What sci fi books have we all read?

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all 100 or so books of Stanislaw Lem. Why havent anyone read this guy's novels? Isaac Asimov, Bradbury, and Lewis dont compare even close. o well...

 

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I've read only two of those listed:
Dune and The Postman.
I've read all the Dune books, actually. The original ones, anyway. I liked them all, though the middle ones could be considered extremely boring.

I thoroughly enjoyed Brin's writing style and themes, and ended up reading Earth, 2010, and some of his Uplift series. I recommend both.

I think Heinlein's Starship Troopers should go on the list, as well as some William Gibson. His Burning Chrome anthology (which includes Johnny Mneumonic), or maybe Neuromancer.

Ender's Game, though I enjoyed it for the pulp it was, deserves nowhere the near universal praise it has recieved. The rest of the series was terrible. I couldn't bring myself to read more than the second book.

I read and greatly enjoyed L. Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth. Terrific space opera. I tried reading some other Hubbard, which was really terrible. Something about an extremely corrupt galactic race, where the protagonist (and narrator) was sent to observe earthlings.

 

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Solaris is my favorite sci-fi book of all time... though I havent had the chance to read too many. Its still a wonderfully crafted piece of literature.

So, I've read some Lem.

 

I've read those all except The Moon is a Harsh Mistress(which I've heard is good but never came across a copy.) and the Out of the Silent Planet Trilogy. Back in high school, I read the entire scifi section at my public library. So I'm well versed in the "classics".

I've not read any of those, although I've read things by most of those authors.

I agree. That was a great book, and a terrible movie. A really, really, really bad movie. Once I heard about his "religion", I never read anything else by him.

I might add David Weber, the master of military SciFi especially his Honor Harrington series.

 

John Varley, 'steel beach'.

you never see it anymore in the bookstore. And that is sad. You can merely hope your local library has a copy.

 

Firstly, to Fraggle:

To be clear: I did not complain about sci fi tv shows and movies in any way.
My problem was the insipid 'versus' type threads.

That being said, I have no problem whatsoever discussing visual sci fi media. I have been, and continue to be a big fan of a vast array of sci fi tv shows and flicks.

Now, with respect to sci fi lit:

I've read every title on your first list; they could all be called classics. If i had to pick a favourite, I'd say Niven.

I've also read every book on your 'contemporary' list, although I'd quibble with them being called contemporary.


As Roman noted, Gibson is a shining example of truly innovative sci fi. I've read everything he's written, and all of it is excellent.

My notable contemporaries:

Gibson
Iain M Banks
Stephen R. Donaldson
Charles Stross
Nick Sagan
Alastair Reynolds

One of my favourite sci fi books of all time was "A Philosophical Investigation" by Philip Kerr.

A special mention should go to Philip K. Dick, an author that surely belongs on the list of classics.

 

What ?
You didn't like Lexx ?
LoL
I think they were trying deliberately to be incomprehensible with that one.
Cool dead guy...

I've read all of these except The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, which I actually have a copy of, and the 2nd & third books of the Silent Planet trilogy.
Also by some of the same authors -
Foundation Trilogy, Caves of Steel, and Robots of Dawn, by Asimov.
Starship Troopers, and Job: A Comedy of Justice, By Heinlein.
The Dune trilogy, God Emperor of Dune, Destination Void, The Jesus Incident, The Lazarus Effect, White Plague, The Eyes of Heisenberg, Whipping Star, and The Dosadi Experiment, by Herbert.
The Ringworld Engineers, The Ringworld Throne, World Out of Time, and The Integral Trees, by Niven - plus The Mote In God's Eye, The Gripping Hand, Footfall, and Lucifer's Hammer by Niven & Jerry Pournelle, and Niven's Man-Kzin War stuff.

I've read Into the Out Of by Alan Dean Foster.
James P. Hogan's Inherit the Stars, and The Gentle Giants of Ganymede

Don't read much sci-fi any more - unless you want to count surreal stuff like Gore Vidal's Live From Golgotha - tho' Job was a recent one.
I find myself drawn more to historical works these days.

Perhaps rather than specific books - although I would certainly be willing to contribute to such discussions - something more like the ways in which various works delved into or dealt with certain themes - alien contact and/or human interaction with alien species, or interstellar travel, for example.

 

So could we discuss Starship Troopers a little bit?

To start off, do you think Heinlein was endorsing fascism?

 

no. love the movie.

