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?
Ah that should be David Weber not David Webb.
Thanks for the ping. But the only sci fi books I read is SW EU.
By that I assume you mean overblown hack.
I haven't read much science fiction in a long time. My favorite science fiction are books set in the preset time. I'm not that big on books written hundreds of years in the future. One book I read many years ago and that I'd like to read again is about the moon coming out of orbit and threatening to crash into the Earth. But I can't remember title or author. If anybody can supply that info, I'd appreciate it.
Harlan Ellison -- great across the board
Herbert -- good up to and including the 5th Dune, then seems to have had a complete psychotic break.
I tried Cherryh, too techy for me. Most of the rest I'm not familiar with. I mostly just dabble.
ADF is fun, though I haven't read him since I was a kid.
I consider Lincoln Child and Douglas Preston "science fiction" -- Relic, an awesome story constructed around the science of genetics made into a dumb movie.
I don't know about that - I just found them BORING. Too many long winded conversations.
You mentioned Gibson - I've noticed his dystopian future gets a little brighter in his books. The 3 series (Virtual Light, Idoru, and All Tomorrow's Parties) show people thriving in spite of the state of society around them. I've read these at least 3 times each.
I would disagree. I found him preachy to the extreme. Of course Heinlein was a romantic and I am not which is why I found so many of his characters in his later books so annoying.
He was one of the few of the "we are all going to starve to death" future history writers who had the honesty to later admit that he had totally missed the boat.
Niven talks about the Kzinti / Star Trek connection in one of his collections, either N Space or the other big one. They took one of his Known Space stories, I think The Soft Weapon, and replaced the Kzinti with Klingons, IIRC. Nessus, from Ringworld, was replaced by Spock. It's been a long time, so I may very well have that wrong. I'm pretty confident of which story it was, but can't remember if they used Kzinti or did the Klingon switch right now.
Me, I'm fond of the Speaker to Seafood story.
I spent a very long, drunken, weekend with Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle at my first SF CON several years ago. I discovered the Con Suite and that the GOHs hung out there for the free booze. I'd known Jerry for several years through computer conventions and the like so he recognized me and I got included in the insider group. It was a lot of fun.
The belter that killed Phssthpok, as Niven actually spelled it, was Jack Brennan. He had already eaten the "tree of life" and turned into a hybrid Human/Protector. He reasoned faster than Phssthpok and realized that once Phssthpok figured it out he would try to kill Brennan, so he killed the Protector first. Very reasonable. I chose the screen name for the noble futility of his quest. He was doomed, as we don't want saving, but he also brought us the tools we needed to survive his kind, which was a gift that deserved honoring.
Read it. The title of the short story was...IIRC...The Return of William Proxmire The funny part was that in the alternate reality that Proxmire creates by keeping Heinlien in the Navy, Proxmire gets voted out of office after Barry Goldwater presents the "Golden Fleece award" to Proxmire...ironically, the Golden Fleece Award was a dubious award created by Proxmire for the most foolish approved pork Barrell project by a member of the Senate...we need that kind of fiscal restraint today, or maybe a President who would actually veto some spending bills.
Bujold on the other hand is both light and fun, and then she will turn around and rip your emotional guts out.
I rediscovered ADF a few years ago when I found out he had a new Flinx and Pip novel out. That meant of course that I had to get the rest of the series and then the other books just followed. He has gained a lot of depth but his books are still fun reads.
I read Relic and I agree, good book, horrible movie.
Bujold has been a favorite of mine -- I hope SCIFI NEVER gets it's hands on the rights to make Miles Vorkosigan into a miniseries -- but her fantasy novels leave me cold.
Terry Pratchett is the king of parody. Death is my favorite with Susan not far behind, followed closely by The Luggage.
I recently read "City on Fire" by Walter Jon Williams. It's technically the sequel to "Metropolitan" but stands well on it's own. The POV makes it awkward reading at first but overall it's absolutely fascinating.
Asimov: Foundaton Trilogy.
Have to agree. i wish Dr. Pournelle would go back to writing SF. i'm still waiting for a fifth book of his War World collection. (yes, i know there were two novels, but it's just not the same).
Pournelle got his PhD in education. His last work that i recall in 1996 dealt with the subject of education. Four writers got together in 1994 to project what the future would look like in 50 years. They each created works based on those discussions. Pournelle wrote Higher Education. It was a look at the Public School system that was truly frightening. The real frightening thing is that it doesn't appear that the disaster that Pournelle describes will take 50 years to happen.
I just finished Pratchett's "Mort". Are his others better?
I haven't picked up Williams, I will have to look for him in the used book store.
I also forgot to mention the "Mork and Mindy" novels. I have them in hardcover.
You forgot James Blish!
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