I need sci-fi

[Tages]

Ahem.

Anyhow, I've been on a mondo science fiction kick. I've burned through several of Heinlein's works and am in the middle of "Neuromancer" by William Gibson, and have decided that I indeed like cyberpunk.

So, suggestions, s'il vous plait.

[Cleric of Hell's Brigade]

The King of Infinite Space,by Alan Steele was pretty good.

[Inkthinker]

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. Better, in my opinion, than Gibson. I don't make that statement lightly...

[Mike Smash!]

I'm really enjoying Dan Simmon's Hyperion right now.

[FBHthelizardmage]

Ian M Banks, Culture novels.

Most anything by Richard Morgan and Alliastar Reynolds.

Most Peter F Hamilton except fallen dragon.

Exordium (the series), if you can find it.

Fire on the Boarder, if you can find it.

[Jagatai_Khan]

Ahem.

Anyhow, I've been on a mondo science fiction kick. I've burned through several of Heinlein's works and am in the middle of "Neuromancer" by William Gibson, and have decided that I indeed like cyberpunk.

So, suggestions, s'il vous plait.

Ventus, and Permanence, both by Karl Schroeder, are both very hard sci-fi and also very strongly cyberpunk-themed. They're fantastically good. They're also standalone stories, so you won't need to buy an entire series along with them. (They're both set in the same universe, but that's all they have in common.)

There's also this thread: http://forums.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?t=54298&page=1&pp=15

Has more suggestions already than you can shake a stick at. Enjoy.

[howyadoin]

All of Gibson's stuff is good, even as he's sort of moving away from sci-fi.

Also check out Greg Bear and Bruce Sterling, for starters.

[Paul McEnery]

For you, there's only one way to go:

Ken MacLeod. He's got two serieses out. The first series can be read in any order, the second one is straight through. They both have your name stamped all over them.

[Expletive Deleted]

All of Gibson's stuff is good, even as he's sort of moving away from sci-fi.Ditto Stephenson. CRYPTONOMICON and the Baroque Cycle trilogy are only tangentially science fiction, but they're fantastic. To use an oft-abused sound bite, they're closer to "history of science" fiction.

[Tages]

For you, there's only one way to go:

Ken MacLeod. He's got two serieses out. The first series can be read in any order, the second one is straight through. They both have your name stamped all over them.
...this wouldn't be one of your pinko tricks designed to make me into an anarcho-socialist, would it?

Nevertheless, I am compelled to believe anything in print form, so I'll look into it.

[Nate C.]

Anything by Bester, Bradbury or Dick.

That'll take you awhile.

[The Dosadi Experiment]

Succession by Scott Westerfeld.

which is comprised of two novels:


The Risen Empire
The Killing of Worlds

[Michael P]

If you like the cyberpunk, you'll probably get a kick out of Pat Cadigan's SYNNERS.

[Tages]

Anything by Bester, Bradbury or Dick.

That'll take you awhile.
I was about to remark "I love Dick," but decided against it.

Philip K. Dick=teh awesome. My two favorite sci-fi short stories are "Service Call" and "The Mold of Yancy."

[Nate C.]

"The Mold of Yancy."

I could be wrong, but bells are going off in my head- I believe Dick expanded that into his novel, The Penultimate Truth.

[Tages]

I could be wrong, but bells are going off in my head- I believe Dick expanded that into his novel, The Penultimate Truth.
I thought that was "Simulacrum." Huh.

[Karl J. Barnes]

Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Left Hand of Darkness" and "The Dispossessed" are fantastic novels. C J Cherryh's novels are interesting and thought provoking. Tanith Lee's "Silver Metal Lover" is a bit romancy, but has some satirical thoughts about love,life and growing up.

[Core]

I recently read China Mieville's Iron Council and absolutely loved it, although I guess it might lean a bit more towards fantasy than sci-fi. But Mieville style fantasy isn't swords, dragons and elves like just about all other post-Tolkien fantasy is. He has an incredible imagination and has created one of the most vivid, inventive fantasy worlds of the past 50 years.

[Paul McEnery]

...this wouldn't be one of your pinko tricks designed to make me into an anarcho-socialist, would it?

Nevertheless, I am compelled to believe anything in print form, so I'll look into it.
But of course!

Still, I think it'll be your cup of tea. Think of him as a red Tom Clancy who actually knows more about science than how to grease a rifle and has interesting ideas about how the singularity will impact humanity (and some fascinating theological ideas, to boot).

If nothing else, you'll get a kick out of disagreeing with him (which I've noticed you're quite fond of). :D

[Paul McEnery]

Oh, and I second The Dispossessed.

