Post: #26

(12-23-2014 02:31 PM)Darius Wrote:  My favourite Sci-Fi series are the Dune series (Frank Herbert) and the Foundation series(Isaac Asimov).

For fantasy both Game of Thrones and Wheel of Time series both start strong but fall off for the same reason. Both authors realize they found their meal ticket and watered it down till it was tasteless in order to spread it out over more books.

Another personal favourite fantasy series was the Dark Elf Trilogy(R.A. Salvatore).

I liked Dune a lot and finished the first two books, then it became slightly tedious and more of the same.

Personally, I was very dissapointed with Asimovs Foundation. I simply didn't buy the premises of the book, forgot which one.

A universe of billion of inhabited planets? It's impossible to imagine and would be completely impossible to administrate. I also found the tech descriptions to be severely outdated and lacking in imagination.

As far as Science-Fiction goes, there is no one who can compare to Arthur C. Clarke, a pederast he might have been, but his scientific understanding is at a very, very high level and have inspired generations of NASA engineers. The Rendevouz with Rama series are probably the best, but the City and the Stars is also excellent along with all the Space Oddysey books.

Post: #27

By far the best sci-fi book(s) that I have read is Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons.

Those two books are really one book, but I think its hard to publish a 1,000 page sci-fi book this deep. The first half is written like a Canterbury Tales with a set of pilgrims going to see a demon from the future worhsipped by many as a god that moves backward through time, all set during a galatic civil war between the high-tech group of humans and those outside the high-tech sphere.

Several of the parts of the book, each characters pilgrim so far, are better than most books. Together, and how they fit together, is mind-stretching and simply a great piece of art.

I put it in my top three of pieces of literature that should stand for humanity's creativity: along with The Magus by John Fowles (without question the best piece of fiction I've read and something every RVFer should read) and 100 years of Solitude which is magical-historical literature as a genre.

If a person is into heavy, high tech, post human sci-fi with religious battles throughout, check out Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion. Cant recommend more highly.


Edit----

Whats also disappointing is that I've read 100 years of solitude writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez's other big book Love in the time of Cholera and didnt think much of it at all. Same with John Fowles other big book The French Lieutenant's Woman and Dan Simmons several other novels. Even genius isn't limitless. A lot of amazing writers spend a great deal of their life with the one huge idea they have, and thats it. Its sad seeing it, hoping they could create a similiar thing again, but I just dont see it that often. Even Hemmingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls and Old man and the sea, His other long and short works arent very good.

Post: #28

Chindi - Jack McDevitt

The Diamond Age - Neal Stephenson This one may be on the edge of SF / Fantasy genres but if you have not read this author, give him a try with either Diamond Age, Cryptonomicon, or Snow Crash.

Post: #29

(01-12-2015 07:33 AM)ball dont lie Wrote:  I put it in my top three of pieces of literature that should stand for humanity's creativity: along with The Magus by John Fowles (without question the best piece of fiction I've read and something every RVFer should read)

Whats also disappointing is that I've read 100 years of solitude writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez's other big book Love in the time of Cholera and didnt think much of it at all. Same with John Fowles other big book The French Lieutenant's Woman and Dan Simmons several other novels. Even genius isn't limitless. A lot of amazing writers spend a great deal of their life with the one huge idea they have, and thats it. Its sad seeing it, hoping they could create a similiar thing again, but I just dont see it that often. Even Hemmingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls and Old man and the sea, His other long and short works arent very good.

Agreed. I love The Magus, but couldn't get excited about Fowles other works. Same with F. Scott Fitzgerald. I consider The Great Gatsby to be a masterpiece but found his other works to be lackluster.

Post: #30

Anybody ever read David Eddings?

This is the series that propelled me to enjoy the fantasy genre.
The Belgariad

I've read many classic series, but I'm always in for some new stuff.
Will def. look into some suggestions here.

Post: #31

(01-12-2015 04:01 PM)FrenchCanadian Wrote:  Anybody ever read David Eddings?

This is the series that propelled me to enjoy the fantasy genre.
The Belgariad

I've read many classic series, but I'm always in for some new stuff.
Will def. look into some suggestions here.

David Eddings is a good start, but you're going to encounter much more hardcore stuff than that Try his Elenium series as a step up and out of the Belgariad focus.

