What should I read? Science Fiction

[crikkett]

It's been almost 10 years since I had time to read anything that wasn't on a monitor.

I loved science fiction - but I've been out of the loop. Can anyone recommend science fiction to read?

Thank you.

[Xipe Totec]

1. Orson Scott Card, Kim Stanley Robinson, James P. Hogan

Pick any title by those authors.

[n2doc]

4. You forgot the sarcasm on Orson...

His last book was a total freeperfest fantasy. He went over to the dark side a long time ago...

[Xipe Totec]

7. Hum, maybe I'm out of the loop too

I like the Ender's series. Don't know about his more recent work.

So, he's gone the way of Heinlein? :shrug:

[n2doc]

9. Story here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=208&topic_id=10334&mesg_id=10334

Also, you probably know about Michael Crichton turning into a wingnut. Orson went that route after 9/11.

[pitohui]

15. no don't let card use any 911 excuse on you

he was a bigoted blowhard in the 1980s, he tried to gaybait me in the 1980s, and i think you'll find a lot of people who have met him will say the same

he was always a two-faced hater, it's just that people who didn't personally encounter him didn't know it until he got his own blog and started making a fool of himself on a mass scale

[democracyindanger]

5. Oh lord, not Card.

Fine writer, but an active wingnut. If you've got to buy it, buy it used, so he doesn't get any money for it.

Neuromancer. William Gibson.

[NV Whino]

8. Jump in anywhere with William Gibson

But Neuromancer may be his best.

[mainegreen]

2. Hmmm

How about "The Algebraist" - Ian Banks
or
"Pushing Ice" - Alastair Reynolds

or how about a classic?
"Heavy Planet" - Hal Clement

[n2doc]

3. Well, what kind of SF do you like?

I would read Ian Banks if you like "hard" sf, try "excession" or "use of weapons" to start. David Brin's more recent works have been good.

If you like more of an "adventure" sf, in the Heinlein mode, try John Barnes, "A million open doors" or later works

[n2doc]

12. A few more

Depends if you like fantasy a bit more, I highly rec the "His Dark Materials" trilogy by Phil Pullman. It may be targeted as a "juvenile" series, but do not be fooled. Also, anything by Stephen Donaldson. If you can find the "gap" series by him, it is an amazing series of books, absolutely riveting once you get first the rather oddly structured first book in the series.

[pitohui]

16. "use of weapons" one of the best opening paragraphs in SF history!

"Tell me, what is happiness?"

"Happiness? Happiness...is to wake up, on a bright spring morning, after an exhausting first night spent with a beautiful...passionate...multi-murderess."

"...Shit, is that all?"

note-- all ellipses are in the original text, i can't presume to edit perfection

the only better first line in SF is john varley's in steel beach: "In five years, the penis will be obsolete," said the salesman."

hmmm, 1992 copyright, so more like 15 than 10 years old...but if you haven't read steel beach better add it to the list!

[bmcatt]

18. It's "Iain Banks"

And, yes, Banks is very good. :-)

[MedleyMisty]

6. My husband's a big sf fan

He's out doing the laundry right now but I'll ask him when he gets back.

I'm trying to think of stuff that he likes.

He's a huge John Barnes fan.

He really likes Cory Doctorow, who has a book titled Someone Comes to Town Someone Leaves Town.

Be back in a sec - going to go check out his bookshelves.

I like sf too, just not quite as much as he does and I tend to like the older classic stuff that you probably already know about.

He's really into John Scalzi right now, and his book Old Man's War.

There's Ursula K. LeGuin. And John Varley. And Connie Willis. Oh, and he likes Kage Baker. And Spider Robinson.

And Karl Schroeder (Sun of Suns in particular), Charles Strauss (Accelerando), Nancy Kress, Andreas Eschbach (The Carpet Makers), and Joe Haldeman.

[jeff30997]

10. Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan

One of the bes sf book I’ve ever read.

