I’m working on some NFL draft stuff today, so I won’t be posting much. However, I’ve decided that it’s time for me to begin reading fiction regularly again — and I’ve decided to concentrate on sci-fi / cyberpunky stuff (if only to figure out what the hell Nishi is talking about half the time).
I’ve read some Philip K. Dick — and the Stephenson stuff like Snow Crash and Diamond Age — but not much more. So. Here’s your chance to recommend some of your favorites.
Leave titles and a few brief remarks about the book / story in the comments.
Thanks!
Dan Simmons is one of my favorite sci-fi authors. If you haven’t read him, he blends classic literature with sci-fi to fantastic results. I recommend the 1st two books in the Hyperion series- Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion- the last 2 were ok but I didn’t enjoy them nearly as much. ALot of literary references and one of the main characters is a cybrid of poet John Keats. Also by Simmons, Illium and Olympos, which tells the story of the Trojan War recreated on Mars, apparently by the Greek Gods. Those two books blend classical mythology and the Tempest in a very cool setting.
“I’m working on some NFL draft stuff today”
That’s quite a clinical description of your passionate (borderline pornographic) love sonnet to Tim Tebow…
The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
Bruce Sterling did wonderful and beautiful thinkings on post-humanism, and he can write. He put together this anthology which features most of the seminal cyberpunk peoples.
OI – That was outstanding !
I have no recommendations, as sci-fi or sci-fi-ish stuff, in any medium, has never appealed to me. I did not care for Star Wars, hated Star Trek, and would rather scoop out my eyeballs with a rusty spoon than read that stuff. I would stick with football.
Read Stephenson’s most recent tome, Anathem. It’s pretty nifty — delves into Greek philosophy, geometry, calculus, meta-religions and Causal Domain theory. It’s a beast, though — over 900 pages IIRC, or if you go the audiobook route, it’s 28 CDs in length.
Also recommended is John Scalzi’s “Old Man’s War trilogy” (Old Man’s War, The Ghost Brigades and The Last Colony). Heinlein-esque military sci-fi that makes for very quick, and enjoyable reading.
Oh, and back to Stephenson, if you want to simultaneously laugh and cry, pick up his first effort, The Big U. Not very sci-fi-ish, but a very entertaining Lord-of-the-Flies-on-a-college-campus sort of read. I’ve not seen such effective lampooning of university politics since Lewis’ That Hideous Strength.
this fits too … was at the very beginning almost and involves a neat sort of exploration of the Japanese love of all things post-apocalyptic and plus also it’s gonna be a movie and plus also also the cover is beautiful
I second #6 – Scalzi is a good read (his latest, “The God Engines”, is a bit depressing – made me think of how I felt at the end of Brazil) and it took me twice through Anathem to realize how good it really is.
If you want to understand cyberpunk, you have to start at the beginning: William Gibson, Neuromancer. Written in 1984, it encompasses the Internet, computer viruses, virtual reality, AI, and hot chicks with biomods.
Since you mention Stephenson, I’m assuming you’ve read Cryptonomicon; if you haven’t, then READ IT!!
Oh, and Stephenson apparently is none so glad with his first effort – The Big U – I rather liked it, and still have my well worn copy.
If you want something kind of light, try Scalzi’s “Agent to the Stars”.
Why isn’t anyone recommending anything from the Star Wars franchise? What’s up with that?
Great alt-history, try S.M. Sterling’s Draka series, starting with “Marching Through Georgia”.
Read a few of Keith Laumer’s old “Bolo” series, then pick up Ringo & Evan’s “Road to Damascus”.
Can’t go wrong with a few of the classics…Heinlein’s “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” still holds up extremely well.
Oh, please don’t ignore Robert A. Heinlein: Starship Troopers (DON’T see the movie) and The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress are right up your alley. Farnham’s Freehold is interesting, too.
Dart – Cryptonomicon is my favorite fiction work. Period. The Baroque Cycle books are a close second (can you imagine “The Confusion” as a movie!?)
None of Stephenson’s longer works will ever make it to moviedom, alas. There’s just too much going on in Cryptonomicon, let alone The Baroque Cycle. A compelling case for a movie incarnation of Snow Crash could readily be made and I seem to recall
SciFiSyFy [ptui!] working on a miniseries based on The Diamond Age.If you want to get cyberpunky, William Gibson is the go-to guy. Start with Neuromancer and Count Zero.
Any book that has Melissa Theuriau in it would be good. If you mention her name every once in a while, the google ads featuring her keep popping up ;-)
@LTC John:
I feel at many points as though the two sides on the current political scene have experienced a Causal Domain Shear — there are simply vast sets of differing “facts” each feels entitled to, and though there can be conversations between opposites, they rarely produce anything of lasting value simply because the base assumptions about the universe and its workings on each side have simply ceased to have anything to do with each other. (See: “A Conflict of Visions”.)
Grah. I missed Darth Rove’s earlier mention. Apologies.
Orson Scott Card — Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead. Both standards in the Sci-Fi canon.
Ender’s Game follows a little boy to battle school where they are trained in strategy and tactics in null-gravity simulations. Ender is the best at it because of his uncanny ability to empathize with his enemy, which permits him to know how to defeat his enemy and in the same moment to love (agape) his enemy—even as he is forced to end the conflict once and for all by destroying his adversary. He hates himself for it. Hates. Brilliant psychological study, fascinating insights into tactics, wonderful read.
In Speaker for the Dead, the adult Ender travels to Lusitania, a planet colonized by humans from Brazil. They’re studying the one sentient species, taking excruciating pains not to “contaminate” the indigenous culture by asking questions that reveal their own assumptions about reality. In the meantime, a bitter woman keeps a terrible secret, people are ritually disemboweled, and Card gets to use his Portuguese to good ends. Estragão!
Must concur with dicentra, don’t know how I forgot OSC. Ender’s Game goes on the must read list.
I hear that Tim LaHaye fella is all the rage with the kids these days.
Cryptonomicon is where Stephenson really began hitting his stride, although The Diamond Age wasn’t a bad effort.
I’m about halfway into my second go-round in Anathem. It’s better the second time, I think, as is Cryptonomicon.
There’s a lot of subtle stuff that’s sprinkled in Cryptonomicon and The System Of The World that might take a little while to absorb. For instance, I missed in the first few readings of the former where Enoch and Rudolf von Hacklheber are talking about how their story is complicated and goes back generations, and Rudy says something to the effect that “someone should write a fucking book”.
The System of the World is/are that/those fucking books. And of course it turns out that Enoch and Rudy have a relationship that is a little startling, even with the admonition that it’s startling. System is an epic picaresque historical fiction that also contains a great deal of discussion on the topic of how our worldview got where it is. Not historical fiction so much as fiction wound around some monumentally significant people & events like Newton, Hooke, Leibnitz, the House of Bourbon, and various other bits of European royalty like Orange-Nassau and Hanover.
If you want to read fiction for reasons other than exploration of WTF nishi is on about, read Mark Helprin’s Memoir from Antproof Case. If you can get around hating the main character for long enough, there’s magic in there.
I also highly recommend Ferrol Sams’ 3-part Run With the Horsemen,The Whisper of the River, and When All the World Was Young. He’s a good storyteller, and has a dry wit. I’m not sure how these books square with someone of your background, though; to me, they’re goodness.
Daniel Keys Moran: “The Long Run” – hard to find and can be expensive, but a hell of a book. Part of a so-far uncompleted series, “The Continuing Time”. Hackers, mutants and UN cyborgs, oh my!
Walter Jon Williams: “Angel Station” and “Voice of the Whirlwind”
I got lots more if you like. Lemme know. ;)
I’m currently sitting on a ‘to read’ pile that includes Neuromancer, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and Canticle for Liebowitz. All are highly recommended. I haven’t read them yet.
Heinlein, Asimov, good stuff. The Foundation is phenominal. These dudes are the ‘fathers of science fiction’ for a reason. As for Asimov, even when the specifics of his universe might be fairly farcicle and far fetched he keeps rational and scientific concepts at the core of it, and explores them through the stories.
If you like your sci-fi to read as sort of a technological thriller, Crichton is the man. Like Asimov but less outlandish and futuristic. My favorite book of his is the Sphere, but Jurassic Park/Lost World or The Andromeda Strain might be a safer bet (or Prey, for a sort of updated nanobot take on The Andromeda Strain). I thought State of Fear was over-rated as a novel. Most all of Crichton’s books follow some scientist protagonist(s) as they race against the clock trying to avert some ‘science gone wrong’ disaster, illustrating where the science went wrong in the process – usually being at some fundemental concept level. For instance Jurassic Park (the book) is perhaps less about genetic engineering than about Chaos Theory and the dynamism of biology. The genetically engineered dinosaurs are just a plot device. Besides being exciting reads, he does a lot of research and always tries to justify his fictional bits with solid ‘theoretically possible’ reasoning and mostly modern day settings with just-past-cutting-edge tech. Enough that people tend to read his books, which usually ultimately drive at some point about how science is conducted or the nature of a subject rather then actually being worried over the plot device disaster, and actually (absurdly) worry they’re currently happening. Senators trying to ban dinosaur cloning and whatnot.
Herbert’s Dune is a staple of the genre and a fricken masterpiece of nerdy scifi (the sequels, by almost all accounts, go straight downhill with each one. The 2nd is readable and interesting but not great). Dune is complex, he’s crafted a whole universe, the sort of book that his it’s own glossary at it’s end to define terms. And very fantastic, the sci-fi is so ‘fi’ it’s bordering the fantasy genre even. But the books are quite involved in a lot of heady topics. Politics, sociology, psychology, warfare…
I like Bradburry. Farenheit 451 being my favorite of his. Farenheit, also Brave New World (Huxley), We (Zamyatin), 1984 (all those are practically iterations of the same book in some regards), and A Clockwork Orange if you can call those scifi (they’re set in dystopian futures with nifty gadgets but really quite political).
You know, I do not like Card’s writing. His style.. or his plots maybe (pretty simple and basic), both I don’t know what.
Ender’s Game was… ‘meh’. His insights into tactics are interesting but the dude writes pretty blandly.
I might give Speaker a shot, because that’s apparently the one he really wanted to read, but if it doesn’t do more for me than Ender’s Game I’m done with the series there.
I must be missing something. What was the point of that book? Everyone seems to either LOVE him or LOATHE him and call him Hitler. But I’m just like…. meh. I don’t get it.
