Sci-Fi Newbie

[T-rex]

As an aside, how have you gone through life only reading 10-15 books? I've had at least that many required readings through school alone, but I guess that is neither here nor there.

After you get your dick wet with some of this Space Opera bullshit, you should try Dune. Dune, Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, and God Emperor of Dune are all excellent. If you still like Frank Herbert, the Dosadi Experiment is excellent. Now if you REALLY like Herbert I'd recommend Whipping Star and The Godmakers but those might be out of print and hard to find.

If you are ready to get gully after that go for Philip K. Dick. Everything he wrote was gold. Martian Time-Slip, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, A Scanner Darkly, and Man in the High Castle are some of the best novels and he has a great deal of awesome short stories. There are a couple collections that are pretty excellent.

If Dick gets you hard then you can drop some Aldiss. Barefoot in the Head will drive you insane, and that is good. You can come back down to Earth with Frankenstein Unbound. At this point you can go ahead and read The Trillion Year and you can consider yourself well read, assuming it is the mid-80's.

Then you have to do a little Cyberpunk. Just go for Neuromancer and then jump right to Snow Crash. It is totally the post-modern way of hitting that subgenre.

Based on the rate at which you read books, you should have a few years here. Go to it.

[Vardisk]

Space Opera? Distant Future? Lots of space battles? No lectures on technology?

Although I dread recommending it to someone as an introduction to Sci-Fi, "In Conquest Born" by C.S. Friedman fits what you're looking for exactly.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Watching some Babylon 5 might be a good idea too.

[Lefazz]

Originally Posted by Nebuchadnezzar

Watching some Babylon 5 might be a good idea too.

Most of what I read is non-fiction but I would love something that's like Babylon 5 ... specifically something that takes place in Earth's future and incorporates our current understanding of physics (both well understood and the extreme theoretical).

So something like Babylon 5 or Star Trek but NOT like, say, Star Wars.

[Fog]

Originally Posted by T-rex

As an aside, how have you gone through life only reading 10-15 books? I've had at least that many required readings through school alone, but I guess that is neither here nor there.

Most people don't actually read books in grade school. Why do you think Cliffs/Sparknotes exist?

[T-rex]

Originally Posted by Fog

Most people don't actually read books in grade school. Why do you think Cliffs/Sparknotes exist?

I don't know if that is true about most students, obviously some get by without reading anything. I thought most people used sparknotes to help understand what they were reading, when they are first getting into literature. For some shit, you absolutely need something to help contextualize what you are reading, especially when you are only in high school.

But, sure, some people don't like to read. Whatever, I'm going to hold a gun to their head.

[Koivu]

Originally Posted by Lhon

For space battles and super high tech, try Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks.

Anything by Iain M. Banks (the M. is important, he writes non-scifi as Iain Banks) is superb, personal favourite is The Player of Games, not so much space ship opera, but excellent story.

[Zaniel]

I tend to break my sci-fi down into my own categories:

1) Pure space opera (Boys Own Adventures in Space): E.E. Doc Smith (Lensman, Skylark), Harry Harrison (Stainless Steel Rat), Robert Silverberg

2) Cultural/Political (science is usually ultra-super-science which isn't important to the plot, main focus is war/politics): David Brin, Iain M Banks, Peter Hamilton, Dan Simmons, Asimov

3) "Hard" super science (extrapolations of ultra-hypothetical physics is the core of the book): Robert Forward, Stephen Baxter, Greg Bear.

4) Near future hard science (real science n shit, first trip to Mars etc): Arthur C Clarke

5) Mixed/speculative (bits of 2 & 3): Larry Niven (Mote, Ringworld, Rama), Joe Haldeman (Forever War)

6) Fucked up: Philip K Dick, John Brunner, Robert Heinlein

If you haven't read much sci-fi I wouldn't suggest hitting Philip K Dick as first off the starting blocks. Try some Banks, Brin, Niven, Harrison, then move onto the more exotic material.

[Luthair]

Midshipman's Hope (and the rest of the series) by David Feintuch
Uplift novels by David Brin

[Northerner]

Originally Posted by Koivu

Anything by Iain M. Banks (the M. is important, he writes non-scifi as Iain Banks) is superb

His non-scifi is pretty good as well but yeah, not when you are looking for science-fiction. I'd agree though that his writing is excellent and The Culture books are specifically good for concepts.

[Wrenn]

A few more suggestions:

- Alystair Reynolds. Kind of like the Malazan of SciFi. Gritty gothic type space opera with lots of tech, cool characters and interesting settings and stories. Fairly long novels though so maybe not for the beginner ;-)
- If you like B5 you might like some of the B5 novels (Passing of the Techno-Mages, The Bester Trilogy and one or two of the standalone novels)
- Arthur C Clarke, Rendezvous with Rama. Lots of other stuff but this is a short and easy to read novel about alien contact.
- Gregory Benford. Galactic Center Cycle.
- Jack McDevitt. Lots of high tech and investigations of alien ruins.
- Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash or The Diamond Age. No space ships but near future technology cyber punk type style.
- Sean Williams/Shane Dix. They have a few decent scifi series but are Australian authors so might be harder to find in the US.
- John C Wright (The Golden Age)

[Aulirophile]

Snow Crash and Diamond Age - Neal Stephenson
Neuromancer - William Gibson

"The Company Wars" universe - C.J. Cherryh, can be read in almost any order but you should Heavy Time before Hell Burner. Like 8-9ish books.

Dune series, all six original books - Frank Herbert. Yeah, I know it was recommended against earlier. I've had this same argument with a lot of people on this board, but if you end up liking the first 10-15 Sci-Fi books you read, try and start reading the whole Dune series imo.

[etchazz]

you want to read real quality sci fi read kurt vonnegut. everything he wrote was amazing. my favorites were slaughterhouse five, breakfast of champions and sirens of titan. cat's cradle is really good too, although kinda slow until the end. also, if you want to read some amazing short stories, read the collected works of J.G ballard. unbelievable writer.

but in my opinion by far the greatest sci fi book ever written is 1984. to this day it is still one of my all time favorite novels.

[T-rex]

Originally Posted by etchazz

you want to read real quality sci fi read kurt vonnegut. everything he wrote was amazing. my favorites were slaughterhouse five, breakfast of champions and sirens of titan. cat's cradle is really good too, although kinda slow until the end. also, if you want to read some amazing short stories, read the collected works of J.G ballard. unbelievable writer.

I'll agree on Vonnegut, although he is more weakly tied to Science Fiction than others in this thread. Slaughterhouse-Five is probably his best novel, and it is at best speculative semi-fiction. Some of his novels are more standard science fiction, such as Player Piano, and it is all more or less worth reading.

[Lefazz]

Originally Posted by Zaniel

3) "Hard" super science (extrapolations of ultra-hypothetical physics is the core of the book): Robert Forward, Stephen Baxter, Greg Bear.

I went with Baxter's "The Time Ships" and "Ring".

Thanks for the recommendations.