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.

[WarriorPoet]

Ping to add me to the list...and I would add the first couple of books of the “1632” series by Eric Flint. Heinlein was a huge influence on me when I was younger....along with Asimov and L. Sprague de Camp.

[RJR_fan]

You all may enjoy my essay on Futures for Sale.

When fundamentalism committed itself to a no-future future, the humanists were glad to claim the discarded trifle for their own. For a while, writers populated their Darwinian futures with characters who were motivated by derivative religious values. That moral capital has been consumed. The bleakness of the current weltanschuung opens the door again for people who have a vision, who have a passion, who believe that they and their grandchildren truly have a future.

The first meal eaten on the moon, BTW, was the Lord's Supper.

[Sherman Logan]

I agree with you about the liberal tendencies in recent books. Got one just the other week and was well into it before finding out the hero was gay. Not what I care to identify with.

Modern writers I enjoy include Stirling, Weber, Ringo and Flint. Some of their books are fantasy or alternate history, not specifically sci-fi.

Some of them are quite uneven, and the occasional liberal tendency pops up, but at least it’s never truly brainless.

For instance, if Weber is going to have his female hero kicking male butt in hand to hand combat, he has her raised on a heavy gravity world and spend decades studying martial arts. Doesn’t just endow a female with an ability they have never had before without explanation.

[50sDad]

Footfall...the best alien invasion book written.

[Big Mack]

Please add me to your list.

[iceskater]

Please add me to your list.

Lots of good recommendations already.

[AZ .44 MAG]

Great! Thanks Jotmo.

I look forward to future pings.

[chesley]

Add me to the list, please

[PapaBear3625]

I’m a fan of military SF. I started with Jerry Pournelle, from there to David Drake, and currently enjoy John Ringo and Tom Kratman (I recommend Kratman’s “A Desert Called Peace”)

[Little Ray]

Please add me to the ping list.

Favorite stuff right now:
The Lost Fleet series by Jack Campbell
One Day on Mars and The Tau Ceti Agenda by John Ringo and Travis Taylor.
The Looking Glass Series, also by Ringo and Taylor

[Little Ray]

I always thought Tom Kratman had some good ideas for handling our enemies in the ME...

[Mad Dawgg]

For anyone who disbelieves Global Warming I recommend:

Decent Story and full of chuckles and inside jokes for SciFi fans.

[Hyzenthlay]

I recently picked up a book by Harry Turtledove - it was a future-alternate-history sort of book, and definitely didn’t seem politically correct at all. A friend recommended it, they said it would probably remind me a lot of Heinlein’s teen-oriented stuff, and it more or less did. I happen to be going to the local library today, so I’ll see what else I can find...

[JoeProBono]

[LonePalm]

I am currently writing a SF novel with the working title, Scout's Honor." One of the things driving me to write the book is the problem of how to organize a group of star systems greater four or five systems where there is not instantaneous communications. Republics break down very quickly and a Democracy is simply not possible outside of one system. How then to avoid tyranny?

Premise
Good societal organization and order allows good people to do great things. It absorbs shocks without breaking down. More freedom is better than less. An armed society is a polite society. As Thomas Paine said, “Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.”

Synopsis
Scout’s Honor is an Age of Sail novel set just over 1700 years in the future. Our protagonists are a group of Scout Academy classmates. They form six married pairs (Captain and Cartographer) of Scouts, each with their own Scout ship. Their discoveries and interaction with the Minhocans, a new group of humans from the other side of the Empty Quarter form the main portion of the book. Themes dealt with in the book include Coming of Age issues, clash of cultures and religions, the abnormally high number of human inhabited and habitable star systems, organization and management of a Star Empire, and how current society and institutions adapt to the reality of a 1200 planet Empire with limited communications.

The story begins on Aldebaran, about 60 light years from Earth towards the galactic rim. Most of the main action takes place another 90+ light years farther out on the rimward edge of the Empire in an area dubbed the “Empty Quarter” by the press
**********

I am always looking for people to read and comment on what I have written.

