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Really, this is just an excuse to plug Iain M Banks, but The Player of Games is pretty good (as are all of his novels). Glass Bead Game (Hermann Hesse), too, though not sure if it strictly can be considered sci fi.

Consider Phlebas and Excession are even better:)
also:Martha Wells Murderbot series.

Consider Phlebas is very good, probably in my top 4 or 5. I felt at the end it started to drift into bloatware a bit. Iain has a hard time killing his darlings

Use of Weapons, the Algebraist (not culture?) and Player of Games are probably my top 3. Use of Weapons way out in front.

Excession was also really great, anytime you get the minds as major characters, makes for great reading.

HOnestly, though, they are all pure gold. If you like SciFi and haven't read his stuff, you truly are missing out IMHO.

The truly great thing about his books, at least for me, is you can re-read them probably 3 or 4 times and still find things you've missed. Very very dense prose. It's a real joy being able to revisit a novel like that when you enjoyed it so much the first time.

Will check out Murderbot. Hugo award winner!

Cryptonomicon (Neal Stephenson) is one of my all-time favorites i think really blew my mind that one.
Anathema and Seveneves also very likable. (and Looong:))

I've heard good things about it. I should give him another try. I was pretty disappointed by Reamde, the only one I read in full. American taliban on the washington usd/cad border? Uhm, no. It all rang pretty artificial to me. Snowcrash wasn't to my liking either, tbh, I had to give up about half way through. The characters just seemed too cartoonish. I much prefer Vernor Vinge or Gibson for that material.

Stephenson has good ideas though, I'll give him that.

My all time favourite is the Dune cycle by Franck Herbert.
The trilogy of Ā by A. E. Van Vogt is also in my top tier SF books, along with the Foundation cycle by Isaac Asimov.
Ender's game by Orson Scott Card is also very high on my list (the first book of a whole cycle, but imho way above the following books, can be read in standalone).

Yeah I'm an old guy with old school tastes .

Technically, The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy by Douglas Adams is sci fi, though heavily tilted towards the comedy side. If I was asked to describe the British humour, I would tell to read these books and watch the Monty Pythons.

Ah Koub.....
Null-A , you mean? I read that as teen, and it was awesome indeed. not aged well, though.
Theodore Sturgeon (More than Human) and Alfred Bester (Tiger, tiger) anyone?


And Arthur C. Clarke.
And John Varley
And Ursula LeGuin.
Wow, This is opening up a big bag of book reading memories:)

disentius wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 11, 2021 10:52 pm

Theodore Sturgeon (More than Human) [...] anyone?

Indeed

disentius wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 11, 2021 10:52 pm

And Ursula LeGuin.

Oh yes, but I didn't know she had written sci-fi, the only thing she wrote than I've read is the awesome Earthsea (but it's fantasy).
[Edit] On second thought, I recall reading the world of Rocannon, but I was a kid so it had slipped out of my mind.

Ahhhhh thats a thread worth of reading …..
Albeit some are mentioned but as I love reading SF I want to add my share

The Dune-Cycle is a very rich and good read (though I needed two tries to get started, but it was well worth if you get into) and I can never understand why the first movie got so bad receptions……

Storys of Clarke were never a bad selection for some reading.

Orson Scott Cards Enders-Game and following books are also very good ( the movie is a somewhat good representation of the book in the given short time of a movie, but for me it really took of with the ‘speaker of Trees’, this not really being a hard SF, but for its topic its superb ( so after this read I totally recline the StarTrek-do-not-interfere-directive because of obvious reasons)

Children of Time and Children of Ruin of Tchaikovsky, a very good read and a mixture of biology and hard SF endtimes

And yeah Cryptonomicion of Stephenson should of everybodys list of SF and IT reader, it gives you the best understanding of Information-processing down to the very principle
Also from him the ‘baroque-cycle’ leans in this direction, thougth more in an historian setting and more of telling about the times then..

Daemon of Daniel Suarez is somewhat rooted in the now, but I count it as SF, even if its very well thinkable; one of the books which I read straight over a weekend…., gives you thought about the information age…..

Latest I want to say is Semiosis, Sue Burke, also not really hard SF, but also very interesting living in a strange environment

A small speedy Book : Accelerando of Charles Stross will you show a different way of leaving the planet, which we all try in factorio…….