Richard Paul Russo writes some good stuff. I liked “Ship of Fools” a lot. He wrote a trilogy about a detective, I read one and liked them too.
“The City of the Dead” by Kevin Brockmeier was a good pick So was “The Green Man” by Kingsley Amis.
Might have to turn in my guy card for this, but the “Time Traveller’s Wife” was pretty neat.
A couple of summers ago I went through the fiction section in our library and picked up two books per letter at random. I read a lot of shitty books, but these made a mark.
I guess I’ll have to do it again, the airplane books are getting stale.
Anything by Bujold is wonderful, the sharing knife series being a little lighter, reads more like a romance. Vernor Vinge’s two books: “A fire upon the deep”, and “A deepness in the sky” are favorites. I just finished the fourth Odd Thomas book, they are good.
There are more PK Dick books. I’d read those. The goofier the book’s title is, the more depressed the voice is, basically. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said is my favorite (except for the blatantly publisher-mandated epilogue that shits on the whole thing; skip that).
Alfred Bester pretty much invented what ended up being called cyberpunk (when the two halves of that word became advertising lingo, not names for things). The always-recommended The Demolished Man and The Stars My Destination are odd Freudian detective novels (with modernist textual flourishes) disguised as SF. Good stuff.
His short stories are sometimes better — right at the sweet spot between The Outer Limits and Donald Barthelme — and the worst (which are good) are Ray Bradbury stories without the…Bradbury-ness. The collection Virtual Unrealities has all that are worth reading.
Psycho Shop, a short story inflated into a short novel, written “with” Roger Zelazny, is…neat? neat-o? but failed. I like books that are the mangled wreckage of ideas for books, and it’s one of the wreckedest.
Most of what’s called cyberpunk is too much like TV to waste time reading. Stick with the geezers: Dick, Bester, Lem.
Might also try some Greg bear – “Darwin’s Radio” is a good ‘un. Or “Blood Music”…
Write… really wanted to write (not read).
Apparently Card just wrote Ender’s Game to set up the background for the character.
S.M. Stirling is great, read any of his Draka books (OOP except for an omnibus edition I think) his Emberverse series start at the beginning with Dies the Fire. He has a new series starting, first book A Taint in the Blood, about a mutant variant of humans who are responsible for all the stories of vampires, werewolves and other things that go bump in the night. NOT nice people…
For militaristic SF I like John Ringo, his Legacy of the Aldenata series is good. David Weber’s Honor Harrington and Safehold books are good, but Weber has a tendancy to put infodumps into chapters, and has an annoying tendancy to cut battle scenes too quickly, having characters describe the ending after the fact. If you want to piss off a liberal, read a Tom Kratman book in your local coffee shop. His initial work was weak on the writing, and he still has a propensity for characaturing liberals, but if you like milSF he can be fun…
For fantasy George RR Martins Song of Ice and Fire series is wonderful, and being turned into an HBO miniseries, think Sopranos meets Conan meets Elizabeth. I like Steven Erickson’s Book of Malazan the Fallen series, and read the first 5 or 6 of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of time series, before I lost interest due to his dragging it out too much. Chine Meiville can be fun, his fantasy world is definitely different.
My son got hooked on Robert Jordan’s “Wheel of Time” series early on (many, many, many years ago), and I couldn’t pry them out of his hands. He’s also a fan of Terry Goodkind (Sword of Truth).
The Honor Harrington series by David Weber is good military sci-fi, but it ain’t light reading, no way! Covers a wide range of topics, also, diplomatic, political, and technical. But it IS science fiction, so the “technical” side requires a bit of imagination.
Jerry Pournelle’s “Falkenberg” series is closer to home, technically and scenario wise. I especially recommend the “Prince Of Sparta” books (Prince of Sparta/Prince Of Mercenaries/Go Tell The Spartans).
For Fantasy (that borders on Scifi): Roger Zelazny’s The Amber Chronicles. His writing style, which has a kind of ‘stream of conciousness’ vibe to it, I found a bit awkward at first but by the time you make it 100 or 200 pages in it’s addictive. The characterizations are phenominal. Some of the most believable characters I’ve ever read of (despite the ridiculously outlandish setting and Amberite super powers).
And of course, Lord of the Rings. Epic.
Vurt by Jeff Noon. You’ll love it, Jeff.
For Stephenson I’d add the no-fiction book “In the Beginning was the Command Line” which is his view of the world of computing circa 1999.
In Science-Fiction the shorter works tend to come to my mind as over the last half century I’ve read so many of them. Plus I’m not a writer so I expect I value books and stories differently from someone who is trained in the art. So…
John Varley’s Gaia trilogy especially the third book “Demon” plus the collection of short stories “The John Varley Reader” which delves into his other future world of the novel “The Ophiuchi Hotline”. Especially recommended in that collection is “Press Enter”.
Dydeetown World by F. Paul Wilson.
Some stories I’ve mentioned before here would be “The Library of Babel” by Jorge Luis Borges.
“The Heat Death of the Universe” by Pamela Zoline (pdf file)
All of the above are excellent recommendations. Another avenue you might consider is the Steampunk subgenre. The idea starts from an assumption of information age technology developed simultaneous with the Industrial Revolution. Start with the original: The Difference Engine co-authored by Gibson and Sterling.
Ender’s is kind of jejuene and simplistic for my taste….good YA (youth adult) novel, though.
Richard Morgan…Broken Angels and Thirteen/Black Man are my favorites of his.
The quellquist falconer quotes I use are from the Takeshi Kovacs future-verse.
i identify with quell a lot….she was a revolutionary against the status quo.
Verner Vinge (the inventor of the term singularity) A Deepness in the Sky and A Fire Upon the Deep
tales of the ultimate capitalists, the Queng Ho free-space traders, and truly alien aliens for the Avatar rejectionists….the Spiders and the Tines blew my mind.
Cryptonomicon and Anathem, yesyesyesyes!
I can buy you any of those and mail them.
I once bought my blogfather Joe Katzman a copy of crypt…and mailed it to canada.
Oh….Dune cycle and Ringworld trilogy.
Cameron bought the film rights to Ringworld.
Afer Avatar III comes out I expect that is is his next project.
The Foundation is phenomenal.
I also recommend the Foundation series. Fascinating ideation of how societies evolve.
In the real sense of evolve, not nishi’s sense.
Entropy: If you didn’t like Ender’s Game, I don’t know what I can do for you. Speaker is definitely a different book as far as the topic and plot and stuff, but Card’s style is always Card’s style. He’s not what you’d call a wordsmith with delightful turns of phrase; the interest is all in the characters and the topics.
Or as he would put it, the realization of metaphor, wherein the alternate universe functions as a 3-D metaphoric space where you can set characters loose and explore deeper themes and stuff. And then the story stands in a metaphoric relationship to the meatworld. Maybe I can find his essays on this.
Apparently, Card just wrote Ender’s Game to set up the background for the character.
Really? Didn’t know that. I only heard that Ender’s Game started as a short story.
Anyway, if you didn’t like the style of Ender, you prolly won’t like Speaker. Then again, you might like part III, Xenocide.
But that would be weird.
And if you missed it in the other thread, here’s some primo EE humor. This being a sci-fi thread and all.
People have mentioned them obviously but I’ll repeat that the three Baroque Cycle books are fan-fucking-tastic.
Bravo #3 OI. Bravo.
I recommend anything by Greg Bear, even if he is a liberal liberal. His books are smart and the writing, while not literary great, is well done.
Neil Gaiman is kick ass. His stuff is better than most anything I have read in recent years.
Baen books enables a cheapskate, (like me), to read a lot of sci-fi without that nasty ‘paying for it’ bit. Or at least you can read the early parts of, for instance, Weber’s Honorverse or Ringo’s Aldenata books before buying the rest of the series.
Then you can go to fifth imperium and read even more free stuff.
Ringo is great for military SF IMHO
You could categorize High Rise by Ballard as sci-fi by way of Lord of the Flies with horny adults. Then I’ll flat out lie and say Cocaine Nights (Ballard again) is sci-fi because it’s such a damn good novel.
Beyond Phillip Dick, I assume you have read some Heinlein, Herbert, Tolkein, Asimov, and Clarke.
One of my faves is Solaris by Stanislaw Lem. The movies are only able to show one part of the novel, the psychological weirdness part. The movie can’t go into the other topic: the absolute Otherness of the planet itself, whose workings and machinations are utterly incomprehensible to humans.
I was much more interested in the planet than in the people, but that’s just me.
Some of Zelazny’s work borders on lyrical. Nine Princes in Amber was a good start to what turned out to be a rather lengthy series. I was never quite sure where to stop, but it was a cool idea: that there are many worlds, but they are all Shadows of the true world, which is Amber.
I really like George RR Martin’s books as mentioned above, but there are so frickin’ many characters and storylines going on at once that it makes Lord of the Ring series look like a child’s attempt. Plus, he’s nowhere near finished with the series yet, and I’ve promised myself that I won’t ever get invested in an as-yet unfinished series again.
After Robert Jordan went and died before finishing his, I mean. And yes, I know: someone else is doing that for him. Not doing badly, but it’s been two decades and it’s still unfinished.
BRADBURY, people. Bradbury!
I LOVED the short-story collections S is for Space and R is for Rocket when I was young.
Though they prolly seem awfully basic and simplistic now, like the old sci-fi movies where “RADAR” was considered high-tech. Stuff you’d more likely see on MST3K than anything. Teenagers from Outer Space for example, where they were stalked by a crawdad who appears to have got caught in the projector.
If you like science with your sci-fi, Ringo’s your man. His “Looking Glass” series with Travis Taylor (an actual physicist and rocket scientist) is quite good.
S.M. Stirling is okay. He is a guy with interesting ideas and does great research, but he is not the best writer in the world. I liked the Nantucket Series as a thought exercise and the flip of it in the Emberverse series, but after whatever novel he is on now (is it like seven now on Emberverse) I can say that I really do not give a shit anymore about the what if of a loss of all technology on modern society.
“In the real sense of evolve, not nishi’s sense.”
Oh, yes Di.
Foundation is great, but kinda dated, being a half century old and all.
I guess contemporary uni courses in evo bio, molecular genetics, quantum biology, evo theory of culture are not actually “real” in the conservative bizarro-world counter-verse.
