Favorite SF books?

Czhorat · Post by **Czhorat** » Thu Jan 25, 2001 5:38 am

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Roscoe Mathieu:
I'd also recommend, among the short writers, two stories by Jack Williamson: "With Folded Hands" and "The Equalizer".
Two distinct views of technology.
Warning on "With Folded Hands": It causes major depression/paranoia. I couldn't pick up a book for two weeks, couldn't pick up the anthology for six months, and though this was about two years ago, I STLL can't stand reading the story again.----------
"Remember/
What the Door Mouse said/
Feed your head/
Feed your head."<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Yes. "With Folded Hands" was one of the saddest, nicest stories I read. There's also a followup novel called The Humanoids. For my money though, Williamson's best novel was Darker Than You Think. I don't thinkit's in print, but if you can find it, read it. It's a great book.

Nicolas Juzda · Post by **Nicolas Juzda** » Thu Jan 25, 2001 6:20 am

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by gwalla:

I like Phil K. Dick. His short stories, especially (read "The Collected Short Stories of Philip K. Dick vol. 5: Eye of the Sibyl" for some good ones). "Ubik" is very good. I couldn't get into "Man in the High Castle", however. I need to read "Valis"...I haven't been traumatized enough yet.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>My favorite work by Philip K. Dick is the short story Second Variety. Have you read it?Nicolas

Blackjack · Post by **Blackjack** » Thu Jan 25, 2001 8:39 am

It isn't sci-fi, but it's fantasy--
Michael Ende's classic "Neverending Story"

Random Nerd · Post by **Random Nerd** » Fri Jan 26, 2001 5:46 am

Umberto Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum", while not strictly sci-fi, has some fantasy elements. It's really good, and disturbing. A friend of mine has a theory that this book takes at least 3 months to read. A friend of his read it in 3 with no ill effects, he himself read it in 2 and was twitchy and paranoid for the third, I read it in a little more than 2 and was freaked out for a couple of weeks, and another one of his friends read it straight through in one month and doesn't even remember seeing the book before. My own theory is that if someone reads Watchmen, Foucault's Pendulum, and Valis for the first time right after another, either their brain will explode or they'll spend the rest of their life curled up in a corner, twitching.
3 months? Are you kidding? How could someone delay themself that much in reading it?I read Pendulum in under 3 hours.Started reading, couldn't stop, ended up at 1:30 in the morning reading the last pages despite having a large calculus test the next day. Damn good book. I can't quite describe why I like it so much, but it's one of my top 10 favorite books of all time.I've read it half a dozen times, and I'm planning to reread it again after some research on alchemy and kabbalism so I have a better background on some of the issues.Of course, I've read Valis at least a dozen times, and I gamemaster Unknown Armies, so perhaps my fondness for Grand High Weirdness and bizarre paranoia is a factor there.Still, great book.

Random Nerd · Post by **Random Nerd** » Fri Jan 26, 2001 5:59 am

Other favorite speculative fiction books of mine include the following.Anything by Phil Dick. Anything. I would sit and read his shopping lists if given the chance. Not always good writing, always interesting. My personal favorite is Valis, and I'm also quite fond of Alphane Moon and DADoES.Almost anything by Zelazny, but some favorites are Creatures of Light and Darkness and Night in the Lonesome October.
The Amber books I can take or leave.C.S. Friedman's books, with the exception of This Alien Shore.Tim Powers is usually good.Other authors I like most of the works of includeJames Blaylock
Frank Herbert
Tad Williams
and
Larry NivenThis list is, of course, not exhastive, but is all that comes to mind at the moment.

