Sci-Fi Recommendations - for the unenlightened

[SkepJ]

Douglas Adams:
I'm only in the third Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book at the moment, but so far I'd say the series is great. It's very very soft sci-fi meant to be, and is, very funny.


Larry Niven: Ringworld

 

[stencyl]

A few that I didnt see mentioned that I would add:

Nightfall--Asimov, Silverberg
Fahrenheit 451--Bradbury
Snow Crash--Stephenson
Schismatrix--Sterling
Slaughterhouse-Five--Vonnegut

A lot of great books mentioned so far!

 

[Brys]

I am probably unique in not actually liking 1984. Though I read it with an English class, so thats never a good way to do it. Maybe I should try again some time...

I liked it a bit, but I thought it was hugely overrated, and could have been done better.I think Animal Farm was a much better novel, and IMO, the other two well known dystopian novels, Farenheit 451 and Brave New World, are quite a lot better. (Especially Farenheit 451).

 

[asydhouse]

A worrying lack of modern authors in these lists!

Justina Robson Mappa Mundi one of the best sf novels I've ever read, and very modern, also her third book Natural History has some great altered human characters! A good book , but not as gripping as the first mentioned above.

Tricia Sullivan Maul brilliant black comedy, and Someone To Watch Over Me and Dreaming In Smoke (which won the Arthur C Clarke award about 4 years ago.)

Anything by Paul McAuley, a true modern master, and Gwyneth Jones, and Greg Egan, possibly the best sf author alive!

Steve Baxter's Timelike Infinity, Flux and Ring (a mindblowing sequence of books!)

And the coming Master of sf, Charles Stross, whose newest book Accelerando is the most important and truly new sfnal book published in 20 years! And that is saying something, considering there is more truly great sf being published these past 10 years than ever before!

Oh and this year's BSFA award winner Ian McDonald's River of Gods.

And by the way, I think 1984 is rubbish as sf... important at the time it was published because so many people were still naive about Stalin's Russia, but never a real sf book... it's not realistic even (which is why it's not good sf) as he has a situation which is so simplistic... real culture and real people are more complex... even in Stalin's time, not all Russians were automatons of the state!

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

I've certainly enjoyed Justina Robson, Ian MacDonald and Baxter (although some of his stuff is a bit dry for me) - a lot of the other authors you mention haven't yet trickled down to this neck of the woods. A couple of newer writers I'd recommend pretty highly are Adam Roberts and Ken MacLeod.


You dismiss 1984 as good sf because it's 'not realistic even'. The same argument could, and has been by the Mundane SF crowd, applied to nearly any SF novel that involves FTL travel, extraterrestrial intelligence and other devices without which a large percentage of the SF we enjoy wouldn't even exist. Just like Orwell maybe exaggerates things to prove a point, nearly every SF author out there has has assumed a few unilkely developments so as to be able to tell a story at all. Just my 2c.

 

[asydhouse]

yeah but since Orwell's book is specifically social sf, ie not interested at all in the effects of technology, his lack of speculative rigour in addressing the central issues of his novel invalidates the very sf aspect of his novel that is his central concern... ie it's just a social satire, not sf... ftl and all that is usually at least given some credence as a future technology (wormholes are a part of modern science, if still speculative, and therefore fair game for use in sf), and in a novel concerned with space and politics I would expect a certain rigourous sfnal thought, or I would dismiss it also as bad sf. The work of Alaister Reynolds is a good example of real sf using the difficulties of Relativistic time drift to address genuinely sfnal (and bloody entertaining!) issues in a rigourously developed milieu. I just feel that Orwell is held up so often because of people's sense of insecurity over the literary respectability of sf... and as sf 1984 is piss poor on just about any sfnal criterion you care to look at, so we seem to be appealing for serious consideration by the snobs of the literary establishment on the basis of a poor example of sf, whereas we should be holding up examples of good sf which also meet the requirements of the literati, such as McDonald's River of Gods, or Mary Doria Russell's Sparrow, or so much of Brian Aldiss's works, or Bruce Sterling... all of whom have the sfnal virtue of being stimulating of thought, and liberating of the mind through interesting speculation... and fun to engage with! 1984 fails on all sfnal counts!