This one has converted more than a few people to anarcho-socialism, including me and London Mayor Ken Livingstone.

[JeffreyWKramer]

I definitely recommend Greg Bear. Highly under-rated writer.

[abbas.khan]

ender's game.

[Scott Beeler]

(Re: Ken MacLeod)
Think of him as a red Tom Clancy who actually knows more about science than how to grease a rifle and has interesting ideas about how the singularity will impact humanity (and some fascinating theological ideas, to boot).

If nothing else, you'll get a kick out of disagreeing with him (which I've noticed you're quite fond of). :D

I wouldn't compare him to Clancy -- the differences far outweigh the similarities IMO, plus IMO it would be insulting to the quality of MacLeod's work. :)

What's particularly good about MacLeod's books (the Fall Revolution quartet in particular) is that no one political persuasion comes out definitively on top. There's sympathetic and non-sympathetic anarcho-capitalists, anarcho-socialists, libertarians, Trotskyites, barbarian Greens, etc.

There's folks who give up their political convictions for the sake of practicality; there's folks whose political opinions evolve through the course of a book. There's a narrator in one of them who's paranoid to the point of being practically psychotic -- and yet may well be right. There's a genocide in nearly every book in the series. There's rather creepy Men In Black. There's nuclear insurance policies. There's loads of great heavy-duty discussion of AIs and uploaded human minds (with one character notoriously dubbing the Vingean Singularity/transhumanism as "the rapture for nerds").

I think my favorite is _The Stone Canal_, which is also a great starting point for Ken MacLeod's works. My other fave would be _The Sky Road_, but that one bears a... different... relationship to the other three, so I'd suggest reading it after them. _The Star Fraction_ is the first published, but throws you right into the middle of things and supplies the backstory of this future history only sparingly and scatteredly, where tSC lays it out much more deliberately, which still giving you some in-media-res fun with the New Mars section.

I'm not as fond of the "Engines of Light" trilogy or the standalone _Newton's Wake_, though they're still solid books and well worth reading. EoL is more aliens, less AIs, but with a similar style of political and cultural conflict, tech woohahs, snappy dialogue and nice plotting. NW seemed kind of repeating some of the ideas from the other books a bit too much for my liking. I'm hoping his next book strikes out in a different direction.

[Paul McEnery]

I wouldn't compare him to Clancy -- the differences far outweigh the similarities IMO, plus IMO it would be insulting to the quality of MacLeod's work. :)

What's particularly good about MacLeod's books (the Fall Revolution quartet in particular) is that no one political persuasion comes out definitively on top. There's sympathetic and non-sympathetic anarcho-capitalists, anarcho-socialists, libertarians, Trotskyites, barbarian Greens, etc.

There's folks who give up their political convictions for the sake of practicality; there's folks whose political opinions evolve through the course of a book. There's a narrator in one of them who's paranoid to the point of being practically psychotic -- and yet may well be right. There's a genocide in nearly every book in the series. There's rather creepy Men In Black. There's nuclear insurance policies. There's loads of great heavy-duty discussion of AIs and uploaded human minds (with one character notoriously dubbing the Vingean Singularity/transhumanism as "the rapture for nerds").

I think my favorite is _The Stone Canal_, which is also a great starting point for Ken MacLeod's works. My other fave would be _The Sky Road_, but that one bears a... different... relationship to the other three, so I'd suggest reading it after them. _The Star Fraction_ is the first published, but throws you right into the middle of things and supplies the backstory of this future history only sparingly and scatteredly, where tSC lays it out much more deliberately, which still giving you some in-media-res fun with the New Mars section.

I'm not as fond of the "Engines of Light" trilogy or the standalone _Newton's Wake_, though they're still solid books and well worth reading. EoL is more aliens, less AIs, but with a similar style of political and cultural conflict, tech woohahs, snappy dialogue and nice plotting. NW seemed kind of repeating some of the ideas from the other books a bit too much for my liking. I'm hoping his next book strikes out in a different direction.
I tend to agree. Newton's seems like a coda to Engines of Light in some way, like the Sky Road is sort of a coda to the other guys.

But there was plenty to like in Engines of Light, especially the roping in of mysticism as a material process.

[abbas.khan]

anne coulter :P

[Chris N]

There are lots of threads like this, so rather than start a new one or derail the top 10 thread, I'll piggyback off Tages from 2 years ago. He won't mind.

I've gotten a good list of sci/fi recommendations. Much as I love science fiction and have been soaking a bunch up, I've still read less than 30 sci/fi graphicless novels.