Tom the Fanboy · Post by **Tom the Fanboy** » Sat Jan 27, 2001 3:18 am

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Nodrog:
By a very important standerd, 'To Say Nothing Of The Dog' is a great novel. By the same standerd, The Austen Powers movies, Alien, Enemy of the State, several James Bond movies, Homeward Bound, and Fifth Element are all great movies. What's that standard? Simple... in all of those, a cat survived! (Nodrog is a cat person... does it show?)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Hmph, cat people. I think fandom has more cat people than dog people and I can't say why without ranting. *sigh* You forgot a movie with a cat that survived. The original Dune. Hint: "Thufur's a Harkooooonen now...."I've got a lot to respond to here so bear with.Thank you Animaniac for mentioning "Grunts can be gentle"! I've been looking for that title for 2 years!!!! My friend told me about it and I've wanted to read it since then.Nodrog: I've only read one of the Dream Park series and I've been looking for more of them!Random Nerd: God to have you here but try not to use your first post to one-up someone. <IMG SRC="http://www.keenspace.com/forums/wink.gif">Now, for the number of titles I 've read....6-7?I don't get out much, most of my reading is the newest SW title and my comics titles. Any more is too much for school. At the moment I'm in a Lovecraft collection.Let's see. Sci-fi.
Of the above I've thouroughly enjoyed Calahan's and Phule's book as well as the Hitchhikers "Trilogy".
Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grill was a good story with one of the most solid time travel theories I've seen.
I liked Dune but after Children of Dune I couldn't take it anymore.
Since I follow Star Wars so much I guess I should talk about it. I think the best books out ther under the Star Wars banner are anything by Timothy Zahn, Kevin J Anderson's anthology books (usually called "Tales of"), The Correllion Trilogy (forgot the author), and Vector Prime by RA Salvatore (the infamous Chewie death book). Books to avoid would include the Crystal Star and the Shield of Lies Trilogy. I'd like to say that right now the series (and the whole SW universe) has taken a dramatic turn in style and has moved beyond the "Han's kids are stolen so they gotta be rescued while Luke deals with the dark side" I like what the authors have been doing with The New Jedi Order series.I'm a tiny bit better read in Fantasy, with the requisite Tolkien, a start on the Piers Anthony "Immortal Archetypes" (or whatever they are) series, and I'm a huge Redwall fan and have not caught up due to circumstances beyond my control. I'm suprised nobody's mentioned CS Lewis. Sure he's a big Christian writer but his stories are still good. He did much more than his Narnia books (Like the classic Screwtape Letters) and always seemed to me to avoid being heavy handed with the religion (though it is seemingly always there).The big series I would suggest to people is the "Dragon and the Unicorn" series by A A Attanasio. It's great multi-level Arthurian legend and I've found very few people (1 or 2) that have read it! It's a good mix of Norse, Celtic, Tribal, New Age, and Christian myth all mixed with historical "accuracy" (for politics and society) to make a wonderfully complex story. It spand four books: The Eagle and the Sword, The Wolf and the Crown, and The Serpent and the Grail. This is the one book I'll tell y'all to go read.OK, that's all for now.------------------
Tom the Fanboy <A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/tee-moss" TARGET=_blank>http://www.geocities.com/tee-moss</A>
The House of Tee-Moss, home of Billberg University.[This message has been edited by Tom the Fanboy (edited 01-27-2001).]

Gwalla · Post by **Gwalla** » Sat Jan 27, 2001 3:53 am

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Nicolas Juzda:
My favorite work by Philip K. Dick is the short story Second Variety. Have you read it?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>No, but I saw "Screamers", which is the movie adaptation. It definitely keeps the PKD feel.------------------
"Truth hides on the other side of a two-way mirror
In countless documents sent straight to the shredder
That might finally give us the whole of the picture
But until the day we decide to dig a little deeper
We know that truth will hide
Under fallen rocks and stones
At the end of a disconnected phone
Down an unmarked street
And buried, deep beneath your feet."
- Asian Dub Foundation, "Truth Hides" from Community Music

Nicolas Juzda · Post by **Nicolas Juzda** » Sat Jan 27, 2001 4:47 am

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Nodrog:

By a very important standerd, 'To Say Nothing Of The Dog' is a great novel. By the same standerd, The Austen Powers movies, Alien, Enemy of the State, several James Bond movies, Homeward Bound, and Fifth Element are all great movies. What's that standard? Simple... in all of those, a cat survived! (Nodrog is a cat person... does it show?)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>I actually gravitate towards works where cats die horrible bloody deaths, ideally slow and painful ones.(Nicolas is really REALLY not a cat person... does it show?)Nicolas

Nodrog · Post by **Nodrog** » Sat Jan 27, 2001 8:38 am

Challenge: Read through this message board and count how many you've read, enjoyed.Counting the ones (Note: I'm counting a series like HGTTG, Dune, and Foundation as ones but Star Trek novels like How Much for Just the Planet and Q-Squared as two different sources) I've mentioned in my own post: 
24By a very important standerd, 'To Say Nothing Of The Dog' is a great novel. By the same standerd, The Austen Powers movies, Alien, Enemy of the State, several James Bond movies, Homeward Bound, and Fifth Element are all great movies. What's that standard? Simple... in all of those, a cat survived! (Nodrog is a cat person... does it show?)

Czhorat · Post by **Czhorat** » Sat Jan 27, 2001 9:22 am

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Nodrog:
Challenge: Read through this message board and count how many you've read, enjoyed.Counting the ones (Note: I'm counting a series like HGTTG, Dune, and Foundation as ones but Star Trek novels like How Much for Just the Planet and Q-Squared as two different sources) I've mentioned in my own post: 
24By a very important standerd, 'To Say Nothing Of The Dog' is a great novel. By the same standerd, The Austen Powers movies, Alien, Enemy of the State, several James Bond movies, Homeward Bound, and Fifth Element are all great movies. What's that standard? Simple... in all of those, a cat survived! (Nodrog is a cat person... does it show?)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>I might have counted this wrong, but I came up with 32. I'll re-check my counting later. I've read almost everything here, with the exception of some of the media tie-ins. This is also counting things like "The short work of Harlan Ellison" as one selection. I need to get out more (he says, as he returns from the library with some Gene Wolfe. Hey, did we mention him?)

Judy · Post by **Judy** » Sat Jan 27, 2001 11:53 am

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Roscoe Mathieu:
Diane Duane...sounds familiar...did she write Spiderman novels?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Yes. Also a few of my favorite Trek novels ("Doctor's Orders," "The Romulan Way," and "Spock's World," among others). And the Young Wizards books are quite good as well.Judy

Allomai · Post by **Allomai** » Sat Jan 27, 2001 12:03 pm

If we're allowing fantasy at all, I highly recommend, well, pretty much everything Diane Wynne Jones has ever written, but especially _Fire and Hemlock_, which has just been republished. Robin McKinnely is also lovely, as is Diane Duane.You may also want to try Sharon McCrumb's _Bimbos of the Death Sun_ and _Zombies of the Gene Pool_, which are really very close to being Fans tie-ins already.-Allomai.

Czhorat · Post by **Czhorat** » Sun Jan 28, 2001 1:23 am

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Susano-o:
Favorite Sci-Fi books...let's see:Brave New World - George Orwell
The Time Machine - H. G. Wells
Dune - Frank Herbert
Ringworld - Larry Niven
To Your Scattered Bodies Go - Philip Jose Farmer
Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead - Orson Scott Card
All the Star Wars books by Timothy Zahn
The original Dragonriders Trilogy by Anne McCaffrey
The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursala K. Le Guin
Blood Music - Greg BearI'm sure there are others, but a bunch of my books are in boxes, so I can;t do a quick scan to identify them.Susano-o<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>I'd forgotten Greg Bear's Blood Music. It was a thoroughly terrific book.HG Wells' The Time Machine is an interesting choice. It's one of those classics that holds up remarkably well. Sometimes the books that don't try to overexplain how their science work have an easier time withstanding the test of time.For everyone who mentioned Zelazny, I agree for the most part. He DID have a distressing tendency to repeat himself, though. It's one thing to have consistant themes in one's work, but Zelazny was practically a self-plagiarist.