Scifi is how we test drive the paradigms of the future before we get there.
For a different George R.R. Martin I really liked “The Armageddon Rag” and the short work “Sandkings”.
Holy sweet baby jeebus.
Would that that holds. Wow. Although an engaging, 3-hour plot may be difficult to craft.
I second the recommendation for Scalzi’s Old Man’s War. He’s got a book blog, too.
Or as he would put it, the realization of metaphor, wherein the alternate universe functions as a 3-D metaphoric space where you can set characters loose and explore deeper themes and stuff.
That’s what I mean. What was the metaphor?
I did not find one. It seems I’m missing one. It was a straightforward story about a not alltogether uncommon plot of ‘young boy saves universe from giant chigger bug aliens’. A bit darker, but the jist. Plain writing, plain plot, plain everything.
I hear people talk about why Card = Hitler, or people arguing about what Card is saying about how children act, or especially gifted children, and all that stuff. I don’t see none of it. I got no depth. I don’t understand the point of controversy. Does the book have a message beyond the kinda semi-stale surface plot of Boy-Meets-Bug-Alien/Boy-Kills-Bug-Alien/Boy-Learns-To-Love-Bug-Alien-And-Feels-Remorse?
‘Genocide is kinda nasty and not all shits and giggles’?
‘Children are violent’?
Children are capable of more than we give them credit for? I think that’s a big part of the book, and I agree with that… but god help me I agree with Nishi. It’s kind of a ‘young adult’ book.
For a recent, interesting sort-of-sci-fi pick, take a look at Suarez’s Daemon. Psychotic videogame magnate/computer science genius dies of cancer, thus dripping the Dead Man’s Switch on a computer program that then sets to attempting to destroy the world in a fit of posthumous nihilism. Interesting stuff.
Also, if you’ve never read C.S. Lewis’ “Space Trilogy” (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra and That Hideous Strength), I’d definitely recommend giving them a look.
And, once again, far afield from sci-fi, but Neil Gaiman’s stuff is top-notch. For a real treat, try getting the audiobook version of The Graveyard Book, as it’s read by Gaiman himself. Basically a retooling of Kipling’s Jungle Book, only sub “graveyard”/”Jack the Ripper”/”vampire”/”ghosts” for “jungle”/”Sher Khan”/”Bagheera”/”friendly jungle denizens”. American Gods and Anansi Boys are also decently entertaining but most assuredly nihilistic fantasy and not sci-fi. (Or, as the authors that want to be taken seriously have taken to calling it: “specfic”).
I was mightily impressed with Harlan Ellison, Barry Malzberg, and R. A. Lafferty, back when I was a spacey adolescent and still had an imagination.
Gah, “tripping”, not “dripping” in my last comment.
Cameron don’t need no stinkin plot.
Avoid books featuring sparkly vampires hitting on girls who cry a lot.
Heh.
Oh, Greg Bear:
Forge of God, and its successor Anvil of Stars. Both very good. Alien race attacks Earth in first one, and we go looking for them in the second.
Darwin’s Radio/Darwin’s Children are pretty cool.
Moving Mars: also terrific. Swipes some ideas from Anvil of Stars, IIRC, but still very good.
I wouldn’t mess with Eon and its successors; I had a hard time keeping up with it.
Gregory Benford also writes some very good hard scifi. He wrote Cosm circa 1990 that anticipated the uproar about the LHC potentially creating a black hole or even a universe. Charles Sheffield is rather a better writer, I think, but still writes good, hard SF. Tomorrow and Tomorrow is probably his standout piece.
Roger MacBride Allen’s Ring of Charon and its sequel The Shattered Sphere are also good.
“Scifi is how we test drive the paradigms of the future before we get there.”
Damn dirty apes.
I keed. I keed.
It’s the fucking orangutans you have to watch out for.
After Robert Jordan went and died before finishing his, I mean. And yes, I know: someone else is doing that for him. Not doing badly, but it’s been two decades and it’s still unfinished.
So did Zelazny.
And the “Someone else” who took over not only did, apparently, badly, he did badly at not even finishing for him. He did badly at discarding the cliff-hanging plot and retconning a prequel instead.
Still, at 1200 or 1400 pages to the Great Book of Amber I think, you cannot bitch for lack of content. He gave you plenty.
So I tentatively forgive him for dying.
Charles Stross: “Singularity Sky”, “Iron Sunrise”, “Halting State”
John Scalzie: “The Android’s Dream” – Has one of the funniest opening chapter I’ve ever read.
Richard Morgan: “Altered Carbon”
Walter Miller: “A Canticle for Leibowitz”
Arthur C. Clarke: “2001: A Space Odyssey”
Roger Zelazny: “Lord of Light”
Kurt Vonnegut: “The Sirens of Titan”, “Cat’s Cradle”
Margaret Atwood: “Oryx and Crake”
Good stuff upthread – my stacks contain many of these plus, for fun reads, nearly all of Niven. I’d add the essential Pohl Gateway/Heechee series, his The World At the End of Time, and many others of his. I like entertaining early hard scifi myself.
Beyond that the fastest fixes are in short stories: Search out anthologies by Gardner Dozois and David G. Hartwell, including with Kathryn Cramer. Try The Hard SF Renaissance, The Science Fiction Century, The World Treasury of Science Fiction, The Ascent of Wonder, or the The Year’s Best Science Fiction series. Many, many gems in there with portals to authors you won’t easily find otherwise.
Concur with Scalzi (especially Old Man’s War), Gaiman, Lafferty, Ellison, Bradbury, Zelazny (the Amber series of novels turned rather formulaic after the first few books, but some of his other works have lovely writing — especially the short stories. Unfortunately short stories don’t pay the bills).
Morgan is an idiotic, pretentious hack, IMO, which probably explains why Nishbot fetishizes him.
Gaiman’s The Sandman series of comics approaches high art as well as being an engrossing story (and one that has an ending — heresy in the comics world).
Snow Crash was originally intended to be a graphic novel, as I recall, so yeah, you could probably make a movie from it.
Bruce Sterling’s Holy Fire is flawed, but a great look at a possible endgame of the HealthCarepocolypse, and what happens when governments (and societies) decide they’re highest calling is to keep people healthy instead of keeping people free.
Most of Charles Stross’s books are very good, particularly Accelerando, which tracks from near-future cyberpunk to far-future post-humanism, and the Laundry novels and short stories, which are sort of James Bond vs. Cthulu, but with a hacker/gamer/nerd stuck in James bond’s role.
I should also mention John Varley. Again, he’s written some really fine short stories, most of which have been collected. His novels are hit or miss, but Steel Beach and The Golden Globe are both good.
Holy Fire was beautiful I thought, mostly cause she was such a great character.
That one could probably make a movie what was more fun than the book.
I was hacking on Jordan more than Zelazny. Really, I lost interest long before I got to the end of his story skein, but the first five were quite good.
Jordan, on the other hand, has a much higher page-count. His replacement did quite well, I think.
I was going to mention Fred Pohl’s Gateway series; I’ve read through the whole thing a few times and it has grown on me. Even though the hero kind of self-flagellates a lot; for part of that at least he has good reason.
Be interesting to see Cameron’s take on rishathra, especially with a vampire. Will he do the whole Protector bit as a prequel. (Hey! Protectors. I knew Dubya reminded me of something!)
And then there’s Peter F Hamilton’s Commonwealth saga, if you like really alien aliens and the idea of travelling from planet to planet by train.
Look at L.Warren Douglas’s work, for a mix of Sci-fi and fantasy titles. Some of the titles are available on Kindle and similar systems.
Snow Crash was good but preposterous in the way that would have fit a graphic novel better.
Unlike his later efforts, there are some things in there that are excessively WTF.
Yep, Snow Crash was intended as a parody of cyberpunk novels. A successful one, I’d say.
I believe Stephenson is on record as being boggled at how many of the terminally clueless (see: Nishi) took it seriously.
All of the kudos upthread for “Cryptonomicon” are right on the money. I’m re-reading parts of it now just for the sheer pleasure of it. One of William Gibson’s lesser-known works, “Virtual Light”, is probably my favorite in the cyberpunk genre.
Also, Arthur C. Clake’s short novel “Against the Fall of Night” (the original, not later versions and sequels that go thoroughly mucked-up by some knucklehead co-author), which explored theme of what it means to be human, and how the perfect society can also be the perfect prison.
Don’t have time to read all the comments, but *if the objective is to figure out where Kate is coming from* your starting point is the recent British dystopians and rapture(=”Singularity”)-believers: Charles Stross is the opening because he’s a little less grungy and depressing than the others — begin with Singularity Sky and its sequel (you may not wish to being Family Trade until the series is finished — an adventure story without a single good guy in it). Then proceed to China Mieville (there’s supposed to be an accent grave over the first “e”), Perdido Street Station and others, and Ian M. Banks (so-called “Culture” novels). At that point you will be prepared to tackle Stephenson (Cryptonomicon and the System of the World trilogy) because compared to, especially, Mieville they are almost absurdly optimistic.
For a change of pace, Neil Gaiman (especially Good Omens and Neverwhere) comes from the same tradition but is much lighter — there’s a sympathetic protag in Neverwhere but no “hero” as such. You should also read Pratchett, but skip the first two and start right in with Equal Rites, and pay special attention to Sam Vimes and the Ankh-Morpork Watch beginning with Men at Arms. Pratchett is something of an antithesis of the others.
Regards,
Ric
My favorite sci-fi of all time is Piers Anthony’s Macroscope. The ideas explored in the book are cutting edge today, despite the fact that the book was written in the 70’s. It still holds up well today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroscope_%28novel_by_Piers_Anthony%29
Man, you all are some fiction reading mugs! I occasionally do so myself, more of the historical kind though.
Generally I read factual books, biographies, philosophy, cosmology, and, you know, what I’ll loosely call textbooks.
I know…I know…It’s boring stuff.
Here’s a pretty good, on-line, novella written by “Neptunus Lex”.
http://www.neptunuslex.com/rhythms-the-compendium/
It’s kind of like a variant of “24”, but is about a day aboard a US carrier. It really captures the experience well.
I guess, though, I might be biased.
I’d pay the ten bucks for a lengthy — as in 30 minutes over the course of the film — fly-by of the hardware, ‘feets, complete with all the impressive tech in Avatar times a hundred. I’ve been waiting for that view for 30 years. With a soundtrack by these guys or something.
