No.40
Hello anons.
This thread needs more traffic, and I need something to read so,
BOOK THREAD
Post any sci-fi and maybe even sci-fi/fantasy books (as long as its more SF than not) that you would recommend.
No.41
Some books I like to recommend are the Leviathan trilogy by Scot Westerfeld.
Its kind of an alternate-history kind of thing. In this universe, Charles Darwin publishes the Origins of Species and everything, but he also discovered DNA (which he called life threads) and he discovered how to combine and manipulate these life threads. The story takes place later, around the time the first world war started in our universe, except in this one the war starts (in part) because of differences in ideologies of the European countries. ON one side, you have the Darwinist powers, countries that adopted darwin's life thread manipulation technologies and employ them to grow and fabricate life forms for whatever purpose they need (like trees that grow wood stronger and lighter than steel, giant floating jellyfish, barnacles that eat through metal, etc.) and on the other side you have the Clanker powers. These are countries that thought the fabricated "beasties"are abominations, so to compete with the darwinists, they build giant walkers that run on kerosene and pneumatic pistons.
The main characters include a girl who disguises herself as a boy to join the british royal air force, and the exiled prince of Austria-Hungary, son of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
The setting is a mixture of biopunk/steampunk, and it has beautiful illustrations every few pages by Keith Thompson. Besides recommending this book to anyone who would be interested, I want to know if there are any other works like it. The closest I have found after some searching is The Windup Girl but its still not what I'm looking for.
No.42
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I read this a while ago, it's very entertaining, if you know even a little about Physics, you would know what occurs is impossible, but the author knows that, it's a fun space opera with interesting,and innocent characters, a short fun ride from the golden age of science fiction.
No.43
>>40I recommend Ender's Game :^)
This book is completely readable, completely entertaining, and is very intelligent
No.51
>>43What's it even about? Summarize it for shrek
No.52
I can recommend Blindsight, from Peter Watts. It's about a group of scientists making first contact with aliens. The book explores some truly (and literally) alien mindsets as well as the concept of consciousness. It also contains space vampires, which is kind of cool.
Can be downloaded for free at Peter Watts personal homepage.
No.71
>The Forever War
Nice battle scenes, and a very good depiction of what it must feel like to come home after a war. Also a merciless deconstruction of war in general.
No.82
>>40Stanislaw Lem is a great even if a bit obscure author. Haven't read anything large-scale of his but the short stories are amazing. It's all close to 100% hard too.
No.84
>>71I like the bit at the end with the shitty weaponsand he predicted non-binary gender politics pretty wellstill kinda pleb tier character development though
No.85
>>518-year-olds save the planet No.86
>>84I liked the characters, but their development was pretty much non-existant, yes.
No.87
>>82Will definitely look him up.
Hard SF = boner
No.89
>>51It's basically a book about a bunch of children somehow coming up with a brilliant strategy to win a war.
>strategy: throw ships at them until they dieBRILLIANT
EMPOWERING
There really isn't too much to say about the book, other than the fact that it's dull and makes little sense.
I'd recommend watching the movie over reading the book, because at least you get to see impressive visuals and Harrison Ford.
No.140
>>89Haven't read the book, but the movie was very good in general, in my opinion.
No.141
>>89you haven't read the book
the movie does the whole "throw ships till they die" thing.
the book focuses more on mimicking the swarm.
also the book predicts blogger culture pretty well
No.143
>>141>the movie does the whole "throw ships till they die" thing.Didn't seem like that to me, at least at the end.
Can someone tell me how to spoiler?
No.148
>>141the part that makes it retarded is that a bunch of 8-year olds somehow come up with this genius idea that lets them take over the world AND defeat the alien menace. it's Adults Are Stupid taken to the ultimate conclusion, and, as you would expect, it's absolutely retarded.
No.149
>>141I remember Ender's whole advantage being that he thought they were engaging in simulation battles and so he wasn't afraid to sacrifice his ships. It let him come up with new tactics that don't necessarily involve the well-being of the crews. Then he has a breakdown when he finds out that he was fighting a war, not a simulation.
…So yeah, uncle Stalin would have been just as good at it, if not better.