Someone also mentioned Jack McDevitt -- I also really liked A Talent For War; it's a very unusual sort of a novel, an archaeological mystery set in the far future.

Post: #32

I like the Malloreon more than the Belgariad.

Post: #33

Robert Silverberg - one of the greats of SF - was very Red Pill in real life too fucking 1000+ women and writing his ass off. Pretty much anything from him is good. He likes women and it shows as he puts plenty of sex in his books.

Philip K Dick - his movie adaptations speak volumes - but his other SF works also foresee a multitude of real-life events that have come to fruition by now.

Post: #34

(01-13-2015 04:04 AM)Zelcorpion Wrote:  Robert Silverberg - one of the greats of SF - was very Red Pill in real life too fucking 1000+ women and writing his ass off. Pretty much anything from him is good. He likes women and it shows as he puts plenty of sex in his books.

I credit Silverberg with having helped keep me sane back when I was an omega nerd incel teenager.

During class, I would be reading Robert Silverberg novels under the desk. It helped.

Post: #35

Weird that Time Enough For Love by Heinlein hasn't been mentioned yet.

If there is one red pill science fiction book- or red pill book for that matter- that absolutely everybody should read, it is this one.

Assume that you are a man who has lived a thousand lives - been there, done that, got the T-shirt. Knowing what you now know- from lived experience - what kind of life would be truly worth living? And what is the operating manual for living that kind of life - what life skills and mental attitudes must a man develop?

After rereading that book as a mature adult, the message finally clicked, and it changed the world for me.

Post: #36

(01-12-2015 09:42 PM)Paracelsus Wrote:  

(01-12-2015 04:01 PM)FrenchCanadian Wrote:  Anybody ever read David Eddings?

This is the series that propelled me to enjoy the fantasy genre.
The Belgariad

I've read many classic series, but I'm always in for some new stuff.
Will def. look into some suggestions here.

David Eddings is a good start, but you're going to encounter much more hardcore stuff than that Try his Elenium series as a step up and out of the Belgariad focus.

Someone also mentioned Jack McDevitt -- I also really liked A Talent For War; it's a very unusual sort of a novel, an archaeological mystery set in the far future.

I like Eddings. The Elenium and Tamuli series are pretty good; the Tamuli follows after the Elenium with the same characters.

However, I have to say some of his dialogue gets on my fucking nerves. It didn't start bugging me until like the third time I read through the books though.

Post: #37

I read a lot of the classic guys when I was younger, Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Herbert, Silverberg, Dick, E.E. Doc Smith, Spinrad, Harry Harrison.

Out of all of them, the most on-target predictions were in John Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar. That book was a pretty good picture of the world now (it's set in 2010) written in 1968.

I don't see shit on the SF shelves nowadays that really interests me, it's all sword and sorcery crap, except I saw some by Kim Stanley Robinson that looked ok.

Anybody read him, is he good?

Post: #38

(01-16-2015 03:08 PM)Sp5 Wrote:  I read a lot of the classic guys when I was younger, Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Herbert, Silverberg, Dick, E.E. Doc Smith, Spinrad, Harry Harrison.

Out of all of them, the most on-target predictions were in John Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar. That book was a pretty good picture of the world now (it's set in 2010) written in 1968.

I don't see shit on the SF shelves nowadays that really interests me, it's all sword and sorcery crap, except I saw some by Kim Stanley Robinson that looked ok.

Anybody read him, is he good?

Most good SF ended in the 1990s - the hay-days were in the 1970s, when society had high hopes about the future.

Nowadays SF is mostly dystopian - no happy future for the serfs.

Also most movies are almost unwatchable to me since the agendas getting crammed down our throats are just too crazy - feminism, global warming, trans-gender, SJW, globalism etc.

Post: #39

(01-16-2015 03:08 PM)Sp5 Wrote:  snip

I don't see shit on the SF shelves nowadays that really interests me, it's all sword and sorcery crap, except I saw some by Kim Stanley Robinson that looked ok.

Anybody read him, is he good?

I did not enjoy Antarctica (1997) very much. Too verbose, focused on environmental issues and sustainability, and some personal relationships seemed forced. I gave the Mars trilogy a try a long time ago but can't recall why I didn't finish it. Maybe his recent stuff is better, but I've been burned twice now by that match.