PS Ken MacLeod and Adam Roberts are also among my favourite modern authors! I agree that some of Baxter is dry, but the ones I mentioned (and Time from more recent times) are rollicking good reads, with mindblowing ideas (ie great sf!)

 

[cyborg_cinema]

since Orwell's book is specifically social sf, ie not interested at all in the effects of technology, his lack of speculative rigour in addressing the central issues of his novel invalidates the very sf aspect of his novel that is his central concern...

...The "telescreen" did not display rockets circling planets, but it should be listed among the most notable speculative technologies found in science fiction. That device alone gets 1984 in the door. That eavesdropping chatterbox was Big Brother's full frontal technological assault on privacy—part of the reason why "Big Brother" is a household word today.

"The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized."—George Orwell, 1984

 

[sanityassassin]

how about Piers Anthonys Tarot trilogy really good sci-fi/fantasy cross over

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Cordwainer Smith. Hunt his short stories down. Read them. And then thank me.

 

[Jay]

Cordwainer Smith. Hunt his short stories down. Read them. And then thank me.

Just buy The Rediscovery of Man and be amazed.

Regardin a couple others mentioend baovue, I really enjoyed Macleod's recent Learning the World and looking forward to Robson's Living Next Door to the God of Love

For fans of the common dystopias I recommend reading Iron Heel by Jack London (forget about the blasted wolves and the cold)
​

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Have you read MacLeod's other books? I've read almost all of them (I think there's one I couldn't locate, part of the first series he wrote), waiting for this one to come out in papaerback, or at least tpb, wondered how it measured up?

 

[Jay]

My introduction, and appreciation for Macleod began this year, I really hting it's a bit of a renaissance period for Science Fiction. The only Macleod books I read prior was Newtons Wake, I also made the mistake of reading his Fal lrevolution out of order - and since bought the first 2 books (yet to read) - so I'm not sure what comparisons I can draw, but Learning the World in excellent. We always read books regarding first contact, but often it is the us (humanity) who is run up on, and in this book Macleod makes us the technologicaly advanced race meeting a avian society.

The first pages caught me depicting a boy on a a seemingless endless sky ladder, which is more of an inviting introduction to - it encited wonder - and not necessarily a overload of technical jargon (don't geet me wrong Macleod has plenty of that in the text), that generally makes work like this hard to get into in the beginning. It's really fascinating to read Macleod's speculation on humanity, and the ship life which has a caste of it's own, and than be swithced to the Alien perspective, of 2 scientists tracking what they first think is a comet - but one that is impossibly slowing down!

Due to limted reading, I can't compare with Macleod's prior work, but at this point in the year, this is one of the 10 most enjoyable books I have read this year - and perhaps with Olympos the best pure SF book I read. I read Orphans of Chaos by John C. Wright, and Vellum by Hal Duncan (that has both have some SF elements) but are a bit cross-genre.

I'm going to review this book soon (I have an interview lined up with Macleod as well), right after I put up my Princess of Roumania review by Paul Park in the next two days, so if you want I'll let you know when I do.

I definitely recommend it. It has a very human element fron non-humans, a wonderful possible look into humanity advancing, the aformentioned flip of usual roles. One of my favorite lines is made by one of the aliens who says "if god didn't intend fo us to fly he wouldn't have given us wings" (hmmm...I can't remember if he said god, or reffered to a another deity (one of the planets in their system - so excuse a possible paraphrase), when remarking on a ground based transportation system

Really enjoyed it.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

It seems as much fun as MacLeod's other books, then, and somewhat new territory for him. He's shown humanity in contact with aliens before, but his take on First Contact - that ought to be interesting! MacLeod, along with Adam Roberts and John C Wright, was one of the newer writers whose books who got me back into SF some 5 years back.

 

[Jay]

It seems as much fun as MacLeod's other books, then, and somewhat new territory for him. He's shown humanity in contact with aliens before, but his take on First Contact - that ought to be interesting! MacLeod, along with Adam Roberts and John C Wright, was one of the newer writers whose books who got me back into SF some 5 years back.