No.150
>>85>>89>>148>>149Based on these, I can infer that Ender's game is pretty shit tier, probably famous for being famous, like Kim K
What did u guys think of the hunger games? I read the books before I saw the movies and I enjoyed them, honestly. Way more interesting and detailed than the movies. But thats my opinion. I also detected references to inequality in the books (1% oppressing 99%) and one guy I know likened it to France before the revolution. Thoughts?
Also, keep recommending Hard SF. That earlyer recommendation kicked ass.
No.151
>>150Ender's Game is bad-tier.
I thought Hunger Games was good, not my favorite. Still pretty entertaining. Everything is going to have references to an elite oppressing the majority though. It's just kind of the way the world works. Who the 1-5% is, that's the part that changes.
I can't give any more hard Sci Fi recommendations unfortunately. I'm new to the genre.
No.155
You could give Neuropath a try. It's pretty hard, but a bit 2 years and twenty eight minutes into the future. Everyone and his mom can afford a brain scanner, brain scans are really good, neurosurgery is even gooderer, and at one point, a character wears a shirt with a moving picture on it. Also, Europe is in an ice age.
As I said, the science is pretty solid, and the philosophical points it makes about consciousness and the human mind have gotten a lot of praise, although I wasn't new to them, so I was less surprised.
I'm not exactly recommending it, just telling you that you might give it a try if nothing better comes along. The characters were absolute shit-tier, in my opinion, and it was trying a bit too hard to be depressing and dorky.
No.156
>>89>>151Why does Enders Game always get so much praise, then? Not trying to argue with you, just wondering.
No.157
>>155Will look into it, thnx
>>156Good question. Maybe it has good character development? Maybe its just cuz its a movie
>>151You have a point. Throughout all of human history, there has always been an elite. But I meant that this book focuses on it, on how the Capitol oppresses the districts and the contrast of how they live vs how we live type of thing.
One short story that I read and had to think about for several days was "The Days of Solomon Grunsky" by Ian McDonald. Its basically a twist on the solomon grundy nursery rhyme with some intense nanotechnology thrown in. Makes you think about stuff like immortality and death and stuffs. Definitely worth a read
No.159
Roadside picnic, Arkady & Boris Strugatsky. Fantstic book that is the basis for Stalker.
No.160
>>40Dune is probably my all-time personal favorite, and the original books all are among the best imo. If you haven't read Dune I don't even know what you're doing here. All praise Muad'Dib.
No.167
No.175
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Iain M. Banks, Culture series. I recommend the audio book form with fantastic voice play.
http://theaudiobookbay.com/audio-books/culture-novels-1-10-iain-m-banks/http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/7452864/Iain_M._Banks_24_ebooksExceptional overarching existential tier. Gave me a bad hangover, couldn't find anything to quench it with now, don't even know where to look. Last time my fantasy was beaten that hard by The Hobbit in my early teens, and I'm 26 now.
It was like science fiction ender for me, everything else looks bleak and simplistic now. The author doesn't focus on gadgets and abilities, although there are plenty. Instead, he focuses on experience of existence, in any form or technology. And there is certain maturity that I find many other sci-fi works artificially lack, for reasons of social conditioning perhaps.
No.176
>>175I'd say, science fiction itself is only a medium through which Banks delivers an entirely new, post-wowtechnology genre.
No.184
>>175I've checked out the Culture-lore on wikipedia. Looks like A-grade worldbuilding to me.
No.185
Cant go wrong with Clarke
I've only read Childhood's End, but I think he also wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was an amazing movie , so the book is likely better.
I found Childhood's End very well written and I considered the premise to be interesting, to say the least.
>Also, alien demons
No.193
The Lost Fleet Series by Jack Campbell
grand space opera, great story, gives a glimpse of what a futuristic space battle really would be like
No.194
I highly recommend The Expanse series. Hard (ish) sci-fi space opera centering around a Cold War style conflict between the Earth, Mars, and the string of colonies along the asteroid belt. Features a good bit of political drama as well as some Grade A swashbuckling action
No.195
Mote in God's eye is bretty gud
>>167My nigga. Godbody is also good.
No.206
Modern day sci-fi from author Chuck Klosterman, who's known more for his non-fiction Hunter Thompson-esquire pop literature.