Liu, Cixin Three Body Problem books, somewhat hype recent, but also i found it justified and it was a very well read, somelike endtimes of humanity


After all this hart and unforgiving reads the Hitchhickers guide trilogy of 4 books is a very good contrast program


So I must confess I am also an older guy with some special taste, I like it when there is a interesting pretense/setup well played out, which gives me some thoughts on this matter…..

Koub wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 11, 2021 9:01 pm

My all time favourite is the Dune cycle by Franck Herbert.
The trilogy of Ā by A. E. Van Vogt is also in my top tier SF books, along with the Foundation cycle by Isaac Asimov.
Ender's game by Orson Scott Card is also very high on my list (the first book of a whole cycle, but imho way above the following books, can be read in standalone).

Yeah I'm an old guy with old school tastes .

Technically, The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy by Douglas Adams is sci fi, though heavily tilted towards the comedy side. If I was asked to describe the British humour, I would tell to read these books and watch the Monty Pythons.

Yes, those are the classics for sure. Tho I haven't read vogt. Vonnegut, who I truly adore, but not vogt. Clarke is sci fi 101, there is depth in his work similar to Banks. Banks will always be my favorite, tho. Most sci fi just seemed to pale after I read him.

I confess I liked RPO, however. A guilty pleasure. The audiobook version via Wil Wheaton. His voice acting I think lent a certain deeper and definitely more entertaining dimension that the novel would have lacked without it.

But not the movie, which felt like someone nagged Spielberg to do fan fic until he finally gave in because he owns a studio. And then spielberg quickly realized none of it made sense as a movie, so he just threw it all out and rewrote it from scratch. Yes, I was a bit dissapointed.

I don't read a lot of science fiction, but Banks, Adams. What I liked very much - "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes. Science fiction combined with drama. In general, an interesting piece.

Ooooooh SciFi. My most beloved novel genre.

My personal top list:
- The Forever War (the pre-sequel Forever Peace is also pretty good, but something entirely different and far down on my best-of list)
- The Three Body Problem trilogy
- Inverted world
- Existence

If you like scifi operas: Reading The Expanse occupied and entertained me for a good portion of year and is not even yet finished. Cn't wait for the final novel which is said to be published late 2021.

My "oldies but goldies", I read decades ago are the Foundation series, the Ringworld series and especially, very warmly I remember End of Eternity.

Old but not outdated is of course Newromancer and other stuff by Gibson. Newromancer was THE high quality novel that welded my hook on scifi shut. My impression that the scifi genre is highly interesting and entertaining for its visions of the future, society, technology and strategy in fictional what-if-scenarios was finalized then.

Worth to mention is stuff from Stanislav Lem who's works are a life masterpiece but highly philosophical and old. Like old experimental jazz - you might like the genre, but it might be something that is just too much and maybe outdated as well.

If you are searching for a good scifi novel and need recommendations, I also recommend to you to look up the winners and nominees of and for the Hugo- and the Nebula-Award. These awards for Scifi stories exist since the 50ies and 60ies respectively and there are one or two winners each year and 5 to 10 nominees. So there is a lot of high quality stuff to pick from.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Award#Categories
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebula_Award#Categories

I didn't speak about Pierre Bordage : He's a French author, and while the English => French translation is something quite common, I suspect that translations French => English are less common.

In case his books are translated into English, he's a very worthy SF author. Notably :
- The warriors of silence ? (Les guerriers du silence in French).
- Abzalon and its followup : Orchéron.

disentius wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 11, 2021 8:13 pm

Cryptonomicon (Neal Stephenson) is one of my all-time favorites i think really blew my mind that one.

My all time favorite book of all time favorite books (of all times)
Think I have read it at least 4 times and I'm still not tired of it.

Though I wouldn't put it in the scifi genre, as it's 2/3 during WWII and 1/3 during the late 90, describing some of the early internet days.
It feels more like a some kind of Forrest Gump like story where the protagonists meet important historical people.


If you want scifi, I higly recommend Snow Crash by the same amazing author.

