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Topic: Your Favorite Sci Fi books  (Read 20712 times)

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Offline Commander La'ra

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Re: Your Favorite Sci Fi books
« Reply #120 on: March 05, 2005, 06:48:06 pm »
I actually prefer Gibson's later stuff, though I truly can't put a finger on why.  Idoru is one of my favorites.  I have serious issues with the fact that he's hard to find.  He's never on Books a Million shelves except for the newest of his new stuff, and finding anything at my local library is impossible.

Suppose there's always Amazon.com.

Let's see other sci-fi...

On Basillisk Station by David Weber.  The later books in the series became rapidly more cartoonish and dryly political, but the first one was pretty cool.  I tend to like the 'Honorverse' short story collections, though.

The Final Reflection by John M. Ford.  Best Star Trek novel ever written.

The Last Hot Time by John M. Ford.  Probably more fantasy than sci-fi with the elves and magic, but the semi-30's/semi-modern setting makes it feel like sci-fi to me.

The Venus Prime series by Paul Preuss and Arthur C. Clarke.  Can't speak for anything beyond the first and second books, but I really enjoyed both of those.
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Offline Mentat Jon

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Re: Your Favorite Sci Fi books
« Reply #121 on: March 07, 2005, 05:29:13 pm »
Frank Herbert!!!!!!
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Offline E_Look

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Re: Your Favorite Sci Fi books
« Reply #122 on: March 07, 2005, 07:40:01 pm »
Are you Herbert? ;)
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Offline KOTH-KieranXC, Ret.

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Re: Your Favorite Sci Fi books
« Reply #123 on: March 07, 2005, 10:23:40 pm »
I'm surprised more people haven't mentioned Weber's Honorverse series. Military sci-fi at its best, imo. That's probably my favorite book series of any genre to date, and I wish he'd quit branching off to explore other parts of the Honorverse and get to the second Havenite War already!!!  :banghead:
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Offline GDA-S'Cipio

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Re: Your Favorite Sci Fi books
« Reply #124 on: March 07, 2005, 10:41:46 pm »
My Favorites:

Gene Wolfe's New Sun series:
The Shadow of the Torturer
The Claw of the Conciliator
The Sword of the Lictor
The Citadel of the Autarch

Gene Wolfe writes more than just good science fiction.  (If, indeed, Science Fiction is a broad enough term to describe what he's doing.)  He delivers the best literature written in the English language today.

There is a standalone sequel:
The Urth of the New Sun

And two follow-on series (so distantly related to the first series that you might not even catch the connections) called the Long Sun series.


Other real winners:

The Mote in God's Eye
by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle

Dune by Frank Herbert
A true classic.  None of the sequels rate here.  The prequels by his son I do love, but they don't rate as great literature.

The Ringworld Engineers by Larry Niven
The best of the series.  (So far at least)

Foundation  By Isaac Asimov



-S'Cipio


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Offline Laflin

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Re: Your Favorite Sci Fi books
« Reply #125 on: March 08, 2005, 12:48:19 am »
Oddly enough, I have a penchant for military sci-fi.  Some of my favorites are:

Hammer's Slammers - David Drake
Dune - Frank Herbert
Dorsai! - Gordon R. Dickson
The Forever War - Joe Haldeman
Starship Troopers - Robert A. Heinlein
Armor - John Steakley
Foundation - Isaac Asimov
Berserker - Fred Saberhagen
Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
The Adversary - Julian May

Those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head - there are many, many others.  In addition, most of the above books are just the initial offerings in a series - just those ten I listed probably have another twenty to thirty sequels, most of them just as good a read.