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

[Just another Joe]

Robert Heinlein's "Tunnel in the Sky".

It was just a test . . .
But something had gone wrong. Terribly wrong. What was to have been a standard ten-day survival test had suddenly become an indefinite life-or-death nightmare.
Now they were stranded somewhere in the universe, beyond contact with Earth . . . at the other end of a tunnel in the sky.

A book that reminds us that all is not always what it seems and that experience is the best teacher.

[Nachum]

Just finished reading “The Forever War” by Joe Haldeman. Thought was excellent.

[dangerdoc]

bump

[KevinDavis]

A big thanks goes to Visualops for the Banner!!

[The Louiswu]

Please add me to this ping list!

My reading list.These are just a few of the titles that I have enjoyed. Titles by Larry Niven
Ringworld
The Mote in God's Eye
A World Out of Time
The Ringworld Engineers
The Integral Trees
Footfall
The Gripping Hand
The Ringworld Throne


Titles by Frederick Pohl
Gateway
(lots of things by Pohl

Titles by Derek Robinson (war novels, not sci-fi)
Goshawk Squadron (1971)
is set in 1918 with the squadron flying the S.E.5a.

War Story (1987)
is set in 1916 with Hornet Squadron flying the F.E.2b.

Hornet's Sting (1999)
is set in 1917 with Hornet Squadron flying the
Sopwith Pup and the Bristol F.2B Fighter.
Novels set in RAF squadrons during the Second World War:
Piece of Cake (1983)
is set during the Phony War and Battle of Britain with Hornet Squadron flying the Hurricane. There is a TV mini-series (1988) with the same name based on this book.

A Good Clean Fight (1993)
covers the Desert Air Force during 1942 with Hornet Squadron flying the Curtiss Tomahawk.

Damned Good Show (2002)
covers RAF Bomber Command's early bomber operations
and has fictional No. 409 Squadron RAF flying the Handley
Page Hampden.

Titles by Arthur C. Clarke
Prelude to Space (1951)
The Sands of Mars (1951)
Islands in the Sky (1952)
Against the Fall of Night (1953)
Childhood's End (1953)
Expedition to Earth (1953)
Earthlight (1955)
Reach for Tomorrow (1956)
The City and the Stars (1956)
Tales from the White Hart (1957)
The Deep Range (1957)
The Other Side of the Sky (1958)
Across the Sea of Stars (1959)
A Fall of Moondust (1961)
From the Ocean, From the Stars (1962)
Dolphin Island (1963)
Glide Path (1963)
Prelude to Mars (1965)
The Nine Billion Names of God (1967)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Rendezvous with Rama (1972)
Of Time and Stars (1972)
The Wind from the Sun (1972)
Imperial Earth (1975)
Fountains of Paradise (1979)
2010: Odyssey Two (1982)
The Songs of Distant Earth (1986)
2061: Odyssey Three (1988)
Cradle (co-authored with Gentry Lee) (1988)
Rama II (co-authored with Gentry Lee) (1989)
The Garden of Rama (co-authored with Gentry Lee) (1991)
Rama Revealed (co-authored with Gentry Lee) (1993)


Titles by Robert A. Heinlein
The Cat Who Walks Through Wallsv Citizen of the Galaxy
The Door Into Summer
Double Star
Farmer in the Sky
Farnham's Freehold
Friday
Glory Road
The Green Hills of Earth
Have Space Suit, Will Travel
I Will Fear No Evil
Job: A Comedy of Justice
The Man Who Sold the Moon
The Menace From Earth
Methuselah's Children
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
The Number of the Beast
Orphans of the Sky
Podkayne of Mars
The Puppet Masters
Red Planet
Revolt in 2100
Rocket Ship Galileo
The Rolling Stenes
To Sail Beyond The Sunset
Space Cadet
The Star Beast
Starman Jones
Starship Troopers
Stranger in a Strange Land
Time Enough For Lovev Time for the Stars
Tunnel in the Sky
The Worlds of Robert A. Heinlein

This is a small part of my very large list. I am working up reviews on my facebook page.