As a massive Heinlein fan I’ll say Starship Troopers because I think that’s a fascinating discussion about what you owe your country or the price of citizenship. Since Heinlein is my favorite author I’ll pick another one as well.. A Scanner Darkly by Philip K Dick. I know he had drug issues and this book is an interesting look at the cycle of drugs and addiction and the ending was tragic but also very realistic. I like that the movie included his tribute at the end.
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Dune. Frank Herbert was an absolute genius, and those books are an extremely well-realized fictional universe, full of a whole host of thoughtful moral and philosophical themes.
The man also just has world building that gives Tolkien a run for his money. It's not until you read some of his books outside of the Dune universe that this really become apparent. They say mastery is being able to repeat a masterwork and that's what he does in his other literature.
I really enjoyed Dune. I have the next two in the series but haven’t read them yet. I can see how George Lucas was influenced by it. Is the recent movie any good? Also would you recommend the full series or just Dune?
I'd recommend all of the ones written by Frank Herbert. There were a couple done after his death by his son working with other authors, but they're nowhere near as good.
The film is a decent adaptation, and it actually stays true to some of the important themes. I'm not optimistic that they'll be able to keep that up with the next ones though.
Herbert himself only made references to the Butlerian Jihad in his main saga, although he was pretty detailed about some of it. His son Brian wrote a sort of historical novel about it with Kevin J Anderson, but the quality of the writing is not as good as Herbert, and I don't really think Brian Herbert understood the main idea behind the historical layout of the Dune universe.
Frank Herbert was highly skeptical of authority in general, and viscerally opposed to anything he perceived as an attempt at social engineering or central planning. The Butlerian Jihad, or revolt against "thinking machines," ostensibly happened because they were trying to plan out everybody's life for them, and the whole main theme of the actual Dune novel series was about freeing humanity from being ruled over by people who could see the future. Two sides of the same coin.
The Restaurant at the end of the Universe by Douglas Adams, for the sole reason that it's the only Sci-Fi book that survived various purges of my bookshelf. That's got to count for something. Although it's been so long that I've read it that I don't remember what the plot was.
That's kept a special spot on my shelf too. Was so mad at myself for not getting the gilded special edition for cheap way back when, cause my version is falling apart.
I’ve read the Hitchhikers Guide books and only remember the first one really. I do plan a re-read some day. My favorite part of that series was the Vogons telling Earth that the plans had been in their local office in Alpha Centauri. I really hope they don’t do any reboots with it
You should see the episodes of Doctor who when Adams was in charge.
The Creature from the Pit (Story 106) was the one of the best, it had Douglas Adams as the script editor. Adams humor really shines through in the dialog and premise.
I loved the pirate planet.
Which doctor the 7th?
4th
I was thinking about your question, and the more I thought about it, the more a particular name started to climb to the top of the pile. And it may be a name you won't expect.
That name? Vonnegut.
?!
I think we're all familiar with Harrison Bergeron (especially lately), but if you haven't read Cat's Cradle, do yourself a big favor and run on down and grab a copy.
"It's wampeters and karases all the way down!"
There's another one where the protagonist keeps finding himself on Jupiter, but I'm having trouble remembering it. Maybe I'll take my own advice. I mean, most of his books you can read in an afternoon.
Update: Sirens of Titan, and I was way off.
Vonnegut also invented prions which decades later won some scientist a Nobel prize in Medicine.
i think Vonnegut was probably the best living American author of my lifetime, the second half of the twentieth century. It was a privilege to share it with him; he is missed.
My two favorites are Starship Troopers as you said, and Ender's Game. Starship Troopers helped me while I was serving in the Army, and Ender's Game was my introduction to Sci-Fi when I was in grade school.
I was Air Force. I liked the Starship Troopers movie and then I read the book and was surprised they didn’t follow it better. Enders Game was really good. Was the movie any good?
The movie is only half the book because half of the book is about Ender and where all the action and explosions take place, while the other half is about his two older siblings who eventually take over the world with memes and sockpuppets of all things.
There are some minor differences such as the class being older. Ender is 6 at the start of the novel. He's 16 in the movie. Bean has no special importance despite what later novels would retcon in. The aliens don't get referred to as "Buggers" for fairly obvious reasons.
The major events are all in place, however and play out as they do in the book. It's worth watching at least once.
The movie's a surprisingly faithful adaptation. I really loved the book (though the sequels get a bit out of hand) and found the movie thoroughly enjoyable.
