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"Must-Read" Sci Fi books
Rizzo:
Yeah I read the Dragons of Pern series for a while... First 2 or 3 books were pretty reasonable then it all crashed and burned.
So I read Crystal Singer which was ok as well.
Then I read the series about the people abducted and left on some shitty planet... that was never ending suck. Seriously... one of the worst series I've ever read. I don't know how I got through it.
I think the fact that I actually know something about biology and physics now killed it for me. NO WOMAN, THAT WILL NOT WORK. FAIL.
Kid Modernist:
I think the first 3 Dragon Rider books are good, and then like the others (read most except for the newest 2 or 3) but only because I like the first 3 so much.
(No ideas about what my book was? :'( )
KharBevNor:
--- Quote from: Rizzo ---
Then I read the series about the people abducted and left on some shitty planet... that was never ending suck. Seriously... one of the worst series I've ever read. I don't know how I got through it.
--- End quote ---
Was that Dinosaur Planet? Actually no...as I said, I haven't read much of her stuff since the seventies. Mainly because I have never bought a single one of her books, just read my dad's copies.
Rizzo:
Nah nah, it was ummmmm *looks it up*
Freedom's landing and the rest of the Freedom series. Absolute fucking tripe.
And Acorna. Unicorn girl? More like unicornGAY AMIRITE?
Seriously though, go read romance novels, they have more basis in fact than Macaffrey. Generally more coherant plots too.
I work in a library. Therefore my word on books = law.
elcapitan:
Dan Simmons has been mentioned in connection with Hyperion. He also deserves to be known for other things he's written - his horror (particularly Song of Kali, and the short story Dying In Bangkok) is masterful.
The duology of Ilium and Olympos is fantastically good sci-fi, which I can't recommend highly enough.
Finally, his now-out-of-print book The Hollow Man (based upon the short story Eyes I Dare Not Meet In Dreams, which can be found in the anthology Prayers To Broken Stones - Eliot much?) is one of the most introspectively heartbreaking stories of love and redemption I've ever read. Synopsis: a brilliant mathematician, who is gifted/cursed with the ability to read minds, meets his soulmate (the only person he's ever met who can do the same thing) at a party. Years later, she dies from cancer, he goes insane, and then (through some bizarrely sub-quantum goings-on) they meet again and resolve their issues, and redefine the universe while they're at it. Khar, there may still be a copy of this book in the Southampton Public Library - you should get it out and read it.
Also, the somewhat obscure author Tim Powers. His books are not sci-fi in the traditional sense - rather, they tend to be secret histories, offering alternative views of world events with magic treated as a branch of science. Two in particular stand out as must-reads:
The Anubis Gates: this one won the Philip K. Dick Memorial award back in '83. In the 1800s, Egyptian magicians, their powers waning under the onslaught of the British, try and open a portal just outside London to summon the god Anubis. It works - sort of. Modern-day poetry analyst Brendan Doyle winds up travelling through this extradimensional gate into the past, where he undergoes Weird Happenings. The romantic poets make an appearance, as does Spring-Heeled Jack, the Apemen of London, and divers others. Amazing.
On Stranger Tides: Near the end of the Golden Age of Piracy, John Chandagnac, a young English puppeteer, finds himself captured by pirates in the Caribbean. Offered a choice of death or service, he chooses service, and embarks on an adventure that takes him to Port Royale, Charleston, and (by way of a change in scenery) the Fountain of Youth. This book feels authentic, despite (in fact, probably because) of the extensive use of vodoun folklore crossed with modern pseudo-science, as well as some very solid-feeling pirates (particularly Blackbeard). I love this book.
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