Posted on 08/19/2006 7:09:57 PM PDT by Hacksaw
There have been several science fiction threads floating around in the near past - and I thought it would be good to hash out the books.
Here are my thoughts:
Almost anything by Larry Niven is worth it - especially stuff from the Known Space series. Jerry Pournelle is also good, but under-rated. His Janissaries books were a good read, along with Starswarm.
RAH - most of his books are very enjoyable. His later stuff (which some consider his classics) I didn't like at all, especially that one about a guy getting his brain transplanted in a womans body. I didn't make it 1/3 of the way through before I gave up.
Ben Bova - readable. Not great, but still a page turner.
Star Trek books - unfortuneately, many of these are BORING. Notable exceptions are those written by by Diane Duane or Michael Jan Friedman. JM Dillard also seems good.
Asimov - almost always worth it.
Orson Scott Card - most of the time worth it. The Enders Game series was very good.
Saberhagen - good read. His berserker concept has also been picked up by other authors.
Kim Stanley Robinson - bleech. I kept wishing the characters in his books would get killed. Unfortuneately they were the heroes. Picture a bunch of disciples of Hugo Chavez colonizing Mars and you get the picture.
AC Clarke - very entertaining. Safe bets.
Other thoughts?
RAH's youth novels were a big part of grade 6 for me. My school library had a great sci-fi collection.
Good Point... I had forgotten that. The accelerators they used to throw rocks were originally used to throw wheat!
Well that certainly will put a hitch in the getalong. Now that you mention it, didn't his son pick up at that point? (it has been some time and my memory [clearly] isn't what it used to be).
John Ringo, David Drake, David Webber are all good authors
I loved the Incarnations series - even as I pruned my library of books, I kept those. The last two are very good - they definitely turn things on their collective ears, but I think you'll enjoy them. I also enjoyed Job - that's been on my re-read list as well.
I loved the Incarnations series - even as I pruned my library of books, I kept those. The last two are very good - they definitely turn things on their collective ears, but I think you'll enjoy them. I also enjoyed Job - that's been on my re-read list as well.
Fatasy is not science fiction. Never has been, never will be and it should be separated from science fiction in the book stores.
"I Will Fear No Evil", 1970
Hey buddy.....got any Tree-of-Life?????
I loved that Story. Niven is my all time favorite followed by RAH and Poul Anderson.
I do not find this manly broad attractive !
Claudia Black is more of a she-male freak, typical of all science fiction !
It doesn't matter where it is made; in Canada or anywhere else !
(pssst, check out that movie THE DECENT)
He did do a lot of stories in which food rationing was a given in the background. He later admitted in the nylines between some stories in an anthology in the late 1970's that he truly had missed the boat on food shortages.
Amber was the only "real" place, all other worlds were "shadows" of Amber. Only the sons and daughters of the House of Amber could travel through the dimensions from shadow to shadow. After the father "died", the children fought each other for control. It was their battles with each other that constitutes the series told from one of the son's (Corwin) POV.
It starts when Corwin wakes up in a hospital bed on present-day Earth without his memory but with his instincts intact.
I admit, there are a whole lot of princes and princesses of Amber. What I did was mark that page, and when I got to another one in the story, I checked back to reread the description of his or her card.
Skimming your freeppage, I see Bear.
I had checked out a book of his (DArwin's Radio?) but had to return it because I got into Doug Preston's Codex and didn't have time to read it.
Greg Bear is unabashed lib. He has written of sitting in on conversations with his father-in-law, RAH, Pournelle, and being welcomed even though his politics did not jibe with theirs....
My girlfriend's dad once stuffed Harlan Ellison into a clothes dryer because he was acting like an ass. Helluva guy, my girlfriend's dad.
Holes in the walls of his adolescent bedroom in Smallville... (snicker-snicker)
"Down In Flames" was pretty cool, too. Lots of fun in wrecking the Known Space universe.
I dunno. I'm a bit of a purist, but IMHO, it's sci-fi to the bone.
I mean, time travel! Can't get much more SF than that.
Can't say I care much for Michael Crichton's fiction, but the man sure can lay down one hell of an essay.
Yeah. Good book.
But I think ol' Steve was on a diet while writing parts of that one, judging from the drawn-out descriptions of what the characters were having for lunch. LOL
BIG fan of Stirling here - check the handle.
"Service and Glory!"
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