Sci-Fi Recommendations - for the unenlightened

[psikeyhackr]

How should we enlighten the unenlightened? Is a book list enough or should we say why we think it is enlightening?

I have searched the thread for "Heinlein" and various books showed up, Star Ship Troopers, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Stranger in a Strange Land, OF COURSE.

But I will propose The Door into Summer.

I first read this a long time ago. This was the cover:

I remember it clearly.

At the time 1970 was still a significant distance away and 2000 was the far future. The events in the story range from 1969 to 2001 though the story opens in 1970. So now the entire setting is in the past.

http://www.sfsite.com/11a/dis92.htm

It was serialized in 1956 so it was written before there were Integrated Circuits and Sputnik.

So my perspective on this story is now very different from when I first read it.

Heinlein has better robots in 1970 than we do today but no Internet and smartphones. But in 2000 he has cars manufactured to be thrown away to create make work for humans. So the story rases questions about how technology changes society and the economy and that is something we do have to deal with in the real world.

Lots of SF is entertaining but not though provoking about the real world.

Notice that the price of the book $0.35. Now they want $7.99. The economics of science fiction. LOL So if you read this keep in mind that it was written in 1956. Oh yeah, he had a small nuclear war shortly before 1969. Ever heard of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Looks like a near miss prediction to me.

[65,872]
psik

 

[Steve West]

Why isn't Iain M. Banks mentioned more here, he is amazing.

Everything he has done is so gripping and beautifully crafted.

One more, an obscure one but a real find: Fear the Sky, by Stephen Moss.

Hard SF of an Iain M. Banks level of realism, its a space opera, its epic, near future, with lots of well thought out and rendered technologies, and some very likable characters that you really want to succeed, even though they seem pretty screwed once the book starts to unravel. The ending is a riot, couldn't put it down.

I think its only on Kindle, but well worth grabbing.

 

[Jojo999]

I just finished 'The Sparrow' and the sequel 'Children of God' by Mary Doria Russell based on someone's recommendation here (had never head of these books prior).

The first book was a little slow and perhaps overly detailed, IMO. But everything came together in the 'Children of God' sequel where I think her writing and plotting had time to mature. Over the many SF books I have read, it is rare for me to become so invested in a story/characters that I was sometimes moved to tears as the story progressed. This was one of those stories.

I would highly recommend these two books for those who appreciate intelligent SF.

I would be more than comfortable putting these books in the same list with gems like Dan Simmons Hyperion Cantos series, Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun series and Ursula K. Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness, to name but a few.

 

[SFG33k]

Riverworld by Philip José Farmer

It's grossly underrepresented.

 

[hitmouse]

Riverworld by Philip José Farmer

It's grossly underrepresented.

To Your Scattered Bodies Go is very good. I felt that the sequels became rather bloated.

 

[J-Sun]

To Your Scattered Bodies Go is very good. I felt that the sequels became rather bloated.

Agreed. It would seem the second volume was written in the same zeitgeist as the first but I didn't even like it very much and subsequent volumes which came from a different time and space got to where I couldn't even finish the series. It's a great idea that's not exploited very well but you get all you really need in the first book which is pretty good.

 

[psikeyhackr]

To Your Scattered Bodies Go is very good. I felt that the sequels became rather bloated.

I think I read about three in the series and lost interest.

psik

 

[Bick]

I think I read about three in the series and lost interest.

psik

I read all 5, but I think you might be right... the first two were excellent, and I recall thoroughly enjoying The Dark Design too. I think The Magic Labryinth was good but perhaps less so. Gods was, if I recall correctly, not entirely satisfactory as a conclusion, though my memory is pretty hazy - I think I read it as a new release. I'd certainly recommend the first 3 or 4.

 

[Hermit the frog]

Don’t know if this has been asked before elsewhere on chrons, but can anybody recommend a sci fi novel that starts in the here and now and gradually gets more sci fi-y as the story continues. I might have even asked this before. That’s the trouble with having a memory like a colander.



Mark

 

[Mangara]

Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner was set in 2010, but written in 1968. It's kind of got a parallel world feel.

Ian Mc Donnald appears to write in the near future too. I loved the Dervish House and I understand Brasil is of a similar time period.
Paulo Bacigolupi's novel the windup girl is another book in this genre dealing with biotechnology and resources.

The Oryx and Crake trilogy by Margaret Atwood is also set in a similar timezone it's major themes are biotech and the environment.

The other suggestions I have are Flood and Ark by Baxter. Set in the near future these novels deal with rising sea levels.

All these may be too far ahead for you but these are the closest I have read to your criteria.

 

[clovis-man]

Don’t know if this has been asked before elsewhere on chrons, but can anybody recommend a sci fi novel that starts in the here and now and gradually gets more sci fi-y as the story continues.

I'd recommend Spin by Robert Charles Wilson. Starts out in present day Earth with some young school-age protagonists and then shifts to a mind-boggling scenario when the stars all "disappear". What follows certainly raises questions about how anyone today would react to a seemingly apocalyptic event over which they have no real control. It is a Hugo winner.