Overall, meh, 4/10 WNR again.

Post: #40

Currently reading the Book of the New Sun series by Gene Wolf. I've heard its one of the greatest science fiction/fantasy series of all time. Really enjoying it thus far.

Post: #41

(01-16-2015 06:32 PM)Engineer Wrote:  

(01-16-2015 03:08 PM)Sp5 Wrote:  snip

I don't see shit on the SF shelves nowadays that really interests me, it's all sword and sorcery crap, except I saw some by Kim Stanley Robinson that looked ok.

Anybody read him, is he good?

I did not enjoy Antarctica (1997) very much. Too verbose, focused on environmental issues and sustainability, and some personal relationships seemed forced. I gave the Mars trilogy a try a long time ago but can't recall why I didn't finish it. Maybe his recent stuff is better, but I've been burned twice now by that match.

The reason is because Kim Stanley Robinson will never use a single word when six hundred will do. Not to mention that, like a lot of frankly second-rate sci-fi authors, he doesn't really get people. Not really. Many of his characters have the ring of glass where crystal would be much preferable.

Post: #42

(01-12-2015 11:30 AM)1818Steve Wrote:  Chindi - Jack McDevitt

The Diamond Age - Neal Stephenson This one may be on the edge of SF / Fantasy genres but if you have not read this author, give him a try with either Diamond Age, Cryptonomicon, or Snow Crash.

Not a Stephenson fan anymore. Diamond Age and Snow Crash were his best, but he's been unreadable since Crypto, Anathem, Baroque Cycle. Even ReaMdE was a slog.

WIA

Post: #43

(01-16-2015 03:08 PM)Sp5 Wrote:  I read a lot of the classic guys when I was younger, Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Herbert, Silverberg, Dick, E.E. Doc Smith, Spinrad, Harry Harrison.

Out of all of them, the most on-target predictions were in John Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar. That book was a pretty good picture of the world now (it's set in 2010) written in 1968.

I don't see shit on the SF shelves nowadays that really interests me, it's all sword and sorcery crap, except I saw some by Kim Stanley Robinson that looked ok.

Anybody read him, is he good?

I've read a grip of PKD, Heinlein, Asimov, Bradbury, Bester, P. Anthony, Dan Simmon's book above... More recently Iain M. Banks, Doctorow, Jim Butcher, Scalzi, and Charles Stross.

Haven't read KSR. I liked Hard SF when I was actually doing Hard Science. Now, cool science and techno-fetishism (aka Cyberpunk) don't really do it for me. I guess I really should shed my love for SF&F, but regular fiction...so unfamiliar.

I'm wondering if I've outgrown the genre, or maybe my tastes have shifted.

Will be a sad day when I can't hit escape velocity anymore.

WIA

Post: #44

I just read Charles Gannon's Fire with Fire and Trial by Fire, and they were pretty good. Not knock-my-socks-off good but good enough that I'm pretty disappointed I have to wait awhile for the next book in the series to come out. Not much science and lots of this-is-so-high-tech-we-can't-explain-it handwavium, so I guess it's more like science fantasy (as is 99% of "science fiction" these days).

I don't remember if he's been mentioned but John Ringo has some highly entertaining military SF/F in print. The man is wildly creative but generally doesn't go off the deep end with his fancies. The sole exception I can think of is Ghost, and as I recall he wrote that with no intention of publishing it. A lot of his books are free in digital format through the Baen Free Library. I'm rereading There Will Be Dragons right now.

... I see that I mentioned his collab series with David Weber in my first post, but Ringo's solo stuff is quite good too.

There's a lot of other good stuff free from Baen as far as that goes. The free library isn't permanent, FYI, and they have shut it down before.

Michael Z Williamson also writes good military SF. Freehold is kinda preachy re: libertarianism for the first 1/3 or so but it gets really good after that. Good thing it's free online, because I let a girlfriend borrow it (along with a few other of my favorite SF/F books) a week before we broke up and never got it back.

David Brin's Sundiver and Startide Rising are worth reading. Sentient dolphins are involved.

Piers Anthony's Apprentice Adept series - first three books are really good; didn't read the others because I didn't know there were more. The first three books are essentially their own series anyway because books 4+ switch to different characters.

