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What are the great sci fi/fantasy out there?

longview said:
I know it is older but James Hogan's Giants Novels were a very good read.
Inherit the stars
the gentle giants of Ganymede
giants' star
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As far as I know this was a stand alone novel by Hogan that is still in my opinion worth a read by the name of Thrice Upon A Time.

Sorry no space ships or fighting just the problems of communicating in time over a narrow bandwidth between researchers with the survival of the earth in the balance.
 
Easy reading, exceptionally captivating, full of wisdom and dry humor and, although technically it's 'fantasy, it's unlike any other book I've ever read, from any author in any genre.

Trust me on this one; you'll come away feeling like you've read something profound when you're done.

"Bridge of Birds" by Barry Hughart

An absolutely singular reading experience.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_of_Birds
 
David Weber and Ringo did a military series where a small marine body guard unit was dump on very very unfriendly world with the task of marching almost completely around it to reach a star port.

It is part of the Empire of man series.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_Man


The Empire of Man (also called the Prince Roger series and the March Upcountry series) is a series of science fiction books by David Weber and John Ringo published by Baen Books
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At the moment I am half way through a time traveler story by Stephen King of all people that is science fiction not horror or a fantasy story revolting around stopping the President Kennedy assassination by the title 11/22/63.

Having live through that era myself he brought back a lot of memories and of course King is one hell of a writer and story teller.
 
Via!

Redress said:
...

The Deed of Paksenarrion: Well written story of a farmers daughter who becomes a mercenary soldier and, well, lots of stuff eventually happen, but really good stuff.

And back to science fiction:

A Confederation of Valor: Military science fiction at its best, and a tribute to sergeants everywhere.

Edit: sorry for all the spam posts here, but I read a whole lot, and threads like this fascinate me. I am filling my amazon wish list with other recommendations too(only 65 items in my wish list now ...).
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Hear, hear! Moon's Sheepfarmer's daughter kicks off the series, & she's the only fantasy writer (other than Tolkien) that holds my interest. Interesting theory on magic.

Huff's military SF is very good, right up there with Pournelle, Drake.
 
If youre looking for hard sci-fi similar to the Martian I would recommend The Piranha Solution by John Triptych. :mrgreen:
 
PoS said:
My favorite Niven and Pournelle book is Footfall, possibly the best alien invasion novel since War of the Worlds- the ending alone is worth the big read. Inferno too was awesome and it helped drive me into atheism. :mrgreen:

My favorite old school sci-fi authors are Harlan Ellison, Robert Heinlein, Roger Zelazny (I wish somebody would make his Amber books into a tv show), Ursula K LeGuin, John Varley (his Titan trilogy is pretty good), John Wyndham (Day of The Triffids was my favorite as a kid) and of course Frank Herbert's Dune. I thought Philip K Dick had awesome story ideas but he was such an awful writer though.

Another book I would recommend is Liege Killer by Christopher Hinz, a very good action packed space opera about an assassin who inhabits two bodies. The Forever War by Joe Haldeman is a classic as is Saberhagen's Berserker books, Hammer's Slammers if you like military themed books, oh and Justin Cronin's Passage trilogy is an awesome vampire series.

EDIT: Oh and David Brin's Uplift books!
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This list here is excellent......and I would like to add that "The Forever War", while a bit older, is now on its way to the big screen...my only hope is that they don't screw it up.....it offers an amazing review of societal changes and the difficulties of Soldiers adapting to those changes.

I think the "Dorsai" series by Gordon R Dickson makes for a good read as well....its less about war, and more about a Soldiers culture.
 
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!

For those who don't know, British fantasist Brian Aldiss has died recently.

There's a thread here in Books.
 
PoS said:
Im currently reading Gene Wolfe's Urth of the New Sun, it was written in the 1980's so I dont know if it fits your recent criteria but its a mildly entertaining fantasy set in the dying earth subgenre.

For recent space operas I would recommend Dan Simmon's Hyperion cantos, Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash and Vernor Vinge's Fire Upon the Deep, also Niven and Pournelle's A Moat in God's Eye though that might be a bit too old.

I just finished Andy Weir's book the Martian too. If you like good old fashioned hard science then that book is a must read.
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Now that's a list. A Fire Upon the Deep is just amazing. The aliens weren't even supposed to be the focus but they just kind of took over the story. There's at least one sequel.
 
Cardinal said:
I'm looking for some new sci fi/fantasy books to get addicted to. I've already gotten into authors such as Peter Hamilton and Patrick Rothfuss, if that helps to provide any clue of my likes. Though I'm not a crazy fan of Peter Hamilton's writing style, his vision of the future beginning with Pandora's Star strikes just the right balance between optimism and pessimism. Outright pessimism being defined as "Wool" by Hugh Howey and outright optimism as essentially anything by Isaac Asimov (though we sci-fi fans all love him just the same). And though I'm not quite sure what happened to Rothfuss's third book, his first two, The Name of the Wind and Wise Man's Fear were some of the most extraordinary fantasy writing in modern history.

