Sci-fi/fantasy Reading Recommendations

[BurgessLau]

The only two science fiction writers I have in my private library -- which consists only of books I intend to reread again and again -- are:

- Keith Laumer for some (not all) of his stories, particularly Dinosaur Beach, The Undefeated, the bolo series, the imperium series, and others.

- Gordon Dickson, mostly the Dorsai series (especially Dorsai! and Tactics of Mistake).

I have read many other science fiction authors, but those are the only two I found worth rereading (and therefore keeping).

[Unconquered]

- Keith Laumer ...

- Gordon Dickson ...

I recall liking a number of Laumer's stories. As I remember he has a very pro-individualistic, anti-slavery spirit.

I don't recall reading much of Dickson, I should give him a try someday.

Have you read anything by George O. Smith? The main book that I remember is The Complete Venus Equilateral, a collection of related stories about a relay station in solar orbit, designed to facilitate interplanetary communication when the sun is blocking direct line of sight. (Talk about forward thinking.) As I recall he also portrays some very independent, anti-bureaucratic characters.

[Inspector]

- Keith Laumer for some (not all) of his stories, particularly Dinosaur Beach, The Undefeated, the bolo series, the imperium series, and others.

I've heard good things about the bolo series. I'll have to give him a try. Burgess, is there a good book to start with for Keith Laumer?

[JMeganSnow]

- Keith Laumer for some (not all) of his stories, particularly Dinosaur Beach, The Undefeated, the bolo series, the imperium series, and others.

John Ringo and Linda Evans recently wrote a new Bolo book, which I found quite enjoyable, you might want to check it out. (I think there's another one out now, as well.) If you like it, you'll definitely like reading some books by David Drake, Eric Flint, and David Weber as well. The four of them are kind of a "club" that all write Military Science Fiction together (sometimes including Mercedes Lackey and Robert Aspirin). I highly recommend them.

One grumble: The Road to Damascus (linked above) illustrates the logical decline of a society accepting just a few basic philosophical errors almost as well as Atlas Shrugged, but then they had to go and ruin the climax of the book by including the tritest and most horribly incorrect one-sentence explanation for it EVER. The book would be a great work if you just took some white-out and erased that one line. If you read it, you'll know what I mean, it jumps out and smacks you in the face and the logical disconnection actually forced me to put the book down for a few minutes and just glare at the universe in general. Hmph.

[ChristopherSchlegel]

Arthur C. Clarke-mostly for 2001-3001 but also some of his short stories too.

Good call!

I'm not that big of a fan of Clark - I just find his writing a bit too convoluted and dry...

Boo! Hiss!

...- but maybe I'll try him again.

Good idea!

Another thing - I'm pretty sure Clark didn't write 2001-2003 - it was just based on his short story. I think it was written by Kubrick.

No. Clarke wrote 2001, 2061, 2010 & 3001; all four of them. Kubrick damn near ruined the first one in movie form by completely obscuring the theme, plot & Clarke's overall marvelously brilliant conception. To anyone that has seen the movie: please go read the book. It's very short, directly to the point & quite lovely. More importantly, it actually explains what's going on. Whereas the movie seems to constantly delight in displaying endless eye/ear candy while it intentionally works at keeping the viewer in a confusing state of bafflement as to what the hell is happening & why.

Arthur C. Clarke...is there really any competition? The whole 2001 series covers every branch of science that I am intersted in.

RIGHT ON!!!

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Clarke the person credited with the invention of the satelite? Not actually creating one, but the basic idea of them?

Yes. In 1945 he published the first paper describing the principles of the satellite communication with satellites in geostationary orbits. Go here for info on that & a reprint of the paper.

[Scott_Connery]

Heinlein, no doubt. Most of the stuff that other people find "weird" I don't mind. On the other hand, occasionally, his lack of a decent philosophy shines through and irritates me.

[BurgessLau]

I recall liking a number of Laumer's stories. As I remember he has a very pro-individualistic, anti-slavery spirit.

I don't recall reading much of Dickson, I should give him a try someday.

Yes, Laumer was pro-individual. Some of his most delightful stories are Phoenix-rising stories. The main character starts as a bum sleeping in the park and ends as a hero on another planet.