EteRock · Post by **EteRock** » Sun Jan 28, 2001 2:04 am

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Random Nerd:

3 months? Are you kidding? How could someone delay themself that much in reading it?
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>I could. But then again I have an attention problem.------------------
Hell's fool.<A HREF="http://smapdi.keenspace.com" TARGET=_blank>Smapdi</A>I do not accept this world. To it I shall always say "No".

Susano-o · Post by **Susano-o** » Sun Jan 28, 2001 11:39 am

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Roscoe Mathieu:
Brave New World, George Orwell?
*snigger, snigger*
*bursts out laughing*
Huxley must be reeeeeeeeeeal pissed!
*descends into a quivering ball of laughter, occasionally shouting "ORWELL!" that sends him into deeper paroxyms of humorous pleasure*<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Blushes
Um... it was late... I was tired... aliens ate my brain... I goofed.
Glad to have provided you with many minutes (hours?) of simple amusement, Roscoe.

Susano-o · Post by **Susano-o** » Sun Jan 28, 2001 12:10 pm

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Tom the Fanboy:
... I'm a tiny bit better read in Fantasy, with the requisite Tolkien, a start on the Piers Anthony "Immortal Archetypes" (or whatever they are) series...
[/B]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
My guess is you are referring to the Incarnations of Immortality series. I especially liked the first two, dealing with Death and Time, but after that, like with most Anthony, I found he had run out of siginifcant new ideas to add to the original concept.

Susano-o · Post by **Susano-o** » Sun Jan 28, 2001 12:20 pm

Favorite Sci-Fi books...let's see:Brave New World - Aldus Huxley (not George Orwell...)
The Time Machine - H. G. Wells
Dune - Frank Herbert
Ringworld - Larry Niven
To Your Scattered Bodies Go - Philip Jose Farmer
Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead - Orson Scott Card
All the Star Wars books by Timothy Zahn
The original Dragonriders Trilogy by Anne McCaffrey
The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursala K. Le Guin
Blood Music - Greg BearI'm sure there are others, but a bunch of my books are in boxes, so I can;t do a quick scan to identify them.Susano-o[This message has been edited by Susano-o (edited 01-28-2001).]

Thor Thorvaldson, Jr · Mon Jan 29, 2001 7:27 am

I don't know if these count--mostly because they're more fantasy-type--but here goes:"The Lark and the Wren" by Mercedes Lackey
I was really, really hoping for a sequel for that one...The Blue Adept series by Piers Anthony, all seven of 'em. Number seven ended kinda screwy, though...The Darkshae Trilogy, can't remember by who.Star Wars Episode One--Who else here wishes that they would have put the scene with Anakin and the Tusken Raider in the movie?Thor

Czhorat · Post by **Czhorat** » Mon Jan 29, 2001 8:36 am

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Roscoe Mathieu:
Actually it was two and a half DAYS until I got it out of my system.
*thinks about it then starts snickering again*
Start (heh) the timer (haha) again...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>This week we'll give keep Roscoe occupied by giving him a shiny object.All kidding aside, it is a semi-understandablt slip of the tongue. 1984 and Brave New World (I assume that's the Huxley book you were thinking of) do have enough similarlities that one would tend to think of them together..

Animaniac · Post by **Animaniac** » Mon Jan 29, 2001 12:20 pm

Tomthe Fanboy says:
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Thank you Animaniac for mentioning "Grunts can be gentle"! I've been looking for that title for 2 years!!!! My friend told me about it and I've wanted to read it since then.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>You're welcome =)But you'll have better luck finding it by the actual name:"Grunts"
by Mary GentleAnimaniac
::Just in case you read it wrong and weren't just being silly::