Whenever the story gets shitty to implement the next peace of action, I start to dislike the whole book/film/series really fast. Though humor or irony may compensate for it and make these "mistakes" forgivable for me. I do only keep books I like very much (like novels) or might need in the future (i.e. educational stuff). I give away the rest. Looking at my scify board, there are likely as many books from Lem and as from other authors ..


There is no way around Stanislav Lem. Want philosophical hardcore? Start with Golem XIV. Want to laugh the shit out of yourself, read The Futurological Congress. Seriously, do yourself a favor and read all of it. And do NOT watch the Solaris movie (the book is OK, though).

Poul Anderson, Tau Zero. Sadly, very sexistic and stereotypical. If you can overread this, it is truely awesome. As in some stories, the end is ... way too short, but this is forgivable to some degree.

Dune is a masterpiece. See it this way: looking at our ecological situation, even now mankind fails to plan for a time period that exceeds a part of its life span. Breeding the Kwisatz Haderach is a strong anti-thesis here.


I mostly agree with given books here, as far as I know them, but want to point out, that I didn't like children of time (though one could argue that the story in itself is somewhat consitent) and the expanse (starts awesome (Leviathan wakes), gets worse soon (in book 2 of 9, I read until 6, I should have stopped earlier)). I didn't like The Three-Body Problem eighter, but I read only book 1, even though Liu Cixin manages to get together a story without the usual shitty action (at first). Sadly the story gets mediocre fast.


I really wanted to like the books in Alastair Reynolds Revelation Space, he gets that dark mystery/horror/evil feeling Alien once had and pairs is excellently with cyberpunk, but of course, action kills story pretty fast.

I like humor, but in The Municipalists it didn't make up for the story, at least not for me.

tamanous wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 18, 2021 10:22 pm

... want to point out, that I didn't like ... the expanse (starts awesome (Leviathan wakes), gets worse soon (in book 2 of 9, I read until 6, I should have stopped earlier)).

I feel you. I also thought "enough is enough" after book 6. I don't know if it was the story in 5 & 6 or if it was reading 6 books. I paused for a year and read 7 & 8 last fall and I like the story again. It gets creepy again. Although I want to mention for you, that there is a lot of "Bobbie fights this and that" in them. Because of the creepieness I am now looking forward to 9.

GrumpyJoe wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 18, 2021 6:21 pm

disentius wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 11, 2021 8:13 pm

Cryptonomicon (Neal Stephenson) is one of my all-time favorites i think really blew my mind that one.

Though I wouldn't put it in the scifi genre, as it's 2/3 during WWII and 1/3 during the late 90, describing some of the early internet days.

If you want scifi, I higly recommend Snow Crash by the same amazing author.

True dat
I read it also, but snowCrash was not as striking for me

What blew my mind about Cryptonomicon was that it very clearly and almost without effort to teach you the very basics of information technology settled in the story.
I would say this book should be mandatory for every serious IT-course

I forgot do add to my recommendations:

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein. I like its humor, and despite its (very situational) sexism (again? Damn me! At least, women rule the society on Luna..), its both funny and intriguing.

tamanous wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 19, 2021 1:37 pm

I forgot do add to my recommendations:

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein. I like its humor, and despite its (very situational) sexism (again? Damn me! At least, women rule the society on Luna..), its both funny and intriguing.

Yes! And a good ground course in libertarianism. Tanstaafl!

Harry Harrison, anyone? (Deathworld series, Bill saves the galaxy, and the Stainless steel rat series)

Impatient wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 19, 2021 10:10 am

I feel you. I also thought "enough is enough" after book 6. I don't know if it was the story in 5 & 6 or if it was reading 6 books. I paused for a year and read 7 & 8 last fall and I like the story again. It gets creepy again. Although I want to mention for you, that there is a lot of "Bobbie fights this and that" in them. Because of the creepieness I am now looking forward to 9.

Close. I think it is in the last TV episode, Holden says to Bull "That was the last time you used this word on my ship." The given setting and its inherent social tensions caught me from the start of Leviathan Wakes. I still am disappointed that focusing this tension was put aside for raising the powerlevel of "the enemy", score and so on.

Anyways, was it book 6 that started with a 14 year old space-punk succesfully raiding a marsian top secret military outpost? I put the book away after that chapter for some weeks or more until I decided to just finish it just for the sake of doing so. But we probably should not discuss the expanse here.