My question is about time travel. I was arguing about the movie Primer today and how necessary the convoluted aspects are, and I argued that time travel was necessarily convoluted if all complicated issues involved were addressed. Most movies, TV shows, and comics to me haven't asked the right questions. Or not all of them. It's never given me something I really believed to be internally consistent.

Any recs? Really solid books dealing with time travel?

[ragnarok_2012]

There are lots of threads like this, so rather than start a new one or derail the top 10 thread, I'll piggyback off Tages from 2 years ago. He won't mind.

I've gotten a good list of sci/fi recommendations. Much as I love science fiction and have been soaking a bunch up, I've still read less than 30 sci/fi graphicless novels.

My question is about time travel. I was arguing about the movie Primer today and how necessary the convoluted aspects are, and I argued that time travel was necessarily convoluted if all complicated issues involved were addressed. Most movies, TV shows, and comics to me haven't asked the right questions. Or not all of them. It's never given me something I really believed to be internally consistent.

Any recs? Really solid books dealing with time travel?

I like Michael Moorcock's Nomads of the Time Streams trilogy.

1632 by Eric Flint is a fascinating book in which a small, West Virginia town gets transported into Germany in the middle of the Thirty Years' War. It's the first book of a series. I think the sequels vary in quality, though.

[Roquefort Raider]

To say nothing of the dog, by Connie Willis; a hilarious time travel story mostly set in Victorian England. It does deal with the paradoxes that can result from time travel.

Also, the classic Lest darkness falls, by L. Sprague de Camp, really deserves to be on everyone's shelf. Like the abovementioned 1632, it's about time travel resulting in changes in history; in this case, however, the one time traveller has nothing but his wits and his 20th century schooling to help him. (And he's some kind of old fashioned scholar, not a scientist nor an engineer). Very entertaining.

[Perry Holley]

I know I've mentioned them more than once recently, but while they're not strictly cyberpunk, I do highly recommend John Scalzi's Old Man's War and Ghost Brigades. I suspect you would enjoy both of them quite a bit.

[Doodle Bob]

My question is about time travel. ... Any recs? Really solid books dealing with time travel?

Two books come to mind:

Empire Star by Samuel Delaney. I just read this a couple of days ago. It's a roughly 50-page novella of Deconstructivist Space Opera that doesn't at first seem to be about time travel, but it turns out to be a crucial element thereof. Quite excellent...

The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers. Time-travel, an evil Egyptian wizard, and 17th century England: what else does a good book need?

[Chris N]

Thanks for the recs! Will look into all

[JeffreyWKramer]

Any recs? Really solid books dealing with time travel?

Gregory Benford's novel TIMESCAPE is more about communication backward through time than travel per se, but it deals very well with a lot of time concepts, and is a first-rate novel.

[Ryan Day]

To say nothing of the dog, by Connie Willis; a hilarious time travel story mostly set in Victorian England. It does deal with the paradoxes that can result from time travel.

Seconded. Brilliant book, though you definitely have to be paying attention.

I'd also recommend The Time Traveller's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger. It's perhaps more of a romance than hard sci-fi book, but some of it is beautifully written. (The middle section is a bit slow, though.) Lots of interesting time travel ideas in it.

[Slam_Bradley]

Also, the classic Lest darkness falls, by L. Sprague de Camp, really deserves to be on everyone's shelf. Like the abovementioned 1632, it's about time travel resulting in changes in history; in this case, however, the one time traveller has nothing but his wits and his 20th century schooling to help him. (And he's some kind of old fashioned scholar, not a scientist nor an engineer). Very entertaining.


I love, love, love this book. But then, I'm an old-school kinda guy.

[Paul McEnery]

I like Michael Moorcock's Nomads of the Time Streams trilogy.


Or the Cornelius Quartet, or the Dancers at the End of Time, or the Blood Trilogy.

Of course, they all push the time travel thing past the brink.

[Trey]

Cowl by Neal Asher.

High-octane timetravel story. The villain uses time travel as a weapon, IIRC.

[Rabid Trekkie]

I haven't gotten into any real time travel novels, except The Time Machine, but I came across two time travel short stories you may want to look into.

All You Zombies by Robert Heinlein. It's interesting, I have to reread it sometime to see if I like it. I was so surprised by the ending the quality of the story sort of went out of my head. Oh and Heinlein talks briefly about his idea for "service stations." You could probably find it in a couple anthologies but I'd suggest you get Masterpieces by Orson Scott Card as the rest of the stories really live up to the name.