The funniest SF book and one of the drollest musings on the human (and not so-) condition is Venus on the Half Shell by Kilgore Trout.
The book and author were mentioned several times in Vonnegut’s novels. Phillip Jose Farmer asked if he could actually write it, got permission, did a magazine piece and turned it into a novella. Vonnegut didn’t like it but by then that was tough.
Some elements of Candide. Very worth it.
China Mieville: “The City & The City”
It’d be interesting to see Cameron’s take on Teela Brown.
Melissa Theuriau.
Ah. That explains a great deal, “Hiro Protagonist” being only the first of many.
If he does a movie I hope he leaves room for a tv series cause the ringworld, it is very large.
“Hey, Hiro, want some Snow Crash?”
Re: Vernor Vinge
Don’t miss the “Peace War” series. It’s bobblicious.
Ric, I loved Perdido Street Station, but you’re right, he is kind of a downer…
If Milla Jovovich could only reprise her Fifth Element days in a Ringworld…
JHo – I just put her name in there because if you type her name in a comment, the ads that feature her start coming up.
One thing Mr. Scalzi did… when I e-mailed Insty how hyped up I was to read “Old Man’s War” when I got back from Afghanistan, Mr. Scalzi saw that. He convinced his publisher to send a free e-book copy of the work to any requestor with a ‘.mil’ e-mail address. God Bless ‘im for that.
Oh, reading through. I have John Varley’s “The Golden Globe” sitting right here on my shelf. don’t know how I acquired it, but I suppose I’ll read it now ;)
More: John Brunner – Brit, wrote some stand-out SF in the 60’s/70’s, notably “Stand on Zanzibar”, “The Sheep Look Up” and “The Shockwave Rider”. Dated now, especially the latter, but worth a read. Quite a prolific author.
HTML fail
Against the Fall of Night
Virtual Light
mongo78 – you got that right. I could read the chapter “Yamamoto” every day for a month, and still love it “Tojo and his band of shabby, ignorant thugs”….”C’mon guys, the whole world isn’t one big Nanjing!”
Iain M. Banks: “The Algebraist”, “Consider Phlebas”, “Use of Weapons”, “Excession”, “Matter” – Love the names the ship AIs give themselves, e.g., “Prosthetic Conscience”, “No More Mr Nice Guy”, “You’ll Clean That Up Before You Leave”, etc.
I would suggest start reading all the books in the Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher. I think they are up to 11 or 12 books in the series now, with the grand scheme being about 24 when it’s all said and done (I believe that’s what the author said). The first book in the series to start with is called “Storm Front”.
Anyway, Harry Dresden is a Wizard (yes, Wizard) in the Yellow Pages based in Chicago. It’s a blend of fantasy/hard-boiled detective novels, not unlike Philip Marlowe stuff. It’s very good, very entertaining.
“Vector it out, Irv!” he exclaimed, in the crude slang of the ’90s.
———————————————————————-
I don’t remember what story that was in, or who wrote it, but it’s corn for the ages.
Are we ignoring science fiction that’s unintentionally hilarious? Or parodies like “Venus on the Half-Shell?
BJ recommended the Dresden Files by Butcher to me before. I never followed up on that. I am still trying to make it through 1 episode of Star Trek.
Banks: agreed. Love the warships (aka ROU’s “Rapid Offensive Units”) “So Much For Subtlety”, “Your Mother Didn’t Spank You Enough”, “Killing Time”
Canticle for Liebowitz is pretty good. It’s a paean to Catholicism and rather Luddite in its attitude, but as a discussion of how authority wears the mask of freedom, it’s fascinating.
“Killing Time”. Heh. War is mostly killing time, until it’s killing time.
Alexi Panshin: The Anthony Villers series, “Star Well”, “The Thurb Revolution”, and “Masque World.”
Very entertaining and quite funny.
I tried to get into the Princes in Amber, but I just couldn’t. Sci-fi books that start in the “normal” world are a major turn-off to me. I don’t want to spend 100 pages watching the hero go “golleee! We ain’t got none of that there magic down on the farm!”
Zelazny’s disciple Stephen Brust, on the other hand, rocks my socks, even if he is a Trotskyist.
I second Ric’s reccie of Bank’s Culture series. I’m just in the process of wrapping it up. It’s been extremely good, with only a couple of slow spots. I read it from start to finish, and I really don’t do that very often. I’ll humbly disagree that you need it before you tackle Stephenson, though now that the suggestion is in my head, I might go back and re-read System of a World. I don’t think of Cryptonomicon is SF, more Rollicking Good Adventure Tales for Boys (that’s an eight-thumbs-up recommendation.)
Sci-fi? David Drake. His Leary and Mundy novels are stupid enjoyable. Starting with “With the Lightnings” and going from there, it’s sci-fi opera at it’s best.
Here’s the reason I like his writing so much. From the Author’s note in “Lt. Leary, Commanding.”
“I’m using English and Metric weights and measures throughout Lt. Leary, Commanding, as I did in With the Lightnings. I wouldn’t bother mentioning this, but the decision seems to concern some people. I’m doing it for the same reason that I’m writing the novel in English instead of inventing a language for the characters of future millennia to speak. I’d like to note for those who’re interested that the orders in Chapter Nine are a close paraphrase of those which sent the frigate USS Congress to Hawaii in 1845. Here as elsewhere, I prefer to borrow from reality rather than invent it.”
I likes me some pragmatic honesty. GOGO DAVID DRAKE! WOOO! *fistpump*
/fanboy
Here is a list of his stuff: http://www.baen.com/author_catalog.asp?author=ddrake
For Zelazny (one of my all-time favorite authors) try the shorts collection “The Doors Of His Face, The Lamps Of His Mouth”
Frank Herbert: “The Dosadi Experiment”, “Destination: Void”, “The Jesus Incident”, “The Lazarus Effect”, “The Ascension Factor”, “The White Plague”
My favorites include Dan Simmons’s Hyperion Cantos – Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion, Endymion, and The Rise of Endymion – as well as his three most recent novels: The Terror, Drood and Black Hills. Simmons is an incredible talent, often mixing his science fiction and fantasy with meticulous historical research.
S.M. Stirling was mentioned above. His best novels to date are his Domination of the Draka stories – classics of alternate history. They are Marching Through Georgia, Under the Yoke, The Stone Dogs, and Drakon.
If you’re interested in some conservative-themed science fiction, read the military sci-fi of such writers as John Ringo (A Hymn Before Battle and The Last Centurion) and Tom Kratman (A Desert Called Peace and Caliphate). Ringo and Kratman have become permanent fixtures on my reading list.
My highest recommendation for Iain M. Banks and Vernor Vinge. Those guys made new connections form in my brain, in a way that I really liked. And the classics cited above are classic for a reason. They’re worth your time.
The recommendation to read Gardner Dozois’ anthologies is a very good idea, as well. Since they’re short-form fiction, they make an excellent introduction to a whole mess of authors and styles, and they’re great bedtime reading. Plus, Gardner is a damn fine editor when it comes to pulling the best into the year-end books. He’s sort of a one-man Nebula Prize committee. If you have any used book stores nearby, you should be able to find some of the old anthologies for a song.
I don’t think “The Last Centurion” is science fiction, but it is a hell of a read. The battle scenes are beautifully written.
Yep, I’d classify The Last Centurion as a military technothriller rather than SF. It’s pretty good, in any case — a retelling of the Anabasis in many respects.
You know, as soon as everything went to hell, and Bandit had to make a decision about how to save himself and his troops, I just knew, *knew* we were going to get a new version of “The March Up”. Just as soon as this thought occurred to me, Bandit brought up just that idea.
Ringo also wrote a longer version of “The March Up” in his Prince Roger series. Same basic plot, but setting and tech make for different story.
I don’t think “The Last Centurion” is science fiction…
Grass Root, you’re right, I misspoke. Definitely more along the lines of a military technothriller, as SBP said. I like how Ringo intersperses his story of the soldiers fighting their way through the Middle East with the deteriorating situation back home in the late 2010s, which he calls “The Big Suck”.
By the way, Kratman is supposed to have a a straight military fiction novel of his own coming out soon, titled D-Minus.
Going back to the beginning would be “Truenames” by Vernor Vinge. (pdf file)
The greatest SF bathroom book ever printed was “100 Great Science Fiction Short Short Stories”. Each story was three pages long, or less. The shortest was called The Sign At The End Of The Universe. The entire story was “This End Up” written upside down.
If you’re shelling out $$ for these books, consult bookfinder.com It’s a network of used book sellers.
LTC John: 8D
I can open it up more or less at random and become completely immersed for at least a half-hour…
Interesting note about Asimov’s Foundation series – when I first read it, lo these may years ago, I was at first mildly annoyed by all of the SF cliches – until someone pointed out that this was the original on which all of the cliches were based.
I had the same reaction the first time I read Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”.
Jeff, here’s Keith Laumer’s RETEIF series online:
http://www.webscription.net/10.1125/Baen/0671318578/0671318578.htm
Love his stuff.
Try Roger Zelazny’s “Amber” series.
It’s funny, I just re-read Robert A. Heinlein’s “Citizen of the Galaxy”, and I was talking to my daughter about it, and she had a hard time remembering some of the anthropological terms that Heinlein uses in one of his juveniles.
And my daughter has a degree in Anthro.
Jerry Pournelle’s “Sparta” trilogy.
Read the short stories of J.G. Ballard–brilliant.
The Wanting Seed by Anthony Burgess.
I don’t know whether to be proud or sad at the number of the titles in the above comments that I’ve read. Many of them, I’m afraid to say, are not quite as profound as I thought they were at the time. I think I was three quarters of the way through ‘The Book of the New Sun’ by Gene Wolfe when I realised what a waste of time it was.
Which is why I usually read Weber or Ringo now. At least you can pretty much guarantee something is going to happen pretty soon. Usually a murthering great battle.
And for those of you who missed my earlier comment you can find a lot of Ringo and Weber, (including ‘Last Centurion’), at fifth imperium to browse through at your leisure.
Got it, Kevin.
Thanks
Eric Flint: “1632”, “1633”, “1634: The Baltic War”.
What I really like about this series is that it’s spawned an entire alt-history ecosystem.
Niven/Pournelle’s The Mote in God’s Eye is one of those classics that Must Be Read, and is better (IMO) than any of the Ringworld books.
