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I need to check that guy out.

Two books I've really enjoyed and highly recommend to anyone who hasn't read them:

The Lathe Of Heaven - Ursula Le Guin

and

A Canticle for Leibowitz - Walter M. Miller, Jr.


Both are just fantastic

Bruce Sterling is quite good if you're into dystopia history/future settings, The Artificial Kid and The Difference Engine are two I liked

Orson Scott Card - Ender's Game

Also, Ender's Shadow.

what kind of sci fi are you looking for?

'hard' sci fi? military/space opera sci fi? cyberpunk?

Strangely enough, Sci-Fi and Fantasy are the two literary genres I've never gotton into. I might look into some of those suggestions after finishing my current reads (the mindbending combination of Stephen King and Marcel Proust :stongue but nothing seems particularly interesting.

I think I'm going to check out this Snow Crash book...

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Originally posted by Meat187 Strangely enough, Sci-Fi and Fantasy are the two literary genres I've never gotton into. I might look into some of those suggestions after finishing my current reads (the mindbending combination of Stephen King and Marcel Proust :stongue but nothing seems particularly interesting.

Do you like horror? Stephen King? Check out I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. Fantastic book, pure SF and nothing like the recent Will Smith film.

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Originally posted by osterzone I think I'm going to check out this Snow Crash book...

Its excellent. The main character is awesome. I mean, how can you not be awesome...and the main character at the same time if youre named Hiro Protagonist.

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Originally posted by SYSTEM-J nothing like the recent Will Smith film.

Then it might be worth a look.

+1 on Dune. I'm currently reading Chapterhouse: Dune (the 6th book in the original series) and I can say, without a doubt, that every book is just as excellent as the others. Dune is really the most complex series of books I've ever read, I have known of no other books that create such an immersive universe the way Dune does.

If you like sci-fi books full of action and such, you probably won't like Dune as it lacks any serious action scenes (there ae a few, but really nothing that takes more than 1 page). Dune is really more like a history book written from the perspective of the people who lived it. It's excellent, definitely something you should read.

Also, though there are six books in the original series, there are plenty more that have been written ater that (by the original author's son) to keep you busy for quite a while.

Can I be a geekazoid and say Eisenhorn Omnibus by Dan Abnett, head and shoulders above most of the usually turgid tie-in sci-fi.

So I went to B&N, found Dune and Snow Crash and read some pages, but then I settled on getting this book instead:



Snow Crash looked interesting, but I hated the third person narrative that Stephenson gave it. I felt it would have gotten really annoying to read over 400+ pages.

"Hiro had a punch hit him. Hiro reeled from the blow. 'I don't feel good' Hiro says."

Why did he write the book like that? It seems really unnecessary and wordy. And everything in the book was written like what I just wrote above...

Dune also looked interesting but A Grey Moon Over China had a cool-sounding plot (a mix of environmental and space sci-fi), so in the end I went with that.

Snow Crash was written with a very dry (and sometimes dark) sense of humour behind the whole narrative, as if he was writing it as visual movie script instead of a novel. If you sort of approach it from that angle its probably a bit easier to understand as a story.

I'm surprised it hasn't been picked up as a movie, but maybe its better that it hasn't been butchered by the likes of Hollywood.

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Originally posted by Omega_Blue dude, is idoru any good? i was at barnes and noble yesterday and was *this* close to buying it, but decided against it and opted for a book of short stories by neil gaiman. any time i see that book i think of you, jake. err... but not.. that way. ...

It's pretty good, I really like it.

And Lews, you're thinking of Virtual Light. That, along with Idoru and All Tomorrow's Parties, make up Gibson's Bridge Trilogy. His Sprawl Trilogy is Neuromancer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive.

*adjusts glasses thusly*

edit // Gibson also wrote Johnny Mnemonic as a short story Basically everything he's done was sampled and turned into Tha Matrix.

Haha, thanks Bas, gonna read all of those next. And yeah, I love how he basically coined all of this stuff before it even existed, and the amount of Matrix parallels are pretty out of control.

<3 Gibson

quote:

Originally posted by bas Basically everything he's done was sampled and turned into Tha Matrix.

I pretty much considered The Matrix null and void when I first read Neuromancer.

Yeah me too, he did a WAY better job storywise. Shit, even Johnny Mnemonic is better than The Matrix

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Originally posted by Spam Orson Scott Card - Ender's Game Also, Ender's Shadow.

I was waiting for someone to post this. This book had me absolutely captivated as a child.

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Originally posted by SYSTEM-J What the fuck? Even by Crichton's standards that's an incredibly poor book. It's like the apex of his shitty, shitty diegetic strategies: the strawmen, the author-reader surrogates, that fucking useless free indirect discourse preaching thing he always did. If you're going to recommend a Crichton novel, at least make it Sphere or The Andromeda Strain.

Yes, State of Fear totally sucked. I loved Andromeda Strain, that book was absolutely incredible. Sphere was also great, but the movie not so much. Sphere was a total page-turner, incredibly suspenseful. I also liked Timeline, I thought it was a bit different and interesting, especially how they explained Quantum Theory and spacetime.

quote:

Originally posted by sunsurge Can I be a geekazoid and say Eisenhorn Omnibus by Dan Abnett, head and shoulders above most of the usually turgid tie-in sci-fi.

Haven't read Eisenhorn yet, but Gaunt's Ghosts series is pretty fun for mindless military sci fi

Gibson and Stephenson bores the shit out of me - I cant understand the hype. And then again, I couldn't get into LOTR.

For really eppic read and awesome satire/humor - start Terry Pratchet's Discworld series. I'm addicted.

Also, really enjoyed "Altered Carbon" and "Broken Angels" by Richard K Morgan

I'm planning to get neuromancer sooner or later.

any good recomendations for fairly recent cyber punk?

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Originally posted by aNYthing Gibson and Stephenson bores the shit out of me - I cant understand the hype. And then again, I couldn't get into LOTR. For really eppic read and awesome satire/humor - start Terry Pratchet's Discworld series. I'm addicted. Also, really enjoyed "Altered Carbon" and "Broken Angels" by Richard K Morgan

I don't really consider Terry Pratchett to be Sci Fi, but he is probably my favorite author of all time. Own all his books, including a number of hard to get European limited things. Fantastic writer Shame he has Alzheimer now

I also really loved (still love, really) Ender's Game / Ender's Shadow. Really want to check out his other books in the series, I've heard good things about them.

I also really want to check out Neuromancer and the other books now. Hopefully this summer I can get them

I thought Neuormancer was pretty boring. Gibson's style never did it for me, and I read it three times before I decided it is okay. The book definitely deserves its place in the canon and warrants reading, but I still don't know why I had to reread it so many times to get into it (even then...)

If it's not the same thing you've read in another book, cyberpunk can be pretty alright:

Phillip K. Dick - Valis
George Alec Effinger - When Gravity Falls
The Shockwave Rider - John Brunner

I also like the Foundation series by Asimov and Dune by Herbert.

Anythin

anything by Jacek Dukaj

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Originally posted by infinity HiGH Solaris by Stanislaw Lem.

sci fi setting, but i'd say its more a drama

quote:

Originally posted by -FSP- I'm planning to get neuromancer sooner or later. any good recomendations for fairly recent cyber punk?

"altered carbon", as per my earlier suggestion. Page-turner in a truest sense of the word.

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