Recommending fiction to others is very risky business. There are many personal factors that go into liking a story or not. With that caveat in mind, I would suggest any one of these four Laumer stories to start with:

1. Worlds of the Imperium. Wry, sometimes sarcastic, daring, anti-bureaucratic adventure across the "universe." This was one of a series.

2. Dinosaur Beach. A confident hero who handles crisis after crisis to win. This is a time-travel story, which I -- as a perpetual student of history -- like.

3. A Trace of Memory. This in parts is close to Greek-myth level of heroism. But the style, as almost always with Laumer, is "hard" science fiction, not fantasy. It is about a man's rediscovery of his memory -- but that is a serious pun that the story will explain, as each individual's personality is recorded in a canister, a "memory trace," and the hero's canister has been lost.

4. The Stars Must Wait. This story, partly a bolo (automated war machine) story, is mostly fast-paced action adventure, but there were a few scenes that brought me close to tears -- as the father of a good son. As usual, I liked the hero as someone I would want to know in real-life.

Please note that I limited my suggestion of Dickson to the Dorsai series. The best were the first ones in that series, I recall. As usual, start with the first one in a series, because the first one is usually the one written from "inspiration" and the one that sets the context for the later ones.

[Sparhawk]

Who is your favourite science fiction author?

For myself it would be

David Eddings

Terry Brooks

Tolkien

I haven't read neither Goodkind nor Heinlein but will do that when I get the time (I have

a booklist that would probably make me read for a couple of years without any problem)

[hunterrose]

Frank Herbert

[Eternal]

Terry Goodkind - you just can't beat fantasy and Objectivism in my world...

[Lemuel]

My all-time faves:

1. Frank Herbert - mostly for the Dune Chronicles, but I love his other novels, too

2. Stephen Baxter - good, hard sci-fi that is dramatic, has very heroic characters, and is steeped in real science

3. Dan Simmons - The Hyperion Cantos tops the list, but his horror is good, and so are practically all his other books. A very lyrical visionary that writes truly beautiful stories with vivid characters .... really creative.

4. Arthur C Clarke - timeless science fiction (okay, maybe 2001 is a bit dated ... )

5. Isaac Asimov - Robots!

6. Dan McDevitt - not a Grand Master, but some good stories

7. Robert Heinlein - good at presenting political and philosophical ideas in a very blunt manner

8. Ben Bova - lighter reading, but very intelligent

9. Philip K Dick - yep, he was one paranoid guy, but talk about big ideas ... he certainly had a few whoppers

10. Michael Chrichton - well, when he uses sentences and not formulas

[Dikaiosyne]

My Trifecta for the best has to be Asimov, Heinlein, and Herbert, as echoed by serveral other people. They offer well thought out worlds to explore for the escapist inside.

[MightierPen]

I'll have to echo the call for Orson Scott Card. I own more of hiw books than any other author except Asimov, but that's because Asimov broke everything down into tiny pamphlets. Card's philosophy can get too altruistic at times but generally the spirit of humanity shines through, as his main characters are always genius's.

Other than him, Asimov is a good favorite of mine of course. I've read three of Heinlein's books and only enjoyed one of them. All three had different philosophies behind them, and the one I agreed with the most (The Moon is a Harsh Mistress) was the one I enjoyed. Stranger in a Strange Land was kind of wierd. I take that book as a "What would ethics be like with a different species, since the nature of that species is different from man?" kind of question. I just finished For Us, the Living and it just irked me.

[Lemuel]

MightierPen,

Heinlein can get really wierd, especially in his later novels. The middle period stuff is good, though. Starship Troopers is great space-military fare. (The movie only barely captured Heinlein's spirit, and was a terrible adaptation of the novel, IMO.) Also, the novella Methuselah's Children follows a group of people who live well into their second centuries, and are persecuted by the rest of mankind ("ephemerals", they're called). The character Lazarus Long is expanded in Time Enough for Love, showing him to be more of an individual than a member of the herd of "methuselahs". Friday is a pretty good scifi spy novel, with some cloning ethics involved.