 

The movie was terrible. If you want proper space marines, watch Aliens.

 

No, I think it was more that Heilein was so thoroughly anti-communist that he comes off as pro-fascist. Themes in the book such only those who serve in the Federation military being allowed to vote or hold political office, and service instructors denigrating contemporary (to the reader) democracy and it's institutions certainly seem to give his setting a manner of "sturm und drang" which seems to hearken back to nazi ideology.

I think the movie gave the socio-political themes in the book the same sort of slap-dab treatment that old film version Dune gave the complexities of Herbert's plot, resulting in more confusion than anything else.
Plus the troops themselves didn't have powered armor, which I read was nixed in order to pay for the CGI Bugs. ( First time I'd ever seen that sort of CGI, and it floored me. ) Seems to me they were overmatched by the Bugs as a result.

I think Heinlein might have approved of making the M.I co-ed, and having 2 Troopers gettin' it on, though, given the sexual shenanigans of some of the characters in his later works. I can't recall the specific book, but one instance arises where a character has sex with a female clone of himself, and then jokingly muses about whether or not it constitutes masturbation...
Jubal Harshaw, IIRC - tho' not, if memory serves, in Stranger In A Strange Land.

 

I'm not a great fan of sci-fi, but I've got a few of Asimov's books.

I prefer Iain M Banks without the M, when he writes fiction.

 

Also I suspect that the age profile of this forum is such that less of them read than if the age profile was older.

Read them all, except the MArtian Chronicles. Some Bradbury short stories and Fahrenhheit 451 is about as far as I have gotten.
I am however not sure if you could find them all in a modern bookstore.

Widely read outside the SF community? THe only reason Dune would be widely read outside the SF community, (Whaterver that is) is because they've made a film and then am iniseries about it. And most people give up after Dune messiah or Children of dune. Some Christians would read the silent planet trilogy, but hardly anyone else would, and I'm sure many USA'ians would consider it influenced by the devil anyway.
As for the cognoscenti, which preening morons to you refer to?

Of course it can, we've had one or two, albeit short. Also bigblue head had some good ideas about stuff, although I have no idea what happened to him. He wrote several good long posts on some topics related to Sf and fantasy.

Anyway, your list of "contemporary" books is waaaayyyyy out of date. I have code of the lifemaker on my shelf, waiting to be read, it was published in 1983. The postman is ancient as well, and I have yet to read Lord valentines castle.

So, a better question would be, have you heard of or read:
Charles Stross
Neal Asher
Peter F Hamilton
Ken Macleod
Adam Roberts
Justina Robson
Lois McMaster Bujold


There are more, but these are some of the more well known authors from the last 10 to 15 years.
Some of them have even won hugos etc.

If you havn't read any Stross, you are so far out of date that you might as well just give up.

 

lol...

See my post above....

Stross is amazingly refreshing.

 

Some other thoughts:

Niven is good, but his early stuff was much better, before he got into silly political stuff later on. His sometimes co-author pournelle seems to be a might makes right weirdo, like SM Stirling.

Glaucon:
Your list of contemporaries includes only two authors that I know of who are actually writing modern stuff. Banks keeps repeating himself, with a few new bells and whistles. I have not read any of Gibsons newer stuff, but ceratinly his paradigm changing stuff was back in the 80's.
Donaldson- well, has he written anything in the past decade thats any good?
Who is Nick Sagan?

And as for Stross- well, the disclaimer is that I know him, he drinks in the same pub I go to.

Alastiar reynolds- is a pain in the neck. I just managed to finish his first book. Chasm city was alright, although relied upon an incredible lot of conincidences to get going. His latest book or two have been impenetrable and very very dull, although with some worthwhile action scences and plots. If he could learn to make his characters more human or less human in a way which is interesting, and shorten his prose, he would do ok.

But, have you read any John Meaney? UK author, has a style all of his own, but doesnt seem to quite have hit the big time, despite his trilogy out now being pretty good.

 

I posted my first post before I read yours.
Stross actually takes a lot of the nanowibbletech seriously, like that chap Mcarthy I think he is, who was writing about it all back in the 90's.
And Stross still has further to go, he can still get better.
Accelerando for example, only really appeals to geeks and know it alls. But his hidden family series sells well, and the two books set in the eschaton universe are fairly mainstream yet obviously written by Charlie.
Have you read any justina robson? She's good, in an odd sort of way.

 

Aliens is drama horror that has nothing much to do with sci-fi.