For the record, here's my pet peeve: I just want a story. Don't dump the entire history of the universe/kingdom/whatever on me and expect me to memorize a thousand goddamn names and dates in the first chapter. Not even Tolkein did that in the Hobbit. In fact, Tolkein especially didn't do that. The proper way to introduce a reader/viewer to an entirely new universe is to start with the main character that's a hick in some backwater of the galaxy/kingdom. Think: The Hobbit and Luke Skywalker. Both characters are introduced into the larger narrative of the story through other transitional characters (Gandalf, Obi Wan Kenobi) and continue their growth thusly. The worst (or at least most tedious) stories tend to begin like homework assignments combined with Wiki pages. Spare me that crap, if you can.

Thanks. And if you haven't read The Name of the Wind and Wise Man's Fear, seriously, read that **** already.
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Just about anything by David Brin is hard to beat... If you want some light-hearted fun, look into Spider Robinson.
 
Without going through all the posts, I'm not usually a Sci-Fi type of guy, in my yoot I was a huge fan of Fantasy, especially R.A Salvatore's Icewind Dale/Dark Elf series.

Also dug the Dragonlance series. Which with the CGI they have out now would make a killer movie franchise.

Also ate up them Blade/Endworld post-apocalypse 100 pagers like skittles...

But I am about a quarter the way through 'The Three-Body Problem' by Cixin Liu which is pretty good, and like I said, I'm not really a fan of the genre too much so for me that's saying something.
 
Cardinal said:
No, I'm looking more for the kind of sy-fie that explores our universe, aliens, technology, etc, but not necessarily so much hard action (though a little action is always welcome -- I just don't want it to be, you know, an action novel). I'm kind of getting fed up with these pessimistic stories that depict humans retreating inward instead of expanding outward and expanding on larger undiscovered concepts.

Wool and Dust were two excellently written novels, but left you with the feeling of, "Eh, screw the future, it's obviously a hopeless and dreary place that I want no part of." Whereas in the Peter F. Hamilton novels, I thought, "I want that future. Right. The hell. Now."
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Perhaps humour mixed with sf. I am reading tom holt at the moment. The youspace series. Where a guy creates the multiverse and travels through it by using a doughnut.

I know you said recent but if exploring weird possibilities attracts you then kurt vonnegut jr is a good read. I have considered his theory of bubble time as appossed to linear time to be just as good an explanation of time.

There is also the last of the terry pratchett novels the long earth series with some interesting characters.
 
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Cardinal said:
I'm looking for some new sci fi/fantasy books to get addicted to. I've already gotten into authors such as Peter Hamilton and Patrick Rothfuss, if that helps to provide any clue of my likes. Though I'm not a crazy fan of Peter Hamilton's writing style, his vision of the future beginning with Pandora's Star strikes just the right balance between optimism and pessimism. Outright pessimism being defined as "Wool" by Hugh Howey and outright optimism as essentially anything by Isaac Asimov (though we sci-fi fans all love him just the same). And though I'm not quite sure what happened to Rothfuss's third book, his first two, The Name of the Wind and Wise Man's Fear were some of the most extraordinary fantasy writing in modern history.

For the record, here's my pet peeve: I just want a story. Don't dump the entire history of the universe/kingdom/whatever on me and expect me to memorize a thousand goddamn names and dates in the first chapter. Not even Tolkein did that in the Hobbit. In fact, Tolkein especially didn't do that. The proper way to introduce a reader/viewer to an entirely new universe is to start with the main character that's a hick in some backwater of the galaxy/kingdom. Think: The Hobbit and Luke Skywalker. Both characters are introduced into the larger narrative of the story through other transitional characters (Gandalf, Obi Wan Kenobi) and continue their growth thusly. The worst (or at least most tedious) stories tend to begin like homework assignments combined with Wiki pages. Spare me that crap, if you can.

Thanks. And if you haven't read The Name of the Wind and Wise Man's Fear, seriously, read that **** already.
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I'm not a fantasy or sci-fi fan by any means. But J. R. R. Tolkien is in my top 10 of all the story tellers that I have read in my lifetime.
 
RetiredUSN said:
I'm not a fantasy or sci-fi fan by any means. But J. R. R. Tolkien is in my top 10 of all the story tellers that I have read in my lifetime.
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Really! Why? If i had to put up with one more of his interminable vacuous elf poems i would thrown the book at the wall. I skipped many pages of laborious and completley unessential descriptive narratives . His writing style made moby dick look like a racy novella.
 
soylentgreen said:
Really! Why? If i had to put up with one more of his interminable vacuous elf poems i would thrown the book at the wall. I skipped many pages of laborious and completley unessential descriptive narratives . His writing style made moby dick look like a racy novella.
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Your opinion is bad.





