Books and Stories by Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers that You're Passionate About ?

[BAYLOR]

And why do these writers and their stories resonate with you?

 

[Marc Vun Kannon]

And why do these writers and their stories resonate with you?

My favorite novel is probably Bujold's Curse of Chalion, which I consider to be the best book of this millennium. The premise is brilliant, a divine curse that the gods cannot lift by themselves, that the hero himself doesn't know about until halfway through the book. It's a Villain By Proxy story, not many of those in the world, and the characters caught up in the mess are the ones driving the plot, not the other way around.

 

[BAYLOR]

Welcome to Chrons Marc

 

[IAmTR]

Drew Karpyshyn! I'm a big fan of his video game work in Mass Effect and Knights of the Old Republic. But probably my favorite book series of all time is his Darth Bane trilogy. I've always found the Sith much more interesting than the Jedi and he did a great job of telling the story with a protagonist that's a villain while expanding greatly on the lure and (at the time) canon of the Sith in the Star Wars universe.

 

[Rodders]

Growing up with sci fi in the eighties and nineties I adored the work of Edmund Cooper, but he doesn't really get too much recognition. I suppose writes such as Clarke, Asimov, Niven and Pournelle overshadowed him. His stories were similar in tone, but I thoroughly enjoyed them anyway. My favourites being A Far Sunset, The Cloud Walker and Seahorse in the Sky. His novels were also my first introduction to the artwork of Christ Foss.

Tie in books don't seem to get the recognition that they deserve, either. Some of the Star Trek books were superb. Star Wars less so, but still very enjoyable. Warhammer 40, 000 is brilliant. (Especially the Gaunt's Ghosts.)

May favourite book after all of these years remains Iain M. Banks's The Player of Games. I was fortunate enough to get a hardback of it a couple of weeks ago. I've read it maybe nine or ten times now, but I haven't reread it for a while. Maybe I should.

 

[Guttersnipe]

"The Streets of Ashkelon" by Harry Harrison. A scientist tries to educate an alien species in science and logic. A priest arrives with the intention of evangelizing, and the scientist fears that all his good work will be undone or replaced with superstition. The ending is rather gruesome.

I am an agnostic atheist passionate about reducing what I feel is the illness of dogma, and basically religion in general. I don't think only bad things come from it, though; it presents interesting mythology. Reading the story and knowing that atheism is nothing new is therapeutic for me.