I did not see the movie so I can't give an opinion. However, with Hollywood's tendencies, I doubt it was.
When I first read Starship Troopers it was because I enjoyed the movies and the old CGI Saturday morning cartoon(if anyone remembers that from way back when). I enjoyed the first chapter and the last, but everything in between just had me impatient to get back to a story.
Years later I reread it and it was only then that I was able to appreciate the philosophy it offers. It gave me a new understanding of and appreciation for what we put our military troops through. For the longest time I held a misconception that boot camp involved being mean to the new soldiers simply for the sake of being mean, but this book dispelled that notion entirely. Looking back I feel foolish for ever holding that belief.
I was in the Air Force but never had to see combat but that drill sergeant in the book kind of reminded me of mine from boot camp
Player of Games, one of the Culture series, which was an attempt to write science fiction without involving a military or pseudo-military hierarchy. Does a great job of describing the stakes of the game without going into details or mechanics. Written by a Scottish socialist, I don't know how I'd feel about the sex change stuff and free love horseshit if I read it now. As a young college student, I could brush that off as hedonistic scifi.
Neuromancer is hands down my favorite fiction. It does everything right. People talk like cyberpunk is a genre, and it's really not. Only an extremely small set of fiction actually hits the surprisingly long list of features cyberpunk requires, everything else is cyberpunk as aesthetic. But Neuromancer has it all, and is a quick read to boot. Not to mention it states some very exaggerated positions that I'm increasingly coming around to, unironically: the hyper-wealthy are not human; corporations are a new form of sentient life, hostile to humanity and will neanderthal us if we aren't careful; learning to hate can be useful.
I have Neuromancer but haven’t read it yet. I always saw cyber punk as a branch of sci-fi
it's kinda overrated if you already read/watched other cyberpunk themed works. it pioneered the genre, but the writing sucks
Hard disagree. Unless you're talking Bruce Sterling, who I haven't read, Neuromancer obliterates other things that call themselves cyberpunk. By the 90s, cyberpunk had morphed to aesthetic and Snowcrash, the TTRPG, Shadowrun, etc. just don't compare. Snowcrash in particular is a downright miserable read.
A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge. short vid summary. It's a space opera which explores the concept of technological singularity (by the guy who coined the term) on a galaxy wide scale. A simultaneous planet-surface plot involves an alien race of intelligent, pack-mind dog aliens, encountered by marooned human children. Vinge's most recent books were a bit disappointing, but this is his peak era, where not only does he always do an excellent job of exploring the technological ramifications of his ideas, he also invents interesting fictitious rules to help make his theorised universe more plausible. For this series, the imaginary conceit is that the fundamental properties of matter and the universe change depending on how far one is from the galactic plane and nucleus, enabling different levels of sentience and automation at different regions. As such this is known as the 'Zones of Thought' series.
The second book he wrote in the series is a prequel, A Deepness in the Sky, which focuses on the distant past of one of the key characters. It's a book where he clearly made an attempt to improve his character-writing, which pays off, plus there's another interesting non-human race, but the setting of AFUtD makes for a more fun plot for me.
I loved AFUtD. Haven't read Deepness yet, but good to hear it doesn't drop the ball.
Does Michael Crichton count as sci-fi? If so, I'd say Sphere.
Really enjoyed reading through Jurassic Park an The Lost World. Guess ill check out Sphere next.
I think I have that in my massive pile of books to read
He's honestly one of my favorite authors. Some of his stuff is very verbose but it's almost always entertaining.
Live Free or Die. It's kind of clunky, but just a fun read. Earth gets introduced to the greater galactic bureacracy, and has to adapt, mostly with violence. Some interesting philosphy in it (not dry at all) that relates to so much that's going on today.
Consider Phlebas and Player of Games by Iain M. Banks. Both in the same setting, but you don't have to read them in any order. Consider Phlebas is a space opera/adventure. Lots of AI, action, kind of a relatable anti-hero main character. Player of Games, I'll ruin it by giving a brief synopsis, but it's a smart dude, being manipulated to accept a diplomatic mission on the other side of the galaxy. All to find a larger challenge, allieve the boredom in his life. He's somewhat unlikeable, but you grow to respect him. The way Banks describes the tournament, this game so complex you cannot even fathom it (no human can) keeping it vague enough that you can enjoy it, but also complex enough that it makes interesting conflict. Anyhow it's a fucking great book.