I was much of the same. I had alwyas been a fan of fantasy, but not SF, in fact hard SF used to annoy the hell out of me. Don't get me wrong I had read Hebert's work, and Card's, and Leguin's, Philip Jose Farmer, Dan SImmons, Peter Hamilton, among a few others, but for the most part it was very secondary to me. It wasn't until the last few years (and really in the last year) where I really started loving and cathing up with my SF reading). Wright played a role in that - his trilogy was terrific - as did works like Jeffrey Thomas's Punktown (I like this sequence a lot albeit cross genre), and I was blown away by MJH's Light, as did Zoran Zivkovic's Fourth Circle. I can now honestly say my appreciation is pretty much equal to the point where I don't differentiate the two genres any more in my thinking. I really think SF is in a upward transition - an infusion of talent in the last decade or so, with new ideas.

Regarding Wright - Orphans of Chaos is hot! I think that's a november release - its' a damn publisher split - but it's a wealth of great ideas, my second favorite book I have read this year - loved it.

Wait a sec - have to give props to Silverberg - some of his books really impress - and drove me to SF as well.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

I think I probably read much more SF than you - fantasy is more my second love - but we seem to have settled on rather similar authors. While there are specific novels by hard SF writers like Greg Bear or Stephen Baxter that I like, I find myself drawn to the sort of SF that plays around more with human possibilities - and impossibilities - than technological speculations. That's probably why Robert Heinlein is an author I enjoy so much , even if I disagree with many of his characters' viewpoints a lot of the time. His books are basically about people, and his different theories about how they should organise themselves or not.

Theodore Sturgeon has written some fine stuff in the human-speculation line - his novel Venus Plus X, with its fascinating take on gender as a pathological condition for human society was a really thought-provoking book.

 

[Leto]

Try some older Robert Silverberg novels if human speculation is what interest you in hard SF first : especially The World Inside, The Man in the Maze or Hawksbill Station or for a different approach of Atlantis myth and gypsies'origin Star of Gypsies. And along the line of Dying Inside, have a look at The Book of Skulls

 

[Jason_Taverner]

I don't read that much sci fi with exception to philip k dick who i recommend to everyone not just sci fi fans I've convinced a lot of my mates to read him and I can truly tell you they aren't the type of ppl who enjoy reading and they all loved him I find him very adictive and I can't wait to see the animation/film of a scanner darkly (i really want to put a ban pun in here maybe I bet you find it aDICKtive god dam where are my pills). I also won a signed book singularity sky by charles stross and felt that was a great read in fact I enjoyed more than I thought I would. I loved Dune that was one of the best books I have even read but the other dune titles i didn't fancy maybe I don't want to spoil the memories. After reading everyones recommdations the could anyone tell me what they think of Jeffrey Thomas's Punktown without giving any of the story away, i just like the title.

 

[Jay]

Punktown is a collage work mixing Sf with Horror elements in a unique setting a space colony/city called Paxton - that by locals is called 'punktown'.

Thomas weaves story that include several varieties of aliens, and how they interact with each other, and teh city itself. It has a couple of things going for it, one Thomas has incredible ideas, and he has other spin off in the same setting: Everybody Scream, which is a full, novel, and Monstrocity. Both Sf fans and horror fans (Lovecraft fans) will like this work IMHO.

Secondly it was republished by Prime - who is my favorite publisher for the last year or two - they do exceptional work. I woud also recommend Thomas's Letter From Hades, a non-Punktown related effort - that would be a good intro into thomas's work - hell by the all!


I always thought this series would make a great HBO series. It's damn bizarre, yet very penetrating at the same time. I have been pimping Thomas' work for awhile now. I'm not saying he's Jeffrey Ford or anything like that yet, but he's got some damn talent and some damn good work out there. I really admire his work and at the very least he is worth giving a shot.

Knivesout - (if you haven't) you may want to give Thomas a look - I think their are some elements (both i nhorror and SF) you would appreciate.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Certainly sounds interesting. Jeffrey Thomas has been on my list for a while though, although I don't know when I'll rread his works, since I'm more or less at the mercy of what people choose to import into India.

 

[Jason_Taverner]

sounds good, I found it on amazon.co.uk but in hardback which are just way to pricey these days I'll have to wait until its paperback but it sounds good I have never really read much along those lines before