Sci Fi Literature Discussion Thread

[Jotmo]

This will be the firs in what will hopefully be regular threads dedicated to the discussion of Sci Fi Literature.

How many times have you bought what appeared to be a promising Science Fiction novel, only to discover it laden with heavy liberal bias or overt enviro wacko propaganda?

Here's the place to get and give recommendations, and warnings for all the FR Sci Fi book readers out there.

I have no idea if this will work, or how frequent these threads will be, but let's just give it a shot and see how it goes.

So if you'd like to be on the ping list, let me know.

[Jotmo]

I'll start with what may be my all time favorite book series.

The author is Michael McCollum, the books are Antares Dawn, Antares Passage, and Antares Victory.

Let me first share with you my personal woes with this series. The first two books were written in 1986, and 1987. I LOVED these books. I desperately waited to read the third. So I waited...and waited... At long last after 15 years, the final book was published. Yes, fifteen years. It came out in 2002. So you're lucky, you won't have to wait so long

This series is for lovers of the "hard" Sci Fi variety. The kind where the laws of physics are not dismissed with the mere mention of things like "inertial dampeners" or "gravity nullifying fields". No, in this series all those pesky things like G' forces and the human body's reaction to them are met head on, and actually play a substantial part in some of the sub plots.

Of course, there is also the Fiction part of the Sci Fi, and we certainly have that as well. In this case they are called "Foldpoints", and they form the heart of the main plot.

The planet Alta was one of many planets in the growing number of planets colonized by man. All of these planets were connected by a series of "Foldpoints" concentrated around the systems star. Some larger stars had many Foldpoints, some like Valeria, Alta's star, had only one.

After the star Antares exploded it completely altered the structure of "Foldspace" and Valeria's Foldpoint was destroyed, isolating the people of Alta. Over a hundred years later, and gigantic battleship flashes into the system. When the Altan "Space Navy" Finlay catches up with the behemoth, something is terribly wrong. The ship is merely a battered hulk, with a few dead earth men. Something had beaten the awesome Terran spacecraft in a battle to the death.

Whatever had done this to a ship that could easily have defeated the Altan system singlehandedly, could also find its way to Alta. Something had to be done. As the series unfolds, we find out that mankind has battled for over a century, and stood at a stalemate. But a secret obtained almost by accident by the Altans holds the secret to why the humans have not been able to make any progress in the war, and holds the key to complete victory, if the war weary humans can find the resolve to risk everything in one bold move.

I simply cannot recommend this series highly enough. Good Science Fiction with epic battles, baffling mysteries, some political intrigue and a small dose of romance for good measure.

Get it, you will not be sorry.

[texas booster]

BTTT

[JoeProBono]

[Hugin]

I always like Larry Niven. Thought he did a good job exrapolating the social and moral issues into the future with organleggers, wireheads, corpsickles and so on.

[redhead]

David Brin's "the practice effect."

I don't know why this story has stuck with me for so long.

A favorite series was the "Riverworld" set by Philip Jose Farmer.

From the first SF book I ever picked up, PJF was always consistently good, and became one of my favorite authors.

[JoeProBono]

[Poe White Trash]

Recommendations?

R.A. Lafferty’s _Past Master_ :

Space travel, time travel, Satan (who gets eaten...sort of), killer android dogs, killer android people, demons, immortals, Syrians, oblique references to _The Man Who Was Thursday_, and Thomas More. What’s not to like?

Heinlein’s _The Star Beast_:

Mr. Kiku kicks *ss!

Eric Frank Russell’s _The Great Explosion_:

Why do I like this novel? MYOB!

[Talisker]

Absolutely anything by Gordon Dickson. His focus is solely on using sci fi as a platform to illustrate conservative and libertarian truths. His stories will have you thinking for a long time, and marvelling at what a good read they are.

[Mr Inviso]

Any of the Ender series by Orson Scott Card. Enders Game is the best, but the rest are good,also.

[TheWasteLand]

Vernor Vinge writes some interesting scifi, and has some libertarian street cred.

As for more "literary" scifi, have you read any Gene Wolfe? He is one of the most interesting and frustrating authors out there, IMO.

I find his "Solar Cycle" books (The Book of the Long Sun, The Book of the Short Sun, and The Book of the New Sun) almost unreadable, and yet I keep reading and re-reading them again and again.

I admit it's bizarre. His ideas and presentation are fantastic (particularly The Book of the New Sun), but as I say, I find his writing almost unreadable. It's frustrating as all get out.

[DemforBush]

My pick:

[denydenydeny]

Though it wanders a bit at times, I would still recommend the Chtorr series by David Gerrold for its strong Heinlein overtones. I just wish he would finish it.

[GOP Poet]

bookmark

[verga]

Please add me to the List

[The SISU kid]

Please add me to the ping list!

Thanks in advance!

B^)

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

Ping to the master of the Sci-Fi (TV) Ping List.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

I am knowledgeable about Science Fiction of the 50’s, 60’s, & 70’s. Recommend Heinlein’s Future History series, Asimov’s Foundation(Galactic Empire) series and his Robot (3 laws of Robotics) series. Alfred Bester’s two novels, ‘The Demolished Man’ (first Hugo novel), and ‘The Stars My Destination’. James Blish’s Cities in space series of novels were also classics.

[Ingtar]

E. E. “Doc” Smith’s Lensman series. Nearly any of his series show a Capitalism triumphant thread.

“With the restriction of government to its proper sphere and its concentration into our organization, resulting in the liberation of man-power into wealth-producing enterprise, and especially with the enormous growth of inter-world commerce, world-income increased to such a point that taxation could be reduced to a minimum; and the lower the taxes the more flourishing business became and the greater the income.”

The speaker goes on to say that even so, the government still almost has too much money and has had to continue lowering the rates.

[RJR_fan]

A canticle for Leibowitz -- written as penance for his role as navigator in the Allied bombing raid on Monte Cassino that destroyed the oldest monastery in Europe. Represented all that is noble in the Catholic branch of the family, even as its tragic abortion of a sequel represented all that was despicable. The writer ended himself before he ended that book. Pity someone "finished" the book for him -- his literary reputation would not have been sullied if that editor had left well enough alone.

[RJR_fan]

SF is a strongly author-driven genre. Stephen Barnes pretty well forfeited my allegiance by his snarky, smarmy habit of spelling the most important noun in the universe (God) with a lower-case g.

I've been devouring Lois McMaster Bujold's military novels, the Miles Vorkosigan series. Highly recommend!

Then, there was the Canadian writer with a German name who turned a Polish joke into a (so far) three-part series, starting with Sun of Suns.