Sci Fi reading recommendations
By
8_Ball,
Posted on: 2012-03-19 17:25 in Comic and Hero-Villain Culture
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Laurell K. Hamilton skews the average upward by twelve thousand percent.
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Originally Posted by Zyphoid
Also I tend to read very few female writers (they tend to have a bit more grafic sex than I care for)
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I heard rumors that the latest few novels in the Anita Blake series aren't as sexed up as the few that came before them. I loved the first 9 books (mostly), book 10 was getting a little too sexy for me and book 11 I didn't even finish. I wanted Anita Blake sword wielding Necromancer with her Vampire/Werewolf love triangle, not Anita Blake sexual party favor of every were<animal> in the tri-state area.
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Mike Resnick "Weird West" novels are fun, if not too historically inaccurate, romps featuring Doc Holiday. They currently consist of The Buntline Special and The Doctor & The Kid.
I also highly recommend Mark Hodder's "Burton & Swinburne" (as in Sir Richard Burton and Algernon Swinburne) novels. Another semi-historical tales, in a more steampunky atmosphere. There's three so Far: The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack, The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man, and The Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon.
Lastly, since I have a theme going, give Kim Newman's Professor Moriarty: The Hound of the D'Urbervilles a try as well
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I have these on the shelf upstairs waiting their turn.
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Originally Posted by Jet_Boy
Mike Resnick "Weird West" novels are fun, if not too historically inaccurate, romps featuring Doc Holiday. They currently consist of The Buntline Special and The Doctor & The Kid.
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I also read the first few, and they still had a bit more than what I would like. The last one I tried to pick up Narcissus in Chains I believe was so bad I couldn't finish it. I have seen less raunchy actual erotica. |
Originally Posted by Father Xmas
I heard rumors that the latest few novels in the Anita Blake series aren't as sexed up as the few that came before them. I loved the first 9 books (mostly), book 10 was getting a little too sexy for me and book 11 I didn't even finish. I wanted Anita Blake sword wielding Necromancer with her Vampire/Werewolf love triangle, not Anita Blake sexual party favor of every were<animal> in the tri-state area.
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Again, Briggs is great about conveying love w/o the need for really graphic sex.
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I read these because a friend of mine was a Star Wars nut/freak and he strongly recommended them. So I read them ... and wished I hadn't wasted my time on them. Grand Admiral Thrawn was a plot hole sitting on a throne, in my view. When my friend (who loved these books) asked the inevitable question of how I could think that, I used a very simple illustration for him.|
Originally Posted by Forefinger_
For Sci-Fi I'd recommend some of the Star Wars novels. The Thrawn Trilogy by Timothy Zahn is very good.
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How could I forget Safehold... yeah, great books. Had a hard time putting them down. Went on a vacation for a friend's wedding. Stopped at the bookstore on the way to the airport to pick up another of them. (Second and third, or third and fourth, at the time.) I'm surprised I didn't bring one to the ceremony... though I think they would have disapproved of standing there with a book. |
Originally Posted by Rajani Isa
I like most of David Weber's sci-fi (Honor Harrington Series - which he placed the first two books, On Basilisk Station and Honor of the Queen - in the free section, Safehold series, Dahak series - the first being Mutineers Moon, also in the free section).
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Originally Posted by Zyphoid
Also I tend to read very few female writers (they tend to have a bit more grafic sex than I care for), however the Patrica Briggs werewolf novels are great reads.
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Can't recommend John Steakley's Armor enough. Well written, good character development, strong themes, and all on a very sci-fi war against aliens backdrop. First heard about it from a talk Orson Scott Card gave at the Barnes and Noble I was working at, and I would say it's up there with Ender's Game, if not better. I've read it several times and enjoy it a lot.
The Thrawn trilogy is seconded by me, and Zahn's newer Star Wars books are good fun, if not quite as good. He does the universe a lot more credit than its creator. 
Harry Harrison has some fun with the "It Takes a Thief..." in space idea in his Stainless Steel Rat books. Though I think the first book came out before that show, so... yeah. Basically, the main character is a thief and a con man, and gets pulled into working for an interplanetary police agency. I liked the first three books (got them as a gift), they're a good mix of humor, good plots, and strong characters. There are twelve in all, but I tried reading one of the later ones and didn't enjoy it as much, so I haven't bothered to read beyond them. The ones I liked were The Stainless Steel Rat, The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge, and The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World. I'd read them in that order, as the character does develop across those. If someone else has read 'em, they can say how the other ones do.
Oh... and if you're in the mood for humor and sci-fi, you need to read The Hitchiker's Guide, if you haven't already. 
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Thought of another series I enjoyed. Sadly I "lent" it out years ago so I don't have it anymore, that's why I didn't think of it.
Alan Dean Foster's The Damned Trilogy. Interstellar war going on between two factions and a scout ship from one, looking for more allies, lands on Earth in the hear and now and discovers that mankind is really good at this war stuff. Maybe to good.
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Charles Stross has some good books. Interesting concepts and the stories tend to not be too terribly grim. The Laundry books are about a British bureaucracy tasked with defending Earth from Lovecraftian horrors and have a fair bit of geek and bureaucratic humor in them.
Alastair Reynolds is another entertaining author. Revelation Space was his first published novel IIRC and there are several novels and short stories that use that setting.
He's also recently started a more hard SF series of novels about a future Earth. The first is titled Blue Remembered Earth.
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I second this. All the books I've read of his were great, with the exception of Next. I'll just mention Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man.
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Originally Posted by Plasma
The sci-fi premise Crichton books are entertaining as heck. Jurassic Park, Prey, Timeline, Sphere. |
Old Man's War is great
Thrawn books are good
Ringworld series is good
Rendezvous with Rama is good (so is the sequel but the 3rd book is terrible)
Larry Niven and David Pournelle joint books are amazing:
Lucifer's Hammer, The Mote in God's Eye, Footfall
almost anything by Isaac Asimov
particularly the Foundation series, the R Daniel Oliva detective stories (The Caves of Steel)
Starship Troopers
The Forever War
I read Jack McDevitt for my lighter sci-fi needs, Simmons for the deeper reads.
Mr Energon
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