[Salviati]

29. the whole Taikashi Kovacs series is great

Vernor Vinge is great too both Deepness in the Sky and Fire Upon the Deep.

Someone below mentioned S.M. Stirling, and I'll second that as well...

[GaYellowDawg]

35. YES!!

If you'd given me a preview of the book and told me how dark a future he paints, I would have told you in no uncertain terms that I would hate it. Instead, it was INCREDIBLE.

I picked it up in Napa's downtown bookstore and read it nonstop on a flight from San Francisco to Houston. Then I went straight out and got the next two books. I'll continue to buy anything he writes.

[Hekate]

11. Anything by Ursula LeGuin; very imaginative and intelligent writer...

It's hard to pick a favorite book by such a prolific and excellent writer, but "Always Coming Home" does it for me.

If you like fantasy at all -- run, do not walk, to get Terry Pratchett's "Discworld" series. He is at once very deep and very funny. The man is an astute observer of humanity in all its variety. I read "Jingo" during the runup to the invasion of Iraq and I had to keep checking the publication date to make sure it hadn't been written just for the occasion. Unlike LeGuin, he has a recurring cast of characters. Again, I can't choose a favorite.

Most of the hard sci-fi in my library is pretty old. I read a lot of it growing up and kept the best, but I think you are looking for something more recent.

Have fun.

Hekate

[Fire Walk With Me]

25. Seconded- Ursula's work gets in deep and stays there.

Samuel R. Delaney does as well. "Titan" is a vast weave of symbols, potentials, and outcomes.

Charles Stross's "Accellerando" (spelling?) is nice. Brunner's "Stand on Zanzibar" rules, if you can find it.

[msedano]

13. here are a few worthy ones

yes, orson scott card. pastwatch: the redemption of christopher columbus. 24th century has become mestizo. they've developed time travel and go back to 1492, intercept colon's fleet and convince him his path is wrong. they go to the amerinds called tlaxcala and teach them to make 15th century boats using 24th century technology. colon gets the right idea and decides against enslaving the natives. as the novel ends, a mighty fleet of tlaxcala warships sails into lisbon harbor to introduce pax americana to savage europe.

heinlein has some that maybe you didn't miss back when you actively read. stranger in a strange land. job. totally worthwhile. stranger was a 60s/70s obligatory read if you wanted to converse with hippie chicks. job offers more meaty fare. Then there's Starship Troopers.

how about the edgar rice burroughs mars series? totally unbeatable fantasy stuff.

in the 1960s, john barth penned a magnum opus, giles goat-boy. i started to re-read it last year. it's aged. but it's a delightful satire once you get into it. a computer creates a human life, half goat half human, part jesus, part odysseus/aeneas, part buddha, part any number of western myths barth could dredge up.

Vonnegut? Player Piano. Sirens of Titan. The first an extension of Twain's Connecticut yankee, the second raises the spectre of the US fire-bombing of Dresden.

On a more contemporary note, walter mosley, he of the great LA dectective series with Easy Rawlins, has one called The Wave that has a lot to recommend it for.
http://labloga.blogspot.com/2006/07/review-walter-mosley-wave.html

Slightly less contemporary, RJ Pineiro's suspense stuff has good sci-fi elements. 01-01-00 a millenium novel has rays from alpha centauri shooting into a hidden maya temple in the lacandon forest and three teams racing to capture the power and secret of the ages.Exposure and Shutdown are two other excellent thrillers with a cyberside.