Which is weird, because Pournelle all by himself is not to my taste at all.
Charles Stross: “The Merchant Princes” series is not recommended. The first three books are good, but the series has ended for now, at volume #6, in a really sucky way.
One thing I dislike about Stross, Morgan, and a couple of other British science fiction writers is their reflexive anti-Americanism. Stross, for example, has the US attempting to commit genocide in one of his books.
I know many have recommended “Dune” – but that is one that has held up really well. It was alot more fun when I reread it after learning some Arabic to boot.
Slart, and The Gripping Hand was not a bad follow up either.
“Niven/Pournelle’s The Mote in God’s Eye is one of those classics that Must Be Read,”
Dittoes…….
Cordwainer Smith.
THE strangest universe ever envisioned.
Smith was trhe pen name for Paul Linebarger, who’s book “Psychological Warfare” is considered a classic in the field.
Hmmmm, just checked Amazon. Hardcover copies of the “PW” book are going for $380.
Gun, with Occasional Music and Girl in Landscape by Jonathan Lethem.
Joe Haldeman “The Forever War” and “All My Sins Remembered.”
Frank Herbert’s “Dorsai!” series is pretty good. My preferred story was “Tactics of Mistakes.”
“Bolo: Annals of the Dinochrome Brigade” by Laumer is pretty good.
Lazarus,
I always enjoyed Laumer’s ability to come up with acronyms in the Retief stories.
Pournelle’s “Co-Dominium” series is pretty good, and leads in nicely to both the “Sparta” series and the “Mote” and “Gripping Hand” pair. Not to mention the “Sauron Supermen” stories.
Isn’t Pournelle the one that the nishimonster used to yammer on and on and on and on about?
The Uplift War, Startide Rising, Sundiver – David Brin.
No time to read the second trilogy.
So their exclusion is not, in and of itself, a comment.
“Isn’t Pournelle the one that the nishimonster used to yammer on and on and on and on about?”
Yes, it’s a cross he must bear.
I’m going to declare this on topic because it’s funny.
Douglas Adams: “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, “Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency”, “The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul”
Neil Gaiman: “American Gods”
Christopher Moore: “Practical Demonkeeping”, “Fool”. OK, ok, these aren’t really sci-fi, but they’re not so far off, and Moore is an hilarious writer. “Coyote Blue” still makes me howl with laughter.
bh: “Gun, with Occasional Music”
Geeze, y’mean somebody besides me read that one?
The Man in the High Castle by Dick is good if you haven’t read it yet.
Niven/Pournelle channel Kieth Laumer in “The gripping Hand”:
“So, foul sand dweller…Now will you speak of your troop deployments?”
Just finished Archangel by Robert Harris — also good.
Yeah, mojo, great book.
…aaand, 1985 by Anthony Burgess pub. in 1978. Hard to find though.
One prescient theme in the book: the rise of Islam as major cultural and political force in Britain, due to large-scale immigration from the Middle East; London abounds with mosques and rich Arabs.
Another author to consider, Walker Percy. His Love In The Ruins, and The Thanatos Syndrome, use a future, changed America to examine Percy’s views toward life.
Looking back on my misspent youth, I recall that Stations of the Tide by Michael Swanwick was a pleasant diversion, as were the Mirabile stories of Janet Kagan. The latter are good cotton-candy reads, with a little libertarianism thrown in for good measure.
Speaking in general, you can hardly go wrong by looking at the Nebula and Hugo award lists. I’m not saying I’m crazy about every title, but the signal-to-noise ratio is really good.
I have to second happyfeet about Sterling’s “Holy Fire”, beautiful story. It’s the best exploration of life extension since Heinlein’s “Time Enough For Love.” Regarding Gibson, once you start, you’ll read everything he’s done. His is a writing style where every sentence is dense with image and data, and which smells faintly of William Burroughs.
I was going to add the third of the “Killer B,s” (Bear, Benford, Brin) but Adriane #140 beat me to it.
“For centuries now it’s been understood that if enough diplomats go to enough parties, everything will come right in the end.”
-Keith Laumer
And I just dug out “The Mote In God’s Eye” to re-read.
Cryptonomicon is not only very, very clever; it’s also freakin’ hilarious.
The section alone with Jean Nguyen (pronounced John Wayne, of course) and The Pig Truck Incident, during Waterhouse’s “MY TRIP TO THE JUNGLE or THE DRUMS OF THE HUKS or GET A LOAD OF THIS or HE SQUEEZED MY TESTICLES or THE WEIRD TURN PRO – A Tale Of Adventure And Discovery In The Majestic Rain Forest Of Northern Luzon” still crease me.
I had that reaction to this, which judging from the one-star reviews, wasn’t uncommon.
Scifi is how we test drive the paradigms of the future before we get there.
Bullsplat. Sci-Fi worlds are one person’s ideation of an alternate universe; they’re not beholden to reality in the least.
Which, the writers don’t have to deal with The Law of Unintended Consequences. They can introduce whichever elements they want into their fictional worlds and they alone decide what the consequences are. All of them. If they want people to evolve past war, past money, and past bigotry, presto-chango, that’s what their fictional people do.
Unless you want to assert that we “test-drove” the present day in the 1950s, wherein our houses took care of all our needs at the push of a button, all our food came in pills, and our cars flew to the office.
Funny how they never envisioned personal computers, the Internet, iPods, or Twitter. Closest was OSC’s Ender’s Game in 1977, which posited an Internet rife with forums on which people discussed important topics.
However, he didn’t envision trolls, and a well-written essay could change the world. If only!
Scifi is how we test drive the paradigms of the future before we get there.
Weapons-grade stupidity.
That’s why they call it a test drive.
No hovercars was the deal breaker for me.
The kids’ll get it right this time for sure.
A failing of SF is that often advances are explored in just one area, while other areas are ignored. Heinlein had people using mules 1000 years in the future. But no one can think of everything. Sciece fiction is fiction first, and fails only when it fails as fiction.
Most science fiction authors seem to be socialists ignorant of history. But in their tepid defense, the same holds for voters, and the law of unintended consequences is repealed for every election cycle, sad to say.
I have to say that The Gripping Hand was…not good, in my estimation. It’s been so long since I read it, though, that all I can recall is I thought it was a dim shadow of Mote.
bh,
What are you doing linking to the astronautics department at Maryland University? Do you know someone there?
I can still remember when every worthwhile link ended in .edu. Then came the September that Never Ended.
Oh, I didn’t even notice that, Bob. Coincidence. Go Terps!
TERPS BABY!
No, I was just curious. I asked because it’s my alma mater, for undergrad as well as grad school.
College Park campus. Party School. Well, except for engo-nerds. We didn’t go to Frat parties.
Just hung at this bar called “The ‘Vous” and drank Guinness and Newcastle ’til they threw us out…Or the waitresses took us home :)
You know, whichever came first.
I will disagree with Lazarus Long about one thing: Charles Stross is required reading, for the purpose given in the original post.
He is a Guardianista European Leftist, and an American (especially a conservative) can get a lot of laughs from his down-the-line support of Teh Narrative. For instance, at one point in the Family Trade series he has Karl Rove (transparently, although by a different name) explain with all due cynicism that it’s All About Oil, and the highest and best use of traveling through parallel worlds is to go to an uninhabited Texas and drill. Hilarious.
Stross is also a True Believer in the “Singularity” == Geek Rapture. You can get a lot of insight into what that’s all about by following, especially, Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise. The latter is full of Onion-level unintended humor about the military, as well.
He is, in fact, a male Euro-nishi. Required reading.
Regards,
Ric
Sounds like some good times, Bob.
Off topic, but there are some who have an interest, and I have a connection momentarily —
Just got the phone call I knew was coming. The hospital can’t do anything else for Bobbe, but she can’t come home, now or possibly ever. They’re looking for an extended care facility a.k.a. nursing home that will take her for her Social Security and possibly Medicaid.
I don’t have a home any more. Just a house.
Regards,
Ric
A long ago time,in what now seems like a far away galaxy, bh.
Ric,
I’m left speechless. I hope that you can find a care facility near you, at least, to make your travels as easy as possible.
They hold out no hope for improvement?
I’ll keep you all in my prayers still.
Vayamos con Dios, amigo.
Ric Locke, I am very sorry for what you are going through. My best wishes to you and Bobbe.
Funny how they never envisioned personal computers, the Internet…
Beg to differ. :-) Originally published in March, 1946.
Ric: again my heart goes out to you. Stay strong, my friend.
C.J. Cherryth’s Faded Sun Trilogy is one of my favorites that hasn’t already been mentioned. three fully fleshed out races at odds with each other, plenty of science and Art of War philosophy. Good stuff.
I feel for you, Ric. Hope you can find someplace relatively close.
So sorry Ric. Along with bh, I hope you find somewhere close by.
That’s terribly saddening news Ric and hard to hear. My best hopes go out to you and yours.
Dan Are, you might want to re-think that. The level of technology you can sustain on a planet 6 months travel time from Earth is a lot different than what you can sustain when you can schlep around the corner to Wal-Mart and buy a replacement.
Damn, Ric.
Damn, damn, damn.
I’m so sorry you have to go through this.
Life really sux sometimes.
About Sci-Fi:
No other genre is as dated.
Ironically.
Ric,
I’m so sorry. I’m not sure what I can do, but if you think of anything, let me know. You have my e-mail from your site.
So sorry to hear, Ric. Bless you both with peace and strength.
I really loved the Amber series way more than I anticipated. I was pleasantly suprised. The amnesia start is pretty hacky but he pulls it off wonderfully and it isn’t long before he has his memory back. Plus the act that led to his amnesia winds up being an important mystery all the way until the end.
That’s part of what I loved about the book is how he twists the story around by changing little details. All the characters really operate on limited knowledge, and everybody’s second guessing everything. You think you finally got a handle on the story and everything that’s happened, there’s a discussion that reveals a motive and the whole story is cast in a different light, all the previous acts have different meanings, the apparent goals and alliances of the Amberites switch around. And the characters are so believably imperfect and kind of bastards, they screw up even when they’re trying to the ‘right’ thing.
Dresden files, I’ve never read but I loved the (1 season) TV show. Great setting.
After I finish Foucalt’s Pendulum I think I’m going to start on The Last Wish. It’s the first book of a Polish series of ‘dark’ fantasy which is currently being translated. Supposedly it’s like the Polish Lord of the Rings, except very dark. They started translating them to English when a polish developer made a RPG out of it called The Witcher which was quite a good game.
