Recommend Good SciFi

[spartak]

Originally posted by self biased
yeah, Larry Niven is truly a master. he comes up with the neatest aliens. as for poul anderson and jerry pournelle, i forget which, but whoever wrote "the years of the city" that book left me wanting. it never truly arrived as it were.

although he's not sci-fi, Clive Barker spins a great yarn as well. check out "the great and secret show." it's a killer.

Frederick Pohl is the correct Author of "The Years of the City".

[reismark]

I'm shocked that no one has mentioned Orson Scott Card yet.

Ender's Game
Speaker for the Dead
Xenocide
Children of the Mind
Ender's Shadow
Shadow of the Hegemon
Shadow Puppets

[Zkribbler]

reismark I am similarly shocked. However, after Ender's Game, I though the rest of that series really went to Hell in a handbasket.

However, I can recommend Card's:
Hart's Hope
Songmaster
and his Homecoming Quintology--although the structure's a little weird. The 5th book has very little to do with the rest of the quintology, but as a stand-alone, it's some of Card's best writing.

[reismark]

Zkribbler: The Bean series (the Shadow books) really got it going again. Shadow of the Hegemon, in particular, is a GREAT read.

[Tuberski]

How about the Deathstalker series by Simon Green. Mindless Space Opera at it's finest. Also very amusing.

ACK!

[Lonestar]

For the Libertarian:

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress By Heinlein

Th story of a Libertarian Revolution.

[Darsnan]

Frank Herbert's "The Dosadi Experiment" is a superior psychological sci-fi thriller. Gordie Dickson's "Dorsai", and "Tactics of Mistake" are very good military sci-fi, as is Jerry Pournelle's "A spaceship for the King". Pournelle also teamed with Niven to write "A Mote in Gods Eye" which was a beautiful blending of their two talents. For something with extreme bredth of scope that verges on visionary overload is "The Darkling Wind" by someone named Somtow Scharmukul (or something close to it - he was Russian IIRC).

D

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by Darsnan
Frank Herbert's "The Dosadi Experiment" is a superior psychological sci-fi thriller. Gordie Dickson's "Dorsai", and "Tactics of Mistake" are very good military sci-fi, as is Jerry Pournelle's "A spaceship for the King". Pournelle also teamed with Niven to write "A Mote in Gods Eye" which was a beautiful blending of their two talents. For something with extreme bredth of scope that verges on visionary overload is "The Darkling Wind" by someone named Somtow Scharmukul (or something close to it - he was Russian IIRC).

D

That name is Thai.

ACK!

[DarthVeda]

PKD!

[General Ludd]

I think of it more as a comedy in a sci-fi setting - like hitchhiker's guide.

I'd recomend Colony. It's written by Rob Grant, a co-author of the red dwarf series.

Very good book with lots of really great dark humour.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by CyberGnu
Molly, have you read Kim Stanley Robinsons other books? I loved Red Mars, was lukewarm to Blue Mars and hated Green Mars... So I'm just curious how The Years of Rice and Salt stock up to that.

Sorry, I would have replied earlier but have been busy making gazpacho and marinading kangaroo. Typical Xmas fare.

It's hard to compare 'Years' with any of the Mars sequence, because the starting points are so different. For me, much of the enjoyment of alternate earth stories has been the way the author describes the alternate history, how what was different happened, and why, and what the implications of small or large changes were. With a new world as in the Mars series, everything is up for grabs, and you have no established history to act as a counterpoise, or contrast.
It's not tremendously long (long enough, though) but I think if you enjoy both alternate history and Robinson's work, then get it from the library and see how it goes.

I forgot to mention one of the best ever alternate history works-

Keith Roberts: Pavane

Elizabeth I is assassinated and the Counter Reformation triumphs with Spain and recusant English allies breaking the power of the Northern Protestant states. It's a tremendously vivid, poetic achievement, a vision of a world where science's progress has been slowed, but where Belsen and Auschwitz never occur.

I can also recommend Cecelia Holland's 'Floating Worlds' and Samuel R Delany's 'Triton', and 'Resurrections from the Dustbin of History', by Simon Louvish.

[CyberGnu]

Tuberski, I love the Deathstalker, but I'm slightly ashamed of it... BTW, I swear to god, if he writes "combined to a whole greater than the sum of the parts" one more time I'm going to track him down and see if the reverse is true....

[CyberGnu]

Molly, thanks, I think I'll try it out.

Marinate Kangaroo, eh? Can you send some?

[molly bloom]

Mmm, I'd love to, except we just splashed out nearly $ Au 200 on postage for Christmas presents...

I think some tourist shops here sell kangaroo jerky and emu jerky- kangaroo jerky is similar to dried reindeer meat strips.

Kangaroo meat used to be sold in British supermarkets until some uninformed animal rights types took it into their heads that somehow 'roos were an endangered species and demonstrated outside the shops selling it. Idiots.

You can buy it at Safeways in Australia, in sausage, burger and fillet form, and as peppered steak and with cajun spices. I cooked it in paperbark with native spices and rosemary. It made a welcome change from turkey.

Which reminds me- a good Aussie s.f. writer is Greg Egan- I recommend Diaspora and Quarantine and Permutation City- all excellent reads.

Have a good Yuletide, Cyber Gnu.

[Ramo]

So I'm just curious how The Years of Rice and Salt stock up to that.

It was a decent book, but it had too much Buddhist theology in it, IMO.

Sorry, I would have replied earlier but have been busy making gazpacho and marinading kangaroo. Typical Xmas fare.

Gotta love that kangaroo. Are emus also typical Aussie Christmas food?