Speaking of cyber, howabout the cyberpunk work of William Gibson, particularly the early stuff like Neuromancer and Count Zero.

enuf. read and enjoy.

http://labloga.blogspot.com
http://readraza.com

[pitohui]

14. robinson, banks, reynolds

there's a lot of good stuff out there, but these are top tier

mars trilogy by kim stanley robinson might be more than ten years old now, but if you didn't catch it, catch it now -- some of the best SF ever written and non-depressing, which is rare for good SF

ian banks is also good as is alastair reynolds -- again, very challenging to create futures that don't fall apart after 5 days and not be depressing as hell, these guys can do it

i don't understood some of the recs for obvious right wing tripe -- if your time is limited, avoid crap by card, heinlein (wasn't he already dead 10 years ago anyway?), hogan -- heck, even when hogan had more liberal ideas he couldn't write his way out of a paper bag, and the other two are just awful

a new writer to me i just encountered is charles stross, author of glasshouse, a good adventure and a plausible very advanced future but it's fairly depressing so we're back to the issue of it's hard to read good SF and not get depressed -- this is quite an entertaining read tho and probably worth a bit of bittersweet

many good SF books such as cloud atlas by david mitchell and oryx and crake by margaret atwood leave you wanting to exit the nearest blowhole into deep interplanetary space -- these are good books, but if you must have a happy ending, SF is often a genre most avoided, so not knowing your taste i'm just sayin'

[bmcatt]

17. A few authors from my shelves

L.E. Modesitt, Jr. - He does both SF and fantasy and generally everything is well thought-out. Not sure there are any that I'd particularly highlight over anything else, although his "Forever Hero Trilogy" is very powerful and available in trade paperback

I'll agree with Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy, although it can be dry at times.

Simon Green - His "Tales from the Nightside" series is fun and very easy to read. It supposes a section of London (the "Nightside") where it's always 2 AM and all the bad stuff hangs out (demons, forgotten gods, etc).

Tim Powers - a great author of "urban fantasy". I especially like his loose trilogy of "Last Call" / "Expiration Date" / "Earthquake Weather". He takes modern settings and overlays a set of semi-fantastical elements on top of them. Also of note are "Declare" and his latest, "Three Days to Never".

Dan Simmons - one of the best authors I've ever read. His Hyperion series (Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion, plus two more) is an amazing set of books. He also recently did a two-books series (Illium and Olympos) which, for all that they might *seem* to be fantasy are most definitely SF.

Guy Gavriel Kay - probably one of the best authors of "historically-themed fantasy". It takes near forever between his books, but he spends so much time researching that the result is well worth it. I'd suggest starting with the Fionavar Tapestry (trilogy - The Summer Tree / The Wandering Fire / The Darkest Road) or The Sarantine Mosaic (Sailing to Sarantium / Lord of Emperors) or even The Lions of Al-Rassan.

Kay is one of the few authors whose books I buy as soon as they come out in hardcover without waiting for the paperback version.

[NuttyFluffers]

32. Second Dan Simmon's Hyperion series

and i generally hate sci-fi (had a high school class on classic works of sci-fi -- very important for cultural literacy. still ended up hating it.) :shrug:

most stuff i ended up reading has been plain ol' bad, including a lot of the classical sci-fi stuff. but Simmons wasn't a sci-fi writer first, he just had some great success in his foray into it. i think it has to do with excellent character and atmosphere development along with a subtle touch when interweaving sub-plots and seeming unrelated elements. probably a skill he had to master from writing in different genres. it's a breath of fresh air, instead of a lot of the tech masturbation that too much of the sci-fi world must endure.

[Geoff R. Casavant]

19. Two Recommendations:

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell; and Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.

[On the Road]

20. I Liked "Ozone" by Paul Theroux

He's not normally a sci fi novelist, and it's just as much sociological as scientific. He incorporates a lot of experiences in the third world.

[Porcupine]

21. Conquistador by S.M. Stirling is good alternate history SF

Others by the same author are "Dies the Fire" and "Peshawar Lancers" also in the alternate history genre. Ian Banks is very good; Player of Games is one of his that hasn't been mentioned that I enjoyed.

One of the kings of science fiction right now is Neal Stephenson. "Snow Crash" is almost required reading for your insight into the future and "Cryptnomicon" is a good read if you like money. Don't try reading his baroque series because it's well baroque. One of the books was named "Confusion" which was apt since the released the series in two different formats which were named differently.

