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[Archangel_Lucifer]

Who has some good books they can reccomend for me?

Good Sci-Fi books I have read recently and reccomend:

Commonwealth saga [Peter F Hamilton] -- Absolutely freakin brilliant! 'Nuff said.
Saga of seven suns [Kevin J Anderson] -- Good solid Sci-fi, a bit simplistic and some characters seem to have weird motivations.
Revelation space series [Alastair Reynolds] -- Great hardcore sci-fi. Difficult to get into at first and ending leaves a bit to be desired. Hopefully more books in the same universe will be forthcoming.
Dread empire's fall [Walter john williams] -- What would happen if in the future both sides of an interstellar war were a pack of incompetent overbred aristocrats? It makes me choke with contempt sometimes but I was unable to put it down.
Accelerando --- The defining book about technological singularity. Amazing.
Honor series [David Weber] -- Nice tactical like space warfare books.
"The grand tour"  [Ben Bova] -- You WILL read this. The man is freaking prescient. The best near future novels I have ever read.

[thestowell]

Would you perhaps try some Asimov?

[Archangel_Lucifer]

Oh yes read most of his works a while ago. I prefer more modern books in general.

[Jimmy the Squid]

Stranger in a Strange Land is a really good one but I can't remember who the author is...

[Will]

I remember reading a book several years ago by Timothy Zahn that was excellent...I think it was The Icarus Hunt, if my Amazon search was correct.  I'd recommend it.

I'm really not big on Sci-Fi, but I remember thinking this book was great...and I always loved the Star Wars books he wrote.

[mberan42]

I direct you to this link.

(Seriously, read the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. My favourite Sci-Fi series ever.)

[Napoleon the Clown]

The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. LeGune.  It's short but very interesting.

[ielerol]

Ursula K. Le Guin is my hero. I am in love with her.

Other great books by Ursula K. Le Guin: The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed, The Telling, I love basically everything she's written but the first two are classics and the third is one of my personal favorites. A Fisherman of the Inland Sea is my favorite short story collection of hers. She's also written some wonderful essays/nonfiction on feminism, storytelling, writing, whatever else she feels like being brilliant about...

The Parable of the Sower and The Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler are excellent.

Basically if you like novels about people and ideas you will like novels by those two.

I also really enjoy David Brid. Kiln People is, I think, a good place to start. Then the Uplift trilogy: Sundiver, Startide Rising, and The Uplift War. More fast-paced and straightfoward than Le Guin and more hard sciency than either, his books tend to be both thought-provoking and fun.

City of Truth by James Morrow. Satire done right.

Kirinyaga by Mike Resnick. If you enjoy ridiculously ambiguous ethical dilemmas, Resnick is the man for you.

[Archangel_Lucifer]

Hey thanks everyone. Sadly I have final exams coming up so gotta bury my head in my textbooks. I read a short story set in the uplift universe once and wasnt impressed. Ill try it again thoufh. As to Ursula le Guin she did the Earthsea books right? I loved the first one but found the others rather dull.

[Maedros]

Stranger in a Strange Land is a really good one but I can't remember who the author is...

Robert Heinlein. And I second this recommendation. It took me a little while to get into it, but after a bit, I was completely enthralled.

[bff]

Stranger in a Strange Land becomes an almost completley different book when you read the uncut version that came out a few years ago.

I am surprised no one has mentioned the "Sprawl" trilogy (Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive) by William Gibson or "Snowcrash" by Neal Stephenson.

[lestack]

My current favourites are anything by Karen Traviss. City of Pearl is the first novel in her wess'har series, and she's also wrote a few Star Wars novels which are INCREDIBLY GOOD, better than most of the ones I ever read before.

I also like Matthew Woodring Stover, although he's got more Fantasy/historical fantasy type stuff. Although it's not happy and shiny and smiley like tolkein, it's more like tolkein pissy from heroin withdrawal, and then his wife cut off his gnads

[Mayeye]

I'm a bookaholic (seriously, I've got a problem), but here are some of my recent faves.

Stephen Baxter--Coalescent/Exultant/Transcendent
Greg Bear--Darwin's Children/Darwin's Radio
Anything by Sheri Tepper (The Fresco is probably my favorite)

Oh lord--I forgot China Mieville... awesome books.

Weirdest thing I've read in recent memory is House of Leaves. Very strange and interesting book.

[bff]

Greg Bear--Darwin's Children/Darwin's Radio

I thought Darwin's Radio was incredible.  While a good read, Darwin's Children was not nearly as good imho.

[Disgruntled Jack]

The Otherworld quadrilogy b yTad Willians is good.

(only problem is that the loose ends fly together dangerously fast near the end of the last book.)