Heinlein's earlier novels are a pretty quick read. I think he intended them for a younger audience, so his ideas were somewhat basic. Later, he did some really good stuff, but his last few books (like The Cat who Walks Through Walls) were really strange in comparison. His philosophical ideas became a bit surreal in those late novels as well.

I think that anyone who finds Heinlein a bit preachy, but likes the rationalism in his characters would enjoy Stephen Baxter's novels. His characters aren't so "cartoony" as Heinlein's, but his heroes are very much the right kind of men, as they "should be and ought to be". I'm reading Exultant now; it's basically about an individualistic soldier and an eccentric, wealthy scientist who have a plan to end a quagmired 20,000-year-long war with a superior alien race. So far, pretty good.

[D'kian]

Asimov has long been my personal favorite. I don't think anyone else can write as clearly as the Good Doctor did. Though many can weave a plot the way he does. his sense of life, however, I find wanting.

Clarke was a master at short stories, but rather wordy and meandering in his novels. Still, I highly recommend "The City And The Stars" and "The Fountains Of Paradise."

When Heinlein was good, he was very good. When he missed, he missed spectacularly. I like his earlier novels better, particularly "The Door Into Summer," "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel," and "The Sixth Column." his last novel, "Friday," is pretty good.

Then there's Larry niven. He's hard to like at times. He delves into the most awful recesses of humanity, like gangs that kdnap and kill people for their organs (organleggers). His aliens are interesting, but at times too much of one piece. He is invariably an optimist, however, and even when looking in awful places, or at awful situations (see "Lucifer's Hammer"), he does it through the eyes of heroes.

[khaight]

I think that anyone who finds Heinlein a bit preachy, but likes the rationalism in his characters would enjoy Stephen Baxter's novels. His characters aren't so "cartoony" as Heinlein's, but his heroes are very much the right kind of men, as they "should be and ought to be". I'm reading Exultant now; it's basically about an individualistic soldier and an eccentric, wealthy scientist who have a plan to end a quagmired 20,000-year-long war with a superior alien race. So far, pretty good.

I've read a fair amount of Baxter, and I sometimes refer to him as the "anti-Heinlein". Like Heinlein, Baxter often has protagonists who are rational, optimistic and competent. Unlike Heinlein, Baxter's protagonists are often chewed up and spat out by a hostile and indifferent universe. Their ability is ultimately irrelevant to their fate.

The book you refer to, Exultant, is one of Baxter's better works. But the universe in which it is set (the Xeelee sequence) is ultimately pretty hostile to human aspirations. This is made clearer in some of the other works in the setting, such as the short story collection Vaccuum Diagrams and the novel Ring. Don't get me wrong, Baxter is a good writer. (His rewrite and expansion of Wells' "The Time Machine", titled The Timeships, is fascinating.) But his sense of life is very different from Heinlein.

When Heinlein was good, he was very good. When he missed, he missed spectacularly. I like his earlier novels better, particularly "The Door Into Summer," "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel," and "The Sixth Column." his last novel, "Friday," is pretty good.

A minor correction: Heinlein's last novel was To Sail Beyond The Sunset, not Friday. It's a book you'll either love or hate. I like it a lot, although his bizarre sexual obsessions crop up in it with disturbing frequency.

Then there's Larry Niven...He is invariably an optimist, however, and even when looking in awful places, or at awful situations (see "Lucifer's Hammer"), he does it through the eyes of heroes.

You have to appreciate a novel that ends with a pitched battle defending a nuclear power plant (explicitly a symbol of modern industrial civilization in the eyes of the characters) from a rampaging horde of cannibalistic environmentalists. It doesn't get much better than that.

[D'kian]

A minor correction: Heinlein's last novel was To Sail Beyond The Sunset, not Friday. It's a book you'll either love or hate. I like it a lot, although his bizarre sexual obsessions crop up in it with disturbing frequency.

Thank you. I had no idea. I'll have to look it up.

You have to appreciate a novel that ends with a pitched battle defending a nuclear power plant (explicitly a symbol of modern industrial civilization in the eyes of the characters) from a rampaging horde of cannibalistic environmentalists. It doesn't get much better than that.