[GaYellowDawg]

34. You can't name alternate history without naming Harry Turtledove!!

Most of what he writes is in series. Visit his website to start at the beginning of any of them. He's definitely the king of alternate history. If you're looking for a neat fusion of alien invasion/alternate history, pick up the "world war" series that has an alien invasion happen at the height of WWII.

[bemildred]

22. Neal Stephenson is good ... nt

[MyshkinCommaPrince]

23. Greg Egan

I've rather liked the Grag Egan I've been able to find.

[abluelady]

24. Nancy Kress

She has a book "Beggers in Spain." I read it over ten years ago and still think about it. It is science fiction with some politics thrown in. LOL

[Fire Walk With Me]

30. The "Beggars" series was good. When will she finish the "Crossfire" series?

I'm eagerly awaiting book three.

[RebelOne]

26. Any of Ray Bradbury's books. He is my favorite SF writer.

[YOY]

27. Horror/Sci-Fi? try Max Brooks' "World War Z"

What if a zombie plague really did happen (ala George Romero's Night/Dawn/Day/Land of the (Living) Dead? Written in a personal interview format that will chill you.

Popcorn for the mind? Maybe, but damn good!

[YankeyMCC]

28. Something newish: Ken MacLeod

Learning the World would be my top recommendation from him but his other books are good too. Newton's Wake is very fun but still smart.

I'll second the recommendation for Kim Stanley Robinson particularly the Red/Green/Blue Mars series. But he also has a newer series dealing with climate change on Earth and a possible (probably?) near future scenario. I've heard good things but haven't read it.

For something Classic: Asimov's Robot Novels - Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun and The Robots of Dawn

If you're feeling really ambitious for a big long novel try "River of Gods" by Ian McDonald. I picked it up with a bit of trepidation, it sounded a bit over complex and given that it is set in India (near future, fragmented India) but written by someone from Scotland I was skeptical but I am Glad I took the chance. It is I think around 900 pages but they go by fast and whether it is an accurate depiction of Indian culture or not (everything I've read in reviews says it is) it certainly creates a vivid interesting and compelling background.

[pitohui]

31. yeah i want to check out ken macleod

i've heard good things

so many books so little time in this world!

[RogueTrooper]

33. I would second you on Ken MacLeod

I would also add one of his contemporaries -> Charlie Stross

[GaYellowDawg]

36. David Brin's "Kiln People" is really good.

Also, John Birmingham's "Axis of Time" trilogy is great.

[Forrest Greene]

37. Seconding Ms LeGuin

I dearly love her work.

Vernor Vinge is current, & very very unusual.

After reading Kim Stanley Robinson's "Red Mars / Green Mars / Blue Mars" trilogy, I felt affectionate toward Mars in the same way I would toward a place I once lived.

Harlan Ellison, Theodore Sturgeon, Ray Bradbury ... Zenna Henderson ... R.A. Lafferty, John Collier, Saki, James Tiptree, Jr ... Richard Matheson.

[paparush]

38. William Gibson, Neil Stephenson, Bruce Sterling, Rudy Rucker..

Orson Scott Card, Neil Gaiman, Ken McLoed, Cory Doctorow

[petronius]

39. There is a whole long series of "Year's Best" anthologies edited by Gardner Dozois

that will give you a broad exposure to what you missed over the past decade.

In terms of novels, I'd second a lot of what's above, particularly:

Iain Banks: Consider Phlebas is a good start to the Culture
John Barnes: A Million Open Doors, Earth Made of Glass, Candle

also,
Jack McDevitt: A Talent for War, Seeker, Polaris
Walter Mosley: Futureland

[Paladin]

40. "Alas, Babylon"

Pat Franks' brilliant 1959 novel about the aftermath of a nuclear holocost, centering on a small Florida community's efforts to start rebuilding a society. Beautifully written, with something you don't encounter in all the "Fail Safe"/"On The Beach" novels on the same subject: hope.

Still in print, available at your local bookstore. Enjoy....