This is probably old news, but there has been talk of a movie: http://www.scifimoviepage.com/upcoming/previews/spin-review.html

 

[BAYLOR]

Limbo by Bernard Wolfe written in 1952 . A post apocalyptic science fiction dystopia novel . Imagine a civilization where most of the men have had their arms and legs removed and replaced by cybernetic artificial arms and legs that are designed to prevent the owners from engaging in acts of violence. The purpose being to prevent further wars.

 

[Hermit the frog]

Thanks for the info guys. I’ve read The Windup Girl, thought it was okay, but not brilliant. I’ve got the first of the Oryx and Crake trilogy on my book shelf waiting to be read, I might give that a go now I’ve been reminded.



Spin sounds an interesting one, more the sort of thing I was looking for. I’m trying to keep away from dystopian novels, maybe something more like first contact.

 

[Extollager]

I've been living in Bandung, Indonesia for the last 17 years and here, it's very hard to get good books, you have to be lucky to get your hands on something in 2nd hand book shops

It used to be really inexpensive to send books from the US by surface mail. You'll probably eat your heart out, but I remember when my wife and I had a friend living in a town in Kenya. Every so often we'd mail him a box of books. It might cost just a few dollars. Yes, the books took a long time to arrive, but (with one exception) our mailings always reached him.

Now that surface mail isn't available, it's really expensive to send even a single book from the US to, say, Australia.

By the way, I remember with amusement how I used to use, not my return address, but my church's address, stamped with a rubber stamp, as the return address on those packages. I hoped that if someone somewhere along the way was tempted to get into the box, he'd figure it was something like tracts and hymnals. Little did he know that it was actually Doc Savage books, Dashiell Hammett, etc. -- that kind of thing. : )

 

[psikeyhackr]

I'd recommend Spin by Robert Charles Wilson. Starts out in present day Earth with some young school-age protagonists and then shifts to a mind-boggling scenario when the stars all "disappear". What follows certainly raises questions about how anyone today would react to a seemingly apocalyptic event over which they have no real control. It is a Hugo winner.

This is probably old news, but there has been talk of a movie: http://www.scifimoviepage.com/upcoming/previews/spin-review.html

I couldn't finish it. The physics made no sense. How fast was the Earth rotating inside this time field relative to the orbit of the Moon? What would that do to the tides?

psik

 

[Maximillian]

Roger Zelazny
The entire Amber series (which you can buy in one volume, now (okay, most would call this fantasy...but due to the nature of 'reality' in this world, its arguable))

Frank Herbert
Dune, and Children of Dune (the rest I classify as elective = )

Alfred Bester
The Stars My Destination. Much more interesting to me than Demolished Man, as the protag in this one makes possibly the MOST extreme character arc ever in the history of history. Starts so base and cruel and dare I say evil that this story has never been successfully translated to a film-able manuscript format -- no studio would touch having a rapist as the Main Character and Protag. Ends up a paragon, saving humanity.

 

[pkdfan]

There's enough on here to last a while, ey?

 

[tobl]

i put it before on the month of october discussion. but maybe here it's better.
if anyone want something really cientific and GOOD try the martian by andy weir.
if you want fantastic try elseerian by ben hale, or the books by Patrick rothfuss (the name of the wind, a wise's man fear) or peter v. brett with the painted man series, the princess of mars series by edgar rice burroughs, etc...
if you want conspiracies try Christopher farnsworth with the president's vampire series, daniel suarez with influx and kill decision, jonathan maberry with the joe ledger series, ernest cline with ready player one, Richard phillips second ship series, simon r green secret histories series, charles stross laundry files, larry correia monster hunter series, david lynn golemon event series, ....
if you want military try h paul honsinger honor series, jack campbell lost fleet series, matthew reilly shane schofield series, michael mccollum gilbratar series, mike resnick starship series, mike shepherd kris longknife series, evan currie into the black series, John ringo, danny kollin the unincorporated man series. Stephen w Bennett koban series, Christopher g nuttall ark royal series...
if you want magic, try laurel k Hamilton, jim butcher, simon r. green...
This is just a beguining and express only my opinion. There are others but this are some of the best if not the best in any gender

 

[clovis-man]

Re Spin:

I couldn't finish it. The physics made no sense. How fast was the Earth rotating inside this time field relative to the orbit of the Moon? What would that do to the tides?

psik

I also read the two sequels. Neat and tidy? No. Did they play out the way I thought they might? No. Interesting? Quite.

 

[ddawson]

Tons of great ones listed.
I'll try and keep it to those not mentioned so far:
A. A. Attansio's Solis as well as those mentioned earlier, Radix etc.
A. E. Van Vogt's Quest for the Future
Edmund Cooper's Sea Horse in the Sky
Gregory Benford's Galactic Center series
Kate Wilhelm's The Killer Thing
Frank Herbert's Destination Void and the trilogy spawned from that.
Richard A Lupoff's Circumpolar, Counter Solar and Space War Blues
Rudy Rucker's Ware tetralogy
David Zindell's Neverness series
Pierre Boulle's Planet of the Apes
Thomas Disch's 334 and On Wings of Song
Joe Haldeman's All My Sins Remembered

Time to beg off, can't do this all night.