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Offline Commander La'ra

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Re: Your Favorite Sci Fi books
« Reply #126 on: March 08, 2005, 10:00:28 am »
Quote from: Kieran on March 07, 2005, 10:23:40 pm
I'm surprised more people haven't mentioned Weber's Honorverse series. Military sci-fi at its best, imo. That's probably my favorite book series of any genre to date, and I wish he'd quit branching off to explore other parts of the Honorverse and get to the second Havenite War already!!!  :banghead:

Honor turns into way too much of a superhero in the books beyond the first one, at least for my taste.  And he almost writes to a formula: Honor gets assignment no one expects her to succeed in, she then does very well, various political machinations to kill time, final battle where her ship gets torn to pieces and half her crew dies.
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Offline Dracho

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Re: Your Favorite Sci Fi books
« Reply #127 on: March 08, 2005, 01:56:03 pm »
If you like military Sci-Fi, then Saberhagen's Berserker series, and Dickson's Dorsai books (or Childe Cycle) are mandatory reading.
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Offline NJAntman

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Re: Your Favorite Sci Fi books
« Reply #128 on: March 08, 2005, 04:24:02 pm »
Quote from: Commander La'ra on March 08, 2005, 10:00:28 am
Quote from: Kieran on March 07, 2005, 10:23:40 pm
I'm surprised more people haven't mentioned Weber's Honorverse series. Military sci-fi at its best, imo. That's probably my favorite book series of any genre to date, and I wish he'd quit branching off to explore other parts of the Honorverse and get to the second Havenite War already!!!  :banghead:

Honor turns into way too much of a superhero in the books beyond the first one, at least for my taste.  And he almost writes to a formula: Honor gets assignment no one expects her to succeed in, she then does very well, various political machinations to kill time, final battle where her ship gets torn to pieces and half her crew dies.

Got the War of Honor book out of local library, still had the Honorverse CD in the back leaf. Got the whole series now plus some of Weber's other stuff.  :thumbsup:
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Offline Capt. Mike

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Re: Your Favorite Sci Fi books
« Reply #129 on: March 08, 2005, 05:07:32 pm »
How about the M.Y.T.H. adventures...and which of you is the Pervert..errr..I mean Pervect  :D


Actually, I just sent Stephan a load of books 'cause my wife is Spring cleaning, and I'd rather keep them in the community than let others paw through them and only offer me a nickle for a classic

Mike
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Offline Commander Maxillius

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Re: Your Favorite Sci Fi books
« Reply #130 on: March 08, 2005, 11:40:33 pm »
Battlefield Earth is a HUGE book, not only in page count, but in sheeer scope.  I'd say it's 2 or 3 storied back to back non-stop.

The movie with John Travolta as Terl was a joke, but good enough to get me to check out the book.  I'd love to see a Battlefield Earth miniseries.
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Offline IAF Lyrkiller

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Re: Your Favorite Sci Fi books
« Reply #131 on: March 09, 2005, 08:30:15 pm »
The Dr. Who series
anything StarTrek
anything Starwars
Starwolf
BattleTech
Robotech


I may add more ;D
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Offline Green

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Re: Your Favorite Sci Fi books
« Reply #132 on: March 10, 2005, 08:06:45 pm »
Was happy to see Ender's Game listed a couple of times in here.  Has anyone read Ender's Shadow?  Got it, but haven't started it yet.

I'd add, if it hasn't been mentioned already, the Forever War and Forever Peace.  Also, the Man Kzin Wars series.  Niven started the series, then let other writers take over his universe and it made for an enjoyable series since you got to read very different writting styles based off of a common theme.
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Offline KAT Chuut-Ritt

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Re: Your Favorite Sci Fi books
« Reply #133 on: March 14, 2005, 01:06:56 am »
Here is a listing I found that has quite a few of the titles people have posted here ranked.

http://classics.jameswallaceharris.com/Lists/ByRank.php

Interesting to see the Domolished man at the top, as it is basically revolving around the same story as Doestoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment", only with telepaths.  In my opinion Doestoyevsky was the greatest writer ever, so not really surprised that the SCIFI readers would also enjoy his ideas so well.
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Offline S'Raek

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Re: Your Favorite Sci Fi books
« Reply #134 on: March 14, 2005, 01:37:35 am »
I don't know that it counts as SF (I did buy it from the SFBC) but I recently read "ACROSS THE NIGHTINGALE FLOOR" by LIAN HEARN and it was a very good book.  Alternate ancient Japan, feudal lords, assassins, etc.  I have the second book but haven't had the chance to read it yet. 
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