It's written in a style that's really familiar to fans of Klosterman's other books like Eating The Dinosaur, sex drugs & coca puffs, and Klosterman VI: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas.
It's this really trippy, modern, voyeuristic take on The Invisible Man that actually does a lot to take an introspective look into the lives of people and how you behave by yourself as opposed to everyday social situations like Work, School or The Gym.
No.213
>>185I think Rendezvous with Rama was my favourite Clarke book. Childhood's End and The City and the Stars were also really good.
No.228
>>194Average-ish space opera with a whiff of Cherryh's Company Wars, meets Halo, meets Firefly/Cowboy Bebop/Farscape/Whatever space western you prefer.
The writers really needs to read Economics for Dummies, they are also overly-fond of annoying Mary Sues.
No.231
Most of the Nebula and Hugo books are pretty good, at least until the early 00s when most sf went to shit.
THe SF and Fantasy Masterworks books series are both pretty good.
No.271
>>213
This
Unless I missed it no one has brought up issac asmov. Any book by him is stellar. If you want a point to jump in start at the foundation trillagy.
No.272
>>160
This
Also I'm going to recommend the hyperion series read the first book at least because the stories are well drawn out and how they all connect is golden.
No.274
>>271
I thought there was an entire thread about him. I have no idea where to start with Asimov, though.
No.482
>>194
This is going to be made into a Syfy series isn't it?
No.505
>>185
Reading Childhood's End right now for my Science Fiction course at school. Really interesting so far. I'm at the second chapter for the Golden Age part.
No.512
>>143
To start a spoiler put the word "spoiler" in square brackets [ ] (without " and no spaces).
Add a single space after the ] and write what you want to spoiler.
Add another single space at the end, and put "/spoiler" in [ ] again.
Done.
No.515
No.516
Almost anything by the early PKD (Philip Dick). The short stories are a bit hit and miss, but have a kind of humor which is lost sometimes in the books. Do not expect Hard-SF, unless you want detatiled effects of drugs. Personal favourites are: 3 stigmata of palmer eldritch, Ubik, Do androids dream of electric sheep, A maze of death. Another very good one, if just tangentially SF, is "A scanner darkly", it's just a tad depressing. Anyone else here likes PKD, or just me?
No.545
this is a gr8 fuckin thread. I'll look into some books after I finished Lolita.
No.555
kind of off topic, but relevant to how some of this scifi will, and already is, be explored to help man identify himself to himself
No.556
i think this is supposed to have an english translation
No.558
so i guess thats it for scifi, except of course the state which is a fiction - just a bunch of incompetent men in suits
No.570
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Early Australian space opera, the whole run is quite readable
No.571
>>151
From the summary on Goodreads, I doubt Ender's Game would be bad, actually looking forward to it
As for The Hunger Games, it's shit really
I read the 3 books, yes, I slightly enjoyed them, but the highest rating I gave was 3 stars for Mockingjay, mostly because of the plot twist
The main character is awful, a confused girl with a shitload of hormones missing with her mind…the writer also used the idea of Roman Gladiators
I can't understand, if all the work is done by those 99%, what do the other 1% do?
I mean, the districts are all run by the government, it's not like families or mega corps own the nation's resources and have people work like slaves, What do all these people do?
How does it come such a country is stable, makes no sense, no human-rights activists and SJWs in the Capitol?
And also, the fact that the proletariat create and produce everything from the nicknacks all the way to weapons and nukes, if a rebellion was to start, It makes no sense it'd be opressed, and it makes no sense that the capitol didn't change anything from the infrastructure which made them vulenrable in the first place, let's leave the power in the people who hate us's hands AND let's kill 23 of their kids each year to make them hate us more
The only districts that actually liked the Capitol were the ones making fashion and jewellery, if they could pull a revolution on that scale and save katniss and have connections in every district, they didn't even need Katniss, they didn't have to wait 75 fuckin' years, and who knows how long would they wait if not for Katniss
This book, by dystopian standards is an epic fail, I guess same goes for like 95% of those young adult novels…aiming at those "deep" teenage girls, I was fooled once and If I didn't have such a long to-read list filled with masterpieces, would have read one of those books again
No.572
>>571
Forgot to mention, THG doesn't really strike me as a Sci Fi book, more like Pol Fi (Political Fiction), I mean…Do you even science, Suzan Collins?