Just sayin'....
 
soylentgreen said:
Understood. After all that is all you can do, just say. Not as if you can put up a critique defending the books.
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I dont like Tolkien either- I think his writing is quaint and he went overboard on the languages, songs and stuff. I couldnt make it past a few chapters of LOTR.
 
PoS said:
I dont like Tolkien either- I think his writing is quaint and he went overboard on the languages, songs and stuff. I couldnt make it past a few chapters of LOTR.
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It is a style of writing that has long gone out of fashion. Hopefully for good. The story is basic saga quest fantasy, Originally done by the greeks in such as jason or hercules stories. Tolkien just used elves and goblins instead of men. Unfortunately that style was full of descriptive narratives that had nothing to do with the story. Great if a person had little better to occupy their time but read a book by candle light because electricity had not been invented. but a waste of time for a modern reqadership.
 
soylentgreen said:
It is a style of writing that has long gone out of fashion. Hopefully for good. The story is basic saga quest fantasy, Originally done by the greeks in such as jason or hercules stories. Tolkien just used elves and goblins instead of men. Unfortunately that style was full of descriptive narratives that had nothing to do with the story. Great if a person had little better to occupy their time but read a book by candle light because electricity had not been invented. but a waste of time for a modern reqadership.
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Obviously you know nothing about J R R Tolkien, (3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) the man was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor. Please note the time in which he lived, I believe that electric lighting had replaced candles by the time Lord of the Rings was published in three volumes 1954–1955.

The language he used and the languages he created were a direct result of his academic studies having originally studied ancient Nordic languages at Oxford and then Old English and Middle English texts, Old and Middle English philology, introductory Germanic philology, Gothic, Old Icelandic, and Medieval Welsh.
 
Somerville said:
Obviously you know nothing about J R R Tolkien, (3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) the man was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor. Please note the time in which he lived, I believe that electric lighting had replaced candles by the time Lord of the Rings was published in three volumes 1954–1955.

The language he used and the languages he created were a direct result of his academic studies having originally studied ancient Nordic languages at Oxford and then Old English and Middle English texts, Old and Middle English philology, introductory Germanic philology, Gothic, Old Icelandic, and Medieval Welsh.
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And obviously you know nothing about how the style of writing has changed over the years. Tolkien still belonged to an era of the style of writing that has long since gone. Nor have i said anything of his knowledge only of the style of his writing. That he brings all this he has learned together and still mananges to produce a book where anyone could easily skip pass the boring poetry or tedious descriptions to try and follow the story line means he still created a book not really worth the time and effort to read.
 
soylentgreen said:
And obviously you know nothing about how the style of writing has changed over the years. Tolkien still belonged to an era of the style of writing that has long since gone. Nor have i said anything of his knowledge only of the style of his writing. That he brings all this he has learned together and still mananges to produce a book where anyone could easily skip pass the boring poetry or tedious descriptions to try and follow the story line means he still created a book not really worth the time and effort to read.
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Your opinion and not that of millions of others - but that's life.
 
Somerville said:
Your opinion and not that of millions of others - but that's life.
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Oh dear! Nothing left but the good ol' fallacy of Argumentum ad populum. Try actually critiquing the book itself instead of advertising that if millions jumped off a cliff you would blindly follow them as well.
 
Cardinal said:
I'm looking for some new sci fi/fantasy books to get addicted to. I've already gotten into authors such as Peter Hamilton and Patrick Rothfuss, if that helps to provide any clue of my likes. Though I'm not a crazy fan of Peter Hamilton's writing style, his vision of the future beginning with Pandora's Star strikes just the right balance between optimism and pessimism. Outright pessimism being defined as "Wool" by Hugh Howey and outright optimism as essentially anything by Isaac Asimov (though we sci-fi fans all love him just the same). And though I'm not quite sure what happened to Rothfuss's third book, his first two, The Name of the Wind and Wise Man's Fear were some of the most extraordinary fantasy writing in modern history.

For the record, here's my pet peeve: I just want a story. Don't dump the entire history of the universe/kingdom/whatever on me and expect me to memorize a thousand goddamn names and dates in the first chapter. Not even Tolkein did that in the Hobbit. In fact, Tolkein especially didn't do that. The proper way to introduce a reader/viewer to an entirely new universe is to start with the main character that's a hick in some backwater of the galaxy/kingdom. Think: The Hobbit and Luke Skywalker. Both characters are introduced into the larger narrative of the story through other transitional characters (Gandalf, Obi Wan Kenobi) and continue their growth thusly. The worst (or at least most tedious) stories tend to begin like homework assignments combined with Wiki pages. Spare me that crap, if you can.

Thanks. And if you haven't read The Name of the Wind and Wise Man's Fear, seriously, read that **** already.
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If you haven't read any of them, may I suggest the Dragon Riders of Pern? Part Fantasy, Part Sci-Fi, 100% excellent
 
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