Sci-Fi Newbie

[Pharazon]

Originally Posted by Froofy-D

The Boat of a Million Years - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

^ by Poul Anderson is one of my favorites. One person in a million is born an Immortal. That is, they age until about 25 years old, then stop aging and live forever unless physically killed. The story follows 10 Immortals from different ages/continents who eventually find each other. It starts in Ancient Greece and ends in the far future when man is populating the stars. Can't believe it hasn't been made into a movie yet.

It was nominated for both Hugo and Nebula awards. Look up a list of Hugo and Nebula award winning novels. You really can't go wrong with just about any of them.

I'd recommend this one as well, I just read it for the second time a few months back. The first half is an imaginative trip these characters take through various points in human history. The second half to me is a somewhat plausible depiction of where humanity may be heading, and really makes you question the value of immortality.

[Madrugan]

I read a string of Ian M Banks. Started with Consider Phlebas, and just finished Matter. Now reading the Algebraist. He is really frickin good.

I have been mainly been a classical fiction guy with huge binges into fantasy. Reading good sci-fi has been a breath of fresh air.

Boat of a Million Years has me intrigued.

[spronk]

Banks is really awesome, I love Algrebaist and Excession. I would definitely recommend anyone into scifi to read Algrebaist, I think I've read it 5+ times.

I'll get flamed for this I'm sure but while I love Niven, Asimov, etc from my childhood reading them again now is a bit harder. Kind of like rewatching old star trek stuff, some of the science stuff doesn't age as well. Some stories work better than others of course, I would say the first Foundation trilogy aged well as well as Dune and the first Ringworld book.

I'm reading Alistair Reynolds Revelation Space 7-book series right now, good stuff. Crazy shit with nanotech and bioengineering set thousands of years in the future. Also Peter Hamiltons Void series, it ties into his other series (the Starflyer war one) but just barely. Can't really figure out where the series is going but whatever, fun to read.

Charles Stross is also great hard sci-fi with Singularity and Iron Sunrise.

I also loved Diamond Age (I think of it as the nanotech Princess Bride, lol) and Snow Crash, I've got the 3 book series he did on the Victorian age but just haven't had a chance to read it yet.

[Auren]

For some reason I'm just not the kind of person that can re-read a book. I always feel like there are so many great stories out there to be read and I'm wasting my time reading something I've already read and know the ending of. Then again I'm also the kind of guy that has at least 3 or 4 books lined up to read after I finish the one I am currently on. I guess they go hand in hand. I don't really ever foresee going back to read something I've read before.

[Frax]

Originally Posted by Mudcrush Durtfeet

Try the Mote in God's Eye by Niven and Pournelle

This

Also I'd like to suggest the early stuff by Christopher Rowley:

To a Highland Nation
The Black Ship
Starhammer
The Vang: The Military Form
The Vang: The Battlemaster

The last two are probably my favorites. The Vang are a cross between Aliens and The Thing and nearly destroyed all life in the galaxy millions of years ago. The two books are two incidents where single survivors of the Vang encounter human civilization and mass death soon follows.

[stehle]

Originally Posted by Daelos

To reiterate one recommendation: Alaistair Reynolds. My favorite of his so far was House of Suns (plot that spans hundreds of thousands of years in a page, characters that are millions of years old, humans that have (d-?)evolved into nothing resembling humans, spacecraft that you can fit a small planet inside...)

Disclaimer: I'm a huge Alaistair Reynolds fan. He has renewed my interest in Sci Fi more than any other author out there at the moment.

"House of Suns" may be one of the best books he has ever written. I simply could not put it down. I really enjoy the sense of perspective Reynolds imparts in the story. The main characters in the story are akin to interstellar traders that travel a circuit-- a circuit is one rotation of the entire milky-way galaxy which takes 100,000+ years. The story is interesting and engaging from beginning to end.

The other thing I like about Reynolds is that he is actually a PhD physicist (used to work at CERN) that can actually write about futuristic technology and make it seem plausible.

[Grave]

This article might be helpful, stumbled upon it today:

io9 - Science Fiction Books That Launched Their Own Genres - Books

Few in there that I hadn't heard of and am now interested in checking out.

[TheOkapi]

So, I just got done with the 2nd Void book by Peter F Hamilton. I cannot strongly enough recomend the Commonwealth/Void sagas. They are so incredibly enjoyable that I actually got irritated there wasn't more. Really, pick up Pandora's Star and thank me later.



p.s. anything by Frederik Pohl is also great scifi

[Usha Starchild]

"The spice must flow"

If you wait and read the Dune books your going to be asking yourself "Why did I read all those other books first?"

Edit: I believe we will eventually see an amazing MMO based off the Dune universe so you might as well understand the lore.

[Dworkk]

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman, Armor by John Steakley

[Leadsalad]

Originally Posted by Usha Starchild

"The spice must flow"

If you wait and read the Dune books your going to be asking yourself "Why did I read all those other books first?"

Edit: I believe we will eventually see an amazing MMO based off the Dune universe so you might as well understand the lore.

Actually, if you read Dune past Dune you're going to be asking yourself "Holy shit, why did I waste my time reading this utter nonsensical garbage?"

Charles Stross' Singularity was fantastic, but also check out his more modern day fiction, "On Her Majesty's Occult Service". It's nearly impossible to describe other than nerdy somewhat fail James Bond in a paranormal reality (C'thulu could come eat earth at any second if some hacker wires stuff wrong) written like it could actually be happening. It's fantastic stuff with all kinds of inside jokes and literary references, 'turtles all the way down.'

[feezy]

Originally Posted by Dworkk

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman, Armor by John Steakley

I just finished The Forever War and it's easily one of my favorite books. I just started on Armor also.

I also just read Old Man's War by John Scalzi which is also pretty good. Though unlike the Forever War, the main character just seems to be a little to unbelievable in the way he always manages to save the day.

Anyone have any recommendations for military sci-fi besides Starship Troopers?

[Etruscus]

Originally Posted by banubus

Starship Troopers sounds exactly like what you are looking for. A fictional future war between man and space bugs and strong political themes!

I personally didn't enjoy this novel as much as some of his others. I found some ideas to be disjointed and somewhat incoherent, if not implausible in his utupian authoritarian mega-state.

I would definetly check out some of his others from the Lazarus Long tradition.

Start with Stranger in a Strange Land and then read some of the others, such as:

Cat Who Walks Through Walls

To Sail Beyond the Sunset.

The Children of Methuselah

Time Enough for Love.

[Clericnon2boxed]

A good too many of Heinlein's novels involve a bizarre old/young polygamy agenda and have way too many pages wasted on it, especially all novels that include the lazarus long character, at least thats what I recall and may be the reason that starship troopers (which lacks the aforementioned) is the only book of him I read multiple times.

[Seventh]

I picked up Altered Carbon based on this thread, and about 100 pages in I'm really having a hard time getting into it. Not sure if it's just my tastes or the writing style, but usually I plow through stuff like this. Was hoping to finish it before Dust of Dreams showed up, but I'm leaning towards just shelving it. Does it pick up in the middle at all?