To the Future by Ray Bradbury. A couple take a vacation back in time to a little town in Mexico to get away from it all. That's all I can say about it without giving it away. Unfortunately I don't know where you can find it. I got the story from one of my aunt's old books, Alfred Hitchcock's Tales for the Not Nervous, which I don't think is in print any more. Still there are some huge collections of Bradbury out there and they are well worth whatever price they ask for it.

[Chris N]

This thread has served me well in the past. So I will try again.

Now looking for modern epic space opera bursting with big ideas.

Specifically, I'm looking for something along the lines of, and as good as, Hyperion or Revelation Space.

Other Simmons works like Endymionand Ilium have been good reads and hit the epic space opera note, but both fell short on the interesting sci/fi concepts being thrown at me.

[Roquefort Raider]

Specifically, I'm looking for something along the lines of, and as good as, Hyperion or Revelation Space.


Right off the bat, I'd recommend A fire upon the deep, by Vernor Vinge.

[Shellhead]

Modern epic space opera? That's a tall order, given that modern writers don't seem interested in space opera. Go back a few decades and you will find plenty. Have you read The Mote in God's Eye? That's an outstanding first contact story against something of a space opera setting. Jack Chalker was working with some big, interesting ideas with the Well World series. For something more modern, you might try the Dread Empire's Fall series by Walter Jon Williams. I haven't gotten around to trying it yet, but I've enjoyed earlier books by Williams. And it's a bit of a stretch, but I highly recommend Richard K. Morgan. He's possibly the best new science-fiction writer of the last decade, and he manages to write cynical stories filled with both action and interesting ideas.

[Expletive Deleted]

The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi. It's difficult to describe, but it's a heist story set in a world where Earth is uninhabitable and humanity has relocated farther out into the solar system. The main characters are a famous human thief who's just been broken out of a Dilemma Prison (where each prisoner is forced to play out the Prisoner's Dilemma every day), his deadly cyborg rescuer and her flirty sentient spacecraft, and a private detective in a world where long-term human memory is stored in the cloud and control over personal privacy is paramount.

The "Culture" series by Iain M. Banks is also a good choice, about an interstellar society ruled by vast, benevolent artificial intelligences. The first book is Consider Phlebas, but they're all fairly free-standing. I'm partial to Player of Games, in which a brilliant game-player from the Culture travels to another empire, one who's social structure is entirely based on a complex strategy game.

Embassytown by China Mieville. It's about humans in contact with an alien species on a distant planet, but it's really about language. The aliens have a unique means of communication, heavy on simile and requiring total honesty, and human ambassadors with special modifications are required in order to deal with them effectively.

[Chris N]

All sound excellent. Thank you.

[Iangould]

Walter jon williams: Dread Empire's Fall

It's a two volume series which is what you might expect EE Smith to write if he were starting his career in the early 21st century.

Just as a Song of Ice and Fire is in many ways typical high fantasy done exceptionally well, Dread Empire's Fall is typical space opera done exceptionally well.

Oh and I beleive there's a new Vernor Ving enovel out soon set in the same universe as A fire On the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky.

[Michael P]

Walter jon williams: Dread Empire's Fall

It's a two volume series which is what you might expect EE Smith to write if he were starting his career in the early 21st century.

Just as a Song of Ice and Fire is in many ways typical high fantasy done exceptionally well, Dread Empire's Fall is typical space opera done exceptionally well.

Oh and I beleive there's a new Vernor Ving enovel out soon set in the same universe as A fire On the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky.
It's out. Children of the Sky.

[berk]

What's the word on Peter Hamilton? I keep looking at his books on the shelf at the book store but they're so huge I'm wary of investing the time it would need to see how I like them.

[doolbnoom]

THE CYTEEN TRILOGY by CJ Cherryh

THE GODS THEMSELVES- Asimov

THE FORGE of GOD & ANVIL OF STARS (sequel)- Greg Bear

ALL awesome! very thought-provoking.:smile:

[Iangould]

What's the word on Peter Hamilton? I keep looking at his books on the shelf at the book store but they're so huge I'm wary of investing the time it would need to see how I like them.

I quite liked a couple of his stand-alone books but his series are just too damn long.

[Mizel]

Perelandra (Space Trilogy) by CS Lewis is fantastic. And of course anything by Isaac Asimov ;)

[adam_warlock_2099]

I just finished reading The Human Disguise by James O'Neal and really enjoyed it. It's quite a good and more realistic thought about the world condition in a post apocalyptic setting. While that is not the TRUE setting, it's the best general description of it. I was intrigued enough that I am going to search out some more of his work.

