. So far, so good, I would recommend it.

The Otherland series by Tad Williams is excellent sort-of cyberpunk (City of Golden Shadow is the first volume). Highly recommended.

Avoid anything by Orson Scott Card. Anyone who recommends Ender's Game to you needs to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. And not necessarily in that order.
 
I realize it's prosaic to say so, but William Gobson's Neuromancer is just about as good as any novel - sci-fi or otherwise - ever written. It also may be the most important sci-fi novel of the last 30 years.
 
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