Oh, the ending is fantastic. All of it. I loved it, especially after all the hard reading required to reach it. A realistic portrayal of the end of the world simply cannot be read any other way. But you do have to appreciate an optimistic novel about the end of the world, too.

Niven and Pournelle got things very right in "Lucifer's Hammer." The collectivist villains as eternal parasites upon the able, without a thought of what happens when they run out of victims (now, did Niven and Pournelle predict the aftermath of Katrina, would you say?); the men of ability banding together to survive and rebuild during the emergency; even the certainty that technology failed because there was not enough of it, and that more will be needed once the disaster is overcome.

Speaking of Niven, he also has a talent for making the most out of unusual environments. I particularly loved his depiction of the Smoke Ring. I wonder whether our interstellar probes in the future will go looking for Christmas wreaths around old neutron stars.

[sczarj]

isaac asimov

[softwareNerd]

The only Ray Bradbury I've read is "Fahrenheit 451", which is not science fiction. However, he has written science fiction too. Based on F-451, it would be worth a look.

[Rex Little]

If I were stranded on a desert island with the collected works of one author of my choice--science fiction or otherwise--it would be Heinlein. (Although if I could only have one book, it would be Atlas Shrugged.) I agree with what most everyone has said about his later stuff, though; on that island, everything from The Number of the Beast on, except Friday, would be used for kindling.

Among living writers, my favorite is Spider Robinson (he gets compared to Heinlein in reviews, and I can see why), with Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle close behind.

Edited March 20, 2006 by Rex Little

[Olex]

Oh, man, I was so big on science fiction when I was a kid. I must have read every sci-fi book I had access to. The only thing I read at the time were scientific journals and sci-fi books. Guess what I did during all my summers? That's right, books. Though, my relatives had to kick me out to streets a few times, because they were worried that I wasn't spending much time outside. How dare they? I mean, you can't carry many books as a kid.

I never remembered their names, but a few had crossed my mind just now.

Roger Zelazny with his Amber Series and of course "Lord of Light" (this one I love)

[miseleigh]

Frank Herbert is good, and his son (Brian) is carrying that tradition on fairly well with his prequels to the original Dune series. I like Niven's Ringworld books, although I haven't read all the related Kzin ones yet. I loved Friday by Heinlein too. Douglas Adams is fun, Orson Scott Card starts with a children's book and grows - Ender's just cool, and Bean rocks. Ray Bradbury's good too (how is Fahrenheit 451 not scifi?) The Cure by Sonia Levitin is a well-written dystopian novel with a large historical side, for any who enjoy cross-genre books. It's somewhat disturbing, but then, dystopians tend to be... The science fiction element of it is downplayed, though.

I'm currently tearing through Piers Anthony's Bio of a Space Tyrant series. Four down, one to go, and no complaints yet.

Who else do I like? Crichton's got some good ones, Stephen King does as well (though not actually science fiction, I think), and I also like Clive Cussler. Does Madeleine L'Engle's stuff count as sci-fi? I like her too...

[Sherry]

Orson Scott Card is a favorite. I read the whole Ender Series, and am working on Alvin Maker series (fantasy) and Homecoming series. Worthing Saga, though was my favorite. His Folk of the Fringe is execellent. He wrote a really good book on writing fiction that Writer's Digest publishes. That is actually the first book I ever read by him.

I love Ray Bradbury and some of Heinlein's work as well. I have enjoyed a lot of Asimov's work too.

Edited August 8, 2006 by Sherry

[KendallJ]

Card (Ender's Game only), Heinlein, Asimov.

Don't read much Sci Fi anymore, but these were great books. I loved Ender Wiggin - Card's characterization is beautiful. Heinlein for his sense of heroism (pre Rand of course) and Asimov for positing believable scientific ideas.

[JMeganSnow]

Has anyone read anything SINCE the silver age of sci-fi?

John Scalzi isn't bad.

David Drake, John Ringo, Eric Flint, and David Weber are worth reading.

Elizabeth Moon isn't bad.

C.J. Cherryh is great if you like REALLY complex characterizations and intrigue, although her books can be a bit impenetrable at times. She does good aliens.

Definitely recommend Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash) if you like cyberpunk.