Blake, David Weber has gotten Baen to re-issue the Bolo books, and has put together several more anthologies of stories in that universe, which hold up pretty well IMHO.
Actually, dicentra, one of the most interesting things about sci-fi is that it shows how little all the gee-whiz technology affects the basics of human nature and its’ consequences. For example, in Weber’s Honorverse, they have wonderful medical tech, including a method of extending life to about 300 years…. yet one of the villains has eaten and indulged himself to death by age 90 despite having full access to all of it.
Funny how they never envisioned personal computers, the Internet…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_in_the_Twentieth_Century
“A worldwide telegraphic communications network” – 1863.
“Heinlein had people using mules 1000 years in the future”
So does Jerry Pournelle.
Not every frontier world will support diesel engines.
Verne is apparently been stuffed into ‘children’s books’, but I don’t entirely see it limited as such. That guy was the original sci-fi writer, the inventor of the ‘science romance’ and the inspiration for steam punk. And it probably effects the translations too.
That happened to Dumas as well and he was freakin terrific, those ain’t just kids books.
Ric,
My heart goes out to you, because I remeber what it was like trying to get ready for my wife to die when she had her accident.
‘Alla best, always.
I would like to recommend the pop-up version of Horton Hears a Who by Theodor Geisel, interpreted by David A. Carter. It’s a science fiction in that life on the macro scale is analogized on the micro scale. The book is a roman à clef that describes the interaction between life forms existing on these two separate magnitudes of order. The principal, a member of the largest of his order’s life forms, is ridiculed and bedeviled throughout by other life forms on his own scale of existence, although not nearly large as himself. In the end the antagonists come to recognize what the protagonist knew all along and suffered for having known. They agree that all life is valuable even if you can’t see it, and members of both systems learn to coexist. It’s a timeless lesson that’s appropriate for all ages.
Hrmm. My calendar says it’s Friday. I don’t suppose…
Comment by Ric Locke on 4/23 @ 4:10 pm
I’m so sorry to hear that, Ric.
You and Bobbe are in my prayers. I hope you can find something close.
My favorite genre, SF, but I’ve moved away from reading it much of late. Most of the best works are mentioned at least once in posts prior, but please don’t skimp on reading Harlan Ellison, ‘the most contentious man on Earth’. Search out some of his short stories. You prolly won’t find any online, though, he sues anyone who crosses his path. He brought the sharp edge to SF, way back in the ’60’s.
Oh, and read the classic Dune by Frank Herbert; a quick read for a fast reader. Don’t bother reading his survivor’s flailing attempts to keep the money rolling in. Bah. Arthur Clarke and Issac Asimov if you want hard (period) science; especially read Dr. Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama. And Larry Niven’s Ringworld. Not SF, but if you haven’t, read Tolkein’s four novels, but I’m sure you’ve read those already. For the hypermodern and edgy, Cryptonomicon is excellent; Tad William’s Otherworld series is pretty good too.
Wow, someone else read Anthony’s Macroscope? Good stuff! Good luck finding that in print.
For a good modern re-write of the classic, read Niven’s (with co-writer Jerry Pournelle) Inferno. And their post-apocalyptic Lucifer’s Hammer (searching for that missing loaded van still!).
Ric did you see my link about Warm Springs?
It’s what they do.
I’m so sorry, Ric.
umm…I’m talking about hard scifi and cyberpunk, the evo bio and genetic variation of Ringworld, Broussard ramjets, needle/sleeve tech and marstech and space elevators from Morgan, the back sun cafe and the metaverse from snowcrash……
im not a big fantasy or softscifi otaku. …boring….i like germline engineering and brainhacking and FLT and qmath….now can we talk about what animes you should see? lawl.
my sympathy Ric Locke.
my mother says we weep not for those who leave, but for those who are left behind.
Cameron also bought the rights for Battleangel.
<3 Cameron
Nishams, isn’t it tome to go re-watch Avatar? Off with you then, Na
vzigul.I don’t see you.
Na
vzigul.Contrary to what the guy who couldn’t wade through The Book of the New Sun wrote, it’s a great work. (As to action, dude, in one scene the protagonist rides an elephant into his captor’s camp covered in the blood of the captor’s minions, wielding a honkin’ three-foot two-handed sword. But I guess the words were too long.)
Comment by Ric Locke on 4/23 @ 4:10 pm
So sorry, Ric. I will keep you and Bobbe in my thoughts and prayers.
Cameron also bought the rights for Battleangel.
<3 Cameron
The next Heaven’s Gate, no doubt.
Broussard ramjets
Snicker.
If you’re going to jabber, at least get the terminology correct, child.
space elevators from Morgan
Figures that you think that Morgan came up with this idea. Hint: he didn’t.
The next Heaven’s Gate, no doubt.
Or Ishtar
IIRC, Heinlein said once in an interview that he missed one thing in the future … he forsaw lots of technology but he had thought our biggest problem would be feeding everyone. He didn’t forsee the Green Revolution and that natural famines would be a thing of the past.
Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books are some of the best books I’ve ever read. This us the only author that for whom I have a complete collection. I would have to say the odds of you not liking Discworld are a million to one (exactly).
Now that would be a headline. Especially if Mr. Cameron turned up with no testes.
Look at this feets.
Funnie, AllahP doesn’t mention that Brewer IS A REPUBLICAN!
lol
also, AllahP and Jeff are both very quiet on Manzigate.
Nishi is horrified that a Republican governor would stoop so low as to enforce the law.
And James Manzi is full of it.
Allah hasn’t updated to show that she signed.
You are right that immigration is a treacherous treacherous issue for Team R.
You are not right about the global warmings. Global warming is unbelievably silly I think, but let me read your thread more.
wow I maded so much orange
Manzi is a clown. Nishi hates science but lurvs here some eugenics and genetic engineering. And, she is a lying cunt. That is all.
that is a lively thread but long I am bookmarking for later tonight
Why people laugh at sci-fi readers (and why we’re generally considered losers):
im not a big fantasy or softscifi otaku. …boring i like germline engineering and brainhacking and FLT and qmath….now can we talk about what animes you should see?
I’m too old to give a care. That kind of dismissive horseshit is tireseome, though, should you try to introduce to someone to the genre. Nothing ruins life quite like a fanboy.
Ric, my heart and prayers are with you. May God bless you, sir.
Bussard just died a few years back. He and Freeman Dyson (still living) influenced quite a lot of scifi.
Which reminds me: Wall Around a Star was pretty cool. Pohl/Williamson.
Actually, dicentra, one of the most interesting things about sci-fi is that it shows how little all the gee-whiz technology affects the basics of human nature and its consequences.
Don’t mean to nitpick, but sci-fi can show you anything it wants. It can posit high-tech with the same humans as now, or it can show low-tech and changed humans, or it can show no tech and non-humans.
It’s always the realization of someone’s fanciful ideas, never a guide to human nature or any nature at all. All fictional characters result from the author’s understanding of human nature.
For example, Don Quijote’s insanity maps to the contemporary beliefs, not to clinical descriptions of schizophrenia or personality disorders or disassociation fugues or whatnot. The narrator says that he read so many novels that his brain dried up, which Cervantes would have understood to mean a loss of the judgment faculty of the mind but not the other two (whatever they were—I don’t remember. Back then the intellectuals classified everything in triads because hey, the Trinity).
All sci-fi authors can do is answer the question “What If?” and then go from there.
Which, that’s what all novelists do, but they’re constrained by reality (or at least plausibility), whereas sci-fi/fantasy is not.
Of all the authors listed that I’ve seen, Terry Pratchett is among the funniest. You’ll have a good time surfing some of the quotations website for his stuff, as reading his books.
Gregory Benford, Against Infinity is a small, beautiful and deep book about a colony on Ganymede. This Amazon review explains.
brainhacking well that explains Nishi to a tee, Morgan has moved on to sword and sorcery, which I don’t think will be as successful. Stross is ridiculous in his wider themes, the vibrant Socialist
scotland was the setting for one of his recent ones, but the Laundry specially the Jennifer Morgue
are a riot.
Wow. Who knew so so many PW regulars were SciFi readers? Have to chime in and say that I like Orson Scott Card. Ender is the best known series but others he wrote are great reads as well. No one (I think) has mentioned Robert Sawyer. I love all his work (new TV series Flash Forward is based on one of his). I personally liked the Neanderthal trilogy…..they would make great movies. Hugo award winner. He can be found at http://www.sfwriter.com
Also, Rebecca Ore, Becoming Alien and Being Alien were great, and might mesh with currents in your thinking.
Heinlien. That is all.
Late night thought. You may wish to check out the fiction by James Tiptree Jr. aka Alice Bradley Sheldon. Mostly short works in collections. They can be had very reasonably at Amazon in used paperback form. I have next to me right now “Out of the Everywhere” a collection of short fiction.
Many of the books mentioned above.
I would also suggest Philip Jose Farmer’s, “To Your Scattered Bodies Go”.
It’s a fascinating treatment of the technological resurrection-of-the-dead theme.
First volume of the Riverworld series if you get hooked.
On the lighter side of sci fi, Heinlein’s Glory Road. On the heavier side, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand Of Darkness.
don’t you love America and her brothers?
Any of S.M. Sterlings books make a good read.
Tampa Two, by Jerry Angelo and Lovie Smith.
“I don’t have a home any more. Just a house.”
Ric,
You and Bobbe have a future home in Heaven, of that I am sure. Meanwhile, I hope you remember that you also have a home here at PW.
God Bless!
guinsPen – #229 was brilliant and cutting…and I hate you for reminding me of it. Lordy, it’s going to be a long season….
Silver – do you think Jeff would get insight into the nutso-nishi’s by readinng The Lathe of Heaven?
dicentra, you can write anything so that it doesn’t make sense, whether it’s sci-fi, fantasy, or whatever. However, the world must have its’ own rules, and follow them. Why the rules are what they are isn’t a question science is equipped to answer. (Here or in a novel; we don’t understand why our universe has the rules it does, either. We may understand how they work, but why they are what they are is where religion takes over.) Too much nonsense, or deus ex machina, and the brain can’t accept it, and the book heads for the compost heap. The term is “willing suspension of disbelief”, and it has to happen for a work of fiction to be enjoyable.