I think I have Consider Phlebas. I’ll check out the other ones you mentioned
Tunnel in the Sky by Robert Heinlein is one of my favorites. A reminder of how savage nature really is, and how cooperation is the only way man can survive it.
One of the more poignant things in the book was how the group kept trying to form committees to address problems rather than just making a decision about how to deal with the problem right then and there, which ended up wasting time and energy. In the end this inefficiency of bureaucracy cost lives.
Oh, that reminds me, I really enjoyed Orphans of the Sky by Heinlein.
"A Mission of Gravity" - Hal Clement.
A hard sci-fi novel from the 50's. A story told from the perspective of an alien and his crew tasked by humans to collect an item from an area of their planet inaccessible to them. The physics, the chemistry, and the biology are all well considered, as the author was an astrophysicist/chemist, however the presentation is not dry at all.
Really enjoy the Safehold Saga by David Weber. Humans escape Earth in the future to hide out from civilization killing aliens on the planet of Safehold. Once there they adopt a nearly medieval lifestyle and throw away all of their tech. Skip forward 1000 years and one of the crew from the original breakaway mission is awakened in an android body to get things back on track and take the fight to the aliens. First though she has to overcome a technophobic religion that controls the entire world and help a small, struggling maritime country (basically Britain) avoid total destruction by its neighbors.
In the timeline of the books the world goes from basically a sword and sail type setting to progressing to a proto-WW1 level tech, with airships and steam power. Weber is a big sailing guy so prepare for lengthy discussions about sailing ships and the various operations needed to run a ship of the line. Also prepare for tons of side characters and scenes who are present for a chapter and then might only be mentioned again tangentially two books later.
10 books is quite a bit to sink your teeth into, though the series is on a hiatus at the moment. Books 6 and 7 are a bit of a drag, took me nearly 3 attempts to finish the series, but overall the series is quite enjoyable.
That sounds really good! Is he the one that wrote about a modern city that was sent back to 1600s?
Eric Flint (rip) wrote the 1632 series but David Weber co-wrote two of the novels 1633 and 1634. Haven't gotten around to reading 1632 though I have a few of the books.
If you want a shorter series that gives you a taste of Weber's writing I would suggest the Dahak trilogy. It starts out with the discovery of our moon being one huge, ancient spaceship that brought humans to earth 10,000 years ago and scales up into a full blown galactic war. Sadly the books end before the real alien ass kicking begins but the series is enjoyable enough that I have read it 10+ times.
There is also the Honor Harrington series by Weber, also on my To Read list, which has 15 main books so far (and like 37 in total). The publisher Baen sometimes gives away the first book in a series via a free ebook so its possible to pick it up for nothing.
Probably 2001: A Space Odyssey even though it's weird as fuck.
I read that book because I wanted more detail about when he goes inside the monolith. I then read the other 3 in the trilogy.
Heroe's Die -- the author calls it sci-fi, though it features fantasy elements.
I really do not read that much Sci Fi... Has got to be the Darth Bane trilogy then, still my favorite Sith and the one thing I would make into a movie series if I was the one who hold the reigns at Lucas. I generally read more fantasy so my selection of Sci Fi is pretty little, I read a couple others but only Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy would be worth mentioning.
I was going to say Admiral Thrawn trilogy, glad I'm not the only guy who normally reads fantasy and not sf. And it says a lot that we chose basically fantasy sf ;)
I’m a massive fan of the Star Wars EU (strictly pre Disney of course). I bought the first book of Darth Bane trilogy but haven’t read it yet. What’s your favorite fantasy?
I can only recommend Bane, is really well worth it and yes, pre Disney 100%.
Favorite fantasy is rather hard. Years ago when I was optimistic that we'd get the conclusion soon I would've in a heartbeat recommended the Kingkiller chronicles, fuck you Patrick for not finishing your story and being woke on twatter(with he/him pronounce in the bio obviously). Honestly, the guy apparently wrote the book already and entirely scrapped it, he's AFAIK also someone who suffers from TDS and is more "busy" with appearing in podcasts and on conventions where he's having his ass kissed for writing 2 good books and doing a Martin.
