Sci-Fi Recommendations - for the unenlightened

[Connavar]

Haven't read it, but try Blindsight by Peter Watts, it's available on-line at Blindsight by Peter Watts

And don't forget the grand-daddy of all First Contact books, War of the Worlds.

Hehe me reading about Blindsight in Goodreads made me think i hadnt read first contact books so much. So i know about that book.

 

[Hypnos164]

Blindsight is a good book, i'd have voted for it for the 2007 Hugo it was nominated for.

Also.

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell (1996)
Eifelheim by Michael Flynn (2006)
Rollback by Robert J Sawyer (2007)

In the latter 2 the first contact is a large element of the story but not the whole thing ... that seems to be the trend in modern SF - perhaps the "First Contact" is consisdered a bit of a tired trope that needs to be mixed with something else to be viable.

 

[nebsmith]

I would recommend Jo Claytons' Diadem series ( 9 books ) or her Skeen trilogy - Skeens Leap, Return & Search. I would sugesst starting with Skeens Leap.

 

[Rackon]

Here's an enthusiastic second for Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow as well as its sequel - Children of God. I can't believe The Sparrow came out in 1996!

I'll have to check out the other recent mentions. Most of the first contact books I remember are anything but new. I still think of Russell's book(s) as "new".

 

[Rackon]

I'm looking for some SciFi book recommendations with a theme I can almost never find. I'm hoping someone can help me out.

What I'm looking for is stories where an AI works closely with the main character or is about the AI itself, with it either acting somewhat like a human itself or slowly becomes humanlike. I want to avoid stories with an AI going crazy or evil at the end though.

Looking for as many recommendations as possible!

Iain M Banks for you!

Player of Games
Use of Weapons
Excession
Feersum Enjinn
The Algabraist
...and on and on. Everything with the M Banks is highly readable, and his "straight" literary fiction such as The Bridge and Transition (which is an "M" Banks in US) is also SF tinged.

Banks is quite my favorite current SF author.

As far as general recommendations:

I'm a bit surprised, having finallly made it through the entire thread, that no one has mentioned George Effinger's Marid Audran books: A Fire In The Sun and When Gravity Fails are excellent novels, and form a loose trilogy with The Exile Kiss. They are beautifully written, and should appeal to cyberpunk fans as well as those who like character driven sf - they're a bit like police procedurals in a seedy Arabic ghetto of the future, although this hardly does the books' humor and vivid prose justice. Effimnger is a favorite among writers, for good reason.

Also highly recommended:

Grass - Sherri Tepper
Left Hand Of Darkness - Ursula K Leguin
The Stars My Destination - Alfred Bester
The Sparrow/Children of God - Mary Doria Russell
Hyperion/Fall Of Hyperion - Dan Simmons
A Fire Upon The Deep - Vernor Vinge
Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro

 

[Cybe]

Also are people like Philip K.Dick considered cyberpunk cause i read in wiki that he has elements of that.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is considered a precursor to Cyberpunk.

 

[MrBobbles]

I would like to recommend Ian Watson's Space Marine and his Inquisitor trilogy. I read them when they were first published back in the early 90's, and have read them many times in the years since.

And yes, they are Warhammer 40k novels. But please don't hold that against them. They are the only Warhammer 40k novels that, to my mind, hold up as superb SF novels in their own right, rather than the usual little-better-than-3rd rate-fanboy-rubbish that seems to constitute the majority of Warhammer novels that I have read. Not all, but most.

Highly, highly recommended. If you can get them, that is.

 

[AE35Unit]

Haven't read it, but try Blindsight by Peter Watts, it's available on-line at Blindsight by Peter Watts

And don't forget the grand-daddy of all First Contact books, War of the Worlds.

Cool I just d'loaded this, another free Watts story!

 

[xenofon]

For Conavar: You should read "Rendezvous with Rama" - Arthur Clarke. You'll find a different approuch to the theme of first contact. Of course, if you enjoy a classic hard-sf.

 

[Star Girl]

Isaac Asimov
Nine Tomorrows
The Caves of Steel + The Naked Sun
Through a glass, clearly
The Bicentennial Man (some good short stories in this book)

Ray Bradbury
Fahrenheit 451

Arthur C. Clarke
Tales from Planet Earth
Childhood's End

P.D. James
Children of Men

Cormac McCarthy
The Road

Michael Moorcock
The Nomad of Time Trilogy

Jules Verne
Around the Wolrd in 80 days
Journey to the centre of the Earth

H.G. Wells
The Time Machine
War of the Worlds


All I can think of at the moment.

 

[jamlebrilla]

Well, I guess the classics have been written here already. Personally, there are two authors I don't see that much who I really love. These are:

L. Warren Douglas - Plague of Change

Joan Slonczeswki - Brain Plague, Daughter of Elysium ( I like all her novels about Elysium.)

 

[Hober Mallow]

Dune, by Frank Herbert
The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov
Ender's Game, by OSC
To Your Scattered Bodies Go, by Philip Jose Farmer
Childhood's End, by ACC

I would always recommend past Hugo and Nebula winners as first reads for the unenlightened.

And for those interested in alternate history:
The Man in the High Castle, by PKD
Guns of the South, by Harry Turtledove

 

[Jojo999]

I've just completed reading the 4 Hyperion Cantos books:

1. Hyperion
2 The Fall of Hyperion
3 Endymion
4 The Rise of Endymion

I would highly recommend this series. It is near the top of my all time favorites, which off the top of my head also includes:

- The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe
- The Dying Earth and the Demon Princes series by Jack Vance
- The Radix series by A.A. Attanasio

 

[AE35Unit]

- The Radix series by A.A. Attanasio

Series? I thought Radix was a standalone?

 

[Jojo999]

Series? I thought Radix was a standalone?

Well, maybe not a true series with a character that flows across all the books. It is called a tetrad (a 4 part connected story). Check out the links below for more detail.

I had originally read The Last Legends of Earth but didn't fully understand it until I discovered that it was part of this tetrad and then read all four books in order.

Radix Tetrad

* Radix (1981)
* In Other Worlds (1984)
* Arc of the Dream (1986)
* The Last Legends of Earth (1989)

A. A. Attanasio - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Untitled Document

 

[AE35Unit]

I had originally read The Last Legends of Earth but didn't fully understand it until I discovered that it was part of this tetrad and then read all four books in order.

Interesting! Im sure I read this book years ago but had no idea it was part of something else!

 

[Chaoticheart]

Peter F. Hamilton - The Nights Dawn Trilogy
1. The Reality Dysfunction
2. The Neutronium Alchemist
3. The Naked God

Julian May - The Galactic Milieu Series
1. Intervention
2. Jack the Bodiless
3. Diamond Mask
4. Magnificat

 

[kole]

Could you recommend me any good books that deal with time travel paradoxes? Thank you.

 

[JustPassingThrough]

I'd like to recommend Robert Reed. He does have books out there, collections of short stories and a novel called Marrow, but mostly I find his stories in the science fiction magazines and they are wonderful. I think he is highly underrated.

 

[antiloquax]

This is another great thread. I've just cut and pasted about 4 pages worth of titles to look into!