It's just set in a futuristic dystopia, so some of the Sci Fi themes occur, but not much sci fi there methinks
Also, a nation fragile as Panem, where the hell are other nations, why don't they ever fuckin' worry about an attack from the outside, really bothers me
For a good Sci Fi, Pol Fi…read The Foundation by Isaac Asimov, m8
that's the real shit with awesome plot twists and smart ways of controlling masses, without the teenage shit
P.S: If you're a grill (girl) who will get edgy over how almost every main character in the Foundation is a dude, save yourself the time, if you read for pleasure and think that the pace of THG following Katniss was awesome then the book is not for you either, The first book only covered a huge time span, and a huge space span, there's not much place for individuals and when shit hits the fan, the main character doesn't go Space-Rambo on the bad guys, there's politics and phillosophy and very smart fuckin' dudes ,mane
No.573
>>572
Also
If you are a grill, you have two choices
Tits or GTFO
No.574
>>159
This, I was looking for this, thank you man
No.575
>>559
That's some fine shit right there, m8.
>>560
I think I heard about this once. What is it about?
No.609
Someone on this board already posted Old Man's War, I think. I've read the book and can highly recommend it. It plays with a lot of established clichés of military sci-fi, has cool aliens and technologies and a great sense of humor, among other things. I guess it would be interesting to compare with The Forever War, as well as Sharship Troopers, which I haven't read but for all I know is very similar. In fact, Robert Heinlein personally endorsed the book, it seems.
No.610
>>575
>I think I heard about this once. What is it about?
democracy is a giant mass troll
they dont count votes,
even if they did the masss of idiots outnumber the educated
but we know they dont, puppets do whatever and not what the people demand
democracy is a cuck/slave meme
No.614
>>610
Some people still need convincing?
No.620
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>>42
I read that too, the clearest example of what they, whoever they are mean when they say "scientific extrapolation," I have the sequels coming in the mail. As a dude that isn't science savvy I enjoyed how he made the science clear even though it is in no way accurate. I also have a lensman book coming soon.
No.621
This is for the Space Opera fans:
StarWolf
Star Kings: Heavy on action, but I felt the characters were rather thin. The Plot involves the adventures of a man who transfers his consciousness with a Prince from the far future, conspiracies and chaos ensues.
No.622
>>71
>this
pretty much what got me into SF
No.623
Also i'd recommend hyperion, just finished the first book and have moved on to the second. it's pretty good, it has a interesting mystery and explains each characters back story in an interesting way
No.630
>>206
I own this. read it maybe four times. It's great.
No.669
>>85
Ender happened to be 8. Much older kids had failed the program. The commander was expected to wait and fight the war after the ships reached the target which took decades.
No.670
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Manifold Trilogy. Three stories with the same characters set in different universes.
No.712
>>516
>The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.
I read that book ten years ago and my brain has still not recovered its balance. He is good.
>>175
The Culture. Everything this anon says is true. Banks was a novelist first and a science fiction writer second. He created worlds and scenes that are so vivid that they are more alive than any movie could be.
>…everything looks bleak and simplistic now
Never a truer statement has been made. Of all the more modern sf that has come out lately there are a few that have tried to capture the same essence but just don't come close. It is frustrating. Read these.
OLD TITLES THAT NEED TO BE READ
Another anon has mentioned Dune. Frank Herbert.
Asimov. The Foundation series. If they take your fancy then everything else he has written will be great. The man was a genius.
H. Beam Piper. Federation. Empire. Space Viking. Lord Kalvan series. Lesser known but was a world builder around the same time as Asimov. He started a human history that involved one book/story from each century of this history. His main premise was that humans and history repeat, that what has gone before will happen again, so that a smart society should be able to not make the same mistakes again and again. The failure of that is humans are human, and we fail because of our own short sightedness and fears and weaknesses.
No.713
Asimov's foundation series is amazing
Also loved herbert and dick.
Looking out for more of the older classics and was thinking about heinlein. Any other recommendations?
No.843
the 12 books of the Honor Harrington series was lots of fun