The Xanth series was mentioned and yeah it's pretty good. Only problem is there are about a thousand books in the series and I lost interest by ~ book 8. I'll have to read them again, though, just because some SJW twinks on the internets have their panties in a bunch over how misogynistic and awful Piers Anthony is.

Post: #45

I read most of David Wingrove's Chung Kuo novels, some were good, the later ones "jumped the shark."

Post: #46

I've personally read about 90% of the books mentioned in this thread and many more. I don't make many book recommendations in fiction either as my tastes run odd.
With that caveat, the current best fantasy series is the Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson. Here is his landing page on Amazon.

http://smile.amazon.com/Steven-Erikson/e/B000APIXTU/

They story follows different units in a Roman Era style military conquest (but with magic) as well as political and religious figures in the same empire, the Malazan Empire. There is no protagonist and the lines between the good buys and the bad guys is often so blurry as to be completely meaningless. He kills characters often and terribly, and some meet fates even worse. Most of the story follows the surviving members of a Malazan special forces style unit that falls out of political favor when the old emperor dies and almost the entire division is killed in a set up early in the first book.

If you like fantasy and history, read these books.

The best thing about these books is that they exist. All 10 books are written and the series is done. There are quite a few other books with shared characters in the same fantasy world, but the initial 10 book series that they are all based on is complete. He has also written a trilogy that takes place over 20,000 years before the main story and a series that follows two necromancers on their adventures. I especially enjoy these as there are so few "Bad Guy" main characters in fantasy.

Be warned about these books, they are not for casual readers or people with low comprehension skills. This author has two Phds in archaeology and anthropology and these books are conceptually dense. There is also very little exposition, you are dropped into the middle of an ongoing major event with dozens of characters with established history, all of which has to be inferred from dialog and subtext. These are not books for the Harry Potter crowd.

The fantasy world is also shared with another Author, Ian Esslemont.

http://smile.amazon.com/Ian-C.-Esslemont/e/B001QV1XBC/

Ian has fewer books but they are all good. Each new book follows a few characters from the previous book on a related but distinct adventure. These books also use many of the characters from the Book of the Fallen as minor characters in their stories as the books take place at the same time, major events in Erikson's books are referenced by the characters in Esselmont's books and vice versa. These books are quite as difficult to understand as the Erikson books, but they also aren't as vibrant.

Post: #47

Uchronia.net is a great source for the alternate history genre, as some of the books overlap with SF.

Post: #48

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. A must read for fans of the genre.

Post: #49

Post: #50

Some excellent suggestions in the thread, particularly 'The Forever War' and 'Starship Troopers', real classics. From the western world I really enjoyed most of the stuff I've read by Olaf Stapledon. He's a bit too left-wing in some of his beliefs, but he attempts some novels on an epic scale and it's really interesting to see where he goes with it. In particular, 'Last and First Men' which traces the entire history and extinction of humanity, 'Star Maker' which looks at the entire history of life in the universe, and 'Nebula Maker' which imagines celestial bodies as forms of life as well. 'Odd John' was worth a read as well.

For some sci-fi from the former Soviet bloc, the Strugatsky brothers did some great stuff in Russia. 'Hard to be a God' is probably my favourite of theirs, the setting is basically a future world in which Earth is observing a primitive world, and has inserted an agent to observe what is going on. He gets caught up in a personal feud, and starts his own form of revolution against what he sees as an oppressive religious dictatorship. 'Roadside Picnic' you should also read if you liked 'Stalker' by Tarkovsky, it's the book which the film was based on. Metro 2033 is probably one of the better modern sci-fi books from Russia, set in a post-apocalyptic Moscow where humans eke out an existence in the Metro system. I loved 'Memoirs Found in a Bathtub' by Stanislaw Lem, it's a reflection on just how ridiculous bureacracy and state secrecy is getting to.

An honourable mention to 'A Canticle for Leibowitz', it's also in the post-apocalyptic mould, but I really enjoyed it.

The most recent sci-fi I read was 'Player Piano' by Kurt Vonnegut. The premise is a future world where automation and computer-controlled society renders most people economically inefficient and so the overwhelming majority of society is either propped up in monotonous maintenance work or enlisted in the army. It was good enough to get a thumbs-up from me, though I found some of the characters a bit hollow.