[IrvingRPointystick]

Bff beat me to Snowcrash, that one's probably my favorite sci-fi book ever. The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling is pretty good too, if you're in the mood for something different. We, by Evgeny Zamiyatin, is also good if you liked 1984 or other books of that ilk.

[Anna Banana]

um, just sci-fi, or can i branch into general fantasy?  =P

well, the bifrost guardians by mickey zucker reichert are good, they're about a guy who gets killed in the vietnam war being transported into the body of an elf. the books are all about norse mythology and such.
jane lindskold, she writes books about politics and a girl who was raised by wolves, erm,
abarat, by clive barker,
mercedes lackey books in general,
oh, and if you enjoy vampire books, amelia atwater-rhodes. they're really short, but they're good.

and like the guy above said, asimov too =PP

[namangwari]

I'd recommend a few short stories?Cory Doctorow's 0wnz0red,
John Varley's Press Enter, and
The Dechronization of Sam Magruder by George Gaylord Simpson.

Also, The Trigger by Arthur Clarke and Michael Kube McDowell,
Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus: by Orson Scott Card,
Old Man's War by John Scalzi (if you ever read Starship Troopers, this'll have you in stitches), and
Spin by Robert Charles Wilson

A real oldie, just for its own sake, is Karel Capek's War with the Newts. This one is by the guy who, with his brother, came up with the word Robot. Now if only the world can get behind AnthroPC?

links!
http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/feature/2002/08/28/0wnz0red/index.html?pn=1
http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/c/capek/karel/newts/

[elcapitan]

Stanislaw Lem - Solaris


That is all.

[The extra letter]

A canticle for Liebowitz - Walter M Miller (A damn awesome post-apocalyptic novel about humanity trying to rebuild itself after a nuclear war)

The Postman - David Brin (Another awesome post-apocalyptic novel, although the end part of the novel is a bit of a let-down)

[Archangel_Lucifer]

Ah yes the postman. I barely remember the ending. Good book though.

[Craig]

I remember reading a book several years ago by Timothy Zahn that was excellent...I think it was The Icarus Hunt, if my Amazon search was correct.  I'd recommend it.

Yes, it is "The Icarus Hunt." It was very good, as was Zahn's "Night Train to Rigel" and the Conqueror's Trilogy.

I'd recommend Dan Simmons' "Hyperion," and Orson Scott Card's Ender series.

[alonelyargonaut]

Chung Kuo by David Wingrove

read the first few books, but don't bother to finish, by the end it gets really abstract and spidery.
the whole concept is that Dynastical China (not communist) takes over the entire world.  turns it into these massive citystates.  and this is the war between a western ideological terrorist group and the eastern dynasty of chung kuo

[takemeaway]

I read about half of Saturn by Ben Bova, and um.. i could not stand it. His characters all acted unbeleivably, and the general setting seemed pretty unlikely. Theocracies have waxed and waned over time, but i don't see any reason the entire world should be seized by various religious governments in the near future. I'd be able to take that in stride but for the extreme villification of all the villains and exaltation of the heroes. That sort of thing just doesn't sit right with me. To be snobbish. : P

Every time i read a string of posts on something like this i yearn for more time to explore all this stuff. I feel like i have wasted so much time up to now not reading all of these books suggested here.

I reccomend The Mote In God's Eye, a collaborative work by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. Also Ringworld, if you haven't already. Two classics.
When Gravity Fails by George Alec Effinger is another good title, and more recent.

[Hog Nose]

The Last good sci-fi book i read was really old it's called    On A Pale Horse

[TimA]

Lemme point you guys to some slightly less mainstream choices. If I may.

The Etched City - K.J. Bishop. If you like Mieville, this will destroy your mind and rebuild it into a beautiful, eternal structure of joy. Maybe. Or you may just enjoy it a lot.

Counting Heads - David Marusek. Science fiction is an ongoing conversation. Asimov and Pohl started the modern genre, The New Wave responded to that, Gibson and Stephenson and Sterling responded to that. Marusek is the next step. Fucking genius, in the way Stross can sometimes be.

Vellum - Hal Duncan. It's hard to describe this. Good. Very, very good. Occassionally impenetrable, but Hal is one of the smartest guys I know, and this novel is testament to that.

Not books specifically, but a great source of vibrant science fiction and fantasy is the current small press and zine scene. Seriously, the best fiction is coming out of people's basements, not the big house presses. Check out Nightshade Books, MonkeyBrain, Electric Velocipede, Flytrap, Say..., Strange Horizons, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet and Pyr Press. Fookin' great.