It may be easier for fantasy or sci-fi to slide over that boundary, but any fiction can manage it fairly easily.
Heinlein, Niven/Pournelle, Scalzi, Varley, of course.
Want something somewhere between sf and horror, try Brian Lumley’s Necroscope books or his Titus Crow series ( love the CCD, Cthulhu Cycle Dieties).
Peter Hamilton’s series are fun and involving.
Joel Rosenberg’s Metzada stories, Guardians of the Flame, Keepers of the Hidden Ways stories are all good.
I’d also agree with Entropy and dicentra in recommending Asimov’s Foundation Series.
I first read the original Foundation Trilogy, when I was 13 years old.
And even though I am a lot older than 13 now, I have never read a work of literature that has more profoundly enlightened me.
I read all the later works in the Robots/Foundation series as Asimov brought them out until his death in 1992.
For me he never lost the spark.
HA!
“Gateway” by Frederick Pohl
Don’t overlook Harry Harrison (wrote the basis for Soylent Green) particularly the Stainless Steel Rat series (with the added bonus of lots of Esperanto.)
A. E. Van Vogt: “The World of Null-A”, “Slan”
I think both of these were published around 1945. The first is about a guy who discovers his memories aren’t real, and then eventually understands he’s a pawn in a power-struggle. A sort of “Matrix”-style story. The second is about a race of mutant humans who are better than humans and are therefore targets for destruction. In some ways, a sort of prefiguring of Morgan’s “Thirteen”.
They may be dated, and a bit, oh, overwrought, but I think A.E. Van Vogt influenced a lot that came after.
Poul Anderson: The Flandry series. Actually sort of timely. Imagine a huge empire that’s beginning to fall apart as politicians game to increase their own power and care not a whit about anything else. Add a sort of James Bond (Flandry), who’s kind-of cynical, but kind-of wants to do the right thing. Send him on missions and watch him grow into higher and higher rank.
Silver – do you think Jeff would get insight into the nutso-nishi’s by readinng The Lathe of Heaven?
Col John, I hope and pray that scenario isn’t valid – we are all doomed if it does! Anyhoo, he knows what makes her tick: "Look at me, Daddy! Look how high I can swing! Are you looking, Daddy? Why aren’t you looking?"
Are you a Le Guin fan? I read a bunch of her books in college when I took a sci fi lit elective, but haven’t re-read any of them in a couple of decades. I was impressed by the detail in The Left Hand of Darkness.
My favorite Quell quote.
You people utterly fail at facing facts.
So you will loose.
You people utterly fail at facing facts.
Says the idiot who can’t distinguish between hack SF and reality.
“loose”?
Oy vay!
Because I’m feeling too lazy to read through the preceeding 241 comments, I’ll just throw this on here and say sorry in advance for any duplicates:
Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle writing together is never a miss. Especially good are “Footfall” and “Lucifer’s Hammer”.
Just about any sci fi by Greg Bear is a great read.
Orson Scott Card is good too. “Ender’s Game” is entirely enjoyable.
I was impressed by the detail in The Left Hand of Darkness.
That was the first Le Guin book I read. Wonderful read. I haven’t visited her books in a long long time.
Somehow, I gotta carve sometime out for catching up…rereading old faves and putting in a lot of new reads. This thread is a great beginning.
Quell seems not to understand the OODA loop:
Observe
Orient
Decide
Act
The whole observe, then act seems more the strategy of an unthinking animal. But then, this philosophy is described second-hand, from a second-rater.
You people utterly fail at facing facts.
The conceit of the very young, the very foolish, and utopians is that all the collective wisdom of those who went before means nothing. Fuck the wheel, we’ll invent something better!
Why does some of Heinlein’s Sci-Fi have people using horses (i.e. Farmer in the Sky, a storyline in Time Enough for Love) rather than just transporting all sorts of lovely high tech tractors or food-replication machines? ‘Cause horses can make little horses. Just as the idea of artificial wombs and decanting children can never beat organic reproduction.
Just as the idea of artificial wombs and decanting children can never beat organic reproduction.
I love it when you talk dirty, Darleen.
As far as PKD goes (and that’s pretty far), my favorites are “Ubik”, “Flow My Tears…” and “Time Out of Joint”, but all of his books have at least one concept that really pulls me in. I also just found my battered copy of Keith Laumer’s “The Monitors”– Earth gets invaded by nanny-staters from outer space! There’s a ’60s cult film based on the novel, but it’s still so relevant that I’d like to see someone like the South Park gang do a remake.
I’m also a J. G. Ballard fan, although I can’t think of a novel that really stands out from the others. “Hello America” is the one I’ve re-read most often, and it’s a lot of fun; it seems like Ballard put all his favorite ideas into it.
Besides, girls like horses. A horse is a much better chick-magnet than a dog. And you can’t ride a dog. Or have it haul a plough. (though, most dogs would be game. They’re awesome, that way.)
Mind you, horses do eat, and poop, a lot more than dogs.
So, on balance, I’m in favor of oxen. I mean, except when it comes to chatting up chicks.
(I desperately want to acquire a puckish sense of humor. It’s difficult.)
lawl, ok lose….losers.
still….the demographic timer is a fact.
More facts.
your base has a large component of intransigent racists and irrational supernaturalists.
your base is nearly pure white and nearly pure christian.
your base is nearly pure southern and/or rural.
your base is composed of individuals within 1-std of the mean of IQ or lower.
your base is older, whiter, maler, and less-educated than the democratic base.
global warming is a fact.
the econopalypse is a fact.
btw, I thought Dr.Pournelle was a eugenicist?
Remember his 40percenters?
How soon they forget.
;)
Dear Nishi,
As an ex-US military Irish 143 IQ immigrant conservative married to a Venezuelan/Black/White/Chinese woman from Trinidad, I take exception.
Still one of my favorites of Pournelle’s books is Janissaries.
Oh, and by the way, I write operating software for hospitals. So, one day, your oxygen will be subject to an Easter Egg.
Returning to our original programming, and on a related note, if you ever find yourself in Paris, head to the Danton metro station, get out and head south on Rue de l’Odeon. There’s a bookstore that specializes in first editions on Jules Verne.
It’s quite an experience, si en parle un peu de Francais.
And how could I have forgotten Stanislaw Lem? He only inspired my nic, after all… His Fables for Robots are great, as are “His Master’s Voice”, “Solaris”, “Fiasco”, and his Ijon Tichy (“The Futurological Congress” is a riot) and Pirx the Pilot stories…
I love Google maps:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&q=danton&sll=48.851249,2.338731&sspn=0.000586,0.00142&ie=UTF8&split=1&rq=1&ev=zi&radius=0.03&hq=danton&hnear=&ll=48.851271,2.338711&spn=0,0.00142&t=h&z=20&layer=c&cbll=48.851375,2.338707&panoid=bjswDra9Sl8DbhmRsUPniQ&cbp=12,80.89,,1,14.32
Gibson’s *All Tomorrow’s Parties* and *Pattern Recognition* Also *Black Alice* and *The Businessman* ( by Disch, I think.)
Gibson: “Spy Country”. It’s futuristic, but takes cues from what Google is doing to augment reality. Imagine Cold War spy ethic with 21st century location-based, virtual-reality technology.
Of course, at one point a black man is likened in mien to an Orangutan. So, forget that. In fact, burn Gibson at the stake.
Well.
I posted a perfectly marvelous snippet of “How the World Was Saved” from Stanislaw Lem’s The Cyberiad, and the spam monster devoured it. I’ll try again.
Here’s the link, to read the rest of the short story:
http://english.lem.pl/home/bookshelf/how-the-word-was-saved
And this story is all the more remarkable given that it’s a translation. From Polish.
Eh. Ignore the stuff in [brackets]. That’s where the whimsical pix go in the web page.
“Nishi”. Interesting name. If Japanese-related, “two-four”, “two-death”, etc.
If it’s not been asked before, what, exactly, is the origin of your handle?
Thanks in advance.
dicentra:
That’s one of my favorites. The ones about the automatic poet and the machine that can’t add two and two are pretty good as well…
Lem likes him some Von Neumann machines.
dicentra, you can write anything so that it doesn’t make sense, whether it’s sci-fi, fantasy, or whatever. However, the world must have its own rules, and follow them.
I was objecting to the notion that sci-fi “test drives” the future or that it demonstrates that human nature doesn’t change even among high-tech gadgets.
Yes, each fictional world must abide by its own internal logic, but the contours of that logic are not beholden to reality. There’s nothing preventing a writer from exploring the psychology of alien beings or the physics of alien worlds; the only “rule” is that the writer exercise sufficient skill in doing so that at least one reader finds it interesting and worthwhile.
If the fictional world is too alien, most readers won’t find it interesting or entertaining. And sci-fi tends to have different emphases. Sometimes it’s just a trip into an interesting, alien universe, and the fascination has to do with the gadgetry or the kewl factor or whatever.
Other times, the alien universe is the context in which recognizable humans are placed, and the character development is what provides interest. Ender’s Game is one such novel—marvel at the fictional universe in which he operates does not drive the story; rather, Ender’s character development and the drama between him and the other characters is what provides interest.
Of course, it’s a matter of taste whether you prefer the gadgetry and kewlness (where often the characters are two-dimensional) or whether you want character-driven or even philosophy-driven, as you get with Stanislaw Lem.
But again, the purpose of reading fiction is to have a vicarious experience within that fictional world. Sometimes the vicarious experience tracks closely to what really happens to humans; sometimes the experience is to marvel and wonder at the newness of the fictional world. And sometimes the experience is to ponder and contemplate Big Issues.
Oh, and by the way, I write operating software for hospitals. So, one day, your oxygen will be subject to an Easter Egg.
Grass Root wins the thread!
Well, it was a pretty nasty win. I’ll take it, but I’m not proud.
In fact, I sort of went “Oh fuck” as I clicked “Say It!”.
Hence the Paris distraction post.
I am ashamed.
All that said, I hope nobody every executes the TL/1 command “rtrv-monkey-boy” against an Hitachi OC-192 TransportNode.
Just sayin’.
still….the demographic timer is a fact.
Right. Your base is murdering all of its children, while the Mormons, Catholics, etc. are having tons of them.
LAWL!
Seriously, all the “progressives” I know have maybe one or two kids at most (many have none at all), while the conservatives I know all have lots of them.
Darwin is an unforgiving motherfucker, isn’t he, Nishbot?