[HossBonaventure]

Big fan of Ender's Game, Neuromancer, and Starship Troopers, but my personal favorite is: The Forever War (http://www.amazon.com/Forever-War-Joe-Haldeman/dp/0312536631/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1328907461&sr=1-1) by Joe Haldeman.

Shades of ST though not as pro-militaristic.

[Vibranium]

Wondering if you all could help me out....read a book a few years back, had different spheres that appeared across the globe and different times in history melded together

Rudyard Kipling (in his 20s) appears as one of the supporting characters

[The Black Guardian]

Arthur C Clarke's and Stephen Baxter's Time's Eye

[Vibranium]

Thank you soooo much

[Chiasm]

Just read a trilogy over the weekend: Breach, Ghost Country, and Deep Sky by Patrick Lee. They are his first three books which is why you probably haven't heard of him unless like me you picked up Breach as a deal of the day book on Amazon a month or so ago. I didn't start reading them until Friday and finished Breach by Saturday afternoon. I then bought the other two for my kindle and finished the third Monday morning. I literally couldn't put them down.

They are very interesting books and definitely keep you entertained. Its sort of like the TV show 24 meets the X-Files. This is mildly spoilerish for the first part of the first book but essentially the books are about a shadow government agency that is tasked with studying a "breach" between our world and some unknown one. Periodically objects come through the Breach that have some sort of scientific use far beyond modern capabilities. Some of them are even semi-sentient. You find this all out early in the first book so I'm not ruining anything. Eventually through the three books you learn the purpose of the breach and how and why a lot of things you took for granted early on happened. There are three main characters (the third isn't introduced until the 2nd book) that you'll follow.

The books move at an extremely rapid pace which makes them great page turners but at the same time their one flaw is a lack of character depth. I realized after finishing the 3rd book that I have no clue what race any of the three main characters are nor their hair color or anything else much about them except some basic details about their histories. Maybe it was mentioned at some point and I missed it but the book moves so fast action wise it rarely takes the time to consider these types of things. So if you like books where the author spends pages describing details its probably not for you but if you like a book that keeps you entertained in a "great popcorn movie" type of way they are good. To give you an idea of how fast the books move, in the first book the main character find a downed airplane with dead bodies including the First Lady and evidence that points to the fact she was transporting an alien / paranormal entity of questionable loyalty. And thats in the first 10 pages.

The third book wraps up the series in a way you WILL NOT see coming but leaves just enough wiggle room that the author could return to it if he wanted. Trust me, you won't see the ending coming at all even though in hindsight it actually does fit with what came before. Its just very out of left field but not necessarily in a bad way.

[blackpariah]

Just read a trilogy over the weekend: Breach, Ghost Country, and Deep Sky by Patrick Lee. They are his first three books which is why you probably haven't heard of him unless like me you picked up Breach as a deal of the day book on Amazon a month or so ago. I didn't start reading them until Friday and finished Breach by Saturday afternoon. I then bought the other two for my kindle and finished the third Monday morning. I literally couldn't put them down.

They are very interesting books and definitely keep you entertained. Its sort of like the TV show 24 meets the X-Files. This is mildly spoilerish for the first part of the first book but essentially the books are about a shadow government agency that is tasked with studying a "breach" between our world and some unknown one. Periodically objects come through the Breach that have some sort of scientific use far beyond modern capabilities. Some of them are even semi-sentient. You find this all out early in the first book so I'm not ruining anything. Eventually through the three books you learn the purpose of the breach and how and why a lot of things you took for granted early on happened. There are three main characters (the third isn't introduced until the 2nd book) that you'll follow.

The books move at an extremely rapid pace which makes them great page turners but at the same time their one flaw is a lack of character depth. I realized after finishing the 3rd book that I have no clue what race any of the three main characters are nor their hair color or anything else much about them except some basic details about their histories. Maybe it was mentioned at some point and I missed it but the book moves so fast action wise it rarely takes the time to consider these types of things. So if you like books where the author spends pages describing details its probably not for you but if you like a book that keeps you entertained in a "great popcorn movie" type of way they are good. To give you an idea of how fast the books move, in the first book the main character find a downed airplane with dead bodies including the First Lady and evidence that points to the fact she was transporting an alien / paranormal entity of questionable loyalty. And thats in the first 10 pages.

The third book wraps up the series in a way you WILL NOT see coming but leaves just enough wiggle room that the author could return to it if he wanted. Trust me, you won't see the ending coming at all even though in hindsight it actually does fit with what came before. Its just very out of left field but not necessarily in a bad way.

That sounds like a good recommendation. I'm gonna swing by B&N tomorrow and pick these up!