[TheFuriousWombat]

while it's not really sci-fi, the epic baroque cycle by neil stephenson definetly has some fantasy-ish elements to it. even if it's not sci-fi (i don't think it is, although that's often where it's placed in book stores) it's an extremely worthwhile, albiet very long, read.

[Slick]

The Postman - David Brin

That's not been adapted into the movie of same name has it? I got a really big feeling that that was waterworld except kevin kostner no longer had mutant powers and he got kind of old. Interesting premise, but I didn't like the movie. I'd pick up the book if you say it's worth it. I'm kind of in love with post-apoc.

[Scytale]

I reccomend The Mote In God's Eye, a collaborative work by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. Also Ringworld, if you haven't already. Two classics.

Yes both of those are very good.

I also have to reccomend the Dune series by Frank Herbert if you haven't read it.

Ray Bradbury is a favorite author of mine

Fahrenheit 451 is really good, as is The Martian Chronicles

[elcapitan]

That's not been adapted into the movie of same name has it? I got a really big feeling that that was waterworld except kevin kostner no longer had mutant powers and he got kind of old. Interesting premise, but I didn't like the movie. I'd pick up the book if you say it's worth it. I'm kind of in love with post-apoc.

Yeah, same book. I haven't seen the movie actually, but the book is pretty good. Enjoyable at the least. I'd recommend it.

[blooflame]

Stranger in a Strange Land becomes an almost completley different book when you read the uncut version that came out a few years ago.

I am surprised no one has mentioned the "Sprawl" trilogy (Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive) by William Gibson or "Snowcrash" by Neal Stephenson.

"The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress" by Heinlein is also very good and besides that educational (discusses how to set up a revolution using a pyramidal "cell" structure to mimimize the risk of exposing revolution members).

Gibson's other "series" (Virtual Light, Idoru, Patten Recognition, et al) is also very good.

Stephenson's set (Cryptonomicon, Quicksilver, The Confusion, The System of The World) is also great - you might think it's "historical" but it's definitely fiction about science, just 17th century science. Don't worry about that though, I guarantee you will enjoy reading them.

For a not-often-mentioned one, try "The City, Not Long After" by Pat Murphy

[dennis]

I'm a bookaholic (seriously, I've got a problem), but here are some of my recent faves.

Stephen Baxter--Coalescent/Exultant/Transcendent
Greg Bear--Darwin's Children/Darwin's Radio
Anything by Sheri Tepper (The Fresco is probably my favorite)

Oh lord--I forgot China Mieville... awesome books.

Weirdest thing I've read in recent memory is House of Leaves. Very strange and interesting book.

I'm reading Scar by Mieville right now. It's very good.

Don't forget Baxter's Manifold trilogy, Manifold: Time, ...Space, and ...Origin. The hugest scope of any sci fi series.

The Diamond Age is even better than Snow Crash.

[elcapitan]

Gibson's other "series" (Virtual Light, Idoru, Patten Recognition, et al) is also very good.

Hardly a series.

It may have already been mentioned here, but Tad Williams' Otherland quartet is fucking phenomenal.

[mberan42]

Yeah, I second the Otherland series mention. (I think I talked about it earlier in another sci-fi thread, but I'm not sure.)

It's a long read, 'cause each of the books are 700+ pages with size 8 type, but it's a great series. Unlike any other sci-fi I've ever read - elements of cyberpunk, near-future technology (20 or so years), major shift of governmental powers, capitalism and corporations rule the world, etc...

I also somewhat recommend Stranger in a Strange Land, again by Heinlein. Not very sci-fi in terms of science and technology and all that; rather it's a piece about man and who he is, how one man can change the world, etc. It's interesting, to say the least. Don't read it if you want a good futuristic epic science fiction book, 'cause it's not that.

[Dimmukane]

I liked a lot of Robert Heinlein's stuff, and Orson Scott Card's, too.  My mom bought this book from Goodwill for me for some reason, Heart of the Comet by Gregory Benford and David Brin.  Turns out it was awesome.  I'm not gonna give a blurb, go read it.

[DinosaursMadeMeDoIt]

The Gap Into Conflict series by Stephen Donaldson, starting with "The Real Story" is a pretty convoluted, highly indepth sci-fi series. Not terribly short, but definitely involved and entertaining.

Of course, Donaldson is really one of those "love 'em or hate 'em" novellists. His classic fantasy series, the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, seem to have far more people who outright loathe them than actually enjoy them. Of course, that's because the protaganist in that series is someone the reader isn't really supposed to like at all, but meh.

I'd also second the recommendation of the greatest Sci-fi book that i've ever read. As i'm sure would be apparent to any QC reader, the original Dune by Frank Herbert is undeniably outstanding and well worth reading.