LAWL! LAWL! LAWL!
Stunted view: “Idiocracy”.
Well, it was a pretty nasty win.
Hardly. It would be the epitome of poetic justice for nishi to meet her maker at the hands of technology.
Nishi,
your base has a large component of ….. irrational supernaturalists.
Good grief, Nishi. You are the most irrational, irrational supernaturalist I have ever met, and that is saying something.
BTW I now know that you didn’t understand Asimov’s Foundation. (@ #52)
The Easter Egg goes in the next build.
Listen: I apologize. This thread, I think, has drifted from serving JeffG’s request. I’ve tried to remain on-topic, but have drifted. (Jesus! Target-rich environment!) Still, apologies.
From now on I’ll try to limit my remarks to more good sci-fi I remember.
You’d think that a Darwinist supergenious like Nishbot would be able to see the implications of her fellow travelers failing to breed, but no.
BTW, Nishbot: your eggs ain’t getting any fresher, you know. Better do your part for homo superior before it’s too late. I suggest going to a bar and buying many, many, many shots of tequila for the most desperate-looking guy in the place.
Dear Lord! A request for sci-fi guidance turns into a dating site.
.
.
.
Well, OK. Nishi: It you’re within 150 miles of Atlanta, I am available. Today.
Or even a “supergenius”. Durr..
I’m not a super-whatsit, but I almost never drool.
SBP, nishi believes artificial wombs will be punching out all the drones needed.
Raised by robot nannies presumably.
Science(fiction)!!
Don’t worry, Grass Root. Nishbot will optimize your genes before using them.
Kingsley Amis: “The Alteration”. Alt-history by one of Britain’s great writers. His son, Martin, has a must-not-miss history “Koba the Dread”.
Richard Adams: “Watership Down”, “The Plague Dogs”, “Shardik”.
John Crowley: “Aegypt”
Dear SBP,
I prefer other things get optimized, before my genes get used.
In the words of a dead English comic, “You are awful, but I lie you.”
Think “Airfix”.
LIKE! LIKE you.
Lights, etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Emery
Sic transit, etc.
Marion Bradley: “The Mists of Avalon”. More fantasy than sci-fi, but still a good read.
Does HP Lovecraft merit mention?
“Gravity’s Rainbow”?
“Flatland”?
Actually, dicentra, one reason I like Weber’s Honorverse is that it has both the gadgets and the characters in roughly equal measure.
But then again, even though I’m a geek of long standing, I’ve never been interested in “cool” hardware, software, etc.; I’m only interested if it can lead to something useful. Tech is a means, not an end, in my worldview. Too many of my compatriots are inclined to overlook the fact that certain things are better done without automation.
grassroots…..
nishizono shinji
….i had a benign alt called Amamiya Chizuko but she lost the psyc-war to nishi and was consumed.
Sic transit
But I already have a car…
:D
She named herself after a fictional psychopath.
Figures.
lol, dicentra
not just a pyschopath, but a an evil psychopathic mutagenic internet virus that gets transmitted through phonelines and the web….
actually i can even phase and zone in and possess barcoders in wireless now.
actually SBP I am going to pay for grad school by selling eggs….10k each.
im in MENSA, tall, and in college.
there will be many mes.
actually SBP I am going to pay for grad school by selling eggs
Good luck with that. LAWL!
BTW, you don’t usually have to “pay for” grad school, genius.
you don’t usually have to “pay for” grad school,
depends on where you go to grad school.
an’ i need a new car anyways.
<3
depends on where you go to grad school.
Translation: you’re an idiot.
im in MENSA, tall, and in college.
In Spanish, “mensa” means idiot.
BTW, nishbot: I shitcan any grad school applications that don’t demonstrate the ability to write coherent English prose. Just so you know.
Hmm… maybe I’ll start writing “LAWL!” on the evaluation form rather than “Do not admit”.
LAWL!
I’ve never understood why people join MENSA.
Back on topic:
Doorways in the Sand is a decent Zelazny novel. The protagonist is the king of all perpetual students — his uncle left a large estate which pays him a very generous allowance as long as he’s in school. Once he’s awarded a degree of any kind, the allowance stops.
A minor subplot of the novel turns on his advisor’s attempts to force him to graduate, and his manipulation of his friends on the faculty (some of whom were undergrad classmates of his) to avoid it.
bh, in my experience the folks who tout their Mensa membership generally don’t have much else to offer.
That could be a false perception — it’s based on the people I’ve known who make a big deal out of it (see: Nishi). It’s possible that other people I know belong but don’t flaunt it.
And jeez, you only have to score at the 98th percentile to get in. I’d bet that a fair number of the regulars here could do better than that.
Yeah, it’s an odd thing to brag about, SBP.
Nishi,
Isaac Asimov wrote in Foundation:
For it is the chief characteristic of the religion of science that it works
I read that, and achieved Satori.
well….i only did MENSA to increase the market price of my eggs.
:)
which, like many egg brokerages, features an online catalogue for couples to browse in, advertises $ 35,000 to $ 50,000 for Ivy League eggs.
Designer eugenics in action.
capitalism si!
Yep. If I were looking for an egg donor, a psychotic, genocidal illiterate would be EXACTLY it.
But think of it SBP….i can reproduce my genome all over the place, in wealthy white christian families, just like the one that produced me!
Ever read the Boys from Brazil?
i can reproduce my genome all over the place
Ain’t happening, psycho.
Sorry.
that’s a neat thought really.
like scattering pearls
Mean pearls. ‘Cause she’s mean.
I know very smart girls who are nice. And they play pinball and explain how odd future computers work.
Those eggs must be worth millions.
i can reproduce my genome all over the place
I can see the Domination of the Draka from my house.
Actually, Grass Root, you should approach the matter in a different direction.
When the Geek Rapture (“Singularity”) happens, and nishi gets uploaded, you can be the sysadmin.
Regards,
Ric
Mensa
Mensa
Mensam
Mensae
Mensae
Mensa
Mensae
Mensae
Mensas
Mensarum
Mensis
Mensis
Who would have thought a table could be so complicated?
Though…
“Quid distat inter sottum et Scottum?”
“Tantum tabula.”
Gotta love Scotus.
Oh, the horror:
%ps -aef | gre nishi | wc -l
17776
So, 17,776 unique instances of “nishi” in current process space,
Still, I can do a “kill -9” on all with a simple perl script.
“grep”
I am rather surprised by the responses here today. I’ve been checking in on Protein Wisdom everyday for about four years. Maybe five? Whenever the Martha Steward journals came out.
I figured for some more sci-fi aficionados amongst the gathering here. I grew up reading a lot of early sci-fi. From my perspective, I would argue the best sci-fi was written early on, between, say, 1950 and 1970. After that it migrates almost solely into space westerns and fantasy hybrids. These are generalizations of course. Del Ray, Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, Bradbury were all at their best during that era. The Hitchhicker’s Guide to the Galaxy is later, but still great. I don’t really care for Card’s stuff, either.
Here’s some starting points I would recommend:
I would second the suggestions of Alan E. Nourse (Tiger by the Tail and Other Short Stories).
and, Harry Harrison: the Stainless Steel Rat series.
I think some of the best sci-fi is found in the short story, and some of the best authors:
RA Lafferty:
“an American science fiction and fantasy writer known for his original use of language, metaphor, and narrative structure, as well as for his etymological wit.” His collection “900 Grandmothers” is the one I remember most.
Eric Frank Russell:
Read “The Great Explosion” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Explosion)and “Allamagoosa”.
Alfred Bester: “The Demolished Man” and “The Stars My Destination”.
Early Hugo Winner anthologies: pick up a couple of the early collections. Again, after maybe 1973 the overall quality of the collections dropped off in my opinion.
I have to add the CS Lewis’ “Space Trilogy”: Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength.
The first two display the best of his literary efforts, while the third is a more mixed result (but worth the read). I would think you would find these trilogy particularly interesting since one of Lewis’ main themes is the use of language. In fact, his main character is a philologist. As an aside, I more preferred listening to these books on audio then reading them. When Lewis really gets going and descriptive, the prose can take on a beautiful lyrical and poetic quality that is wonderful when listened to.
Sorry I didn’t synopsize these better. I tried to pull some wiki quotes or links if that helps.
Troy, I agree….the oldschool stuff (asimov, heinlein, clarke) is basic background….scifi is how i learned to read….my parents house has a library…someone had collected all the Hugo anthologies.
I read them all one summer when I was 8.
And all of CS Lewis that same summer.
A lot of people here are confusing hard scifi, soft scifi, and fantasy.
As an adult my preference is for hard scifi……i dig tech.
If Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke and Heinlein are first tier foundational,
i think Neromancer, Ringworld, and Dune are sort of 2nd tier foundational.
I recently discovered Vernor Vinge…his books are out of print and had to get them from them from a reseller….wow…
I was blown away …..the Blight, the Beyond, the Queng Ho, transcendent powers, godshatter and the Tines and the Spiders and the Emergents.
Morgan is hard scifi, but definitely hates theocracies and oligarchies.
The treatment of catholics in Altered Carbon, muslims in Woken Furies, and christians in Thirteen exemplifies his disgust in organized religion.
Of course the Ruling Families on Takeshi’s home planet are the embodiment of evil.
and Stephenson is outside the box…..just read every word.
Mote in God’s Eye belongs with Neuromancer and Dune and Ringworld…so easy to miss one. :)
that one is pretty important….i just used engineer moties to give Conor a smackdown the otherday.
my personal Crazy Eddie syndrome, that conservatives are ever going to get it.
<3
Pretty much a dead thread, but after dittoing on most of what’s been said, I’ll add a few that were unmentioned: James Blish, Cities in Flight; Samuel R. Delany, Nova; Alistair Reynolds, Revelation Space; and Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere. James P. Hogan, Allen Steele, and Jack McDevitt have been good reads, too.
The Dorsai stories were from Gordon Dickson’s Childe cycle, not Herbert. His Hoka stories, written with Poul Anderson, are a lot of fun. If you’re interested in alternate history, look at Harry Turtledove.
Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris is mentioned upstream, and I robustly second the nomination. It’s one of the most insightful, profoundly imaginative, and visually evocative sci-fi novels ever. For a reader like you Jeff, an escapee from the university biosphere, it’s a vivisection of scholarly thinking and its failures in confrontation with real-world black swans that no mere theory can ever capture.
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