Nowadays I'd probably say Tolkien as his writing style is just so soothing, great to read and meaningful. There's a reason the classics are classics. My favorite of the books is still gonna be the Lord of the Rings, it's the one book I have multiple copies of(since I had a really badly translated one, a well translated one and an English one when I started getting into English books). Don't think there's much reason to explain why Tolkien is great tbh :)
Extra recommendation: I started "recently"(think 5-6 years ago) reading some light novel, some are alright, some are the usual isekai trash(and I really enjoy some trash sometimes). One has profoundly stood out amongst the rest: Ascendance of a Bookworm by Miya Kazuki. Her level of worldbuilding, character writing and story is weirdly enough out of the medium of light novel I feel(which as I guess is more aimed at a younger demographic with a little easier writing style). Can only recommend, I've preordered the books well into the future because I enjoy them so much. I've not read all of them yet(since I've been busy with other stuff lately) but up until part 4(it's segmented into parts aka story arks) it's pretty great. Yes, it's an isekai but not a powerfantasy one you usually have, the MC is not some Mary Sue but someone flawed who gets into trouble because she's not thinking things through and only follows her main goal.
That all turned out a lot longer than I expected :)
On Basilisk Station, because start of the Honor Harrington series and great plot.
Rolling Hot, because it don't mean nothing, snake.
Book of the New Sun quadrilogy
I'll stick the Dragonriders of Pern saga in here. But not the ones written with or by the son, those fucking suck rotten paki balls.
I keep hearing about an attempt to make a movie/series out of it, but they'll never be able to handle the feudalism properly in the current ideological environment.
Still waiting on that Rendezvous with Rama movie, too.
The Star Diaries by Stanislaw Lem. Best sci-fi satire I've read.
I have a compendium of Philip K Dick works. For as much as his stuff gets adapted and is all over, his initial concepts were awesome. Also, a lot of it reads in smaller bite sized sections which makes it good bathroom reading. It's a shame most of his success came after he died.
I have Sone if his short story anthologies and still getting his books. It is interesting how much he has been adapted. You have a favorite story? I have a book of his essays and general thoughts that came out after he died. I haven’t read it yet but look forward to it.
I like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep as my favorite original and I loved Blade Runner but I have to admit that A Scanner Darkly was probably the best film adaptation as far as being faithful to the book.
Oddly, Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris was the closest book to movie I've ever seen. I don't think there was a line in the film that wasn't in the book.
I don't know if I'd call it my favorite exactly, I don't really think of books, or movies, or games, or colors, etc. in terms like that - but I thoroughly enjoyed A&B Strugatsky's stuff. It's Russian (or Soviet, really) sci-fi, it's wildly different from what you're used to. They're the ones who wrote Roadside Picnic, the short story that inspired the Stalker games a few decades later. My favorite is The Doomed City.
I enjoyed Phule's Company, which was a series about basically space mercenaries with the titular Captain Phule leading one of the companies. Said group of mercs were the misfits from the rest of the mercenary army, with each not fitting into standard military life in various ways. Not exactly a huge space epic, but it's a fun underdog series.
Sounds good. I’ll have to look for it
Dream Park. Not the greatest work I've read, but a total inspiration for what I do now and plan to do.
What do you plan to do?
I am a story and tech guy for themed Experiences.
So many people mentioning the Culture novels but no mention of Transitions?
Starts off as a fairly standard techno-thriller about a society of dimension-hopping assassins and then blindsides you by turning out to have been a philosophical treatise on the implications of the fact the human imagination has limits all along.
Not as in, on what those limits are, just the implications of the fact that there are limits to it at all.
And also contains the absolutely legendary line "I'm not racist, some of my favourite prostitutes are black people"
Need to check it out
Yeah. I don't get the hype for Consider Phlebas or Player of Games, Ian Banks has done genuine proper philosophical novels that are well worth reading.
Use of Weapons is stellar, essentially following the life of a sci-fi intelligence agent whose job it is to screw with less technically advanced civilisations. The whole thing is essentially arguing the prime directive isn't just an important moral position for the sake of the less advanced civs but that breaking it seriously hurts the MORE advanced civilisation too, as the protagonist utterly ruins himself playing god amongst various native cultures.
Or Hydrogen Sonata, which is one of the better arguments on the meaning of life I've seen. The Culture get ahold of a secret that disproves the religion of a fellow civilisation and spends a spy thriller internally arguing over whether or not to tell them.
Love Moon is a Harsh mistress. I heard they are doing a mini series. At one time I would’ve loved that but not anymore
Honestly even without the current societal ills I don't think it would work. The dialect that book was written in shapes the experience pretty heavily.
I can see that. Probably why I’m happier to read a book than watch a show or movie any day
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umDr0mPuyQc
My sentiments exactly